Re: Where's the news? Cholesterol Say Paak (EXCELLENT ARTICLES, MUST READ)
Cholesterol Say Paak
Nadeem F Paracha November 8, 2007
Tags: emergency , protest , resistance , Karachi , people , civil society
An old friend of mine, once watching one of those cooking oil TV commercials claiming the oil was " cholesterol say paak," asked, "kya matlab, kya cholesterol napaak hota hai?"
Well, such are the ways of language used without much thought. Language learned and spoken without meaning,becoming jargon and rhetoric lapped up and spouted out to trigger off responses that are more instinctive than thoughtful.
So, this reminded me of the way the press these days is out and about using the word "civil society." When they say something like, "the lawyers were joined by members of the civil society in their protest against the Emergency," are they suggesting that those who preferred to stay at home, or rather, had to put in their daily eight hours of work at the office, are uncivil?
Because if there is a civil society, then there must be an uncivil society as well, right? Now what can that be? Maybe it is a society of people who actually go out and vote during a general elections, but prefer watching a cricket match on the tele when members of the "civil society" give a call to come out on the streets "to defend democracy."
Of course, it does not matter that most fine, well-bred members of the "civil society," these days seen in newspaper photos jumping up and down and decrying the "murder of democracy," hardly ever venture out to vote. This stark irony is not lost on the uncouth members of the uncivil society, though. Those barbarians.
Mind my barbaric, uncivil sense of comedy, but I just couldn't help stumble into a short, sharp burst of manic laughter after watching a photo in an English daily of a decked up lady standing outside the posh Agha's Supermarket in Karachi, carrying a placard denouncing Musharraf's Emergency.
Of course, the dreadful, dreadful Emergency did not stop the famous supermarket to stack up its usual stock of imported goodies though; a tragic, catastrophic, awful happening that only used to plague the uncivil people of former Communist countries.
But had this been the case here, the lady would have flown out to Dubai by now. To hell with democracy. After all, as most uncivil beings will tell you, it's easy to defend democracy on a full stomach. If so, then does this mean that the civil society's recent revolutionary antics and chants are nothing more than a loud burp?
However, even more intriguing is the desperation being exhibited by most English dailies in trying their utmost to bang on our uncivil heads that "members of the civil society" are now very much part of the lawyers' movement against Musharraf. Right.
I mean, actually putting a photo of a "demonstration" held by one woman (one civil woman, mind you), is rather stunning an act. How about putting a picture of a busy shopping area in Lahore, or busier business district in Karachi. That's a demonstration as well, isn't it? A demonstration of life as usual. And it certainly has a lot more people than the one standing outside the supermarket and the fourteen outside the Karachi Press Club.
The leading heroes of the wonderful "civil society" these days are the protesting lawyers. Gets me all excited and teary eyed. Yeh tho khusi kay ansoon hain, paglay. But expect a barbaric member of the uncivil society to spoil my joy. His name is Yasir and he sells paan and cigarettes on Karachi's Zainab Market.
About a month ago, while talking to his assistant, Anwar, I heard him saying something about a lawyer's rally in Karachi that was covered by a famous TV news channel. " Abay, kal Waheed Bhai koh TV pay dekha tha? Kya chilaangain maar raha tha!"
I barged into the conversation and asked who this Wahid Bhai was. As it turned out, Wahid Bhai was the ex-lawyer of one of Yasir's maternal uncles who was (according to Yasir) "wrongfully" arrested for some petty crime. Yasir said that the crime was so flimsy that a junior lawyer could have gotten him off easily. He said they went through three inexpensive lawyers (one of which was Wahid Bhai), but all of them gave Yasir's family and uncle such a run around that the uncle actually decided to go to jail and complete the two years sentence the judge eventually handed him.
"And now look at him (Wahid Bhai)," said Yasir (in Urdu). "He's on TV waving his fists and swearing to bring down Musharraf's dictatorship." Hearing this, I let out a cynical burst of laughter. But Yasir remained serious. How uncivil of him.
I've angered a lot of friends recently with my stand on the current situation in the country. I am no lover of dictatorship nor was I so hunky-dory when the Emergency was imposed. But I am not the one to miss out on the ironies and the contradictions in the ways of the people decrying the Emergency. As I have mentioned here, the "civil society" reeks of hypocrisy and pretension in this respect, and I raised an eyebrow when the former CJP ordered to put yet another fanatic in charge of the Lal Masjid. And don't even get me started on the TV news channels. From news relaters they became news creators. "Democracy" and "Jihad" became brands targeted at a market of bored audience who now looked to these channels as new entertainment avenues. Speaking live to terrorists and extremists and talk programs mutating into political versions of the Jerry Springer show certainly beat the mundane ways of a soap opera or a music video. No wonder these channels started getting more advertising than the entertainment channels.
So, on Wednesday last some channels did manage to return. One of them talked about the economy in a show which was otherwise known to tackle political events, while the other channel managed to run at least one of its fiery political talk shows, Luqman.Com.
Of course, Bhai Luqman would seem rather out of it while talking economics, so he decided to still give the viewers another brimstone and fire performance by bashing the civil society's most popular target: Benazir Bhutto.
However, last month, it was quite a sight observing the faces of the members of the "civil society" as they shockingly watched millions from the uncivil society turn up to greet Benazir Bhutto. They hated it. Her arrogance and charges of corruption on her withstanding, I have noticed that the thing that bothers the "civil society" about Ms. Bhutto the most is the way she and her party reminds them of the dreaded " awami raaj." Rule of the great unwashed.
Yes, in spite of all the ideological and political changes it has gone through, the Pakistan Peoples Party still remains to be the only party in Pakistan capable of at least giving the common people (the uncivil lot), an illusion of peoples power. Also, unlike the "civil society," most of the uncivil people who turned up to greet Ms. Bhutto on that fateful day in Karachi, actually go out and vote. And she knows this and thus doesn't seem to be disturbed by the tyranny of confused middle-class morality that looks to be ruling the agendas of our news channels and the "civil society."
And here lies my problem with this "civil society." This protest movement being splashed so dramatically across newspapers and websites these days is now deeply rooted and emerging from this twisted moral mentality. That's why you can now actually hear fanatics like Hamid Gul, conservatives like Nawaz Sharif, the so-called "objective" anchormen and the likes of that decked up supermarket aunty singing along to the same tune.
The aunty also makes me understand why one can now also see some editors of frivolous fashion pages suddenly delivering passionate tirades against the powers that be and why all of a sudden we see the unleashing of similar tirades by the overrated young daughter of late Murtaza Bhutto (no saint, he) and, lo and behold! Jamaima baby!
A couple of days ago, a group of students from a prestigious university in Lahore arrived at my office to meet me. They said they were angered by the fact that a progressive man like me who stood up against the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship as a student, has decided not to join the "movement against the Emergency."
"What movement, where?" I asked?
"Don't you read the papers?" One of them asked.
"I do," I said, "but I usually get my news by driving around the city. I see a look of uncertainty on the faces of the people, but no great movement," I said.
"Go on the BBC website and you'll know," said one of the girls.
"I did," I said. "But it seems the BBC or CNN or whatever is talking to the civil society rather than the uncivil one. And it is the throngs of uncivil men and women who really matter," said I.
They looked puzzled. Disappointed. Until one of them, a young intelligent looking lad who also claimed to be a Socialist, started to quote from an Imran Khan speech that he gave on their campus the day the Emergency was imposed.
"Wait a minute," I said. "What is a Socialist and a group of progressive young people doing listening and nodding to a reactionary?"
He had absolutely no idea about the contradiction I was trying to point out. But then, failing to avoid contradictions is an endearing feature of the "civil society."
The truth is, had the "civil society" reacted the same way against all the Fazaluulahs and Abdul Rashids, the Hamid Guls and the Shahid Masoods as it is does against Benazir Bhutto or Musharraf, I would have been more than glad to join their great crusade.
But it can't. Because to me, this crusade, in which I see the lawyers, the democrats, the extremists and the liberals hurled desperately together on the same boat, is a boat being captained by a skewed bourgeois mentality concocted from pieces of religious confusion, splinters of paranoia, chunks of hypocrisy, twists of naivety and most of all, a happily full stomach.