Re: WHO are we ??..
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\07\24\story_24-7-2010_pg7_9
Will Altaf Hussain ever return home?
By Saeed Minhas
KARACHI: The perception about the MQM and the possibility of Altaf Hussain’s return remained our topics of discussion, as we moved to our next stop in this guided-tour of the Nine Zero area that was Altaf Bhai’s residence – a 120-yard house standing out quite visibly amongst the otherwise ordinary dwellings.
A couple of senior citizens were guarding the house while sitting in its open veranda under a huge portrait of the leader whom everyone out there calls – out of reverence – Peer Sahib. Sliding the gate-sized portrait of a garlanded and waiving Peer Sahib, you can enter the house where marbled floors, creased curtains, a simple décor and preserved rooms greet you. The famous Takht-e-Altaf – a simple wooden bench – draped in red velvet cloth and a couple of typical Lucknow-rounded velvety pillows on top, is the place you just cannot ignore after entering the room.
Then the accompanying orators with their running commentary, keep telling you how Bhai used to sit on that wooden takht and how all the visiting dignitaries used to come and sit in front of him on lined-up rows of sofas for political bargains. Even the speaker-telephone set is preserved – in working order – as the reverends of Peer Sahib’s house express their hope that “one day Peer Sahib will return to use the same takht and telephone”.
When that day will come, nobody in the party knows, as Farooq Sattar said, “When the circumstances will allow and the Rabita Committee decides, Altaf Bhai will take the next available flight to return home. But circumstances do not guarantee any such call from the committee,” he said. “Therefore it’s better that he keeps sitting abroad, safe and sound because we need him to pull us through these difficult times, instead of coming here and risking his own life.” Upon queries, the philosophically-lost Sattar said, “He does not have any personal enmity, rather those who fear Bhai’s political thinking and message will be after his life.” He added, while referring to the establishment and their pampered feudal and anti-people politicians, without naming anyone, and telling me that “you know who those are – despite the fact that I don’t even know”.
Despite being nominated in over 100 cases, and part of the much-trumpeted NAB list of 72 cases pardoned via defunct-NRO, party leaders claim, “It was all propaganda.” Farooq Sattar and Haider Rizvi said that despite all the hue and cry, the MQM and Altaf Hussain have been cleared in the high-profile cases such as that of Major Kaleem’s drilling and Hakeem Saeed’s murder by the courts. In all other cases, they say that the party is pursuing its causes in the court of law. “So please don’t declare us convicts without even proving anything against us,” they pleaded.
Whenever a question was posed about rumours of Altaf’s health or his lung problems and his treatment from a German homeopathic doctor – who also happens to be the physician of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain – most of the leadership looked the other way. “Bhai is well and has no health issues.” There have also been rumours that party-poet Mustafa Azizabadi, who heads the media team at the London Secretariat has an alarming similarity with Bhai’s voice and his services were used for some recordings. But all this was rubbished by the party leadership, terming it yet another propaganda by their opponents.
When asked about a possible replacement of the party leader – because if his health is not an issue, then on numerous occasions Altaf Hussain has himself announced to resign from his position, but on the insistence of the committee and party workers has always agreed to resume his duties – the party leaders said, “When it comes to that, then we will see what to do, but for now we cannot even think of living without Bhai’s guidance.”
As we were discussing this, an article highlighting some personal traits – such as carefree driving, hailing from a humble background, involved in criminal and civil cases and running a party of hardliners – of the MQM’s self-exiled leader, which had appeared in this newspaper, came under severe criticism from members of the committee, party workers as well as elected MPs.
It’s a perception that has always haunted the MQM, claimed members of the committee, adding that Punjabis are always made to revisit those gory details when they used to receive dead bodies of their loved ones from Karachi bundled in sacks, assuming that it was the handy work of the MQM. Farooq Sattar said that despite all the media-trials, state crackdowns and opposition from the proponents of ancestral politics “violence has never been our policy subscription and all these perceptions are dying their own death and people are flocking to join our party to bring a silent revolution in the country through ideology not through guns”.
“By learning from our past mistakes, we have evolved from a Karachi-centred to a national party and despite all odds, will continue our struggle for the oppressed masses,” he added. Then why did Altaf Bhai ask his party members to purchase guns? The answer was that it was all in a context when on a single day in December 1986, more than 300 innocents were butchered by land-mafia gurus in Aligarh, Hyderabad and then chief minister Ghous Ali Shah refusing to even admit the incident as a massacre. “It was only then that Bhai asked the workers to protect themselves when the state fails to do so.”
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and I was thinking you hear voices 