Will The Silent Majority Find Its Voice?

Another one bites the dust.

And with it, yet again we see conspiracy theories abound, about external hands and sinister designs, about American interests and CIA.

There is no excuse. If the conspiracy theories circulating in the media are true and the CIA is in cahoots with the Taliban without the knowledge or approval of the ISI, then the government and state should be ashamed of their intelligence ignorance and take decisive action to stop this fundamental attack on Pakistan's sovereignty.

If these stories are bollocks and there is no CIA or outside connection, and the murders and ongoing situation are internally created, then too the government and the state should be ashamed that they have been unable to detect or reign in these extremist vermin operating right under their noses.

Either way, it is beyond high time the government and the intelligence/army got together to put a firm end to this nonsensical drama going on around us. Enough is enough. Extremists are a minority - if that was not the case we would have had a religious party majority in the parliament and in the PM's chair. The party forming the current government has a mandate from the majority of people in this country - people who voted for this party that stood as a moderate, liberal option. The cowing down of PPP in the face of a handful of mullahs, the backtracking on its position on the blasphemy law, not to mention the isolation of its key progressive members who are now dead, dying or facing death threats, is downright unethical and immoral, if not criminal.

It is the moral responsibility of all those sitting in parliament, including both the treasury and the opposition, all those claiming to represent the awaam, to leave their differences behind and come together to look at what they are, by their lack of action, collectively allowing the country to become. Silence on these murders is no longer acceptable. The parliament should either unanimously condemn extremism, pledge to purge it and take a unified stand, or they should resign for not having the guts to stand up and save the country.

Murderers should be caught and swiftly punished. Anyone calling for or condoning violence should be immediately arrested and booked under the law, banners inciting and glorifying murder and murderers should be swiftly removed from the streets, mosques and demonstrations should be strictly monitored for hate speeches and there should be an immediate clamp-down and arrest of the free-roaming members of known or banned extremist outfits.

The broadcast media that claims to be a champion of public opinion should wake up and look beyond their short-term ratings and profits at what they have helped create, an atmosphere of hate, intolerance and a world of doubt, scandal-mongering and conspiracy theories through their irresponsible, yellow journalism practices. There should be an end to sensationalising news stories, an end to ill-researched conspiracy theories, an end to shouting matches in talk-shows, an end to giving air-time to so-called "religious experts" with zero real qualifications - an end to media immaturity.

The public and society at large also needs to come out of slumber. Discussing this in drawing rooms and dinner parties is not acceptable any longer. We have to be vocal in our stance against extremism. We need to come out on the streets as well, hold candle-light vigils and demonstrations for peace, join human rights forums, boycott anchors and channels justifying extremist views, write about it, paint about it, twitter about it, facebook about it, do whatever is there in our power to individually and collectively condemn extremism in every way.

This is war indeed - a concerted campaign to violently and shamelessly silence any voice that dares to express dissent to extremist thinking.

Are we going to sit back and allow them to take over?

Pakistani Moral Values 101: Top 10

Arguably the most-repeated phrase in the last few days has been 'Pakistani Moral Values'. "Why, oh why can't people follow simple Pakistani moral values?!" is on the lips of many, but when asked no one is able to really describe what these are.

So what exactly are 'Pakistani Moral Values' of today?
Based on actual examples, the following could be useful:

Pakistani Moral Values 101: Top 10

1. If a Pakistani man romances more than one woman, he is a casanova. If a Pakistani woman romances more than one man, she is a slut

2. If a Pakistani cricket star dances with Indian starlets on stage in India he is being amusing. If a Pakistani actress dances in an Indian show she is a cheapskate

3. If a Pakistani man marries an Indian/any other nationality, he is a hero. If a Pakistani woman marries non-Pakistani she has no shame

4. If a senior male at the workplace is divorced/single he is an eligible bachelor, if a woman at the workplace is divorced/single she must be a corporate bitch

5. If a male makes a dance video with scantily-clad women he is being stylish. If a woman makes a dance video she is promoting vulgarity

6. If a male minister hugs a foreign official he is keeping etiquette, if a female minister hugs a foreign official she deserves a fatwa and the boot

7. If a male (especially if he is a cricketer) gets embroiled in a false marriage scandal he is an innocent victim. If a woman gets embroiled in a similar scandal she deserves to be hounded and made fun of

8. If a man chooses his bride it's his right, if a woman chooses her mate she is a characterless kari

9. If a Pakistani man wears shorts on TV for a game his religion should not be mixed, if a woman wears shorts on TV it's scandalous sacrilege

10. If a male director makes sleazy movies casting all his heroines as hip-thrusting prostitutes it's called fantasy (please sit back and enjoy the cheap thrills). If a female actress as much as sits next to man under a blanket in freezing cold on a TV show it is abuse of culture and a maa behen mulk izzat iman ghairat issue

The next time you are unsure if Pakistani Moral Values and culture have been challenged by someone or not, please refer to the above generally-agreed guidelines.

If anyone else has more interesting ones, please feel free to add.

Confessions of a Fundoo Strategist

This article is also posted at Express Tribune.

I am what some of you call a Fundoo. A Fundoo strategist to be precise. I was recruited in secret by a group of people calling themselves the Tehreek-e-Nifaaz-e-Duniya-e-Jahaane-Musalmaniya Pakistan, a top secret group made of representatives from different religious parties, banned outfits, sympathisers and financiers.

Our group operates like a small company, with an established mission (evident from our name) and a chain of command: a nigraane nizameen (board of directors), a markaze tazobarkar (core strategy group) and a majmuahe teelibaaz (um...general workers). I am the naib chaalbaaz (deputy strategist), recently promoted and reporting to the emir chaalbaaz (chief of strategy) who reports directly to the board of directors.

We've been operating since long and our results are beginning to show. Our latest achievement is something we have been fighting very hard for: Total Fear. No war is won by physical force alone, one has to have a psychological advantage - achieve the mental victory, the rest will be easier. After years of hard work, we have achieved this important milestone. All the Libboos (yes, we also have a word for you so-called liberals and moderates) are now really really afraid, bringing us closer to our mission.

We achieved this through a simple, two-pronged strategy: a Libboo hit-list, coupled with a coordinated Fundoo mobilisation.
You look confused. Let me explain.

The first part of our strategy is a Libboo hit-list comprising of people from various walks of life. This was a long list (there are too many libboos in this country if you ask me) but we shortened it considerably by focusing on those who are prominent, outspoken and courageous: politicians, writers, journalists, lawyers. Our research tells us prominent single murders have more impact, far more than multiple killings through suicide bombs - yes really, trust me we keep checking this theory regularly during our monthly Suicide For Dummies course (this is a very popular course by the way, enrolment is free so we have to have many sessions running at one time, but let's discuss that later). When I say more impact, I mean that when we tick off someone on the hit-list, we are able to more strongly reinforce the belief that those who speak out against us will be silenced, resulting in lesser voices. This is the key pillar of our strategy.

To achieve the second part of our strategy, more coordinated and forceful fundoo voice, we capitalised on the media boom. Over the last few years not only have we set up a few channels, we have also arranged for time-slots on regular channels for our broadcasts and also given numerous regular jobs to many of our teelibaaz. This was actually much easier than we initially thought - you see, we were expecting successive governments to have some media policies or rules, or channels to have some qualification criteria for political and religious commenting and anchoring, but thankfully all they care about is money and ratings, which makes our task a whole lot easier.

So our two-pronged strategy works in a cycle. Our media teelibaaz are mobilised to support our cause - contrary to what most people think, we do believe in empowerment, teelibaaz are free to use their imagination, be it encouraging Ahmadi murders, issuing fatwas in talk-shows, justifying suicide bombers, hailing hit-list killers as Ghazis, covering up our suicide practise lessons as government failures, calling any contrary opinions un-Islamic, or proving rising potato prices to be American/Jewish conspiracies - anything that will keep the government occupied elsewhere while reinforcing Fundoo viewpoint in the country and gaining us Fundoo recruits from the frustrated citizenry. Gotta admit, works like a charm.

We are very close to realising our mission: we will establish Islamic law in the country soon...don't ask me to elaborate on that right now, that is still work in progress - so far our board of directors have not reached consensus on what Islamic law means or even who is the true Muslim from among us - there as many points of view as our directors...but we will sort that out later.

For now, first things first. We need to gain total control and silence the common enemy: the Libboos.