Moborate

Continuing moronic statements by trolls on this blog and some no doubt military establishment-goaded television anchorpersons have forced me to address - hopefully for the last time - certain basic issues to do with the whole ' Raymond Davis ' saga. Unfortunately, such is the deterioration of our national discourse and perhaps of our educational system that not only are people often unable to grasp simple arguments but are willing, immediately and without understanding the nuances of the points being made, to ascribe ulterior motives to anyone presenting facts that go against popular opinion. So for the sake of clarity, I will attempt to make my points as questions and answers in bullet form (no pun intended). Roughly the same questions have come up repeatedly in earlier comments. The man known as Raymond Davis in custody 1. Do I 'support' 'Raymond Davis'? No. I hold no brief for him or others like him. Nor do I wish to see 'security contractors' / yahoo...

Just came across this hilarious skit from Dunya TV 's Hasb-e-Haal , where the resident comic genius known as Azizi (real name Sohail Ahmed) parodies former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi 's persona after his recent bombastic speech . In common parlance, this would undoubtedly be known as the 'taking' of Shah Mahmood... Enjoy.

In case you missed the Oscar-worthy performance of former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on February 16, you might want to take a look at the following clip in which he not only boasts about his great vision and achievements as Foreign Minister and divulges details about the internal workings of the government, he also refers to himself repeatedly in the third person. "Shah Mahmood was right there", "Shah Mahmood cannot be pressured", "Shah Mahmood kept the flag flying" etc. etc. etc. Whatever else we may have learnt from this entirely self-promoting press conference, it does in fact tell us a few things about the suave pir from southern Punjab. 1. For one, the man has an ego the size of Multan. Anyone who has can refer to himself in the third person with nary a hint of irony or embarrassment has to have something going on in his head that we should all be wary of. Remember a certain Nawaz Sharif? 2. He obviously fancies himself as the reincarnati...

Apologies for the disappearing act from all of us. One thing or another has kept us occupied and unable to sit down to post. There's a bunch of stuff we have wanted to post on which hopefully we'll get round to. I myself have been particularly mulling over the Great Arab Revolt taking place over the last few weeks, about why what we are seeing is not a 'Revolution' (at least not yet), about what a comparative study of upheavals in modern history indicates about the implications for Pakistan, and why I think most analysts have mistaken at least one important aspect of the causes of this social change. But for now I just wanted to draw your attention to an article in the International Herald Tribune today which makes for fascinating reading for Pakistanis as well. As we all know by now, the youthful protestors in Egypt who toppled President Hosni Mubarak had one stance that many of us in Pakistan found hard to relate to: their apparent respect and adulation for the mil...

Wow. Wow. Wow. The interwebs have been abuzz with the following image from that epitome of insightful coverage, Fox News . As they say at Fox News, 'Egypt, Iraq, same difference, it's the bleeding Middle East fer Chrissake!' Okay, so we know that this image is actually from two years ago . Oh, it's actually from a real broadcast by Fox News, don't get us wrong. Just that it wasn't repeated during the current Egypt crisis. But as we like to say at Cafe Pyala, 'Two years ago, now, same difference, it's bleeding Fox News FFS!'

We had internally decided to steer clear of commenting on the rumours circulating on the internet - apparently for a few months now though they seem to have got more notice in the last few days - about President Asif Zardari 's alleged secret marriage to a Pakistani-American physician Dr. Tanveer Zamani . The reasons for this were rather simple: in the absence of any credible evidence (even the blogs asserting this information admitted that they had no real evidence and were basing their claims on hearsay), any comment would be mere speculation and not a lot different from tabloid sleaze. Secondly, there's a tricky line here between 'public interest' and using someone's entirely private life to somehow discredit them in the eyes of some. Although it can be argued that Zardari re-marrying could impact national politics and thus be of 'public interest', until that information is confirmed, it remains within the realm of the millions of unverified rumours circu...

Since we Pakistanis often suffer simultaneously from the twin demons of megalomania and paranoia - verily we are better than everyone else and that is why everyone is out to get us - we often also look at history through a rather selective and distorted lens. Unfortunately, none typify this mindset more than the doyens and doyennes of the Pakistani electronic media, in whom a curious mix of hyper-patriotism, half-baked information, sincere ignorance and arrogant bluster seems generally to hold sway. Take the issue of the day on Pakistani media: whether the American known by his apparent pseudonym " Raymond Davis" - who shot dead two men in Lahore - can be tried by Pakistani courts or whether the US government has any right to claim diplomatic immunity for him. I am not going to offer my own opinion on this because, for better or worse, this is an issue for the US and Pakistani states to sort out. (I should, however, point out that, personally speaking, I do not think armed A...