One factor which triggered, and possibly catalysed the response was the fact that a lot of Indian readers of the Dawn Blog took a liking to my article, sparing no compliment to laud my criticism of their neighbouring country. While some of them were possibly well meaning, and some of them were likely out of spite, it saddened me to see the comment board for my deeply introspective article turn into an Indo-Pak conflict zone, largely defeating the purpose of my initial attempt. I am certain that if the Indian comments had been absent, the comments from my Pakistani brethren would have taken a different course.

The deeply rooted mistrust of the motivations of the Indian readers is evident in this comment:

TR Says
One look at the article and I knew there would be more responses from across the border than within. A positive article will find these people absent. The same article if written in our ‘neighboring nation’ would have been greeted with a severe backlash by these same people.

Clearly TR was more interested in the comments section as soon as he saw the article; I wonder if he even bothered reading it or skipped straight to the comments.

Another sceptical Pakistani writes:

Akil Akhtar
By writing such articles all the writer has achieved is a fan club in India and opportunity for the fan club to bag Pakistan.
…all nations are extremely intolerant toward other races and religions and blind Nationalism is their god. Same is true for India which blames Pakistan for everything so what is the difference if we blame India for the terrorism in Pakistan.

Something positive here: at least Akil realises that nationalism with a capital ‘N’ is a god with a small ‘g’ – isn’t it time we smash this false idol? And if ‘they’ want to kill us, and we want to kill ‘them’, then what’s the difference, we’re all dead at the end of the day. Please get over your insecurities.

The confusion manifest in this ‘us-vs-them’ thinking is evident from the comment below:

Saud Usmani Says:
If it is not Islam or Pakistan ‘they’ are against and if our neighbors are not the ‘foes’ as we were told since the day one, and if there is no international conspiracy, who are THEY?

I wonder myself sometimes, what is this ‘They’ at the end of the day? You hear things like ‘they are out to get us,’ or ‘it’s all because of them.’ What is this ‘them’? Do we even have a cohesive concept of ‘us’ yet? Isn’t it wrong to single out someone due to the location and circumstances of their birth?

If I thought I was on to something for a second, I should realise that there are equally silly people across the border as well:

verming Says:
Jews and Hindus have not much time for the nation Pakistan. In any case why should we (Hindus and Jews ) waste our resources on you when your nation is quite capable of taking Pakistan down.

We Hindus and Jews? What?! They have actually banded up together! I’m sure verming has all the time in the world to scour strange comment boards to say that they’re just too busy for this nonsense.

If we step away from the cross-border skirmishes for a second, we find that apart from Pakistan and India, people just love comparing Islam and the West. I’d called this a false dichotomy in my article, but this respondent clearly likes his ‘way of life’ theory:

Hasan Says:
Well, Islam not just a religion, it’s a ‘deen’, a way of life / a worldview just as the West is a way of life / worldview. So, in that sense, they are comparable.

Yes, and in the sense that both you and an ape are primates, both of you are comparable as well. Sorry, I should just let the other comments deal with this one:

Ayesha Khan Says:
The world view of Indonesia is in no way similar to Saudi Arabia. If the world view of all Islamic people was the same, Iran and Iraq would not have had a war either.

And:

NASAH Says:
unfortunately every religion of the world claims the same that it is not a religion it is ‘the way of life’.

I guess I was foolish to think that I could just walk away from the Islam v. the West debate:

Sadia Says:

Again the coin has not been viewed from both sides. It is not only the Muslims from Pakistan getting caught in the resonance of ‘faux-mythologies’, it is the West as well.

Why can’t we look at our side of the coin first, clean it up nice and shiny before we move onto the other side of the coin? It’s easy to point fingers all over the place, I’m not saying there aren’t false mythologies in Europe – look at Nazism. That doesn’t mean we use it as an excuse. After all, don’t we have a human responsibility?

Then Muhammad Tariq says:

I think the writer need to know that humans cant live in the vacuum, one has to have some source of inspiration and these are religion, history, culture etc.

Yes, and I think the commenter needs to know that we as human beings have the responsibility of creating our own culture, values, art and aesthetics, and all those things that could inspire us to be great. Why should we abuse these ‘inspirations’ and use them as scapegoats, and easy excuses, and turn them into some sort of conspiracy factory?

But wait, there’s still more:

Malik Assani Says:
…a humble request to you to be a little careful with our race, roots, religion, spirituality, identity, dignity, name, honor, integrity and other things we are proud to be the possessors of. As for you, I have sympathy for you as you must be regretting to be born here in the ‘east’. Equally but much less bothersome is my discomfort to have you here amongst us.

In an equally humble retort I would argue that we should be critical of all these ideals instead of merely being ‘proud’ of them, that way maybe we can craft a better more amiable identity for the future. And isn’t pride the reason why the devil was scorned from the heavens by the divine?

And what is this ‘East’ that you’re so proud of? As soon as you hit the eastern edge of your border you start getting all queasy. I can only wonder how broad this East is if it starts and ends with you.

And just when my fellows started getting uncomfortable at having me on this side of the border, I get some reconciliation from the other side:

Sunjoy Says:
Asif: You are on the wrong side of the border. Sane people like you need to be on this side of the border.

If that were the case, I wonder what Sunjoy is doing on that side of the border. Stop oversimplifying things, there are equally insane people on every side of the border, get with the program… man!

And finally I get some relief from both sides of the border, that thin line which defines our ‘peoples’:

Omar Says:
as a Pakistani I don’t find the article demeaning at all. Once we start asking the tough questions we will start getting some answers. Questioning the purpose and direction of the nation in no way undermines one’s patriotism. The same applies to our interpretation and practice of our religion.

Sanity! Oh I must either be dreaming, or must have accidentally stumbled on the other side of the fence. Thank you for having a critical eye. Omar, my friend, we need more of you.

But wait, there’s more encouragement from the other side of the border:

Jai S Says:
There is an inclination amongst the Pakistani people to brand anybody who tells the truth as a traitor.

Pakistani people? Truth? Traitor? Forgive me for betraying my own fan-base for a second, but what about poor Jaswant Singh? All the man did was write a book, and guess who called him a ‘traitor’? Not the Pakistani people for sure.

Oh, and here’s that humour I promised in the beginning – enough with the seriousness, I say.

lucky Says:
I think Pakistan needs to be ruled by taliban for few years. Since Pakistan had also faced martial law. And after that only they can decide what they want and where they are heading to.

Yes, I think we need to try everything from the buffet table of governing systems, maybe a little bit of authoritarianism, with a side of autocracy, perhaps we need another despot. That ought to show those Pakistani people, whining about the Taliban. Maybe after we’ve had our just desserts we just won’t be hungry for all these governmental systems anymore.

And if you talk about democracy, our prized and cherished democracy, here’s my favorite response of the lot:

rangeela re Says:
Why can’t the taliban / TTP stand for elections in Pakistan. If they win then let them have their Islamic state. whats wrong with it?

Sigh! Why can’t we all just be friends? Heck I don’t know, maybe all that desk banging that goes on in the parliament gives the Taliban a headache; maybe they think Nawaz Sharif should be disqualified for ball tampering. I don’t know, there are a million answers to this one, and I’ll let the comment board debate why the TTP aren’t calling for a midterm run-off.

Oh and please, try to stay a little light hearted about this one. Let’s try another shot at commenting, and this time, if we could leave putting each other down for once, that would be great. Would it be too much to ask for everyone to be civil and have an informed debate for once?

Lahore-based Asif Akhtar is interested in critical social discourse as well as the expressive facets of reactive art and is one of the schizophrenic narrators of a graphic novel. He blogs at http://e-scape-artist.blogspot.com/ and tweets at http://twitter.com/e_scape_artist.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily represent the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

If, after seeing that clip,  you cringed and wrote ‘Not funny,’ or ‘Not her language’ under the link on Facebook, this blog is for you. And if you hooted and laughed, read ahead anyway.

When was the last time you heard about the woman actually doing what she originally became famous for? Remember Meera the actress? No? That’s  because last time you saw her she was a wannabe talk show host. As the maybe-been-to-school Meera tried to interview Javeri (of all people) in English (of all languages) one really began to wonder whether she was dropped on her head as a baby.

And before you say she was set up, let’s pause for a moment and accept that some producer hatched the plan with a few friends, laughed about it with his colleagues, and then gave Meera a call in the morning. How cruel. But only if she had been kidnapped, dragged by the hair to the studio, and shown a gun. My point is, Meera did the show willingly, in that slinky black dress with immaculate makeup and a camera in the room. She spent hours there knowing, better than us, that she didn’t know the language. You and I wouldn’t plunge ourselves headlong into a made-for-Filipino-audiences talk show in Tagalog. At least not before some solid language lessons.

The fact is, despite her shenanigans, Meera remains important. Her importance is the same as the importance of the village idiot in a, well, village. She completes the landscape. And for everyone going out on a limb to defend her by citing her ‘lacks’ (of education, background, upbringing) the moment has arrived, post-talk show clip, to just drop it. Stop feeling some elitist guilt about her ‘lacks.’ Delete that ‘Not funny’ that you wrote on Facebook, hold your stomach, throw your head back, and truly laugh for a change. There are very, very few moments that make us laugh in this country, so cherish one when it is provided.

Despite the illiteracy and tastelessness that rules the roost in what’s left of Lollywood, few of its divas make such obvious public blunders with such ridiculous regularity. Time was when Reema would roll out memorised English at award shows to sniggers from all the angrezi-medium types. But Reems has been earning our admiration (because English earns that sort of thing here) as she speaks the language nearly flawlessly, if a little formally, today. The woman has used her time and money wisely to get what she wants.

Saima, another Lollywood mainstay, once admitted in a TV interview that she had never been to school. But really, do you care when you see her light up the silver screen when you watch a Pakistani flick for a laugh and find out that you really can’t laugh at her skills? And Resham who is just too busy wowing us with her metamorphoses in TV play after TV play, and who just doesn’t have the time to worry about English or her lack of it. And their scandals? If ever they leak out, these actresses handle them in a manner that is usually informed by the knowledge that they are public figures. These same actresses, with all their ‘lacks,’ handle it better than Paris Hilton, who incidentally had access to the best education, a privileged background in the most privileged country in the world, and an upbringing by educated, if not sensible, parents as well as a host of educated nannies.

It is not Meera’s circumstances, as the Meera-bachao brigade have put forward, but a politically incorrect ‘lack of intelligence.’ And hence, everything.

This is not a rant against Meera. It is about accepting that she, like Hilton, is missing a couple of million grey cells. More importantly, this is about accepting that when her next big scandal explodes, We, the people, will watch it again in all its trashy glory. It’s also about accepting that a lot of people will laugh. She’s a celebrity for goodness sake. And celebrities who put themselves out there do so knowing that people can and do laugh. Even Meera, as she stumbles over all English in the YouTube clip, has the foresight to remark that ‘mera record lagay ga.’

Hilton, Raakhi Sawant, and Malika Sherawat. Since the world turned into a global village, around the world, pop culture’s been cultivating celebrities to fulfill the role traditionally played by the courtjester.

For all her ‘lacks,’ Meera is an adult who has had the exposure reserved for the top one percent of this country. She scores extra points on exposure, because she has actually risen from nothing. It’s not her deprivations which have made her stupid. It’s her wickedly brilliant luck and drive that have made her famous. And still the learning curve flatlines. Does she love the attention? Doesn’t Paris Hilton?

So please don’t cry for ‘poor little Meera.’ She’s not a babe in the wild, wild woods. She’s certainly not the proverbial deer in the headlights (even though she looks as pretty as one sometimes). She’s not a bechari. To think that makes us patronising and sorely lacking in humour.

She is, on the other hand, our Paris Hilton. Our Malika Sherawat. Our very own village idiot. Which brings us back to the original question, how do you solve a problem like Meera? And the answer to that is a firm: ‘You don’t.’

Shahrezad Samiuddin is a freelance writer who doesn’t think enough attention is paid to the frivolous, even though it is all around us.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

When Hamid opened his door, the fan heard and saw the TV in the background where episode No. 5, 904 of Shakuntali was running. Talking to this reporter, the fan said that he first thought it was a conspiracy, but after noticing the genuine red cap of Hamid, he was astonished.

Shaken, the fan, 23-year-old Abdul Karim, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it! What would Muhammad Bin Qasim think when he gets to hear about this?’

When told by this reporter that Qasim died hundreds of years ago, the fan accused him and his newspaper for working for Blackwater.

‘What you think you fool Mossad, CIA, Raw agent Qasim alive in our minds, hearts and lungs so oh you shut up!’ he added.

Talking to the media after the episode, Hamid accepted that he sometimes watches Indian soaps and that even though he is of the opinion that Hindus are paleed (dirty), there is no harm in watching them on TV because they can’t touch you and can’t cast their shadow over you.

He added that he also watches Indian soaps to decode the hidden plots of the Hindus to destroy Pakistan and Islam.

‘It was by decoding the dialogue of one such Indian TV soap that I was able to discover that the Mumbai attacks were actually planned and executed by Raw and Mossad,’ he explained.

He also said that he predicted the 9/11 attacks as a Zionist conspiracy back in 1996 by watching Dil Walay Dullaniya Lay Jain Gey on his VCD player over and over again.

‘It’s all there,’ he claimed. ‘And the songs aren’t all that bad either.’

Hamid was surrounded by a vocal group of fans at the press conference.

One Barkat Ali told the reporters: ‘What this happening? Attacking great man Zion, oh so brilliant genius zindabad, zindabad you kafir Western conspiracy US agent traitors fool, fool, fool!’

Another, Sharmeen Khan, a 25-year-old university student added: ‘What this nonsense of democracy because it only Hindu, American, Zionist, Papua New Guinnean plot to destroy beloved Pakistian zindabad, zindabad, zindabad!’

Kamran Ghani, a seven-month-old toddler also addressed the press conference. He said, ‘Goo goo gagagaga goo goo … burp!’

The fans then lifted Hamid on their shoulders and carried him to a nearby McDonald’s outlet where they all chanted slogans like ‘Amreeka ki ghulami namazoor’ over a couple of Big Macs, large Cokes and a romantic song sung by Wali Azmat called, ‘I hate Jews Yea, Yea, Yea,’ a song from Azmat’s forthcoming album, ‘Zionists ate my Homework.’

The album is dedicated to all the Taliban who died in American drone attacks. When asked why didn’t he also dedicate the album to all those who’ve died from Taliban’s suicide attacks, Azmat said, that there were no suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan and that all those people we see slaughtered and dismembered on our TV screens actually died from dengue fever. When asked how he can prove this, he said that one should watch the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

‘It’s all there,’ he claimed. ‘And the chicks aren’t all that bad either.’

Meanwhile in Lahore, Tehrik-e-Imran chief, Insaaf-e-Khan lauded Zion Hamid’s efforts for decoding vital truths about Hindu conspiracies from Indian soap operas.

Talking to a group of rabid rightwing columnists at his residence, the great Khan said that Pakistan was in great danger from all kinds of plots being hatched by its enemies, especially Asif Zardari Bhutto Zardari Bhutto, Bilawal Zardari Bhutto Zardari, and the ghost of late Benazir Bhutto.

‘This government is sucking the blood of poor Pakistanis,’ he told the rabid rightwing communists all of whom then started to sing the national anthem in unison.

‘This government has sold Pakistan’s strategic and political interests to America!’ Khan added, to which the rabid rightwing columnists started burning George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s effigies.

Praising the columnists’ bravery, Khan promised them to meet again after he returned from New York where he will undergo a cheekbone operation.

The columnists informed him that they too will be in New York for sightseeing, except for one, who got up and started burning Henry Truman’s effigy. He was the one who failed to secure an American visa.

Khan termed this to be racial discrimination and a CIA conspiracy.

Later in the day, the issue was discussed on a famous TV talk show on a local news channel.

Participating in the show were the incensed columnist, a rabid rightwing reporter, a PPP Minster, and a woman in a burqa.

‘This is an outrage!’ said the reporter. ‘Blackwater is behind this,’ he announced.

When asked how he knew, he picked up a Class One children’s nursery rhymes book and claimed: ‘It’s all here. And the rhymes aren’t all that bad either.’

The PPP Minister, Rehman Malika Zardari Bhutto Zardari, promised that his government will look into the issue, to which the reporter landed a swift punch on Malika’s face.

When Malika’s bodyguards tried to stop the reporter, the talk show’s host accused the government of curbing the freedom of the press.

‘This is an outrage!’ he said. ‘I implore the Army to intervene, overthrow this incompetent government and impose martial law!’

Mr. Malika apologised and started to land punches on his own face saying that the government too believed in the freedom of the press.

This made the reporter very happy who asked Malika to raid book stores and confiscate all secular literature because solutions to Pakistan’s problems lie in jihadi literature.

‘It’s all there!’ he claimed. ‘And the topics aren’t all that bad either.’

Turning to the woman in a burqa, the show’s host asked if she agreed.

‘The real problem lies in women wearing jeans,’ she said.

The host asked her to elaborate, to which she said: ‘The real problem is in women wearing jeans.’

‘Yes, but can you please elaborate?’ asked the host.

‘The real problem lies in women wearing jeans!’ she said again.

‘Please elaborate,’ the host insisted.

‘But that’s all I was asked to say,’ she said.

‘By whom?’ inquired the host.

‘By you!’ she said.

‘This is an outrage!’ said Mr. Malika, and in response, the host punched him and proceeded to burn an American flag. He burned half of it and announced that the other half will be burnt later because he had to catch a flight.

‘To where?’ asked Mr. Malika.

‘California,’ said the host. ‘I have to attend my son’s graduation ceremony.’

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

You know what? Let’s not dwell over how ridiculous the past few months have been because the sad fact is that this is par for the course for Pakistan cricket. Pakistan cricket is a circus and, with any circus, it’s pointless to focus on the motivations of its performers, which will always remain a mystery. It’s best to simply reflect on the attractions that stood out the last time you visited and consider what you’re looking forward to seeing the next time the circus is in town.

Mohammad Aamir used the series against New Zealand in the UAE to establish that, at the mere age of 17 (most probably 19), he may possess the best temperament in our team. For a player surrounded by drama queens in the locker-room, Aamir showed tremendous maturity in all aspects of his game. His 70-odd in the third ODI staggered belief as we had no right getting that close to winning the series. As a batting side, we deserved to lose that match, but, as a player, Aamir deserved better. In the first Twenty20 game, he went for 17 runs in his first over through a mixture of edges, overthrows, and a dropped catch. A disastrous start like that might have forced most young bowlers to lose the plot completely. Not Aamir, though. Unconvinced that the last over represented a failure in his formula, Aamir came back and bowled an exceptional spell. Would you have expected Mohammad Sami to do the same?

On the subject of bowlers, can someone please go back to last June and escort Umer Gul back to the present. Gully is steadily turning into the classic Jekyll-and-Hyde Pakistani bowler – as mercurial as the system that produced him. He’ll either deliver an onslaught of pinpoint yorkers and smart, zippy shorter balls, or will revert to length bowling and get smacked around by the likes of Aaron Redmond. I’m sure it’s not a psychological issue, as there is no doubt that Gul is a world class bowler who, when fit and firing, will be crucial to our prospects abroad over the next few months (God knows our batting won’t carry us).

Perhaps the most exciting prospect for the upcoming tours to New Zealand and Australia is the return of Mohammad Asif. While he may be rusty, if his spell in the seventh over of the ICC Champions Trophy match against Australia is anything to go by, he’s still got it. Gul and Aamir may be faster, but neither can extract the kind of cut and movement off the seam and pitch that comes naturally to Asif. A partnership of Asif, Aamir, and Gul should have most fans of pure fast-medium bowling licking their lips in anticipation.

The Test squad to New Zealand has been bolstered by the inclusion of Faisal Iqbal, Imran Farhat, and Salman Butt, who, along with the likes of the talismanic Shoaib Malik, will provide some much needed ballast to our batting line-up. Okay, I can’t believe I managed to type all that with a straight face. Seriously, though, we’re in deep trouble. The perpetual weakness of our openers makes the number three spot the most crucial position in the batting order. So who keeps it warm for Younis Khan?

While I’m glad that everyone’s favorite bhaanja gets to go on another free holiday at the PCB’s expense, Iqbal is certainly not the answer. Shahid Afridi successfully tried out Umar Akmal in the number three spot, but there’s a vast gulf between Twenty20 and Test cricket. However, genuine talent can be expected shine through in all formats. Without a shadow of a doubt, Akmal is the most exciting batting talent we have produced since the current Test captain and should play in every Test, ODI, and Twenty20 match from now until his retirement. Promoting him to number three would be a bold move, but not an unprecedented one as Fawad Alam was recently asked to fashion himself into a Test opener and responded bravely. Malik will retain his place lower in the order after prolonging his Test career with a century in his last outing.

And what of our new skipper? The last time Mohammed Yousuf served as a temporary captain in a Test match, he marked the occasion by crafting a beautiful century against the Australians – arguably the  greatest attack of our era – in their backyard. It behooves Yousuf to continue in a similar vein for the next two tours (Australia to follow New Zealand), a feat which is not beyond a batsman of his caliber. If he can inspire his team by sheer force of runs, much like Graeme Smith did in England, to jumpstart his captaincy, he can take heart in accomplishing something Younis couldn’t. However, don’t expect much by way of tactical astuteness as Yousuf is no Steve Waugh. If our formidable bowling attack can live up to its potential, Yousuf’s lack of tactical acumen may not necessarily handicap his captaincy.

It’s tricky being optimistic following the melodrama of the last five months. However, there is too much talent in the likes of Asif, Aamir, Ajmal, Akmal, Yousuf, Gul, and Alam to expect our team to simply fall away over the next two tours. We’ve been starved for Test cricket and now face the prospect of six matches on challenging terrain. Analysts want to box us in as a team best suited to the shortest format of the game. Let’s hope we can continue our habit of proving them wrong.

Farooq Nomani is a Karachi-based lawyer who is willing to represent the PCB for free. He blogs at whatastupidity.blogspot.com.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

That’s not all. The winds of change have similarly affected Paramount Books, the Karachi-based book distributor and textbook producer. They have released reprints of Zulfi, My friend by Piloo Mody and The Ayub Khan Era by Lawrence Ziring in quick succession. And aspiring writers must have noticed ads in literary magazines inviting authors to publish books with Paramount. Fiction included!

What is going on? Why are Pakistani booksellers heading into publishing? Why the sudden shift in gears? According to Sharmeen Hussain of Liberty Books, this shift is not as sudden as it seems: ‘Publishing has been in the pipeline for a while. We were just waiting for the right time and the right resources.’

I got a similar response from my contact Razi at Paramount, who explained that the distributors have been working on this initiative for the past two years. ‘The urgency,’ Razi added, ‘was felt in the last year or so, as the dollar went up and the Pakistani rupee came down. Buying imported books is not so easy any more.’

The aim, then, is to locally produce quality books at affordable prices. That is good news for the reader and possibly better news for the bookseller. After all, it’s becoming more difficult for outfits such as Liberty Books and Paramount to sell increasingly expensive editions brought from overseas. A trade paperback that sells in the UK for £12.99 is mighty hard to sell to a sizeable number of buyers here in Pakistan. The depressing exchange rate leaves many waiting to grab it in a second-hand bookstore later in the year.

The savvy booksellers have figured that it’s a good move to publish books that are certain to interest the local audience. They’ve been in the selling business long enough; they know well by now what sells – cricket, politics, and fiction – and how much it’ll sell for.

After all, this is a time when Pakistani writers are all the rage in the English-reading world. So it is a little bit absurd that their works are being published in India, the UK, or the US, rather than right here in Pakistan where the lower cost of production would benefit both the publisher and the reading public.

If local publishers can provide quality paper, quality printing, quality binding, and super quality proof-readers (the importance of the last simply cannot be emphasised enough), then there is no reason why local authors writing in English should have to look elsewhere.

And not just local authors, either. The long-term goal may well be to attract non-Pakistani authors to publish in Pakistan. Even if produced at Rs 500, a book published locally would sell for a bargain in overseas markets. The dwindling rupee should, after all, be good for something.

If that sounds too ambitious, think again. It’s reasonable to assume that outsourcing could extend to the publishing world as well. Just as Pakistan provides staff for call centres and online tech support, it may well attract publishing projects thanks to the low costs involved.

Moreover, the booksellers-turned-publishers have the added advantage of marketing and sales know-how and distribution experience. With a bit of effort, they can create an international market for books that have been Made in Pakistan. The Dubai Book Fair and the Delhi Book Fair would be good places to start.

Last week, I jokingly warned Raheela Baqai of Oxford University Press (OUP) that Liberty and Paramount are about to give some tough competition. Gracious as ever, she smiled and said OUP welcomes the competition and in fact sees it as an opportunity to learn and improve. OUP, of course, is unique in that after years of concentrating on publishing, they decided to set up their own retail outlets to sell their publications.

It remains to be seen how successful the venture will be in the other direction.

Saima Shakil Hussain is the editor of Dawn’s ‘Books & Authors’ magazine.

‘Sameer Iqbal, but everyone calls me Sam,’ he told me after I walked up and introduced myself and asked him who he was. Before I could ask about the paper, Sam began jumping up and down in delirium, almost manhandling me while screaming, ‘Did you see that? Wasn’t that Derek Jeter? Oh my God! It was!’

Not well versed in baseball, I tried to fake excitement since my main motivation for attending was a fascination with ticker tape parades. As soon as the parade ended and the crowd began to disperse, I tried to engage Sam in a cricket vs. baseball debate. As I suspected, my newly acquired friend was a hybrid, with one Pakistani and one foreign parent. Sam’s mother is Irish-American.

His father had become Americanised and the only glimmer of a Pakistani identity that Sam seemed to have was his father’s insistence on reading Urdu newspapers that Sam habitually bought him (ergo, the Pakistan Times), and a penchant for spicy Indian food (which I discovered upon his insisting that we make the trip from Wall street to Jackson Heights just to sample some fine desi cuisine). As we ate, Sam confessed he could barely speak or read the Urdu language. He had been given no religious instruction from either of his parents: ‘Naturally, I grew up atheist,’ he explained. The openness and honesty with which Sam shared his story is something I have encountered in many hybrids. But his father’s decision to erase all remnants of his Pakistani identity and past life from his son’s life was something I was encountering for the first time.

Of the many hybrids I have come across, two have distinguished themselves the most:

At first glance, Amina Stella looks like a Pakistani girl with European features, which is exactly who she is (though she insists most of the people she encounters have different takes on what she looks like). One of four siblings, her father is a Pakistani who traces his roots to Kashmir, whereas her mother is from Italy. Substantial portions of both sides of Amina’s extended family have settled in Canada. Her mother’s side of the family has settled in the predominantly Italian area of Woodbridge, while her father’s side can be found in the South Asian haven of Mississauga.

Since her mother converted to Islam and spent time in Pakistan, Amina was raised a Muslim with traditional values. However, her grasp of Urdu remains minimal, something she feels prevents her from being truly comfortable in her Pakistani skin. While she enjoys the cultural aspects of Pakistan – the bangles, the food, the colourful clothes, henna tattoos, et al – she also admires the kinship and familial values of the community. Still, Amina feels she is a partial fit on both sides of her family. That’s something that can be both comforting and disconcerting. Ultimately, since her father is particular about ingraining Pakistani and, more significantly, religious values, she retains a sense of what can best be described as detached attachment to her father’s homeland.

Asal Asghar Khan differs from both Sam and Amina in that she has actually lived in Pakistan, which is very much a part of her being. Her mother is Iranian, and through her exposure to the richness of Persian culture, Asal’s attachment to Iran is also extremely strong. When she was growing up, Asal’s parents compromised between their Shia and Sunni backgrounds, and she feels the richer for her joint upbringing. Her association with Pakistan is deeper and covers the political, cultural, and educational arenas. This may be due to a profound knowledge of Urdu.

As western societies look to exalt multiculturalism, more and more Pakistanis abroad are likely to find themselves in mixed marriages, thus producing a generation of hybrids. Whether these hybrids retain a sense of attachment to Pakistan is almost entirely dependent on how their parents approach their upbringing. With differences in heritage, beliefs, values, and norms, it is interesting to explore how such couples decide to raise their children and what impact these decisions have on the kids themselves. The abovementioned examples in themselves stress the diversity of the hybrid community, so it would be a folly to ascribe generalisations to their personalities and value systems.

One thing that struck me as I interviewed these people was that differentiating between a Pakistani identity and a Muslim one was an arduous task for Pakistani parents in mixed marriages in the diaspora. Those abroad tend to emphasise more on the religious aspects – as in Amina’s case – or they totally disassociate themselves, as in Sam’s case. Whether the children end up rebelling against their religious beliefs or not, an element of Pakistan is cultivated within them through religion. Indeed, it seems as if Pakistani and Muslim identities are converging as religious festivals such as Eid take on an increasingly nationalistic vibe in the diaspora. Makes you wonder just how significant a role religion plays in the Pakistani identity as a whole?

Surely, language also plays a prominent role in our identities. So what is a Pakistani parent to do in order to instill a sense of propriety towards Pakistan in their children? This debate extends to Pakistani couples raising their children abroad, despite the obvious advantage of Urdu being spoken in such homes.

As for Pakistani hybrids, the real question is whether they will ever truly feel as if they belong in Pakistan, and whether Pakistanis are willing to accept them without thinking of them in terms of the other.

Toronto-based Talha Zaheer blogs about diaspora-related issues for Dawn.com. He is also the Toronto FC correspondent for Goal.com.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

Surprisingly enough, this whole India-US-Israel theory has a lot of popular currency these days in Pakistan, a country whose national sports should be lounge room politics and conspiracy theorising instead of cricket and hockey. The myriad of television talk-shows on every news channel are heavily relying on this theory of a triangulated axis of evil out to destroy Islam and Pakistan with one nifty stone’s throw of insurgent terror.

I don’t mean to dampen Pakistan’s highly built up superiority complex laced with self pity at the whole world’s always being out to get us, but has anyone ever thought of questioning why we always situate Pakistan at the centre of our world view? It is true that Pakistan is in the news a lot these days, and that the location of our borders in terms of resources and trade routes present significant geopolitical interests. But isn’t it a bit much to consider the current conflict in terms of issues that lie beyond the immediately obvious uses of Pakistan’s soil, and therefore hurl the current conflict in to the realm of myth and conspiracy?

Islamic mythology has obviously played a huge role in the formation of our national identity. It is telling that the history books we’re taught in school start from Mohenjodaro and Harappa, jump to the life of the Prophet in pagan Arabia, and then an interlude of early Islamic history until the likes of Muhammad bin Qasim finally brings Islam to the subcontinent. After that, the Muslim personalities involved in South Asian politics are closely followed up until the creation of Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims.

Given this strange mix of religious indoctrination and nationalist propaganda, it isn’t a shock that our national identity is hopelessly intertwined with religion. The great ups and downs of our history are also then viewed though the mirror image of early Islamic Arabian history, starting with the Partition of 1947 where the oppressed Muslims in the land of infidels partake in a hijrah-like migration to greener pastures. This is also responsible for similar coinages as mohajir’s for people who migrated from the other side of the border, and of course the Muttahida Quami Movement as well. Looking across the border with the same deeply rooted scepticism through which we historically view pagan Mecca also comes with the national identity combo-meal.

After two wars with our neighbour that have been cloaked in the same historical-identity mirror as jihads which the Prophet Muhammad participated in – the 1965 war, where a small number of Muslims beat a larger threatening army of infidels akin to the scenario in Jang-e-Badar, and the 1971 war being similar to Jang-e-Uhad, where the Muslims suffered heavy losses owing to their greed and indiscipline. Kargil would then be seen as the Battle of the Trench, had it not ended with such a national disaster.

The idea of martyrdom has been historically very close to these times of crisis when national unity is a must. The list of the dozen or so shaheeds who gave their life for the country is also present in every textbook. Unfortunately, the idea of the martyr as a member of Pakistan’s armed forces has become one that is hotly contested in recent times, as the right to declare a martyr isn’t the sole prerogative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The ISPR’s version of a shaheed in Waziristan is diametrically opposed to that of the TTP’s version of shaheed.

The same mujahids who valiantly fought in Kashmir and Afghanistan for Islam and Pakistan, seem to have turned on the Islamic Republic as the very fabric of propaganda which binds Islam with Pakistan is ruptured beyond repair. With the popularly elected government being portrayed as infidel rule propped up by the Americans, and the culture of the modern, westernised elites is labeled as shamelessness and excessive debauchery, it seems we’re caught in the middle of a storm where the hero can no longer be told apart from the enemy.

For decades, the enemy image coined in our heads has been that of the Islam-hating, darker-skinned Hindu at the eastern edge of our border. One can imagine how much violence the average Pakistanis’ worldview must have been subjected to when the heroic mujahid suddenly became the enemy, in less than a decade. A painful readjustment of the conventional enemy image is needed in order to re-galvanize the nation behind these destroyers of the idea of Pakistan.

This interesting transposition was evident in an armed forces award ceremony in which shaheeds from the current conflict were inducted into the ranks of those martyred in Pakistan’s conventional wars. The reenacted footage telegraphing each incident showed a mysterious tribal as the concealed enemy. The army also seems to be relying on foreigners being involved in the tribal areas as a way to distance the conflict from civil strife. The circulation of reports of large containers of alcohol belonging to Uzbek militants also seems to be a way of distancing Islam from the enemy.

However, it appears that instead of reevaluating things through a more rational approach, we’ve stuck to our patchwork quilt of mythological identity through a couple of quick-and-easy adjustments. As a matter of convenience for our security establishment, the principal enemy obviously remains India. But those polygamous infidels couldn’t possibly be the solely responsible for such an ingenious plan that redirects our tactics against them and literally brings the country to its knees? No, that’s not possible. So who could they possibly be in cahoots with?

Once again the answer is conveniently available from early Islamic Arabia, where the Meccan pagans were conspiring with scheming Jewish tribes. A simple transposition of the historical onto our mythological identity yields the result of India and Israel collaborating for the destruction of Pakistan, with the US sitting on the fringes like the Holy Roman Empire.

I think it’s time we quit hiding behind the convenient curtain of myth, and take the bitter pill of reality. For once, for that might help us frame this conflict in more rational terms and possibly lead us closer to a solution, rather than further feeding propaganda to the conflict. If the present reasoning of global evils out to destroy Islam and Pakistan continues, then the only answer is the apocalyptic war which is talked about in fringe mythologies related to the arrival of the Antichrist.

The last thing we want is for this to be a self-fulfilling prophecy! We need to step away from viewing this as a clash of civilisations, in terms of Islam versus the West. This is a misinformed dichotomy, since the West is not a religion, and Islam isn’t a geographical location. The more hopelessly intertwined our nationality becomes with a faux mythology, the more susceptible it becomes to being hijacked by those wishing to extract temporary gains from this vulnerability.

Lahore-based Asif Akhtar is interested in critical social discourse as well as the expressive facets of reactive art and is one of the schizophrenic narrators of a graphic novel. He blogs at http://e-scape-artist.blogspot.com/ and tweets at http://twitter.com/e_scape_artist.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily represent the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

‘Ayee?’ (Has it come?)

‘Abhi nahin. Kal try karna.’ (Not yet. Try tomorrow.)

So I did, and he still didn’t have it. This continued for several days, our conversation going from business-like, to desperate, to sinister. Until, one fine morning, as I was buying eggs, he said: ‘Bari mushkil say mili hai. Abhi lay lain. Khas gahakon kay liye hai. Pindi say mangwai hai, Rs. 70 rupees fi kilo kai hisab say.’ (Found it with great difficulty. Take it now. We’ve kept it for special customers. Brought it from Pindi, for Rs. 70 per kilo.)

Now Mr. Khan – doe-eyed and probably in his early twenties – has been a shopkeeper at the Khattak store for over five years. It’s one of those tiny shops with a little linoleum counter peeling at the corner, a pay phone for those days when you’ve left the mobile at home, and shelves swollen with merchandise. He even stocks such exotic items as tinned sardines and pitted olives in a small shelf of imported goodies next to the counter. We often do not have to pay him immediately if we do not have the cash. And he is scrupulously honest, returning change when I forget.

By the end of this particular transaction, however, I felt a little dirty. For one thing, I know and he knows, that he is supposed to sell for Rs. 40 a kilo. For another, he is the Khattak shopkeeper, not a drug dealer. And yet, that is exactly what it felt like. This is not cocaine or contraband; this is plain ol’ sugar. In a country that is fifth on the list of top sugarcane producers in the world, should sugar have disappeared from the markets?

I have to admit to a little guilt when I made chocolate cake after my five-year-old pestered me for days. Four cups of sugar in the cake, five tablespoons in the icing. But a tepid middle-class conscience is nothing to the hordes invading the government-run Utility Stores, where the poor wait for four hours to buy a kilo of the sweet white stuff. They are not just seething, they are enraged. And rightly so.

The ‘cheeni ka bohran’ or sugar crisis has been going on since Ramazan. First, it was blamed on the usual pre-Ramazan profiteering: jacking up the prices of essential commodities to take advantage of the month of fasting and feasting. Wholesalers and millers were hoarding sacks to create an artificial shortage. Then it turned out that sugar cane growers had switched from sugar cane to wheat because the government had raised the wheat support price to give incentives to farmers to grow more wheat. In other words, the sugar crisis was apparently a derivative of the wheat crisis.

The government conducted a few raids and issued statements on how international prices had also gone up. A minister even said people should consume less because it is ‘injurious to health.’ Yes, Pakistanis like their tea sweet and they may be the third largest consumers of sugar in Asia. Yes, over-consumption leads to diabetes and obesity and all manner of ills. But even if sugar is not a right of the masses, does that mean it has to be a luxury?

The activist Supreme Court has ordered that sugar be made available at Rs. 40 a kilo. As the tussle between the highest court of the land, the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA), the federal government and the Punjab government demonstrates, it’s not really the economics that’s the problem.

In a TV news report, one angry sugar customer at a Utility Store lashed out at ‘the sugar mafia.’ The Competition Commission of Pakistan has called it ‘collusive behaviour’ on the part of the Pakistan mill owners association and buyers.

In an excellent four-part analysis of the sugar market, development economist Dr. Adeel Malik wrote:

If there is one industry that best reflects the underlying power structure in Pakistan, it is sugar. The role of politics is central; from the sanctioning of a sugar mill to its financing and operation. It is instructive to look at the ownership structure. Of the nearly 78 sugar mills, at least 50 per cent are owned by politicians or their family members. They sit on all sides of the political divide, represented in cabinet, treasury and opposition benches.

He goes on to argue that the sugar industry has flourished under democratic and military dispensations alike. ‘Its links with politics, patronage and protection’ setting it apart from other industries.

If the solution is systemic and political, price-fixing, recovering stockpiles, importing the expensive international variety and making it available at Utility Stores are then short-term measures. The government – running dangerously low on credibility as it is – could demonstrate that it genuinely represents the people’s interests; it could recover footing for a people lurching from crisis to crisis.

Or it could order an inconclusive inquiry, as happened in the case of the 2006 sugar crisis.

Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda.

Amber Rahim Shamsi is a mother, journalist, and foodie whose experiments in the kitchen haven’t always turned out quite right. But that hasn’t stopped her from trying, to the dismay of her family.

So I waited for the TV cameras to pan towards the direction where the stones were landing. But that did not happen. It seemed as if the students were pelting stones just for the heck of it.

So I called a fellow journalist friend who was covering the story for a local TV channel and asked him about the protest. He told me the students were pelting stones at a handful of cops. Now, why in God’s good name would one throw stones at cops after being attacked by demented men who call themselves the Taliban?

The very next day another protest took place outside the attacked University in which the students, both male and female, were holding banners that said: ‘Kerry-Lugar Bill namanzoor!’ (Kerry-Lugar Bill Not Acceptable).

I could barely stop myself from bursting into a short sharp fit of manic laughter. It was unbelievable. Or was it, really?

Here we have a university that was attacked by a psychotic suicide bomber who slaughtered and injured dozens of students so he could get his share of hooris in Paradise. The attack was then proudly owned by the Tekrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. And in its wake, we saw enraged students protesting against the Kerry-Lugar act? What a response!

What did the Kerry-Lugar act have to do with the suicide attack? Wasn’t this remarkably idiotic ‘protest rally’ by the students actually an insult to those who were so mercilessly slaughtered by holy barbarians?

But then, some would suggest that in a society like Pakistan, such idiosyncrasies should be swallowed as a norm. And I agree. What else can one expect from a society living in a curiously delusional state of denial, gleefully mistaking it as ‘patriotism’ and ‘concern.’ It seems no amount of proof will ever be enough to dent Pakistanis’ resolve to defend the unsubstantiated, wild theories that they so dearly hold in their rapidly shrinking heads.

Take for instance the recent case of a famous TV anchorman who visited a devastated area in Peshawar that was bombed by a remote-controlled car bomb. He talked to about 10 people at the scene. More than half of the folks interviewed spouted out those squarely unproven and thoroughly clichéd tirades about RAW/CIA/Mossad being the ‘real perpetrators’ and that ‘no Muslim is capable of inflicting such acts of barbarity.’

A friend of mine who was also watching this hapless exhibition of the usual top-of-mind nonsense suddenly announced that he wanted to jump in, hold these men by the arms, and shake them violently so they could be ‘awoken from their dreadful sleepwalking state.’

Pakistanis routinely continue to deny the fact that the monsters who are behind all the faithful barbarism that is cutting this country into bits are the mutant product of what our governments, military, intelligence agencies, and society as a whole have been up to in the past 30 years or so.

Well, this is exactly what happens to a society that responds so enthusiastically to all the major symptoms of fascist thought. Symptoms such as powerful and continuing nationalism; disdain for the recognition of human rights; identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause; supremacy of the military; obsession with national security; the intertwining of religion and government; disdain for intellectuals and the arts; an obsession with crime and punishment, etc.

Have not the bulk of Pakistanis willingly allowed themselves to be captured in all the macho and paranoid trappings of the above-mentioned symptoms of collective psychosis. It clearly smacks of a society that has been ripening and readying itself for an all-round fascist scenario.

This is the scenario some among us are really talking about when they speak of ‘imposing the system of the Khulfa Rashideen’ or shariah, or whatever profound buzzwords adopted to explain Pakistan’s march towards a wonderful society of equality and justice? Words that mean absolutely nothing, or systems and theories either based on ancient musings of tribal societies or on glorified myths of bravado.

I felt bad for the few bystanders at that Peshawar bombing site who kept contradicting their more gung-ho contemporaries by reminding them that for months the shopkeepers where receiving threatening letters from the Taliban warning them that they should stop selling products for women and ban the entry of women in the area.

One shop-owner who said he lost more than millions of rupees worth of goods in the blast was slightly taken aback when the anchor asked him who he thought was behind the bomb attack. For a few seconds he looked curiously at the anchor’s face, as if wondering why would a major TV news channel be asking a question whose answer was so obvious. ‘What do you mean, who was responsible?’ he asked. ‘The Taliban, of course!’

Fasi Zaka wrote a scathing piece on the floozy response of some students who chanted slogans against the Kerry-Lugar Bill outside the freshly bombed Islamic University. He was battered with hate mail, even from those who did agree with him that it were the Taliban who bombed the unfortunate university. But these folks turned out to be even worse than the deniers. They are apologists of all the mayhem that takes place in the name of Islam in this country.

Every time the barbarians set themselves off taking innocent men, women, and children with them, these apologists suddenly emerge to write letters to newspapers and try to dominate internet forums explaining the intricate ‘socio-economic problems’ that are turning men into terrorists. Or worse – as is expected from reactionary news reporters like Ansar Abbasi – they will start giving details about the infidel targets that the terrorists were really after at the place of the attack.

Zaka told me that he got letters suggesting that the Taliban attacked the canteen of the Islamic University because ‘women students were not behaving and dressing according to Islam.’ The state under Ziaul Haq had the Hudood Ordinance for such ‘loose women,’ but now the Taliban have bombs for them. And mind you, those who were trying to justify the bombing in this respect at the University were ‘educated’ young men and even women.

Recently, we also heard about a hijab-clad female student at the prestigious and ‘liberal’ Lahore University of Management Sciences, who bagged her 15 minutes of fame by capturing images through her mobile phone of students indulging in ‘immoral activities’ on campus. Of course, the same lady’s ‘concern’ and righteousness ends at becoming a self-appointed paparazzi for the reactionaries, whereas it was young women (in hijabs) and men with beards who died so senselessly at the Islamabad Islamic University campus.

Pathetic, indeed.

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

The private sports channel’s teaser for the upcoming India-Sri Lanka cricket series defies belief. As video clips showing Sri Lankan cricketers in action are screened, the soundtrack is provided by an old Hindi film song, the lyrics of which are: ‘Hum kaalay hain toh kya huwa dil walay hain.’ That roughly translates to, ‘so what if we are black, we are hearty sportsmen nonetheless.’

The promo pretty much leaves me speechless. In an age where tolerance, diversity, and respect are the grandest ideals, who in their right minds could go to such an extent? I wonder if the channel’s legal advisers (if there are any) or cricket experts (of which there are plenty) are aware of the marketing department’s latest feat.

For a moment, let’s forget about the ICC rules regarding racism. What impression will this blunder leave on the foreign viewers’ minds (let’s leave aside local viewers, who are probably enjoying it)? What will the Lankan team think if they ever have the misfortune of coming across this channel? Shouldn’t more sensitivity be on the cards given Pakistan’s tainted relationship with this team in particular?

We as a nation should be grateful for international channels such as Star Sports, ESPN, and Super Sport, for they give much less painful alternatives to sports fans in Pakistan. Not all of us are willing to overlook the audacity.

Hafsa Adil is a sports editor at Dawn.com.