It has been playing up in my mind for quite a long time, and as of yet there is no connection that I can make. It leaves this uncomfortable feeling and I don’t like it. Maybe someone here can help me?
There is a TV personality here in Pakistan, Faisal Qureshi. In fact, there are three well known TV personalities by that very name! (So I have included the picture)
His shows that have ‘done time’ on Business Plus, a small stint at Dawn and now at Samaa TV. Personally, I have always enjoyed his shows and have actually showed up at ‘LooseEnds’ meetup in Lahore a few years back. I have had the pleasure of having dinner with him after that meet up (along with the rest of the odd 20 to 25 people that showed up). All in all, Mr. Qureshi is a well-rounded individual who wants to make a difference. That is something that is to be appreciated and not taken lightly, this passion for change. The people with this kind of an undying ‘need’ to improve (automatically forcing your to ‘change’ your current self) are far and few in between.
Now, my confusion has a lot to with what Mr. Qureshi has been doing. I believe that active participation in promoting and adapting positive change is what makes for a good activist. Mr Qureshi, as far as this definition is concerned, plays that part well. Very well indeed! I like that. What I don’t understand is his refusal to entertain any sort of political tones - even political undertones - to anything he and his sizeable group of friends and followers do. Politics to him is like Kryptonite to superman. I do not like that.
I have always believed in the positive nature of pretty much everything. There is always the flip side blah blah (we all know the drill). Yes, being called a politician is not next to being cursed, it is EXACTLY like being cursed. Yes, I know that. That just does not mean that politics - and an active participation in it - has no room for positive change. In fact, I will go ahead and claim that politics holds the most promise to induce positivity all around on both large and small scales. What I do not understand, and I want to pose this as a question to Mr Qureshi himself as well, is why is not politics included as a route to improving one’s self. And secondly, why is politics considered a separate beast from the umbrella of activism?
Of course, Mr Qureshi is not the only one I know of who holds politics as away from himself as possible (for reasons that I’d like to know). While reading Fasi Zaka’s piece in The News, I found out that the Samad Khurram also holds this attitude of excluding politics in any agenda of social change. Perhaps it is the ’social’ element that gets separated from the ‘politics’, social representing the society and politics representing the politicians of course. This type of exlusion seems silly to me, for the very, very obvious reason that I do not understand it! My question goes typically to Mr Faisal Qureshi, Mr Fasi Zaka and Mr Samad Khurram, and anyone else who’d care to answer and opinionate. Why a big no to politics? I don’t know, but would love to.
We have been in this for a while now. Since birth to be exact. The country of Pakistan was built on the notion of an Islamic state; this very notion is now debated at some far-fetched fronts with the air of arrogance assocaited with self-satisfying false prophets.
Islam has always been considered as the religion of peace; that notion is now been debated with great aplomb, citing numerous texts from the exegis of texts that translate yet another explanation of a certain phrase from the holy book of Muslims.
There were times when Eid was celebrated by spotting the most noticable feature of any night sky, a feature that when absent would entice poets to write sweet songs of separation. Now that very moon has become so hard to spot. So hard. But we don’t understand the complexities that are inherent in using our faculties of vision. Poor friggin’ us.
There was a time, somewhat long ago, when Muslims were free thinkers. Dare I say, they were creative. There was thought, there was action, there were mistakes, there were adjustments, carried out by mortal humans with biases and preconcieved notions. Still there was massive progress in all spheres of human endeavor. This was a time when the nation had a brain. And as a consequence of that, had a heart as well.
The premium importance was on finding God, not accepting Him; on discovering one’s own and not following someone else’s potential. It was this type of nation that produced people like Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Shafi.
Now people follow the people of those times. There was a time when power lay in the hands of every soul alive. Now power is cuddled amongst the few haves. Power does corrupt. Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.
Where is that power now? Who will take it back? From whom? These questions, no one will answer for me. Because no one can’t. Only I. I am the one. Are you?
Hamid Mir has only recently begun to inspire me, thanks to his coverage of Bajaur refugee camps that was a direct result of me and my friends creating The Helpers Foundation (http://blog.momekh.com/helpers/) and raising an odd PKR 150,000 so far. But this post is not about helping people. It is about something else. It is about political weakness - nay - about moral cowardice of our leaders perhaps. Perhaps. It is now too complicated to call. Has been for quite some time, regardless of what your newspapers’ op-eds have us believe.
Hamid Mir in this interview has said more than I would expect any journalist of any cadre to say on air; ‘we have lost the area of Pakistan’. ‘I challenge the president to try to visit the Bajaur areas by road, any minister can not visit these areas, the area is not in Pakistan anymore’. ‘The Pakistani army is not even touching the taliban, it seems that they are just killing the innocent farmers and civilians to get more grants from America.’ ‘Wherever there are talibans - and there are talibans over there - the army is not attacking those areas.’
An open challenge by Hamid Mir. ‘All of them [govt officials, Americans + army] are fooling us. The biggest fraud there ever was, bigger than Eastern Pakistan. I challenge them to show me a single taliban killed by these operations’.
Lennon in an interview with a young boy aged 14. The boy, obviously a big fan of The Beatles, upon hearing that his hero was in town, went door-to-door at 7 AM in the morning at the hotel where Lennon was staying, to find him. That boy eventually did find him and managed to get a 40 minute long interview with Lennon. That is something!
That same boy, now a lawyer, has produced a shortfilm. “I met the walrus” is produced by him, and directed and animated by Josh Raskin. Apart from winning many awards, the short has also been nominated for an Oscar in ‘08. A great watch, this clip from that short.
also holds this attitude of excluding politics in any agenda of social change. Perhaps it is the ’social’ element that gets separated from the ‘politics’, social representing the society and politics representing the politicians of course. This type of exlusion seems silly to me, for the very, very obvious reason that I do not understand it! My question goes typically to Mr Faisal Qureshi, Mr Fasi Zaka and Mr Samad Khurram, and anyone else who’d care to answer and opinionate. Why a big no to politics? I don’t know, but would love to.