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.
How can there be a difference? Do you really believe that all the shit that has been constantly hitting the fan in these past 8 years or so is George Bush’s doings? Seriously, you believe that?
Musharraf was ‘planted’ by Bush, and now is replaced by Zardari, or orders of Bush. Hence ended the simplified guide to the universe.
Think about it for a moment now, Bush? Who finds it hard to form a coherent sentence with full concentration and both hands, that guy caused all of this? Yes, it was under Mr. Bush that we saw Americans carry out attacks that were merciless (merciless not because a lot of people died, merciless because till this day, there is no justification for it at all), we saw America lose more than just face in the international community, we saw the American economy nose dive like a dead bird, we saw a sharp rise in terrorism, especially in Pakistan, yes we saw it all when America was under Bush. But was he, this single man, the cause of all of this?
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’.
Slacker Uprising. I think it is a brilliant name for a movie from one brilliant guy. Michael Moore’s new movie, slated to be released on Sept 23, is about young people of America, coming out to vote. And from the looks of it, Moore will get them out alright. The slackers will rise! Hence the appropriate name, ’slacker uprising’.
And the video will be free to download when it gets released. How cool is that! You go Moore (pun intended) (Reread the friggin’ fine print: it is free to download for US and Canadians only. Akkh!)
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.