![plan a or plan banana plan a or plan banana](https://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/247050-SamiShahNew-1315405468.jpg)
See, if Zardari is indeed in control, then Zulfiqar Mirza makes sense. I don’t mean what he is saying is coherent and full of actual logical content. I mean his actions can be understood in a wider context. He is unleashing a diarhhetic onslaught of truthiness because he has been instructed to do so. This will alienate the MQM and vilify them in the public perception (the public that, it should be noted, has been conditioned by local dramas to be manipulated by grotesque overacting). Once cornered they will be offered a chance at relief if they simply agree to the PPP’s terms of rejoining the coalition government without any more of their posturing and if they guarantee certain key results and unconditional support in the senate elections. Meanwhile, the increasingly alienated Sindhi nationalists have a new urban hero to put faith and votes in. If all goes according to the cunning plan, then Zulfiqar Mirza will disappear, his anger will abate and all will be forgotten. The only memory we will have of the entire affair is that a fruit salad of insults were thrown at Rehman Malik and his skin is thick enough to deflect it all anyway. The PPP will be that much closer to senate majority, their damaged credibility with Sindhi nationalists will be repaired and we can all go back to fearing gunny bags.
If, however, there isn’t a plan in place, then we are witnessing a free-for-all in cuckoo land. Then we have to come to terms with the fact that the president just lost a close ally who chose to instead fashion a hat out of the Holy Book before going on a tour to publicise his nervous breakdown as a form of performance art. It means the ruling party has had such a collapse in discipline that it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the major players all start standing at street corners and yelling at passers-by, declaring every square foot of land a new province and then launching themselves out of cannons at the MQM headquarters.
What’s frightening is that I don’t know which potential reality I fear more. The former means the PPP is guaranteed a victory in the senate and possibly the 2013 elections as well, crafted by a president who plays politics of a level that makes his opponents look like toddlers with learning disabilities. The latter means the biggest political party in the country is on the verge of implosion with no one strong enough to clean up the resultant debris. Or maybe there is a third option. Maybe we have all gone insane ourselves and are suffering a mass hallucination. I think I prefer that.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 8th, 2011.
COMMENTS (23)
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Karachi needs justice not discipline!. Present is a reflection of our past, and we’ve made some grave mistakes in the past that have had these consequences.Calling in the army to stem the lawlessness in Karachi would be a stop-gap arrangemen. .I’m afraid it has always been. Pakistan’s as well as world history has shown that army deployments have never been solutions to such intractable problems like one we face in Karachi. Karachi has always been a microcosm of Pakistan, reflecting all the good and bad things in the country; ethnic divisions and their unity, commercial progress, ideas, a cauldron of all the races, religions, sects scattered across the country. Someone who settles karachi’s problems, would go on to settle the fundamental problems of Pakistan..The solution should be through civilian departments/institutions/efforts. Involvement of military in solving problems across Pakistan (East Pakistan, Balochistan, FATA, SWAT, Red Mosque, Karachi or anywhere else) has weakened us. There is no military solution to the political problems anywhere in the world. Instead of calling in the military, we ought to stress on making police nonpartisan. This would serve us not only in the short-term but would also increase our faith in our civilian departments and the govt machinery/institutions. we need to rid ourselves of this mentality of calling out the army at every juncture. Such acts distort the civil-miliatary equation and take us to square-one with history repeating itself too often in Pakistan. Above all it creates new set of tensions with repercussion for the army (punjabi army, mohajir army, pathan army) etc. Let us not get them into this political mess. Military actions within create irreparable divisions.
One of the most objective, plain and brilliant analysis I have seen in more than a few years in a Pakistani paper. Good job!
A total agreement with the author....We at some point in time like to believe in both realities..which ever soothes us for the time being....Reality remains that we are being volleyed by the "truthiness" as you say....What the truth is we may or may never learn In the meantime here's to a safer Karachi....I cant stand the bloodiness in the city ive grown in love with more and more over time
Do you justify this intelligent political game, to win elections, for which the biggest city has been placed at stake and where dance of brutal deaths still continues. Is it not a replay of somersaults of great
Kharr
in days of Bhutto and afterwards. As per your version, this is same type of traditional politics available only in Pakistan and called politics of genius/witty people.Is it called politics resulting into people being killed as flies and slaughtered as animals while killers and being killed are not aware of the game.@yousaf: "Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt." — Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)
Standing Ovation for Sami Shah!! Hats off to you Sami for keeping your sense of humour and kudos for having a beautiful imagination. Keep writing
Well thought and written. I like the sentence "unleashing a diarhhetic onslaught of truthiness".
Great piece. i think ZM is a sort of political sacrifice and has been told to stand apart from the PPP but continue to say all he thinks so that the nutcases who agree with him will have a hero.Then the "reconcillion efforts " can continue. Not a bad master plan , instead of having the pakistani population baying for the govts blood for its complete impotence in doing anything meaningful , instead start this modified star plus drama and keep the simple masses entertained. Shameful state of affairs and hopefully will not lead to a PPP win again in 2013 or we can expect more of the same.
@ Armee...if Zardari is not a genius then we will have to change the meanings of the word.If Zardari were there in ,48 Pakistan would be standing today in line with G8 countries.In fact Pakistan does need today a man of the caliber of Zardari,we have lost 64 years and lets not loose any more.Luck has been very kind to have knocked at Pak-door in the form of Zardari,let us waste no time and open the doors before it turns back,because she does not knock twice,and likes of Zardaries dont come-by every second day,look at the past 3-1/2 years what is there that he has not done to uplift the economy of the country,now if nature sends flood after flood what can he do,I think we should let him do his work in peace and let us concentrate on 3rd.option
Since both the scenarios given at the beginning also mean 1. that innocent people have lost their lives as part of a grand political plan and 2. innocent people will continue to lose their lives owing to lack of a grand political plan hence the third option seems more helpful in preserving my faith in the goodness of human kind. Hallucinations most certainly, the realist gibberish about humans being inherently evil creatures can surely not be true!
@Sami Shah: I think its neither but the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Zardari could have but did not stop Mirza from his tirade. Remember the timing of the events, just two days before Mirza went bonkers, he launched against Malik in a meeting in Karachi and was called to Islamabad by Zardari. The very next day Mirza launches this public assault, cornering the MQM and neutralizing Malik's influence and credibility in Karachi's politics. As an after effect he goes on to regain the lost electoral ground in interior Sindh that had been lost due to Zardari's flip flopping on the local government issue, to the nationalists, who had a successful strike in interior Sindh after the commissioner system was withdrawn. His tirade also coincided with the Judicial hearings and the increasing pressure on the military to step up in Karachi. Zardari is not a genius, but he is certainly the best player in the Pakistani political game today.
Perhaps the best wisecrack, on Beqarrar Mirza and Zardari's twisted ball game, I've come across thus far!
Isn't it that all three options are happening simultaneously, as anything is possible in Pakistan.
MQM is already villified in the public eye-- but does that matter ?
Hilarious as usual. Best commentary I have read on ZM episode other than Nazir Naji's column in another daily. The other one I am referring to was in a serious yet sympathetic tone, in a brotherly manner, for the former Sindh Interior Minister. Yours is very incisive and poignant yet very funny. Thanks for a good read.
I thought Imran Khan is going to win and sort everything out? That's what facebook has made me come to believe. Please don't mess with my reality. I like living that dream...
Nice one. Oh what a tangled web you weave.
haha real funny! banana-land indeed.
I beg to disagree. If Zardari is in control and Mirza utters disagreement and resigns, it means one guy with a different approach must go and Mirza has left the driving seat. Let us not play mouse and cat with words. A party remains one if those who remain 'in' do not disagree openly. Is there something we are missing in your arguments?
I pretty much agree with you, Zardari is not a kid and Zulfiqar Mirza is someone very close to Zardari since college days.
Zardari's wise, very wise!