I’m not impressed

I despise the media for making heroes out of nobodies. The purposeless adulation for Jibran Nasir makes my blood boil with fury. They say I am hell-bent on further spoiling his hour in the sun. But why would I care? He is just another non-sectarian, little-too-loud voice, out of the many millions, against the menacing radicals of the country. And I don’t even admire his sense of fashion. Can the Alpha-activist not find a single shalwar kameez in the country that fits his actual size? Where does he gather the moral courage to propagate his ‘foreign agenda’ through webcam videos?

To me, he is just another Malala, who stood up for random injustices that are non-existent in our society. Why else will the propagandist world media give such attention to a small-time lawyer who has no direction in life despite being 27? Want more reasons why Jibran’s is a sinking ship? He was not invited to the Karachi Literature Festival this year.

Why does he want to make a career out of enforced activism that yields no result? People in this country have made respectable political careers through marriages, lifafa journalism, winning World Cups, and here is this random privileged man sitting on the roads with his, what liberal-haters rightfully call, the ‘sun-block and candle mafia’. I mean, what is the use of those fancy law degrees worth millions of rupees when the devil requires the services of geniuses like Sharifuddin Pirzada or Babar Awan, whenever he smells trouble?

Jibran embodies the lack of cohesion in our society. People like him have got to understand that by watching a movie or two on the life and times of Che Guevara or reading up on Marx and Engels does not bring activists like him shoulder to shoulder with galactic greats like Zohair Toru. Sorry Jibran, revolution is not your cup of (Rs499+tax Moroccan Jasmine) tea.

To top it off, Jibran’s judgment is subjective and his morality is selective. I mean, not once did I hear him talk about the injustices against Fawad Alam. Does he care about the overriding significance of ‘chaar halqay’? I can go out on a limb and claim he never condemned the Nanking massacre.

It is about time Jibran Nasir is informed in simpler words — he is not the Batman Gotham needs.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2015.