A Conversation With Dawn Editorial Writer And Op-Ed Columnist Cyril Almeida

Over the last few days, Dawn editorial writer and op-ed columnist Cyril Almeida has been kind enough to exchange a bunch of emails with yours truly. We talked about the job description of an op-ed columnist, the state of journalism in Pakistan, the performance of the Zardari government thus far, the Swat/Taliban war, Brigadier Imtiaz and his many recent pronouncements, and the MQM. Without further ado...

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Ahsan: Hi Cyril,

Thank you for agreeing to do this. I'm sure our readers will appreciate it as much as I do.

First things first. Your profile on your webpage says you studied law at university. Why would you give up a lucrative career in law to write op-ed pieces? All my lawyer friends in Pakistan like their life (at most times) and very few of my journalist friends in Pakistan like their life (at most times). What gives?

Cyril: Thanks, Ahsan. Happy to be here answering, or try to answer, whatever questions you have.

Seems to me that maybe you know very successful lawyers and not-so-successful journalists, but even then I would question whether lawyers enjoy their lives (as opposed to their work, or the lucrativeness thereof) more than journalists.

After doing a second BA in England, I returned to Pakistan to practice law, finding a place at a small firm in Karachi. A year and change later, I had serious doubts about whether I wanted to be in the profession 10, 15, 20 years down the road.

I still enjoy law as a subject, but the practice of law is a very different, dare I say, deadening, experience for the most part.

Opting out at such an early stage was really on the basis of how the arc of a legal career works in Pakistan - you pay your dues, slogging away for two, three, four years on a pittance, then you enter the 'decent compensation' bracket and stay there for a while long before getting to partake in the lucrativeness.

Because of that arc, the 'cost' of opting out gets higher and higher the longer you stay in the profession - I mean, who would spend 6-8 years of their lives with their eyes firmly set on the future and then, just when the real pay-off starts, opt out? Not many.

So having doubts about the profession generally, I realised it was relatively less painful to leave early on, rather than be stuck doing something I didn't enjoy for the rest (or a major chunk) of my life.

Since enjoying what I do forms a large part of my decision on what I choose to do (call it old fashioned, idealistic, plain stupid, whatever), the media was something I was attracted to.

I enjoy politics, political history, trying to make sense of where the country is headed, etc. and I like writing, so it eventually became a no-brainer.

Not many people know this, but the column is actually something I do on my own time.

My job at Dawn is to write the paper's editorials on national politics, regional affairs/foreign policy and the economy sometimes - that's what I do five, six, sometimes seven days a week.

So I essentially get paid to do what would be a hobby otherwise, to do so having access to all the intellectual resources that the Dawn name brings, and then put my thoughts out there for what is without doubt, at least to my mind, the largest informed domestic and foreign audience interested in knowing what is happeing in the country - how's that for a great life?

Moreover, I have no office hours, I can write from any part of the country or the world, I can spend my day just reading, I meet interesting people - need I go on?

Ahsan: Do you feel a sense of having influence, or perhaps less ambitiously, being on thinking people's radar? You say that you enjoy putting your "thoughts out there for what is without doubt, at least to my mind, the largest informed domestic and foreign audience interested in knowing what is happening in the country". As vulnerable you may feel in answering this question, do you think your opinion matters? On the one hand, as you imply, the movers and shakers read Dawn. But on the other hand, English newspapers' circulation numbers in Pakistan are extremely low relative to the entire population; they are restricted mainly to the English speaking elite in the major urban centers of the country, and even then, the numbers would divided in half, with one half going to The News and the other Dawn (no one outside the Taseer family reads the Daily Times, I don't think). Do you feel a sense of frustration that as hard as you work on your stuff, very few people actually end up reading it? Or is that tempered by that feeling of influence referenced earlier?

Cyril: Influence? If you're in it for the influence, then you're half way up the wrong tree already.

Part of the problem I have with many of the big players out here is that they've stopped being observers and, for all intents and purposes, consider themselves part of the political system. Making the news, shaping the news - how about just being an observer?

Of course, I'm on the opinion side of things, so that means interpreting things and giving my, subjective, opinion.

But on Dawn's pages alone there are four writers every day, which means 28 opinions each week. (An oped columnist/contributor is published only once a week on the opinion pages.)

Multiply that by the other national English dailies (I read DT every day, and there is also The Nation, which many forget) and you can see how your voice is just one of many, many people's.

I don't write for the sake of addressing the subjects of my pieces, I write for the readers - people like myself who are just interested in knowing what's going on, with no hidden agendas, no personal favourites, who don't see too much evil or too much good in any situation or person or institution.

Does my opinion matter to readers - that's for them to decide.

Frankly, I think readers don't give themselves enough credit - they're incredibly sharp and discerning (at least on the English side) and if you're rubbish, they'll let you know you're rubbish by ignoring you pretty quickly.

As for papers in English being only a small part of the newspaper market - yes, and that's before you even begin to look towards the vastly bigger tv audience.

But what are you going to do about it? If you grew up in Liechtenstein, would you wring your hands over your irrelevance for the rest of your life? I don't think so.

Besides, as I mentioned, the quality of the average reader of an English paper is better.

So there are trade-offs, but since none of them are under my control, I don't think about them too much.

Ahsan: That's a fair and reasonable way of thinking about things, I think. Though I think you majorly pissed off our readers from Liechtenstein, who tend to be very avid followers of our coverage of Swiss politics.

Last question on journalism. If you were given Overlord powers, and you could change one thing about print journalism and the way it is practiced in Pakistan, what would it be? The rules for this question are: there are no unintended consequences to any of your decisions; you can't make infinite changes with the wording of the response (i.e. no "If I had one wish, it would be that I have unlimited wishes" cheating); and finally that no one will know you are personally responsible (so aggrieved parties can't run after you with pitchforks).

Cyril: First of all, my sincere apologies to readers from Liechtenstein - I'm sure they are good people, the best even, and I didn't mean to knock them at all.

Simple: I'd pay better and have more people and better resources.

Part of the problem with print journalism - and here I'm speaking of the English papers particularly - is that it draws its talent from a rather narrow and shallow pool. If you pay a subber or fresh reporter 20k and promise him perhaps double that in 3 years if they're good, you're not going to attract the most educated, the most capable - the ones who can connect the dots, see a bigger picture, etc.

That's not to say that there aren't terrific reporters and in-house staffers at the papers - there absolutely are - but it's a question of how many and how often you can find a solid employee who can get the job done at a high level of competence day in and day out across the various tiers of a newspaper hierarchy.

Perhaps the industry suffers from the seth culture syndrome or perhaps the right person hasn't appeared yet who can keep the business reasonably profitable AND raise its quality at the same time, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Collectively, I'd argue that the big four national dailies and, a personal favourite of mine, the Business Recorder can keep a reader terrifically well informed - the problem is that no single paper manages to do that to a degree that is comfortable for someone to say, I read XYZ paper for three months and I know all there is to know about the issues that are of interest in the country right now.

So yes, better - better paid, better educated, better informed, better writers, better reporters - that's what I'd want and I think part of the answer is better pay right from the start.

Talent follows money - it doesn't have to be outrageous sums, just tempting enough to make a swathe of young English-speaking adults weight it as a genuine career option.

Papers are in the information business and, at the end of the day, a paper is only as good as the people it has.

Ahsan: Here's how I would have answered my question: fire people for making shit up. I'm not going to name names (but I will say they sound a lot like "Kamid Nir"), but I'm amazed how many times I read stuff in newspapers which are simply untrue, or simply cannot be true. They just make it up! How can this be allowed to happen? I'm all for reading fiction, but not in newspapers.

A close second would be not giving credence to ridiculously idiotic opinions as if they matter. No more asking A.Q. Khan for his opinion on matters of national security. If you're that desperate for a quote, you're in the wrong business. No more asking for Sarfraz Nawaz on Younis Khan's captaincy. To be fair, this problem is not endemic to Pakistani journalism. Sarah Palin had a nonsensical op-ed in the Washington Post a couple months ago on...wait for it...climate change. At the time, a blogger I read regularly had this to say:

After all, why does Sarah Palin have an op-ed on climate legislation in the Washington Post? Does she have scientific expertise? Economic expertise? Knowledge of the state of international climate negotiations?

Perhaps during her brief time in the public spotlight she developed a reputation for an unusually solid grasp of complicated policy details? Or is the idea that she’s known for being honest? A good-faith participant in public policy debates?

Well, no.

The basic point is, don't blame Sarah Palin. Blame the WaPo. Put differently, don't hate the player. Hate the game. It's high-school politics masquerading as journalistic balance -- trying to get names and glitz and glamour when all we really need as readers of newspapers is a set of basic facts that are true. We, as readers, will take it from there, thanks.

Coming in with the bronze medal for me would be your suggestion. I agree that print journalists are paid like crap, and if we want better journalism, we should get better journalists, and the only to do that is to pay them more. Particularly since the electronic journalism market is fairly deeply embedded in our culture, and they pay their people so much more -- for work not nearly as important, I would argue -- it really skews the incentives from a social welfare point of view.

Let's move on to a subject near and dear to both our hearts: politics.

Your recent columns have betrayed a sense of cautious optimism on the direction of the country. A couple of weeks ago, you wrote:

The macroeconomic indicators have stabilised; inflation is down; the power crisis will ease now that summer is over; suicide bombings are down; a degree of normality is returning to Swat; Baitullah Mehsud is dead and his headquarters in South Waziristan is under siege; the judicial crisis is over; a truce, albeit an uneasy one, is holding in Punjab; the American demands to ‘do more’ against the Taliban are muted; drone strikes are less of a political hot potato; relations with India are edging towards a post-Mumbai phase; parliament is upping its legislative activity — it’s not quite singing-in-the-rain happy, but neither is it the nightmare that was Pakistan in 2007 and 2008.

My question to you would be: is this a bit of an accident, or does President Zardari and his team actuall deserve credit for this? And if the answer is "neither", are there any set of actors whose role you would particularly highlight? Or is that simply the wrong way of looking at things -- that is, we really shouldn't be looking at particular people, but rather particular events and contingent outcomes that have led to this relative stabilization?

Cyril: The bronze position - if effected - would, to my mind, fix the silver and gold problems to a large degree - you'd have less idiotic opinions and people wouldn't make stuff up as much.

Ah yes, politics - the country's real national sport.

First, and this is by no means a wriggle, I think its important to define what merits credit.

Start with the obvious - doing nothing isn't an option. Even at the worst times in Pakistan's history, a government couldn't be charged with doing absolutely nothing about anything. The executive is enormous and the government that heads it at any given time also large - as we rightly complain. So, something somewhere will always get done.

The question, then, is really about zooming out, identifying the big issues and then trying to figure out who deserves credit for what.

There were three big crises that the government had to confront following the February 2008 elections: militancy, the economy and a crisis of governance and politics.

Take just one: the economy. The government has taken some brave, very unpopular steps, by rolling back subsidies, particularly on power, and imposing some fiscal discipline (yes, there are wastages, colossal in the eyes of the common man, but they foreign junkets, large cabinets, etc. don't add up to much in percentage terms in the, and I stress, short term). And they have got money from IFIs when we were absolutely desperate (though the militancy issue and our relevance in that fight helped a fair bit).

But the handling of the power crisis has been poor and the rental power solution may break some of the banks down the road and make electricity too expensive for businesses to afford; they took too long to bring stability to the finance ministry (we had three different advisers in the space of months and the office of secretary finance was tossed back and forth between two individuals in a bizarre turf battle); the implementation of the BISP has left much to be desired (Kaiser Bengali's plan, despite its detractors, seemed decent to me, but inevitably ownership was transferred to politicians, and that has created its own problems) - same with other emergency social protection schemes; the tax burden is as skewed as ever despite them having a year to plan the new budget, etc.

So a very mixed bag - overall, I'd give them a C. Painful steps have been taken, yes, but it's hard to avoid the impression that they were inevitable and would have been forced through by anyone else in the same position - and there is the fact that they done little that is 'good' from a long-term perspective. Give them some points though for not royally screwing up.

Ahsan: I think your last sentence pretty much sums up the level of expectations for our leaders. I would agree with your grade of C, with the addendum that it used to be an F until, say, the one-year mark of the February elections. I think the war going better is a bit of an accident in the sense that the urge to actually fight was only ignited by the Buner-incursion of the TTP; if they (the TTP) had been satisfied with biding their time, the Army would have continued to sit on their heels, the government would have continued to sign over swathes of Pakistani territory, and we would have all been filled with this terrible sense of foreboding. In the end, they were quite lucky that the Taliban showed themselves to be as unreliable as signatories can be, and public support for actually fighting the war picked up. But -- Hussain Haqqani's claims on the Daily Show notwithstanding -- I am not prepared to grant that this was all part of a master plan.

On the economy front, I'm disturbed that there seems to be little long-term thinking on the problems of power and electricity; though I do recall reading about a week ago that the Bhasha dam is now in the news again. Whether or not its plans are consigned to the dustbin of history owing to provincial and ethnic divisions a la the Kalabagh dam -- as I deem likely -- will only be revealed in the future. And I suppose American promises of help on this issue can do little harm, though you never know with us.

I want to get your views on a couple of very specific issues. What are your thoughts on Jinnahpur-gate?

Cyril: Re Swat. If there was a master plan, this wasn't it (regardless of what the army and its acolytes say behind the scenes). The turning point was really Sufi Mohammad's speech on the grassy ground where he denounced everything and anything, other than himself and his followers of course, as kafir and un-Islamic.

The whole thing had been arranged by the government for him to call on Fazlullah to disarm and to support the government's writ - but, legend has it, he played the 'wrong' tape instead over the microphones, one of his old speeches in which he, well, denounced everything and everything other than himself and his followers.

So there was a plan - just not the one we've seen unfold since then.

Jinnahpur - wow, a crazy one. I've written Dawn's editorials on it and related matters and the big question, to my mind and others whose opinions I hold in high esteem, is the question of timing - why now?

No one seems sure yet (and let this be another lesson in unintended consequences when you unleash loose cannons on the electronic media), but I'm not convinced it has more to do with Musharraf and less with Zardari.

Could it be a ploy to push the PPP and PML-N further apart so that constitutional amendments are off the table again? Who benefits most from the status quo? You do the math.

Ahsan: On the turning point of the war front, I'd say there were three factors. In no particular order, they were the anti-democracy, anti-everything speech you reference (though I have to admit, I've never heard of the "wrong tape" theory on this); the Buner incursion, and -- don't laugh -- the Taliban-beating-the-girl video as well as the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers. I really think the last two episodes had a real galvanizing effect on the population. Now, you may argue that public support has mattered little to the military in its various adventures in the past, and I would agree with you. But I really think those two key moments provided focal points around which the entire country coalesced, and gave momentum toward an armed struggle. That's how I saw it.

On to Jinnahpurgate or rather, Brig. Imtiaz-gate. Perhaps some of our readers might not be fully aware of the situation, so let me provide some details here. If you think I miss something important, please fill in the gaps, or correct me. I then want to make a comment about what this episode says about our political culture and our society writ large.

In the very recent past -- I would say two weeks -- a certain Brigadier Imtiaz (and Naseer Akhtar, no doubt) has fed a media frenzy with some interesting revelations. Brig. Imtiaz was a fairly key player in the military-intelligence establishment during the 1980s and early 1990s. He has made the following claims:

1. During the Zia era in the 1980s, the ISI used, shall we say, extrajudicial measures to clamp down on left-wing groups, trade unions, labor unions and other admittedly bit players in an anti-socialist/secular crusade. Torture, "disappearances" and even murder was common. These claims by Brig. Imtiaz surprise no one; we all knew this already.

2. During the end of Zia's era and the Benazir's first term, the ISI and the military used millions of publicly funded rupees to finance an anti-Benazir coalition, the IJI, of which Nawaz Sharif was the most recognizable symbol. When this campaign failed, and BB actually got elected, they did everything possible to undermine her government, and refused to let her get her hands on Afghan policy, Kashmir policy and nuclear weapons policy. These claims by Brig. Imtiaz surprise no one; we all knew this already.

3. In 1992, as a purported casus belli to launch a military operation against the MQM, the military-intelligence establishment claimed to have found maps of "Jinnahpur", meant to be a separate homeland for Mohajirs, at the headquarters and offices of the MQM. The idea was to demonstrate that the MQM was a treasonous party, wanted secession, and thus had to be dealt with by force -- which they eventually were, in operations where thousands of MQM activists and workers were killed in fake encounters. We are now told from the horse's mouth that there were no such maps, that they were fabricated by IB (another intelligence agency, dealing more with domestic matters), and, as usual, that it was all a load of crap designed only to malign the MQM. Moreover, the claim is made that then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif knew everything there was to know about these plans, and had no problems with them. These claims by Brig. Imtiaz surprise no one; we all knew this already.

Now, these revelations have to be taken with the context that Nawaz Sharif and the PML(N) are, today, very stridently pushing to try former President Musharraf for treason.

So...

The revelations, such as they are, are thought to be accomplishing the following:

1. Reminding people that Nawaz Sharif is no angel, that his role as champion of democracy and freedom and non-interference from the military is a very new one, and that he had no problems accepting money from the ISI to fight against Benazir's election campaign first, and her government second. Moreover, it is meant to show he had little compunction in using force to deal with political opponents domestically.

2. That there is a lot of dirty laundry within Pakistani politics, and if one man goes down for his crimes (Musharraf), there's plenty more where that came from. So those who are pushing for so-called accountability should be careful.

So the conventional wisdom is that this is all a ruse designed by Musharraf, sitting safely in England as we speak, and his minions to ward off the prospect of a trial. But as you point out, it's not the only theory. Your theory says that it is more about Zardari than Musharraf and domestic political alignments; I don't want to put words in your mouth, so maybe our readers will benefit from an explicit account of what you think is going on, and whether it's orchestrated from one actor or not.

I do want to make one general point though.

More than most places, Pakistan has struggled to come to terms with its past. I am not talking about admitting to war crimes (in East Pakistan in 1971) as a society like, say, the Germans have. I am not talking about specific episodes that drift in and out of the public consciousness like the ISI-backed IJI and the role Nawaz Sharif played. I am not talking about partition, and how the entire country is still divided on what Jinnah wanted for us (secularism or not, for example), or why partition happened in the first place (you'd be amazed at the extent to which the academic historical literature is divided on this question).

No, what I am referring to is the fact that we don't even agree on what happened. Most disagreements in the political sphere in other countries focus on what implications to draw from certain events. So after World War I, some Germans thought that being the most powerful country in Europe was a fool's errand, and that trying to accomplish it militarily was impossible, whereas other Germans thought the only mistake they made was giving up too soon, and that if the politicians hadn't betrayed the military, they would have succeeded (the first group was right, the second one ended up in power in the 1930s -- and we know how that turned out). But all Germans agreed they lost the war.

With us, it's completely different. We can't deal with our past because we don't have a common set of understandings from which respectful disagreements arise. Nawaz Sharif and his party have almost literally forgotten the late 1980s and early 1990s. The MQM simply pretends it's not a thuggish party and hasn't been responsible for hundreds of killings, extortion, bribery, and other assorted crimes in Karachi. The PPP actually thinks Benazir was liberal democracy personified. It's not a matter of differing opinions. It's a matter of different facts. Different histories. It's almost like we were subjected to 170 million different history books in school. Everyone's in their own world.

I don't know if I'm making sense. But this whole controversy has given me this sensation, which I've often felt in the past, that we as Pakistanis will go nowhere, and not learn from our past, until we actually agree on what the past actually was.

Cyril: I'd add more, but it's mostly there in Wednesday's leader in Dawn and I will be fleshing it out some more this Friday in my own piece.

About the operation against the MQM during the first Nawaz govt, I'd add there were at least two other big players involved: the president, GIK, and the army chief, Asif Nawaz.

It is enormously complex and messy and we can't be completely sure of what exactly happened on the basis of the current evidence in the public domain - which is precisely the problem you referred to: that we don't ever seem to know anything more than rudimentary facts, if that.

Frankly, in all this nonsense the one sensible (!) suggestion has been Altaf Husain's: form a truth and reconciliation committee and investigate the allegations - and all other controversies, I say.

There is so much that's happened between the various parties that until they sit down and bury some of the ghosts from the past they will never be a match for the establishment/undemocratic forces' divide-and-rule strategy.

Wrap your head around this: the MQM and PMLN are feuding over something that happened in the first Sharif term but they were in govt together again during his second term! And during the PPP's second term in the '90s the MQM was crushed even more violently than in the Sharif crackdown - and now those two parties are back in government together!

So clearly they can work with each other despite brutal histories, but what they can't seem to do is work with each other for more than few months (or a year or so at most) or eschew dirty tricks when not seeing eye-to-eye.

So, maybe if there is some national catharsis of sorts for these parties - a process that will show the world and each other that none of them have clean hands and how often they've been manipulated by the establishment for its own interests - they may learn to genuinely trust each other.

That doesn't mean they have to agree on policies and issues - we're not talking a post-politics phase - but it does mean they may learn to abide by the rules of the game of electoral politics conducted within a constitutional framework.

Will it definitely work? Who knows. But we've tried everything else - maybe it's time we try the warm-and-fuzzy option. We could be in for a pleasant, nay radical, surprise.

The dangers in not trying to change course is apparent today and in your question - AZ and NS potentially embarking on another bitter round of fighting that could dangerously destablise the system again, and all triggered by dragging up ghosts from the early '90s.

A truth and reconciliation process would at least deprive the politicians of some of the weapons they periodically use to inflict damage on each other and, inevitably, themselves.

Ahsan: One of the things that struck me during this whole imbroglio, which you alluded to, was that the MQM has been one of the most flexible parties in Pakistan's political history. They've been with and against every major political actor in the country at one time or another -- the PPP, the PMLN, the military. I don't think that true of any other major player. And as you say, it's quite funny (in a tragicomic sense of the term) that it was the PPP government in Benazir's second term that actually confronted them head-on and brought Karachi to a standstill, and it's the PPP's feudal politics that earn the MQM's greatest ire, and yet the political and cosmic forces have aligned such that it is the PMLN facing the MQM's umbrage right now, while the MQM sits happily in a quasi-alliance with the PPP.

Now that we're talking about them, I want to hear your thoughts on the MQM. I have never actually heard anyone not affiliated with the MQM say anything even remotely positive about the party. This is understandable on a number of levels -- the violence, the Don-ism of Altaf Hussain, the needless prickliness, and the ability to basically stop Karachi in its tracks if it chooses to.

But I find myself wondering if the MQM is not unfairly treated in the public discourse. The other day, I was having dinner with a bunch of Pakistanis I've recently started playing organized cricket with. They represent what I would say is a fairly wide swathe of the Pakistani population -- from electrical engineers to techies to people who grew up poor in the outskirts of Murree and are now driving cabs in Chicago. The subject of the MQM came up, and I chose to tread carefully given my experiences discussing them in the past. The basic argument that was proffered, collectively, was that the MQM would never win any votes if it weren't for its violence and extortion.

As a student of politics, I find that desperately hard to believe. If parties only needed violence to win seats, then (a) everyone would be that violent, and (b) relatively peaceful parties would cease to exist. Clearly this is not the case. My opinion was that while the MQM has been historically violent, it has also been wronged by the state a number of times and that its organizational structure and its ability to respond to its constitutents in a timely and effective manner lead to its dominance in urban Sindh's electoral politics. I was met with guffaws.

My point is not necessarily to debate the merits and demerits of the MQM. Rather, I am interested in why the MQM doesn't actually divide opinion -- everyone agrees on its putative dastardliness. How, or why, is there such a one-sided picture of that party? To be clear, I've never voted for them, and I abhor their violence and thuggery. But surely there is more to the story? Why, more than other political entities in Pakistan, can people not recognize that about them?

Cyril: The MQM is a complex political animal.

It's genesis, conventional wisdom has it, lies in the bid by the security establishment to break the hold of the PPP in urban Sindh at least. True perhaps to an extent, but that doesn't tell you much about a party nearly 30 years on.

After all, Sharif was similarly nurtured by the army in the '80s, but look who he wants hanged today and at his troubles with earlier army chiefs in the '90s.

I'm told that people as eminent as Arif Hassan believed in the '90s that the MQM represented an urban political revolution - a positive revolution - led by second- and third-generation immigrants who were finally organising a growing middle class in urban Sindh.

Of course, history has turned out quite differently - though I'd argue that the party has two faces (real to a degree but often caricatureised/exaggerated): the thuggish, mafia-esque side and the cleaner, post-90s more acceptable political face.

One thing that does irk me about the party is its aggravated sense of victimhood. The MQM is always the sufferer in the imagination of its leaders. It is congenitally disliked by the establishment, it has enemies everywhere out to destroy it and it must constantly fend off threats of all sorts to its position.

True perhaps, but what you going to do about it? Nobody likes a whiner.

Recognise also the reality of the extent to which the party has consolidated its hold over Karachi and built up a formidable arsenal (real and metaphorical) over the last decade under Musharraf. It's preposterous. Forget victimhood, the MQM should be strutting like a peacock and have the swagger of a man who knows he's untouchable.

Though, in response to your cricketing friends' claims, I'd say it's a stretch to claim the MQM would not win a single seat - or vote - even if it had a 'cleaner' way of doing politics.

There were certainly questions about the way, say, Farooq Sattar won his seat in February 2008, but there were other seats won that were no-brainers.

And say what you will (though certainly not that tripe about fighting the impending 'Talibanisation' of Karachi), the MQM has secular credentials, or impulses at the very least.

Ahsan: I've always been endlessly fascinated by the MQM. Maybe this is because I grew up in Karachi in the 1990s, but they've always been super interesting to me. The internal contradictions (a highly decentralized and meritocratic party led by a man who has few living enemies), the political agendas (an intensely aggressive, some would say fascistic, secular and ethnic identity), the violence, the dalliances and distances with the military, the restriction to urban Sindh despite a model of politics that can easily be replicated elsewhere -- they're just a really interesting case study on so many levels.

I would agree that the victimhood thing is uber-annoying. I referred to it as needless prickliness in my email but I think the term "martyr complex" does a better job. Incidentally, they're hardly alone in this respect. I just finished reading Steve Coll's excellent book on South Asia from the early 90s, called On the Grand Trunk Road, and he devotes considerable space to both Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto seeing enemies everywhere, seeing half-baked conspiracies behind every closed door -- basically everything you just ascribed to the MQM in your email. If you haven't already read the book, I highly recommend it. And he's such a brilliant and engaging writer too.

I had a chance to read the editorial you wrote on the Brig. Imtiaz/PPP-PML(N) breakdown. I had a couple of questions to ask you about it, but then I decided against it given you'll probably deal with it in greater detail in your Friday column.

So let me ask a couple of personal questions before we wrap this up. Where do you see yourself going in the next ten years? Are you going to go the Ahmed Rashid route (write an investigative book, make a name for yourself in a particular field, and then make gazillions in talks and lectures on the think tank, university and DC circuit)? Are you going to go the Mohammad Hanif route (drift in and out of retirement, write a novel, chill with your kids)? Or, perhaps most entertainingly, are you going to go the Husain Haqqani route (make the right political friends, say the right things, end up in the right capitals of the world)?

Cyril: Ahmed Rashid - I'm not a reporter, so unlikely.

Hanif - I wouldn't know where to begin writing fiction. One of my more shameful secrets is that I know next to nothing about fiction - including his book, which I have yet to finish. He's too decent a chap to ever ask, so I've lost the fear of having to admit as much to him.

HH - bless the good ambassador (one of the lesser known things about the man is that he's a tireless worker) but I don't have, shall we say, his chameleon-like qualities or the ability to re-invent myself every few years.

Ten years from now? I'll settle for reasons to be less sceptical of this place, the direction it is headed in and the people who are trying to run it.

More likely though? Nursing a glass of regret.

Ahsan: Hahaha. On that entirely depressing note, let me thank you on behalf of our readers for your time. Keep writing your excellent columns and providing a clear-eyed view of our nutty country.

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Cyril's columns come out every Friday in Dawn. His columns are conveniently archived on his website linked above.

For those interested, I had one of these public conversations a while ago with Mosharraf Zaidi, another op-ed columnist for a major national daily. Here's part one of that exchange and here's part two.

Poll Post

You can comment on this week's poll here, if you so desire. And yes, it was deliberately designed to be the complete opposite of the Facebook quiz.

Bad Journalism Has Big Consequences

I have a piece up over at the Afghanistan-Pakistan channel on Foreign Policy's website. Here's a snippet:

A report published on Time.com is titled "Pakistan's Noncampaign Against the Taliban," which is a title quite curious in its own right, given the recent four-month military campaign against the Taliban which succeeded in routing the entrenched presence of the Taliban from Swat and the rest of the Malakand division, removed the Taliban threat from the major urban centers of Pakistan's north and north west (at least for now), provided the security necessary for the return of more than a million internal refugees to their homes, and boxed the Taliban back into the Waziristan corridor from which they had spread over the last four years.

The report fails to provide this context in the least; indeed, an uninformed observer reading the piece would conclude that the first strike in this conflict was from the American drone that about a month ago killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Though few doubt that significant work remains to be done in this war, the suggestion that what the Taliban have been dealing with is a 'noncampaign' is simply erroneous.

The report itself is scarcely better than the title. The basic argument proffered in the piece is that Pakistani decision-makers do not wish to fight the Taliban any further because the militant group remains a useful pawn for both external and internal considerations.

Externally, some elements of the Taliban could be used to impose Pakistani influence in post-NATO Afghanistan. Internally, according to Bruce Riedel, whom Time quoted, the Taliban could prove to be useful "to keep civilians appreciative of the need for the army to be getting resources and priority attention." Instead of capitalizing on Baitullah Mehsud's death and fighting the Taliban, we are told, the Pakistan military would like to cut deals with the Taliban, essentially suing for peace from a position of strength only to serve parochial interests, at the cost of Pakistani -- and perhaps American -- security interests.

There are a number of problems with this view. The most obvious one is that the reason for the Pakistan military not going gung-ho in North and South Waziristan is most likely a problem of capabilities, not intentions. In other words, it is not that the Pakistan military does not want to fight a war in Waziristan, it is that it cannot fight a war in Waziristan, at least right now. The last time the military went into Waziristan was in 2004, when it was defeated badly, suffered substantial losses, and accomplished precious little.

Go read the whole thing.

17 Year Old Pakistanis Play The Guitar To Get Laid. Period.

I don't really know what to make of Declan Walsh, he can write some insightful pieces on Pakistan for the Guardian but then occasionally he'll give us an article like:

Never mind the Taliban – Pakistan's youth put their faith in rock'n'roll

Mr. Walsh, who has been reporting from Pakistan for some time now, is well aware of the intricacies and contradictions present in Pakistani society, therefore I'm rather surprised by his proclamation that a couple of underground concerts illustrate a larger social trend. They don't.

I don't care what people say but Pakistani youth don't put their faith in rock'n'roll, they put their faith in cricket. And even if they did put their faith in music it would be pop and not rock. This is not to say that Mr. Walsh is wrong to be impressed by underground Pakitani rockers, there are plenty of good Pakistani rock bands, some of whom aren't even that underground, but they simply cannot compete with the likes of Abrar, Atif Aslam and Strings (please, they're not a rock band). Seriously, I would bet on Abrar-ul-Haq leading a revolution over the likes of co-VEN any day.

Pakistan has had two music revolutions in the past two decades: The first occured when the likes of Vital Signs, Fringe Benefits, and Sequencers brought us their cheesy songs about women accompanied by dancing that would make Cliff Richard proud. The second music revolution occurred with the launch of Pepsi's Battle of the Bands which brought a new breed of musicians into the limelight and was soon followed by the launch of Indus Music (or did Indus Music come before?).

Its interesting to note that Rohail Hayat ,the man behind Coke Studio -- the show Declan Walsh highlights as a catalyst for the latest music revolution -- was actively involved in both Vital Signs and Pepsi's Top of the Pops. But there's something missing this time around.

The musicians of the early 90's were part of a larger cultural revolution that occurred after Zia's death; it was okay to have fun again. The rise of Aaroh, Fuzon, and Strings (re-dux) too highlighted a broader change resulting from the growth in size and comparative affluence of the urban middle class.

There is absolutely nothing that has changed socially or economically that would indicate that somehow the underground rock musicians are part of a greater revolution. If there is a social change occurring then it is in the form of hightened paranoia and increased penchant for conspiracy theories. The latter has reached epic proportions, and it is more than likely that at any social event you will find seemingly intelligent people debating which is better between Zeitgeist or The Arrivals, two utterly rubbish mockumentaries. And if this wasn't enough, we have rock legend Ali Azmat doing a program with Zaid Hamid, Ali Azmat's always been ahead of the curve when it comes to popular trends and if he's doing a show with the devil, you know which way we're headed. Here's a clip for your viewing pleasure:



The article ends with a simple but seemingly profound quote from 17 year-old Daniel Khwaja who says "It's kinda cool doing stuff you love." What utter bullshit! Danyal Khwaja, like all floppy haired 17 year-olds, plays the guitar to look cool so that he can achieve his (current) primary goal in life - getting laid. There's nothing more to it.

Link: An interesting article by Nadeem F Paracha charts the socio-political history of pop music in Pakistan.

Correction: An earlier version of the post had incorrectly mentioned Pepsi's Top of the Pops when the intention was to mention Battle of the Bands. (Thank you Karachi Khatmal for helping me remember the correct name.)

The Government Of Pakistan Has A Ministry Of Women Development But No Minister Of Women Development

Couple of points.

First, please note that that our government's ministry is not the ministry of women's development, but the ministry of women development. I don't even have a joke for this one.

Second, please note the following from the ministry's "About" webpage:

Now, it's not unusual for political appointments to be unfilled for a while. But I think this government is really stretching the definition of "a while". Plus, it's the goddamn minister, and not some second or third tier bureaucrat we're talking about here.

Good times.

(link via Maila Times)

Quick Thoughts On The Champions League Draw

Here's how the teams were drawn up:

Group A: Bayern Munich, Juventus, Bordeaux , Maccabi Haifa

Group B: Manchester United, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, Wolfsburg

Group C: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, FC Zurich

Group D: Chelsea, Porto, Atletico Madrid, Apoel FC

Group E: Liverpool, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debreceni

Group F: Barcelona, Internazionale, Dynamo Kiev, FC Rubin Kazan

Group G: Sevilla, Rangers, VfB Stuttgart, Unirea Uriziceni

Group H: Arsenal, AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos, Standard Liege

United, Sevilla and Arsenal are guaranteed top seeds. Getting the top seed in your group is crucial, because it means you avoid the top seed from another group in the round of 16. It can mean the difference between playing a team like Chelsea vs. playing a team like Atletico. Barring hiccups, Barca, Liverpool and Chelsea should also be top seeds, but it's not a sure thing. We shall see.

As a Barca fan, I'm not thrilled about having to get four points off Mourinho's Inter, and I'm certainly not thrilled about the prospect of facing up a fired Samuel Eto'o -- the guy really likes sticking it to his old teams. Plus, if there are two countries you don't want to go to in the dead of the winter, it's Russia and Ukraine. Actually, all things considered, Barca have a pretty tough group. And as some commenters on other blogs have already mentioned, it's the only group in which all four teams won their domestic leagues last year.

Group A should be fun, especially if Robben ends up at Bayern as he is rumored to. But I'm most looking forward to the Group C clashes between Real and Milan. So many storylines: can Ronaldinho recreate his magic at the Bernabeu similar to three years ago, when he scored twice in a 3-0 win? What about Kaka's reception back at the San Siro? You think Gattuso might have a tackle or two in store for him? It should be fun.

Group D is obviously the hardest group. As always in so-called groups of death, it'll be the result against the minor team (what the hell is Apoel FC?) that makes the difference in the end. A draw at home or a loss away might spell disaster. And each of the three majorish teams have different styles, so it'll be captivating viewing for sure.

15th and 16th September is when it all gets started. Is there anything better than the Champions League?

A.Q. Khan Plagiarizing Op-Ed Pieces After Lifetime Of Stealing And Selling Nuclear Secrets

Well, then.

I don't have much to say in this post, except to thank reader Wasay for sending me a brilliant letter published in The News, and to especially thank a Mr. Fahad Rafique Dogar for writing it. Here it is, in its entirety.

This is with reference to Dr A Q Khan's column "Science of computers: part I" which appeared in your pages on Aug 19.

1. Dr Khan writes: "The computer is an essential part of 21st century life. Computer science is a fast-moving subject that gives rise to a range of interesting and often challenging problems. The implementation of today's complex computer systems requires the skills of a knowledgeable and versatile computer scientist. Artificial intelligence -- the study of intelligent behaviour -- is having an increasing reference on computer system design. Distributed systems, networks and the internet are now central to the study of computing, presenting both technical and social challenges."

Now compare this to the first paragraph of Undergraduate Prospectus 2009, University of Sussex(www.sussex.ac.uk/units/publications/ugrad2009/subjects/computing): [Note from Ahsan: the provided link is broken, this is the correct one]

"Computing is an essential part of 21st-century life, and is an exceptionally fast-moving subject that gives rise to a range of interesting and challenging problems. The implementation of today's complex computing systems, networks and multimedia systems requires the skills of knowledgeable and versatile computer scientists. Computer networks and the internet are now central to the study of computing and information technology, presenting both technical and social challenges. Artificial intelligence (AI) -- the study of intelligent behaviour -- is having an increasing influence on computer system design."

2. Dr Khan writes: "How do we understand, reason, plan, cooperate, converse, read and communicate? What are the roles of language and logic? What is the structure of the brain? How does vision work? These are all questions as fundamental as the sub-atomic structure of matter. These are also questions where the science of computing plays an important role in our attempts to provide answers. The computer scientist can expect to come face-to-face with problems of great depth and complexity and, together with scientists, engineers and experts in other fields, may help to solve them. Computing is not just about the big questions; it is also about engineering-making things work. Computing is unique in offering both the challenge of science and the satisfaction of engineering."

Now compare this to the first paragraph of Imperial College London website (www3.imperial.ac.uk/engineering/teaching/exploringengineering/computing): "How do we understand, reason, plan, cooperate, converse, read and communicate? What are the roles of language and logic? What is the structure of the brain? How does vision work? These are questions as fundamental, in their own way, as questions about the sub-atomic structure of matter. They are also questions where the science of computing plays an important role in our attempts to provide answers. The computer scientist can expect to come face-to-face with problems of great depth and complexity and, together with scientists, engineers and experts in other fields, may help to disentangle them. But computing is not just about the big questions it is also about engineering-making things work. Computing is unique in offering both the challenge of a science and the satisfaction of engineering."

3. Furthermore, Dr Khan writes: "Computer science is an inter-disciplinary subject. It is firmly rooted in engineering and mathematics, with links to linguistics, psychology and other fields. Computer science is concerned with constructing hardware and software systems, digital electronics, compiler design, programming languages, operation systems, networks and graphics. Theoretical computer science addresses fundamental issues: the motion of computable function, proving the correctness of hardware and software and the theory of communicating system.

Again the University of Cambridge website (www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/compsci) contains the following text: (First paragraph) "Computer science is interdisciplinary. It is firmly rooted in engineering and mathematics, with links to linguistics, psychology and other fields. [...] (Second paragraph) Practical computer science is concerned with constructing hardware and software systems: digital electronics, compiler design, programming languages, operating systems, networks and graphics. Theoretical computer science addresses fundamental issues: the notion of computable function, proving the correctness of hardware and software, the theory of communicating systems."

4. The second half of Dr Khan's article (paragraph 7 onwards) can be found in ACM's Computing Curricula 2009. Although he credits ACM but [sic] doesn't clarify that he is directly copying sentences from a document. Also, in the beginning of his piece he does acknowledge one of his former colleagues, an Engineer Nasim Khan, for input for the article; however, it is not clear whether this input is the reason for the apparent plagiarism.

Fahad Rafique Dogar

PhD student, Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA, US

Just a couple of quick points. Please email this post or the letter itself to everyone you know. The people who deify A.Q. Khan may never be convinced that the man is not a national "hero" or the father of anything other than his children, but it is important to show reasonable people that the man is a crook in every sense of the word. Moreover, he is an extremely stupid and lazy crook -- if you're going to cheat and steal other people's words, at least make it from less well-known resources than the front pages of major universities' departmental homepages.

Second, I really wish Rs.5 was big enough to have its own t-shirts and merchandise. I would promptly be sending some to Mr. Dogar if it were the case; sadly this shout-out will have to suffice as an expression of our gratitude.
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For those interested, I had a short post a while ago on Dr. A.Q. Khan's brilliant personal website.

The Hullabaloo Over The "Minus One Formula"

Pakistanis love conspiracies and rumors, like to disregard facts on the ground, and absolutely hate trusting the democratic process. Through the confluence of these factors rises the entirely strange and bizarre spectacle of the "minus-one formula", a belief that is neither a formula nor limited to minusing one. Let me explain.

In a manner so sudden that it must be orchestrated, the question of Asif Zardari's future as president of Pakistan has become the most-discussed political issue of the day. Rumors have been swirling in Islamabad and within media organizations across the country that a "minus one formula" is about to be inculcated, and that in an action half way between a coup de grace and a coup d'etat, the "establishment" is in the process of ensuring Zardari's removal from power. Nobody, least of all me, knows where these rumors came from. Nobody knows who exactly is supposed to deliver the final blow. And nobody knows who the relevant actors are, ostensibly pulling strings behind the scenes: the military? Renegade PPPers? Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N? Some combination of all them?

Frankly, I don't care. It is irrelevant. And while it remains speculation at this point, it is disturbing enough. As someone unused to defending Asif Zardari, let me make a few points.

First, Asif Zardari is the constitutionally elected president of Pakistan. There was nothing illegal about his rise to power, nothing untoward, nothing fishy, no rigged elections, no intimidation of voters, no ballot-stuffing, no acts of violence against rivals. It was a free and fair election. The PPP got the largest share of the vote. By the way the system is organized, they got to nominate a Prime Minister and a President. They nominated Yousuf Raza Gillani and Asif Ali Zardari respectively. This is the very simple story of Zardari's ascension to the office of president.

Do all Pakistanis like this fact? No -- page 43 of this report makes that clear. But this does not matter. There is a right way and a wrong way to express dissatisfaction with President Zardari's performance. The right way is to vote out his party when the time comes. The wrong way is to force him out unconstitutionally before the time comes. Pakistan has suffered enough of the latter. If Zardari is removed from power by any means other than a national parliamentary election, it would spell yet another blow against sustained democracy in the country.

As a general rule, Pakistanis are notoriously impatient with their rulers. Within a few months or years, they yearn for the leadership to change, procedural niceties be damned. This is a deeply damaging and problematic political ethos. A populace cannot complain about military takeovers and "dictatorship", come out on the street to fight to insert civilian rule, and then promptly abandon principles when the results are not to their liking. The very point of democracy is that it affords a guaranteed, mechanized and systematic way of removing leaders that the public is against -- it is not a guarantee of good governance or concerns about the common man. It is time the Pakistani people understand this distinction. Voice your displeasure all you want, but supporting non-democratic machinations to removing democratically elected leaders is a red line no one should cross. There is a time and a place for that -- called "elections" and "the voting booth" respectively.

Second, and related to this point, it is time for Pakistan's civil society and political parties to band together and flatly reject the notion of this "minus-one" nonsense. The silence from Nawaz Sharif, champion of democracy and freedom and liberalism, is deafening. This has been a long-standing Pakistani tradition: whenever civilian leaders look to be vulnerable to undemocratic removal, political opponents look to reap the rewards instead of speaking up for the democratic process. Though it would not surprise the more cynical amongst us for this trend to continue, it would be nice if Pakistani political parties unequivocally and loudly dismiss the possibility of "minus one".

Third, it should be emphasized that the actual functional process of "minus one" is unworkable. As Cyril Almeida argued in an excellent column last week, the options for removing Zardari from power -- the judiciary/NRO, an internal PPP revolt, impeaching him in parliament, the Americans or the Army making a move to a song rehearsed time and again -- are either logistically unworkable or extremely unlikely given the socio-political situation in Pakistan. You never say never in this wild country of ours, but it would require a curious set of circumstances to actually bring this about. In December of last year, I made the point that people often confuse a government's weakness for a state's vulnerability. Just because Pakistan is in a dicey position does not mean its leaders are. Zardari is, at present, perhaps the most impregnably positioned civilian leader in Pakistan since his father-in-law. It would take some doing for him to be forced out.

Fourth, it bears emphasizing that nobody knows anything about the origins of "minus one". I treat most claims from public officials in Pakistan with a degree of skepticism, and this goes doubly for a PPP that claims to be an anti-establishment party. The politics of paranoia, victimhood, and personal persecution have been practiced by the PPP every time it has been in power -- under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, under both of Benazir's terms and now.

It could certainly be the case that there is a set of masked and nefarious actors in the background -- the "establishment" -- working to destabilize the PPP and its government, as all its leaders seem to be claiming. It wouldn't be the first time that democratically elected governments or their leaders have fallen prey to "conspiracies". But it could also be the case that these conspiracies exist nowhere other than their heads, and as most South Asian leaders are wont to do, are imagining their rivals as being up to all sorts of shenanigans when in fact nothing is actually happening on the ground. While I am more likely to believe the former story -- as I said in the beginning of this post, the fact that these stories kicked up so quickly and simultaneously is too much of a coincidence -- I am not prepared to dismiss the latter out of hand. In Pakistan, as ever, the truth remains elusive, primarily because politics here is almost by nature a backroom affair.

Fifth and finally, while I do not support this minus-one nonsense, I do support the blunting of the president's powers. Pakistan's current political system is the bastard child of a parliamentary system on the one hand, and ad-hoc measures to aggregate power in the office of the head of the state on the other. It is time to do away with this needless confusion. The country's political system was envisaged to be a parliamentary one, with the Prime Minister the head of the government and the President -- if one existed -- solely acting as a titular and symbolic head of state.

President Zardari can fulfill a great service to the country, as well as carry out his campaign promises, by getting rid of the infamous Article 58 2 (b) of the constitution, that allows the President to dissolve parliament at a moment's discretion. Editorials in Dawn as well as The News have both argued for this position too -- that the President should stay, but take the brave step of giving up this ridiculous and anachronistic power. While it would be unwise to hold one's breath on this front, one can hope that the constitutionalists amongst the PPP pressure Zardari to take this bold and much-needed step.

Breaking News: Sen. Edward Kennedy Dies

A fantastic public servant finally succumbs to brain cancer. I'm not going to be tasteless by wondering what this means for the one issue he had an overriding concern for throughout his career: health care. That's an issue for another time and another place. For now, let us just say that the U.S. government is poorer without him.

Here he is pictured with two of his brothers, John and Robert, both assassinated in the 1960s.

Photo credit: ABC News.

Guest Post: Still Work To Do In The Taliban War

Takhalus is a writer based in England who is well informed on the northern areas and the war against the Taliban. He has been kind enough to share his thoughts with Five Rupees in the following guest post.

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Watching current affairs shows or reading the latest news online you’d be forgiven for thinking, things are going well for the military operation in Swat. The militants have largely been routed from their key strongholds, the main roads are open, the IDP’s are returning in large numbers and the government estimates that over 1500 militants have been killed.

However as anyone who knows a thing about counter insurgency warfare, the key is winning the peace and preventing the insurgents from re-establishing themselves.

One has to consider the initial army estimates of the militants strength being around five to six thousand. So even if army figures on Taliban casualties are to be believed that leaves three to four thousand militants on the loose. One theory doing the rounds is that the “military establishment” has decided to go easy on finishing Fazlullah because he maybe a useful asset at some stage. Whatever the case the militants are trying to regroup and establish a new base.

Now all it takes is a map and a careful reading of the papers to see where they may target next, one obvious target is Shangla district. Poor (the second poorest district in Pakistan after Dera Bugti) and mountainous Shangla briefly fell to the Taliban back in 2007. They lost control fairly early during the army operation and the Taliban never really were able to establish a significant presence. Things have changed now, while the army seems focussed on Swat, the Taliban have started to target local leaders in a move similar to their takeover of Swat.

It’s not difficult to imagine why this hasn’t been in the news, Shangla has historically been ignored by policy makers in Peshawar and Islamabad. It doesn’t attract tourists like Swat does and during winter it is cut off from the rest of Pakistan. What it does have is easy access to the Hazara division of NWFP, an area which has largely been unaffected by the wave of attacks that hit the province, as well as access to Pakistan’s main road connection to Northern Areas.

If that wasn’t enough, things aren’t looking so rosy in Swat either, this article by Rahimullah Yousafzai on extra judicial killings in Swat is disturbing. He starts off by implying that the killings are the acts of returning IDP's

"According to a count, 102 bodies have been recovered since July 13, when the first group of internally displaced persons (IDPs), started returning to their homes in Swat, Buner and Dir districts from relief camps and temporary residences in Mardan, Swabi, Charsadda, Nowshera and Peshawar districts."

And he adds this bit...

"The widely held belief is that a sizeable number of militants are in the custody of the security forces and law-enforcement agencies, and none has been formally charged or produced in any court."

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (do gooders that they are) have also come out and openly criticised security forces for their involvement in these killings:

"Amir Izzat, spokesperson for the Swat militants, was arrested from Amandara. Two days later the authorities claimed that Izzat was killed allegedly by militants trying to rescue him when they attacked the vehicle taking him to jail. Independent journalists claim that the targeted vehicle shown to them did not even have an engine. The most harrowing reports were of dead bodies strewn upside down by the military with notes attached to the bodies warning that anyone supporting the Taliban will meet the same fate."

Does that last bit sound familiar? It should be -- it’s the same tactic that the Taliban used to use to intimidate their opponents.

Obviously security forces have historically been involved in things like this for sometime now, as any MQM supporter living in the 1990's can confirm. The difference between Karachi and Swat is just that in Swati tribal society with it's pre-existing blood feuds. An eye for an eye is a recipe for anarchy and a far worse breakdown in law and order.

So what are the options? One option is a permanent military presence through the establishment of military cantonments, an idea which surprisingly has earned the support of the Awami National Party and would prevent the establishment of new sanctuaries as well as cutting supply lines. The next is development and empowering locals to police these areas through lashkars or community police. Finally you need a concerted programme of development in those areas, something which has not happened.

While I believe the Army can defeat the Taliban and prevent the formation of new sanctuaries, I feel its interest in the operation is waning as fast as the public is losing interest. Ultimately though, to win this battle some real moves towards reconciling Swati society have to be taken and that can’t happen without real political will.

PIA: Where A Loss Of Rs.5.4 Billion Over Six Months Counts As Good News

That, my friends, is my suggestion for PIA's new slogan since "Great People to Fly With" has run its course, as has the consumer favorite ("Perhaps I'll Arrive"). Now, I'm hoping that I'm not treading on Mosharraf Zaidi's territory here, since he has in the past laid claim to being aghast over PIA's ineptitude (a google search of "PIA site:mosharrafzaidi.com" returns 74 results, which itself is quite a story for a weekly columnist who only started writing last year). But I can't resist, so forgive me, Mosh.

Today's Dawn is reporting that the airline lost a whopping Rs.5.4 billion in the first six months of this year. Moreover, the report is filed in the same sort of tone that a parent adopts when their athletically challenged child finishes last in a school race -- "now, now, beta, at least you finished ahead of, uh...well, um, the point is you tried." Honestly, go read the report. You really get the feeling that the reporter or Dawn's editors are actually happy about this outcome.

Thankfully, regular reader Wasay sent me their annual financial report from last year (i.e. before the "encouraging" five and a half billion rupee loss). It makes for highly entertaining reading. Before we get to the hard data, let me show you a couple of pictures.


That's the first page of their annual report. No, seriously. Because if there's one thing I think when I think of PIA, it's "the budding era of growth." Wait, there's more.


I'd make some lame joke about how you have a better shot of getting where you need to go on a bloody air balloon than a PIA flight, but I'll spare you. Please continue to note the soaring rhetoric.


Ideology? They do know this is a financial statement for a business, not a manifesto for a new political party, right? What, exactly, is PIA's ideology? Do they even know what the word "ideology" means? Let's move on.


Alright, enough with the pictures. I don't know if I'm ready to crunch some numbers, but I am pumped up as hell. LET'S DO THIS! YEAHHH!

So if you go to pgs 58-65 of the report, you will notice the following things that Wasay pointed out for me:

1. In 2008, PIA reported a loss of about Rs.35 billion. Read that number again.
2. in 2008, PIA had about 18,000 employees.
3. According to Hina Rabbani Khar, Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, only 2.5 million Pakistani pay taxes.

Using basic arithmetic, we can arrive at the following conclusions:

1. Each Pakistani taxpayer basically paid Rs. 14000 to the government to finance PIA's losses. As Wasay said, think about how many schools and hospitals you could build if each Pakistani taxpayer paid that much money for, um, schools and hospitals.

2. We could save ourselves a whole hell of a lot of trouble if the government simply gave each PIA employee a check for Rs. 2 million at the beginning of the year, and told them to stay home. The financial bottom line would stay essentially the same. Think about that.

We could even cut the middleman (the government) out by having groups of 142 taxpayers each pay their Rs.14000 share straight to a PIA employee of their choice, and we could all call it a day.

All jokes aside, this is a truly sordid state of affairs. And this is not some deep-rooted, nigh-on unsolvable problem like the Taliban war or anything. The solution is simple: STOP GIVING MONEY TO PIA! For God's sake, stop giving money to PIA. Please.

Anyway, I thought the cast of characters atop the airline also presented a fairly interesting picture. For instance, the chairman of PIA, Mr. Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, is said by the report to be the "perfect blend of a businessman and a politician", which naturally leads one to wonder why PIA couldn't just be handed over to the perfect businessman instead. The report also tells us that the Managing Director, Captain Mohammad Aijaz Haroon, "hails from the famous Memon community known for its business acumen in Pakistan." I wish I was making this stuff up.

Then there's Lt. Gen (Retd) Syed Athar Ali, who is a director on PIA's board and whose qualifications are impressive for a war strategist but not so impressive for someone in charge of turning an airline around. This is his full mini-profile:

Lt. Gen (Retd) Syed Athar Ali is a nominated director since November, 2008. He holds Masters Degrees in War Studies from National Defence University and International Relations from Columbia University, USA. He is presently Federal Secretary Defence. He held various command, staff and instructional appointments which include representation of Pakistan on UN Peace-Keeping Mission in Sierra Leone in the dual capacity of Deputy Force Commander and Chief Military Observer for more than two years. Lt. Gen. Ali is a recipient of Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military).

Now, someone has to explain two things to me. First, if PIA is ok with losing 35 billion rupees, how about make it 35 billion and 500 hundred, and hire someone who can actually write grammatically correct English to write this nonsense? Second, is there anything in that profile that suggests this man is a director of PIA for any reason other than the fact he is, or knows someone, important? When people complain about bureaucrats and ex-military generals and colonels dominating civil society, this is what they mean.

I don't even want to imagine what each director makes as a monthly salary, but I have to imagine its at least a million (10 lakhs) a month. At least. And since this man, according to the report itself, is currently Federal Secretary Defence, can anyone proffer a guess how many times he actually showed up to work? The man has another job, for the love of God -- one that he is infinitely more qualified for, I might add.

So there you go. The Pakistani taxpayers are financing an airline that loses money better than it flies planes, financing cushy jobs for cronies and bureaucrats and retired military men, and financing the ludicrous continuation of this failed enterprise.

Can anyone tell me why?

Links For Thursday

Damn, it's been a long time since I had a links post. Let's jump right into it.

I don't know if this is a good measure of the validity of the Afghan election, but Britney Spears is voting in it. According to records.

Did you know that women cry for 16 months of their lives? The rumors that it would actually be a round fifteen if Titanic had never been released are, sadly, untrue.

I don't know if this video is based on truth or fiction, but either way, it's bloody hilarious. I'm inclined to believe the story is untrue because I refuse to believe anyone can voluntarily go two weeks without checking email.

Mark Cuban has a brilliant post pillorying some poor sod who had the audacity to email him with a bad business plan.

I don't know what Niall Ferguson is thinking. So I definitely have one thing in common with Paul Krugman and James Fallows. One of the sillier e-controversies around, but then again, wouldn't the internet collapse under its own weight without silliness to hold it up?

Stephen Walt criticizes Obama for arguing that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is crucial for its security because, in Obama's words, denying al-Qaeda a safe haven is a worthy cause to for a war. For two dissenting views directly attacking Walt's views, go here and here. Yglesias jumps in too.

A super informative post by Arif on where the war against the Taliban stands right now. The synopsis is: like everything else, practice makes you better. Pakistan has been fighting this war for over five years now. It appears that the military is finally making headway.

The Guardian is reporting that Cesc Fabregas is set to become a "pawn" in next year's election for Barcelona president. Honestly, this is one of the more unseemly aspects of the game in Spain. Elections are great, but when candidates start promising certain players or certain things -- I don't know, it doesn't seem right. If you get the guy you promised, it still looks unseemly. If you don't get the guy you promised, you look really stupid, as does the club. Anyway, this may well be much ado about nothing; I can't see Cesc not coming to Barca next summer, at the latest. It's time.

What. The. Fuck? Next month's "Entertainment Weekly" will feature a video ad in the magazine. Read that again.

If you ever need proof that Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry has no actual problems, please read this story. I'd try to summarize it, but honestly, I don't have the heart. Just please read it. I'd take the ISI over those idiots any day.

Amit Varma wishes that a hue and cry was raised every time the immigration staff at US airports treat brown people disrespectfully, not just when celebrities are treated disrespectfully. Hear, hear. This Shahrukh Khan story has been super interesting in one way -- I've had a very wide range of people ask me for my opinion on this: from Jewish political theorists at Chicago to middle aged women in the W's family. Seriously. And please check out the Daily Show's segment on this. I never thought I'd hear the word "madarchod" on American television, but there you go:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Shah Rukh Khan Detained at Newark
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Finally, kudos to the Obama administration for meeting with and talking to all the stakeholders in Pakistani politics -- including the religious parties. Also, the last two sentences of the story I just linked to made me laugh out loud.