Award mafias bringing disrepute to Pakistan

LONDON: A new cheap trend is sweeping through Britain’s Pakistani communities, involving degraded, third class and phoney award ceremonies – in the name of Pakistan and Islam.
Various Pakistani community, cultural, political, and religious organisations across Britain are involved in this fast-spreading infectious scam that involves making money and winning favours through the so-called awards ceremonies, held at the Houses of Parliament, questionable hotel rooms, tatty restaurant basements, spare sitting rooms, community halls and sometimes, probably most frighteningly at 5-star hotels.
Many people involved in such money business are doing it to promote their own vested interests and to bring credibility to themselves, that many of the people involved badly lack.
The awards which are designed to be received and given on genuine merit have become an embodiment for hollow celebration and a mockery of the achievements of the community. That very credible effort is now under attack from insincere impostors notoriously known in community circles as ‘Awards Mafia’.
A demonstration of how meaningless and pathetic these awards have become was observed at a recent awards ceremony just outside of London where close to 100 awards were given to everyone and anyone who happened to be in that ceremony, held in the name of Pakistani community.
Some journalists and community members who were not on the ‘awards recipient’ list threatened to walk out of the ceremony and even went to the extent of disrupting the whole show if they were not awarded or seated rightly. The crowing journalists and community leaders settled to a civilised behaviour after being promised by the awards organisers that they will be given awards.
Most of the awards round the year are given or forced upon members of the community in the name of “achievements” made by Pakistanis. Ironically, it’s not the community heroes from every walk of life, men and women who deserve this recognition, who are given these awards but the ones who are recipients of these awards include the people who pay for these awards, in cash or kind.
This is a commercial scam of the kind where names of top British and Pakistani ministers and showbiz personalities are announced as the top bills but none of them turns up at the awards ceremonies. As a result those who turn up for the public figures are subjected to speeches by the same men and women who were present at the awards ceremony at the Joe’s place, Patel’s clinic or Khan’s restaurant.
The second category of awards is “business” awards. These awards are given out on yearly basis by hordes of Asian organisations - mainly Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi organisations – to key business figures. Purely commercial in nature, top businessmen pay hefty amounts to the award organisers to ‘win’ the awards, which are clearly precluded based on the size of the cheque received.
The third category is of “religious” awards. These awards are organised by the religious organisations, Islamic charities and mosque committees. The beneficiaries of these awards include the people who happen to be supporters of the aims and objectives of the organising committees of these institutions.
The fourth category is of “literary” awards. These awards are given by the so-called literary people to the literary people. Anyone who has read or written a book of any kind gets to deserve this award.
Dr Akmal Makhdoom explained the psychological background of the people who indulge widely in such practises. He opined, while speaking to The News: “In societies where there is mediocrity, little talent and no real substance or education, people wish to seek short cuts. This is due to intense internal, psychological insecurity.
That is why people try to seek media and some are desperate to get into media focus for any reason.”
Aamna Khokhar, a psychology teacher in London, said: “These are all behaviours that are synonymous with a number of disorders borne from a deeply held anxiety.
Often amongst Pakistanis it appears that the respect for rules, social control and some kind of a system seems to have become a thing of the past. Contemplation and psychological theory teases out another explanation, often the behaviour of some of these Pakistanis is quite narcissistic; a person’s love for oneself, self-adoration.
A need to feel that one is superior to another is so deeply entrenched that many will often rely on hoax awards, boasting wealth and education with a stench of irony when demonstrating a significant lack of social capital.”