One of these weeks, someone in Pakistan will write an article about the uplifting heroism of Pakistan's parliamentarians. This is not one of those weeks. Since affirmative action beneficiary Sherry Rahman has already had her heroism acknowledged by the International Republican Institute (IRI), this is certainly not her week, nor is it the week of the venerable Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting.
Whatever the IRI uses to measure heroism, it certainly can't be their surveys. In the most recent IRI survey, neither Ms Rahman, nor any of her colleagues in the PPP did very well in the closest thing they have to a "hero" category, a little something called "popular opinion." Of course, if Republicans cared anything about public opinion, they would be toasting President John McCain at an historic inauguration featuring burning effigies of Kieth Olbermann and the Dixie Chicks this week, instead of trying to sell pictures of Alaska governor Sarah Palin's grandchild to the highest bidder.
Alaskans are not alone because every country has their version of Sarah Palin. The British people have a naughty little prince who thinks it's ok to racially slur anywhere between 172 million and 1.5 billion people (depending on your definition of the P-word), as long as it is preceded by "our little friend." Perhaps, Chuck of Windsor can remind the young prince of mummy Diana's fondness for men of the same ethnic origin as his "little friend." There's nothing little about that kind of big love.
Prince Harry's youthful indiscretion and Sarah Palin's strange notions of public relations, however, pale quite significantly, in comparison to the strange life and times of the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. No doubt inspired by the heroism of the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, they took a shot at heroism, by trying to ban Indian television from the Pakistani airwaves.
Being a Pakistani senator, it is thought, is the ultimate backdoor entry to parliamentarian status. At least with the women's affirmative action seats in the National Assembly, the nation can be clear about what it is getting--more women representing the people. With senators, the assumed wisdom has been that while the electorate will elect people it can relate to, and therefore, often people utterly lacking in urban sophistication and intellectual gravitas, the political parties will also need people who can hold their own at an alumni reunion of England's finest finishing schools for young men and women. The Senate allows otherwise important men and women, like Mushahid Husain, to hold important cabinet roles, without ever getting elected to office. The more Machiavellian among us have long known that other than sophistication, the Senate is also chockfull of those whom the political parties wanted to oblige, but who were incapable of actually being politicians, that is running in, or winning real elections. No matter what theoretical school one belongs to however, nobody believes the Senate has any real purpose, other than to complicate simple issues, and to remind us that white noise too can sometimes be distracting.
The Senate Standing Committee for Information and Broadcasting fulfilled this very role last week when it held a meeting for no reason other than the need to hold a meeting and remind us of its irrelevance. It was the content of the meeting, however, that was anything but white noise. The committee successfully made headlines in Pakistan, India and around the world for demanding that the Pakistani government "ban" Indian television channels. Among other things, the committee also wanted Indian movies to be removed from the cinemas, regularise all contractual PTV employees, and pay senators who appear on PTV (for free publicity) for appearing to take advantage of the free publicity.
This is not a joke. Unlike the IRI's heroism award (or Dick Boucher's Hilal-e-Quaid-e-Azam) this is actually real. Upon absorbing the impact of the genius at work in the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting, I sought to learn more about who sits in the standing committee.
The chairperson of the Standing Committee is the upright Sen Liaquat Ali Bangulzai. According to official Senate website, Chairman Bangulzai has a Bachelor's degree from Degree College, Mastung. He "enjoys long drive, study and poetry." What political party does Bangulzai belong to? The JUI-F.
The most vocal member of the committee after the meeting was a name and face that most Pakistanis had assumed would have disappeared with the previous government. Sen Tariq Azeem Khan. Again, from the official Senate website, you'll recognise Sen Tariq as the man whose nauseating defence of the PML-Q was on every channel, in every language, at every time of the day, back before democracy took its revenge. The same Tariq Azeem Khan who once touted his party's commitment to secular liberalism, enlightened moderation, and normalisation of relations with India came out of the meeting breathing fire about how India had banned movies, television and books coming out of Pakistan, and how Pakistan must respond in kind. Someone forgot to brief the senator about the state of Pakistani books, movies and television.
Other India-hawks in the Standing Committee include that stalwart of the Zia-ul-Haq Foundation, lady senator Tahira Latif of the PML-Q, lady senator and sky-diver par excellence Neelofur Bakhtiar of the PML-Q, former truth-massager-in-chief, the disturbingly friendly Muhammad Ali Durani of the PML-Q and Maulana Samiul Haq of varying kinds of fame, including his chairmanship of his own branch of a violence-enabling organisation, the JUI-S, where the S stands for Samiul Haq.
The most conciliatory member of the committee, it seems, is Haji Mohammed Adeel of the ANP. Among his other pursuits, Haji Adeel is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, and a member of the National Steering Committee of INSA (Imagine a New South Asia). The Haji did his bit for peace by insisting that only the Indian entertainment channels should be banned, not the news channels--otherwise how would Pakistanis learn about Indian propaganda.
This is the state of Pakistan. Sherry Rahman is a hero of democracy, principled judges are without jobs, Haji Adeel is a peacenik, and the saffron chaddar and tilak-wearing Senator Tariq Azeem is a defender of the ideological frontiers of Pakistan's airwaves.
Unlike the rough and tumble Realpolitik of actually standing in the heat, absorbing thousands of handshakes and millions of requests, senators and affirmative-action MNAs have no right to be ignorant, or to treat Pakistanis like they are ignorant.
Demanding that Pakistani cable operators drop their most lucrative and popular channels from their rosters to make a bunch of political irrelevants seem more relevant is not just plain stupid--stupidity is an accident of nature, it can be forgiven--it is cynical.
These parliamentarians have no right to be cynical. They don't have any real legitimacy other than what is afforded to them by Pakistan's dysfunctional political parties. Most don't even have the political wherewithal to run in electoral contests, much less to win them. For these folks to come up with a recommendation that is based neither on reason nor on evidence, nor even on political expediency, is unforgiveable. Pakistan is stupider today for having to endure their cynicism. Whatever else might happen in March when the Senate selections take place, citizens must demand sophistication and intellectual gravitas among their senators. This country faces challenges to its territorial integrity from militants that know no right or wrong, and it faces challenges to its financial viability from international bureaucrats and bankers who will Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this country to keep their jobs. It can ill afford to ban Pakistan's most popular pastime--watching Indian cinema and television--and it can afford the stupidity of such suggestions, even less.
