Too much information, data asphyxiation, information overload; call it what you want: the fact of the matter is that you and I have no idea what is really going on. As in a clueless, up the creek without a paddle and an Alice in Wonderland kind of way. It is a systematic carpet bombing of our brains with so much flak and clutter that we are unable to process causal linkages between events. Analysis becomes shoddy because most analysts don’t know what they’re really talking about. Questions are now treated as warm, fuzzy and general things. The answers, in their right, are more roundabout than the story your mother tells you when you first ask, “Mommy, where did I come from?” – even more befuddling. No one wants to tell you what’s really going on. Except maybe Zulfiqar Mirza.
The problem with this sporadic, selective honesty is obvious. Spilling the beans when it suits your political and/or personal interest is as good as lying through your teeth under oath. However, this rather devious tact has been used to great effect ever since our country came into existence. This campaign of complicit duplicity is perhaps the only policy that has been followed in letter and spirit for the entire lifespan of our fair backwater.
But now, with the advent of blasphemous material such as internet search engines, social networking sites and free-content sharing communities, the hegemony of those in power is threatened. Raymond Malik, the custodian of our collective security, feels that Google and YouTube are the real threats to Pakistani sovereignty, and that abstract concepts such as radical Islam, the militarisation of impoverished youth and the vigilante justice meted out by “students” of schizophrenia (read Taliban) are so much nonsense. I mean, who would believe a cock-and-bull story about some guy being killed by a powerful supranational empire of evil when he could’ve so easily been cuckolded and murdered by his immoral wife and her non-Muslim lover.
Altaf Hussain, on the other hand, has been adopting a more artistic approach. In response to the “ludicrous” claims made by ‘Zulfi Don’, Altaf Bhai preferred to convey his message in a more sensitive manner. Therefore, he took refuge in the arts, and using his superior wit, conned his audience of 18 or so crore buffoons into believing that he was the saviour anointed by Abdullah Shah Ghazi to deliver Karachi from the fires of hell into which it has been plunged by ‘the hidden hand’. This hand, mind you, was hiding behind Bhai’s rostrum at the time of his speech and is the same hand allegedly responsible for the untimely demise of erstwhile Altaf confidante Imran Farooq, the carnage perpetrated on May 12, 2007 and the civil war that plagues the city now.
Fast-forward a week or two and we find that our American BFFs are singing a new tune. Following treacherous attacks on the US embassy and NATO HQ in Kabul, Ambassador Munter is now audibly muttering sweet nothings about a certain band of Haqqanis and their military connections. Even the US secretary of state, traditionally a very diplomatic and calculating woman, is overtly accusing Pakistan of harbouring the wretched Haqqanis. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the text of the ISPR’s standard denial on the matter, which only lends further credence to the US claim.
Afghanistan, surprisingly though, has shut the **** up regarding the attacks and is cautiously avoiding naming Pakistan directly. No doubt pangs of shame from the recent cross border attacks into Pakistani territory. Meanwhile, the Pakistani high command has also warned the US against unilateral action or hot pursuit inside its territory, meaning that it is only a matter of time before we see US boots on the ground, soiling the land of the pure.
Even I have trouble keeping up with the limited information that is given above, and for the life of me fail to see a coherent causal linkage between the seemingly unrelated and nonsensical events that have been unfolding over the past few months. And now that we’re literally drowning in problems all over again, I think its time a few nerds from GIKI or NUST lock themselves in their rooms and try to make an organogram that demonstrates just how many fronts we’re cornered on. Also, someone from the ISI needs to put out a pamphlet on the art of spotting people hiding in plain sight. But the act of hiding somewhere everyone can see you is no longer just art, but a necessity. Just ask Dawood Ibrahim, he’s on Facebook.