A Great Let-Down: New Age Islam's Selection, 19 May 2016

New Age Islam Edit Bureau

19 May 2016

•  A Great Let-Down

By I.A. Rehman

•  Bangladesh on Trial

By Ahmer Bilal Soofi

•  Pakistan Abroad

By Rafia Zakaria

•  Shakespeare and Pakistan’s Anglophiles

By Sameer Ahmed

•  Talking Peace with India

By Uzair M Younus

•  Bravo Shahbaz Taseer!

By Tanuj Garg

Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau

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A Great Let-Down

By I.A. Rehman

May 19th, 2016

THE democratic-minded people of Pakistan were again let down by both the treasury and the opposition benches in the National Assembly last Monday.

The prime minister decided to underplay the significance of the session, where he was expected to defend himself, by coming to the chamber one hour after the session had begun. He chose to spend more than 30 minutes on what he wanted to say instead of what the people wanted to hear. Finally, the opposition deemed it appropriate to say outside parliament what they should have said inside. Neither side showed the country’s only sovereign authority the respect it deserves.

For the second time, Mian Nawaz Sharif has missed the chance of becoming a statesman and a potential winner of the next election by simply announcing his decision to step down for so long as it took to resolve the Panama leaks affair. The earlier chance he missed was on April 22 when he sought to win sympathy with a narrative of his family’s travails. Perhaps he was not aware of the gravity of the situation at that time. But what has been happening over the past many weeks should have made him wiser.

Stepping aside for the time being would not have meant acceptance of guilt. The question of holding the prime minister guilty on the basis of the Panama leaks does not arise. But in politics, public perception of a politician’s moral duty is more important than his actual guilt or innocence. Politicians who respect the public’s perception of a situation more than the word of their copy writers last longer and enjoy greater esteem than those who do otherwise.

The government has also played unfair by raising the bogey of the system’s derailment. The majority party in parliament is a legitimate repository of state power. A change in its leadership, on any account whatsoever, will not derail the system, but resistance to a morally dictated duty surely will.

For the second time, Mian Nawaz Sharif has missed the chance of becoming a statesman.

Perhaps the prime minister has been strengthened in his posture by the lack of public outrage of the kind that forced changes in other lands. True, the people have been drained of their capacity to react to the call of democratic duty and the threshold of acceptance of political waywardness is quite high in Pakistan. But this public will be equally apathetic in the event the democratic process is disrupted again.

The gladiators involved in demonising each other do not seem to realise that they are condemning the entire political elite as a batch of self-servers. Nawaz Sharif’s failure to correctly appraise his predicament has enabled his rivals to push aside their own records of financial and ideological corruption and call him to account.

All this cannot but encourage the extra-democratic forces to give a call to save the people from the clutches of the bumbling politicians. If the democratic experiment is again disrupted the country’s political elite will be held responsible to a greater extent than in earlier instances.

Incidentally, the military establishment has taken care to distance itself from the government on the Panama leaks issue and has secured a tactical gain by advocating across-the-board accountability. This is the first occasion in Nawaz Sharif’s current reign that his propagandists are not claiming that the government and the military are on the same page.

If the government finds this situation unwelcome it has to blame itself for sanctifying the illogical ‘same page’ mantra. No democratic government raises services to the rank of equality with the popularly elected authority. Those who derived strength from flawed compromises over their democratic rights must be prepared to face the consequences of being left in the lurch.

Regardless of the damage done to the cause of Pakis­tan’s democracy by the Panama leaks, much greater harm has been done by the poor quality of the ongoing debate. At one stage, the official spokespersons denounced all those asking for the prime minister’s accountability as terrorists.

One does not know who advised them against hauling up the entire opposition under the Protection of Pakistan Act.

Quite a few in the official debating team were bold enough to declare that the prime minister was not bound to answer the opposition’s questions. One of his loyalists went to the extent of defending his ‘right’ to ignore parliament by declaring that he was too busy to attend its sessions. And a gallant knight admits to tax evasion without the batting of an eye. The common refrain in the exchanges between the ruling caucus and the opposition is ‘they are more corrupt than us’. No serious politician anywhere solicits public support by presenting himself as the lesser evil.

Further, little thought is being given to the huge losses the state and the people are suffering because the entire administration has been paralysed for weeks on end. While the government leaders and the challengers are busy in their sickening war of invectives, the people’s tribulations are getting more and more unbearable.

The political authority continues to be exploited by anti-people and anti-reason mandarins in the bureaucracy by pushing measures such as the Cyber Crime Bill and the Orange Line Train project. The rulers have no time to prevent human rights defenders from getting killed or stop the jirgas from punishing girls and women, or to address the plight of small farmers and the large workforce in the informal sector. The Christians in a Punjab town are told to abandon their faith if they wish to stay in their traditional homes and no one in authority has the time to go for the criminals.

The political elite has little to show in support of its claim to be guardians of the people’s democratic rights. That now a general election cannot be avoided and that it has been possible to transfer power from an elected government to another popularly elected authority accounts for a small political capital, much too little to guarantee democratic consolidation.

Whatever the sins of the people of Pakistan, they deserve better guardians of their destiny than the present lot.

Source: dawn.com/news/1259168/a-great-let-down

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Bangladesh on Trial

By Ahmer Bilal Soofi

May 18th, 2016

THE atrocities perpetrated by all the sides in East Pakistan in 1971 were reprehensible. For its excesses, Pakistan expressed regret to the people of Bangladesh in 2002, with a desire to bury the ghosts of the past and forge robust ties for the future.

But, since assuming power in Bangladesh in 2008, the Awami League government of Prime Minister Hasina Wajed has adopted a regressive pathway that may disrupt relations between the two countries, even upset the regional balance of power in South Asia. Dhaka has been selectively mining the tragic events of 1971 for political gains by holding shambolic war crimes trials of its political opp­o­­nents belonging to the Bangladesh Jamaat-i-Islami and Bangladesh National Party.

Initiated in 2010, these trials are being held four decades after the events of 1971 and are a violation of the 1974 Tripartite Agreement concluded in “the larger interest of reconciliation, peace and stability in the subcontinent” between Pakistan, India and Bang­la­desh. Under this, the latter agreed not to proceed against those it accused of committing war crimes in 1971. It was, in fact, in recipro­city of this guarantee that Pakistan officially recognised Bangladesh as a sovereign state.

These trials, which have so far resulted in over two dozen capital and life sentences and four executions, have been marred by consistent miscarriages of justice in breach of international law norms and standards.

From a legal standpoint, the trials have been blighted by, inter alia, denial of the accused person’s right to bail; limited rights to appeal capital and life convictions; pro-prosecution bias; admission of hearsay evidence and evidence from intercepted communications between the prosecution and judges amounting to prohibited and biased communications; capital convictions based on hurriedly enacted retrospective legislation; and arbitrary limitation on production of defence witnesses and documents. These are serious violations of fair trial and due process guarantees enshrined in the Inter­na­tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Bangladesh is a party. By conducting these trials, Bangladesh is responsible under international law for directly breaching at least 11 Articles of the ICCPR (Articles 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 26).

The trials make a mockery of justice.

The International Criminal Tribunal esta­b­­lished to hold these trials is fundamentally flawed — Article 47(A) of the Bangladeshi Constitution states: “This Article further denies any accused under the ICT Act from moving the Supreme Court for any remedies under the Constitution, including any challenges as to the unconstitutionality of Article 47(A).” The latter essentially strips the accused before the ICT of certain fundamental rights, including the right to an expeditious trial by an independent, impartial tribunal, and the right to move the courts to enforce fundamental rights.

Moreover, the ICT Act 2009 excludes the application of normal rules of procedure and evidence in proceedings before the ICT. Section 23 states: “The provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 (V of 1898), and the Evidence Act, 1872 (I of 1872), shall not apply in any proceedings under this Act.”

Disturbingly, one accused, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, was handed down the capital sentence despite allegations that government forces abducted a key defence witness. Mohammed Kamaruzzaman was hanged in April 2015 even though witnesses and documents were arbitrarily limited by the courts and the inconsistency of statements by prosecution witnesses were not factored into the evidence. In the case of Salahuddin Quader Chow­dhury, hanged in November 2015, the ICT refused to accept any testimony from his alibi witnesses.

Despite allowing the prosecution to call 41 witnesses, the ICT limited Chowdhury’s defence to four witnesses. The aut­horities ordered airlines flying into Dhaka to declare if any of Chowdhury’s defence wit­­­­­­­­nesses, including some distinguished Pakistani citizens, were booked on their flights ahead of his review hearing, so as to deny them entry.

The numerous procedural and substantive flaws that have turned these trials into a farce have been highlighted by eminent lawyers and human rights groups across the globe. The current Bangladesh supreme court chief justice himself remarked during the appellate proceedings in Mir Qasim Ali’s case that he was “very disappointed to see that you [the prosecution] are using these trials [for] your political benefit.…” He was “shocked that the prosecution’s case is full of contradictions”. Despite these remarks, Ali’s capital sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court, doubtless due to political pressure.

Last Wednesday, Jamaat-i-Islami chief, Motiur Rahman Nizami was hanged on trumped-up war crime charges. Pakistan must raise this issue at bilateral, regional and international levels to ensure that Bangladesh honours its international legal obligations by immediately halting these flawed trials as well as quashing all outstanding sentences pronounced by the war crimes tribunal. Apart from affirming the international rule of law, this will enhance peace and stability in South Asia.

Ahmer Bilal Soofi is ex-caretaker federal law minister.

Source: dawn.com/news/1259012/bangladesh-on-trial

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Pakistan Abroad

By Rafia Zakaria

May 18th, 2016

DISCUSSIONS about promoting a positive image of Pakistan abroad are not new. In their more frequent and familiar iterations, they have involved choreographed presentations by one or another politician, or perhaps a performance of folk music.

Just beneath their surface has been the subtext that Pakistan’s doubts and disagreements, the things that are spoken of at home, should never be spoken of beyond its boundaries. Like a child lately lectured, the Pakistani abroad has been expected to follow a script. A similar recipe has been followed across the border in India.

It is undoubted that the picture of Pakistan in the world’s imagination, particularly the Western imagination, requires some correction. Even a cursory glance at the headlines attached to news about Pakistan reveals this; words like ‘hard’, ‘dark’, ‘sinister’, ‘bombing’ and ‘coup’ figure prominently. The reality of Pakistan’s one-dimensional reputation as a repository for all things grim and grotesque cannot be countered by the insistence that everything is beautiful and bountiful, and the country’s inner frictions are merely fictions.

In simple terms, the export of denial and delusion does little to rescue Pakistan from a one-dimensional reality. A country’s diversity and humanity is demonstrated far more from its disagreements, its dissenters and its differences, than it is by rote performances that keep to a script.

It is the truth of this second fact that seemed finally to have been understood and underscored in Pakistan. Last week, the Lahore Literary Festival travelled to New York for the first time. Under the leadership of Razi Ahmed and Nuscie Jamil, the event was hosted at the Asia Society of New York over the weekend of May 7-8.

The Lahore Literary Festival in New York took with it the story of a country where art and resistance have a long and robust genealogy.

Inaugurated by Dr Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, the LLFNYC included panels focused on art, English literature, Urdu literature, education and foreign policy. Interspersing guests such as Ahmed Rashid, Arfa Syeda Zehra, Hina Khar, Salima Hashmi (and many others) who had travelled from Pakistan, with Western academics and interlocutors who specialise in Pakistan, created unique opportunities for dialogue and discussion.

Anyone attending was treated not to the usual paeans about Pakistan’s natural beauty or friendly people or terrorist hideouts but rather to the passion of Pakistan’s poetry, the inventiveness of its emergent art scene, the varied strains of thought that influence its foreign policy. In travelling to New York, the Lahore Literary Festival took with it the story of a country where art and resistance have a long and robust genealogy.

To underscore this last point, as well as the history of dialogue between Pakistanis at home and abroad, the LLFNYC honoured Yale professor Sara Suleri with a lifetime achievement award. Born and raised in Pakistan, Suleri was educated at Kinnaird College and Government College, Punjab. Her work on post-colonial theory is widely known and taught in classrooms around the world. In The Rhetoric of the English in India, Suleri traced the genealogy of how the rhetorical construction of India during the colonial era had a tremendous impact on its eventual conquest by the British.

Going beyond the simplistic placing of all blame on the colonial power, Suleri interpreted pivotal moments in colonial history to reveal how colonisation was not a unilaterally conceived project. If the British wished to occupy, there were plenty on the Indian side officiating over the occupation and then division of the subcontinent. Suleri’s work is ever more relevant in the contemporary moment: if colonialism was then, neo-imperialism is similarly sponsored by too many people in the very countries on which it has set its sights.

The politics of a literary festival travelling from its post-colonial home to a neo-imperial centre are also notable. The reduction of ‘other’ lands to amalgamations of strategic interests and security concerns is part and parcel of the rhetoric of neo-imperialism.

A counter-argument to such reduction, if at all intelligent or astute, has to counter that kind of erasure. Presenting a vision of Pakistan as all perfect or all good is immature and childish. Its only accomplishment is to insist on the opposite of what has been put forward. Presenting a Pakistan that is vibrant, that is connected to its past, interested in its artistic and cultural future, discards the good and bad binary for one far more sophisticated.

Debate and discussion were at the heart of what the Lahore Literary Festival took to New York and presented to the world. While most of the panels were conducted in English so that they may be accessible to a non-Urdu speaking audience, it was a speech in Urdu that melted everyone’s hearts and brought the audience to their feet.

Featured in the Urdu literature panel was eminent Pakistani professor Arfa Syeda Zehra, who spoke in Urdu; her subject was the literature of Manto. In juxtaposing the contemporary struggles of Pakistani writers and artists in relation to what Manto faced in his era, she brought together the past and the present with wit and lyricism. If the task of the author is to provide a picture of the society in which they live, it is only society and not the author that can be called obscene.

It was a crucial moment for the Lahore Literary Festival to travel to New York for one more reason. Currently, school boards in the United States are facing moves to alter American history textbooks so that ‘South Asia’ is replaced by ‘India’. Led by fervent and politically powerful groups of diaspora Indians, this effort to erase the ‘other’ nations of South Asia from American parlance makes initiatives like the Lahore Literary Festival even more pressing. Pakistan is real, it is diverse, its writers and artists diverge and disagree — it is a picture of Pakistan’s easily overlooked humanity.

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

Source: dawn.com/news/1259011/pakistan-abroad

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Shakespeare and Pakistan’s Anglophiles

By Sameer Ahmed 

18-May-16 869

That Shakespeare’s work is remarkable — for he reinvigorated old tales by punctuating them with significant questions and lasting observations about the human condition — is a fact for audience members or readers of his works to explore, debate, and perhaps even question. Oftentimes in countries with a colonial history — particularly Pakistan — the word ‘Shakespeare’ elicits a high-flown, rather hackneyed response. That you must praise Shakespeare in extravagant terms is a given. Speaking about things this way echoes an unspoken but pervasive subservience to a foreign culture. It also makes way for unreflective pseudo-intellectualism.

William Shakespeare, the English dramatist with obscure origins and an aura of mystique surrounding his person, has been gone 400 years. The English in which the 37 plays have been written is hardly comprehensible to English speakers today. Most of the speeches are long and verbose but the popularity of the plays has not waned. Will Grompertz of BBC News Magazine says, “Shakespeare is more popular today than ever.” It may be because the plots portray people facing dilemmas that are to be found in any culture in any historical epoch. Some believe the plays are so adaptable they can be moulded to a Broadway musical, a sci-fi movie set in the future, or a traditional theatre play in any regional language. In any case, in media and literary circles, the emphasis has conventionally been on stressing the ingenuity of Shakespeare the Bard, overlooking other reasons that might explain the much-touted universal success and appeal of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, John Milton and the English Bible have traditionally been advertised as works emblematic of the literary prowess of the English language and the genius of the English mind. It would be hard to believe that William Shakespeare fell out of fashion for some time in England. In the 1800s, it was not unusual to edit, remove potions of, and revise scenes and acts from the Bard’s plays. The ending of King Lear, for instance, was deemed inappropriately violent and bleak for 19th century family viewing. A young princess whose dead body is held in her father’s embrace was changed so that father and daughter are reunited and go on to live happily after protracted tragic suffering. Shakespeare would often be ‘bowdlerised’, after the manner of one Thomas Bowdler who snipped and revised parts he considered unsuitable for public viewing.

Some writers have argued that the aura of Shakespeare was rediscovered (invented?) in the late 19th century. English naval supremacy, overseas expansion and literary progress seem to have gone hand in hand. The ‘richness’ of the English language and its amenability to verse and prose composition was propagated in England and programmed into the institutional mindset of the institutes established in the overseas colonies. When the English founded institutes of liberal education — colleges and universities — across India, the curriculum was carefully planned to propagate English/western superiority. The natives would also partake in the machinations of colonialism. By the very act of attending these colleges, Indians would concede that the liberal institutes offered modern knowledge as diametrically opposed to the outdated, folktale-ish knowledge coming from their own educational establishments. This modern education was essential for social mobility under the Raj. Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, et. al., were components of the curriculum taught at places like the Calcutta and Punjab Universities, Government College Lahore and FC College. English literary studies were also made part of the public service curricula. English drama, prose and verse were in the reading list for the civil service exams. Indians attending college would first be imbibed with the superiority of the English language, the diversity and beauty of English literature, and then be required to discuss the power of Wordsworth’s imagery, for instance, or Shakespeare’s deft use of the blank verse, or Bacon’s divine wisdom in the essays. An efficient reinforcement mechanism, the civil service examination would prepare the required Anglicised Indian. It still produces Anglicised Pakistanis who bring cars, ambulances and carts to a halt to make way for their entrance to places like the Civil Secretariat Lahore.

In the heyday of colonialism, performing arts clubs and dramatics societies were also founded at colleges and universities across India. A dramatics club was established at the Government College Lahore in 1890. Its first performances were scenes from Shakespeare. With time, the club started staging complete plays for select audiences — professors, English Memsaabs, Babus, civil servants and other dignitaries. These performances were meant to entertain the English and educate the natives in the literary taste of the progressive western world. The English gave us the ‘theatre’, notwithstanding that different regions of the subcontinent had their own forms of theatre in Nautanki, Juggat Bazi, and the related Bhand tradition. Most English-speaking Pakistanis today scoff at the mention of these native forms of drama and recognise only western histrionics as legitimate theatre.

With the colonial baggage, Shakespeare is nearly a status symbol among the English-speaking classes of Pakistan. His poetic genius, his greatness is a given. When you ask a gentleman or lady singing high praises of Shakespeare what is it exactly that they find extraordinary about him, you get a refrain of clichés. It is the ‘splendour of the blank verse’, how ably he depicts human ‘passions’ and ‘Oh, the soliloquies — what beauty!’ For the most part, these are hollow phrases. The soliloquies are hardly comprehensible without an annotation. A number of websites based in the US and England use the word ‘translation’ for the paraphrases they offer in modern English. In other words, Shakespeare’s is another language today, even to native speakers of English.

Quite possibly, many (definitely not all) among the Anglophiles of Pakistan, have learned to mention Shakespeare without really having an understanding of his writings. Many more offer critiques of the plays, the sonnets and local performances, and ‘insights’ into Shakespeare just to look scholarly. The inaccessibility of the 17th century English allows many Anglophiles to parade as experts. Shakespeare’s work is truly profound. Many of the ideas explored in the plays resonate today and will continue to do so for ages to come. But good theatre need not be Shakespeare. Good theatre needn’t even be in English.

Apart from the occasional performance of a foreign play, theatre has to be indigenous. That is what Shakespeare did. The Bard chose to write in English when Latin and French were considered superior languages. He wrote for all Englishmen and Englishwomen. Good theatre has to cater to all, not just second-hand Memsaabs and would-be Babus.

Sameer Ahmed   is a lecturer in English Literature at Government College University, Lahore.

Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/18-May-16/shakespeare-and-pakistans-anglophiles

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Talking Peace with India

By Uzair M Younus

May 19th, 2016

After an arduous journey from King’s Landing to Meereen, Tyrion Lannister has found himself in a position of power. He must wrestle back a deadly insurgency, keep the many external enemies of the liberated city at bay, and ensure that the city of Meereen survives in the absence of its queen. As the new season of the addictive and wildly popular television series Game of Thrones has shown, Tyrion is relying on realpolitik and pragmatic policy choices. This begs the question: if Tyrion Lannister was in charge of Pakistan’s security and foreign policy, what would he do?

Just as everything in Meereen revolves around slavery, everything in Pakistan centres on India and the Partition of 1947. The threatening neighbour to the east has, as the story goes, sought to bring an end to the state of Pakistan. It never accepted the state, blocked access to finances, occupied Kashmir and sought to asphyxiate Pakistan at birth. In 1971, India fuelled an insurgency that ultimately led to the ignominious surrender of Dhaka. East Pakistan became Bangladesh, and India now only had to worry about its western flank. Today, the enemy surrounds the state from the outside and fuels violence from within. A right wing, anti-Pakistan government rules from Delhi and it will not stop at anything. The enemy has spread its tentacles in Balochistan and Karachi, leading to crippling violence over the last decade.

After a few carafes of wine, Tyrion would conclude that the status quo is bleeding Pakistan dry. Engulfed in an arms race with a neighbour with a superior economic capacity, Pakistan simply cannot keep up. The successful testing of an interceptor missile as part of India’s Ballistic Missile Defence Programme is yet another setback in the arms race. It casts a shadow over Pakistan’s rapid development of tactical nuclear missiles, and further nudges the military balance of power in India’s favour. So what does one do? Make peace and stop the bleeding for a little while. The decades-long quest to free Kashmir and the blinding desire to have military parity with a much-larger neighbour has been futile. Instead, the dwarf would advise to develop a different weapon: money. Pakistan’s geography is such that the country can connect the energy-starved regions of China and India to the energy-rich republics of Iran and Central Asia. A peace, even of a temporary nature, would bring the political stability necessary for large-scale investments. Energy would flow east and north to India and China’s western frontier. Goods would flow west to Iran and Central Asia. Pakistan would benefit from both sets of transactions: meeting its own energy needs from the energy corridors, and charging a transit tax for the flow of goods.

Without peace with India, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is the north-south realisation of Pakistan’s value as a geographic transit corridor, will remain marred with high risks. Violence in Balochistan, a region where the arch-enemy has a presence, will continue to slow down progress. Continued animosity will ensure that non-state armed groups, some of whom are still considered strategic assets, will earn a living as armed proxies for the highest bidder. These groups have led to disastrous terror attacks within the country, and have brought disrepute internationally. To ensure survival, the state has funded continued military operations in various parts of the country and drained the treasury. The result has been a dependency on foreign benefactors that have provided the money, but at a very high price.

The detractors of this approach would look at Tyrion with disgust. Make peace with the enemy for gold? Give up Kashmir for a trade corridor and some transit taxes? Forget about exacting revenge on the enemy? Absolutely not! This, however, is the most beneficial policy choice Pakistan can make in the coming years. It ties India and Pakistan in an economic tango. Ramping up tensions after increased investment would lead to a backlash from the economic elite in Delhi and beyond. Corporate interests from all the economies would temper the arms race in the region. And most of all, the peace will provide Pakistan with an opportunity to economically catch up with its rival. The liberation of Kashmir is in many ways the end goal of the detractors who would oppose peace with India. Yet, it is peace with India, and all the benefits associated with it, that would ultimately allow Pakistan to regain the diplomatic clout necessary to bring about a just resolution to the Kashmir conflict. So is such a peace possible? It might have been in the fantastical world created by George R R Martin, where dwarves such as Tyrion Lannister find themselves in positions of power. In Pakistan, making peace with India will most certainly get equated with becoming ‘friends’ with India. Such detractors must remember what a wise man once said: “We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.”

Uzair M Younus is a consultant based in New York and is a graduate of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1106030/talking-peace-with-india/

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Bravo Shahbaz Taseer!

By Tanuj Garg

May 18, 2016

Watching Shahbaz Taseer’s first ever interview since he returned home from captivity gave me goose bumps, a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye: living nearly half a decade as a hostage in appalling conditions, being shuffled between warring militant groups along the notorious Pakistan-Afghanistan border, being at the receiving end of gruesome acts of torture, and then suddenly, one day, being allowed to escape to one’s family and home. Surreal. It was too good to be true. “It’s insane you can find humanity where there is none,” he remarked, summing up the bout of unexpected luck that came his way earlier this year.

I was amazed at how composed Taseer looked in the interview. Commendably, he has buried the horrific physical and mental scars left behind by the inhuman atrocities committed on him to turn a new page in his life book. The young and good-looking 33-year-old has a whole new life staring at him. His Twitter feed reveals that he’s been enjoying some well-deserved Nutella cream pancakes and Nihari. All’s well that ends well.

Tailpieces

1) Getting a transplant for the male reproductive organ makes for a giggle-inducing headline for the immature. However, for Thomas Manning of Massachusetts, who received a transplanted male reproductive organ after a 15-hour procedure, it marks a new chapter filled with hope. At a larger level, it depicts hope for all those who have suffered genital injuries and a consequent loss of self-identity.

2) David Cameron has just signed up on Tinder to motivate youngsters to vote, or so he says. Imagine spotting his bespoke advertisements while trying to score a date!

3) Despite Cannes’ notoriously strict dress code for the red carpet, Julia Roberts, while wearing an Armani Prive gown, chose to flout the norm by walking barefoot. But who in their senses would dare to turn Roberts away? Now whether the pretty woman did that deliberately to engineer attention to her new Jodie Foster-directed movie, Money Monster, or whether it was merely an act of blatant fashion rebellion, is anybody’s guess, but she was successful in inspiring newbies to follow in her footsteps. Sasha Lane ditched her footwear at a photo call for her latest movie. For all those who loftily espouse that personal style (regardless of how startling it might be) is about being comfortable with oneself but don’t actually stick to their philosophy, Roberts has shown us how to make our actions speak louder than words. At last, it was good to see non-conformity at the stodgy festival.

4) The pressure to stay beautiful wasn’t confined to Roberts. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s purple lips, in the week of release of her latest outing, Sarbjit, became the talking point of the traditional and social media. Unpardonable fashion blunder or intrepid fashion statement? A divided opinion is both inevitable and immaterial. What is actually worrying is the burden that we have started placing on our cultural icons to look conventional and perfect, spawning a costly and tiring world of artificiality — clothing brands, labels, stylists, designers, trainers, spiritual gurus, make-up, hairstyles, hair colours, botox, wrinkle-clearing, skin lightening, body toning, fashion glossies, style websites, paparazzi blogs, photo shoots and what not. All of this and more, even as every other commoner-turned-self-appointed style critic sits with a magnifying glass and red marker, flashing what is his or her uncompromising (and often uneducated) opinion. Time to focus. Smart alecs sniggering that Ash may have had Jaamuns or blackcurrant ice cream before the premiere might be better off moving their gaze away from the red carpet. What is needed are more robust and unbiased critiques of an actor’s onscreen hues.

Tanuj Garg has been in top media and entertainment corporations in Bollywood for over a decade.

Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1106031/bravo-shahbaz-taseer/

URL: https://newageislam.com/pakistan-press/a-great-let-down-new/d/107343