Asif Hanafi – Blogging from somewhere

In the past few months, a friend of mine shared the first ever Wake Up Pakistan video created by a chap called Ehtisham. The music and concept of the video was derived from The Arrivals and used similar concepts. I managed to watch the first three episodes before I realized that it was “bullshit”

The first time I watched Zaid Hamid was on TV One, a news channel in Pakistan on a late night show where Zaid Hamid was talking about the Zionist invasion of the world, how they manipulate the financial market and how they seek total control of the world and how they are managed by the dark side; i.e. Satan.  He used to discuss and highlight the conspiracy theory of today’s world the coming of the Anti Christ and the list can go on for ever.

In the last 1.5 years, Zaid Hamid became a self-proclaimed defence analyst and started to comment on the political and security situations in Pakistan. He rose to fame during the Mumbai attacks where he claimed that the attackers were all Indian and it was a plan by RAW to make it look like Pakistan did it so they could invade Pakistan. He also mentioned that India could invade any minute and we should all be prepared. His theories and solutions are nothing short of 100% bullshit.

Wake Up Pakistan started off to wake up the youth of Pakistan, to instil patriotism and loyalty to Pakistan. Its general objective was unclear but with the late entrance of Zaid Hamid its obvious they want to start a revolution and change Pakistan. They believe in the superiority of Pakistani citizens, the fact that they can take on any external power and still be standing strong.  Hitler used to rant about the same bullshit and talked about global domination.

So, Zaid Hamid & Wake Up Pakistan have devised a clever strategy, where anyone who doesn’t support there stupid cause is an agent of the west which includes the Jews, USA and India, other countries are involved as they see fit. They also claim that all the political instability in Pakistan and the security issues is a plan hatched years ago by the forces of evil to eradicate Pakistan; which basically means that anything going wrong in the country is not the fault of the Pakistani but the fault of the Indian, Jew, American or British.

I’ll give you an example, if I set my alarm clock for 08:00 to wake up to go to work and the alarm clock doesn’t work, Zaid Hamid will immediately say it was a ploy by the infidels and link it to the inevitable take over of Pakistan by the infidels.

Naturally his examples are more based on suicide attacks that quite fairly are out of our control and he says those are sponsored by RAW and Americans and XE formerly known as Black Water.

What he and Wake Up Pakistan do very well is give the uneducated youth of Pakistan and in this case by uneducated I mean those who have no clue how the world works, have no or very little knowledge of global politics and the trouble Pakistan is in an enemy. That enemy now has a face, a religion and a state. Depending on his mensuration  cycle the enemy could be Israel, India, America, Britain, France, Russia, China or quite frankly even Arabic countries; all countries except the great nation of Pakistan can be held responsible.

What Zaid Hamid dreams of is regional domination and to make Pakistan a super-power, invade India, Afghanistan and possibly even Israel. Thank God, Zaid Hamid and Wake up Pakistan have no real power and hopefully they will be squashed by the establishment for creating so much hatred in Pakistan for its neighbours. In my opinion Zaid Hamid could be a Taliban agent looking to recruit young people into carrying out attacks against our neighbours.

What tops the bullshit bar is that when polls are carried out for who should be President, Zaid Hamid’s name pops up.

Now in every country there are people like Zaid Hamid, his theories are nothing new, specific rulers charge the emotions of its citizens by talking about going to war, defending there way of life, blah blah blah. The fact remains that because Pakistan has nuclear power no country would think about attacking Pakistan. I highly doubt Israel gives a shit about Pakistan at this stage in time as they have Iran, Lebanon and Syria to worry about that are immediate threats. I highly doubt the United States is concerned about a threat from Pakistan because they are quite simply too far away. I highly doubt India is worried off a full scale attack by Pakistan because if that were to happen, India would launch all its nukes towards Pakistan and all the major cities in Pakistan will be finished. The course Zaid Hamid and Wake Up Pakistan wants the people to follow will only end in total disaster and destruction for the region.

Now I have had people talk to me about how supreme Islam is and that this is Gods will and I have to stop them right there because we as Muslims have failed in making Islam a supreme religion (peacefully) and I highly doubt that God wants Muslims or Pakistan for that matter to wage pointless wars.

So if you are a follower of Wake up Pakistan and you do believe the bullshit Zaid Hamid talks about than please do some research before you agree with his statements, understand that in this world there are 100s of factors that influence decisions taken by our Government and our military and even more in number who influence the process. Pakistan’s main objective should be to eradicate the Taliban and religious extremists residing in the country who talk and walk the same line Zaid Hamid does. Pakistan should work on building economic relationships with its neighbours and most importantly Pakistan should focus on the real problems facing the country, such as shortage in basic food commodities, energy crisis, education, healthcare, employment, because believe me when I say this, the forces of evil don’t need to touch Pakistan for it to self-destruct, people like Zaid Hamid do that very well for them. The sugar crisis for example was the failure of the Government to act at an appropriate time and not the hand of hidden forces as most politicians and bullshitters like Zaid Hamid like to claim and like us to believe it was the incompetency of the people in power. So if you want to wake up and do something, work on those issues.

I end this with a quote from John F. Kennedy

“… ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” We Pakistanis are responsible for the fate of our country.

Links:

http://wakeuppakistan.pk/

http://www.facebook.com/brasstackspakistan?v=feed&story_fbid=281921323250
http://www.brasstacks.pk/

For those of you who were following the Youth Advisory Council (around 3000 members) and Professionals Research Advisory Council (around 6000 members) and if you haven’t realized than do note that both organizations have been dissolved by the Rabbita Committee.

The Youth Advisory Council in its almost two years of existence has very little to show and will soon be forgotten if they haven’t been forgotten. There objective to target the 2% as MQM covers the 98% was never reached and because of lack of activity they were shut-down. This is of course mere speculation as there official statement is they were merged with PRAC to form COP which is known as Council of Professionals.

Professionals Research Advisory Council were the bigger ones with comments, statements on every topic in Pakistan from the army to the mullahs to the rights of women, although they had a lot of energy they at most times wasted that energy in engaging in online wars with rival political parties on who is the best. They also changed sides as they pleased in order to prove there point, in one case when Zaid Hamid spoke against other political parties, the PRACers as they like to call themselves were posting his videos all over, now there against him because he isn’t making statements that they can use.  I’ll talk about Zaid Hamid another day.  PRAC was dissolved and the official line is that they will merge with YAC to make COP.

Since this is a blog and its my blog I am entitled to my perception. I think both organizations had there plus points and there negative points and the sudden closure of both groups to form COP was and still is a rash decision. The announcement was made from one day to another with no prior notification, discussion or debate with the members as a whole to get there opinion as what went wrong and what could have been to avoid the bad decisions. Now in the midst of almost 9000 members shared between those two group from all around the world they wake up to find out that they now have to join COP. This is probably the worst re-branding or re-launching strategy I have ever seen. I have never quite understood the fascination of MQM with naming there organizations as advisory or professionals, but I suppose thats what happens when you don’t talk directly to your target market.  If you want to go after the 2% than rest assured that having advisory or professionals in your name is not going to lure them from there mansions into the arms of MQM.

In order for MQM to penetrate the affluent areas they need to sit down with young socials who have no real interest in politics or MQM and get there feedback. Organize a committee of local and international Pakistanis in within the 2% and ask them what type of organization should be formed and what the organization should do.  Don’t thrust down protocols and procedures, like address each male member by there first name and add bhai, i.e. Asif  ”bhai” or when speaking about multiple MQM workers call them “saathi”. Let them set the agenda, let them focus on education, career development, information analysis, building international relations and so and so on. Don’t let them engage in political issues or defend the image of certain people or promote MQM.

Because MQM never took YAC or PRAC very seriously, all those two groups really ended up with and again this is a generalization were MQM activists who would on a regular basis cry out Altaf Hussain’s name and scream “G A MQM” at every opportunity.

The silent majority in Karachi specifically look up to MQM to deliver results and to improve lives and if MQM can’t come up with a way to reach out to them than they will always remain the silent majority.

Its been a week since the formation of Council of Professionals and nothing has been announced, the formation of Council of Professionals should have been pre-planed with clear-cut objectives and a respectable team, however its clear that COP is the retirement home for YAC and PRAC and not much can be expected from this new organization.

Syed Ali Raza Abidi former chairman of PRAC resigned yesterday, in what was a very surprise move. Although no official announcement has been made on this matter by PRAC, I had the chance to catch up with Abidi. Unfortunatly there was nothing exciting about his resigning, no internal conflicts or forced resignation. He felt that other members in PRAC should have the chance to progress. So he remains loyal to PRAC and will continue supporting and working for PRAC as it was really his baby.

The new man to take his place is Kunwar Moeez, I don’t know Kunwar Moeez personally but from the very brief information I could gather, Kunwar Moeez is nothing short of a passionate patriotic, highly emotional and hard-working worker of MQM.

Although nothing is clear as yet if things will change in PRAC or a shuffle will take place of their top management or whether new strategies will take place, I wish Kunwar Moeez the best and hope he can fulfill the very large shoes left by his predecessor. Perhaps the publication of an actual research paper by PRAC would be a good step in the right direction.

December 1st 2009 ANP politician, Shamsher Ali Khan, was killed and eight others injured, including his brother, in the Swat valley when a bomber targeted a guest house, at which they were present.

1 dead, 8 injured.

December 2nd 2009 three naval personnel were killed and nine other people injured in an abortive suicide attack on the Pakistan Naval Complex in Sector E-8 in Islamabad on Wednesday afternoon. The teenaged suicide bomber blew himself up when he was intercepted by a naval intelligence official.

4 dead, 17 injured

December 4th 2009 at least 40 people, including 17 children besides serving and retired Army officers and personnel, were martyred and over 86 injured, when a Friday congregation at the Parade Lane Askari mosque in Rawalpindi Cantonment was attacked by a group of terrorists. The high number of casualties was caused by hurling of grenades and indiscriminate targeted firing by the terrorists, reportedly numbering between six to eight individuals. According to latest reports, two of the terrorists blew themselves up while two others were gunned down in a exchange of fire with security forces. The remaining terrorists escaped and took refuge in the vicinity. Besides 17 children, an army major general, a brigadier, two lieutenant colonels, a major and a number of soldiers were among those killed in the multi-pronged attack

44 dead; 103 injured.

December 7th, 2009 terrorists struck three provincial headquarters on Monday. The highest casualty rate was in Lahore when two powerful bomb blasts, 30 seconds apart, ripped through the busy Moon Market in Lahore’s Allama Iqbal Town at 8:45pm in the night, claiming at least 45 lives and injuring many. The blasts, which took place within a radius of 30 metre, also caused a massive fire in a crowded shopping mall. It also knocked out electricity supply. The toll later rose to 54 dead and 150 injured. While in Peshawar, 11 people, including two policemen, were killed and 45 others sustained injuries when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the sessions courts.

109 dead; 298 injured.

December 8th 2009 A pick-up truck packed with explosives blew up near an office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the Cantonment area of Multan on Tuesday, killing 12 people and injuring 47 in the third bloody militant strike in 24 hours. The commando-style gun and bomb attack was carried out by the terrorists in the Qasim Bela area of the city. At least two militants armed with guns and rocket-launchers tried to attack the ISI offices.

121 dead; 345 injured.

December 10th 2009; the suicide attacks are no longer front page story on DAWN’s website. Reports of IG Punjab cracking a joke and than laughing at the hospital on December 8th surface on Mubashar Lucman’s show.

121 dead; 345 injured.

In 8 days.

Women and children were amongst the dead, it could have been you, it could have been me.

The Muthaida Qaumi Movement launched a nation wide protest on 9th of December, gathering I would reckon almost a million people, through several cities nationwide. 1 million people out of 160 million people. Thats how many took to the streets after 121 dead and 345 injured.

2007 when General Pervaiz Musharraf gave the order to attack Lal Masjid the nation erupted with anti-Musharraf slogans.  The argument surfaced even more strongly than before, Muslims who kill muslims will go to hell. All the religious parties stopped supporting Musharraf.

Musharraf was forced to become soft against the Taliban.

In the 80s, ISI trained, nurtured and gave birth to the Taliban, supported by CIA and Saudi Arabian funds. After they won the cold-war, the Taliban were left under the control of ISI who used them as freedom fighters in Kashmir.

After 9/11 America’s decision to invade Afghanistan resulted in catastrophic violence in Pakistan. The Taliban no longer have control and because they have failed at every attempt to attack the US again, they have started attacking its allies. Pakistan is the most important ally.

MQM has proposed a much needed counter terrorism policy, although the details of the policy are not public yet, hints have been dropped by a number of MQM people as to what will be in the policy. Its surprising though, that it took them this long to table a policy and get it approved and I hope the policy has some resemblance to the tv show 24 where Jack Bauer hunts down terrorists and basically kills them.  My point here is that we need to get tough and my point is that all of us should write to MQM proposing counter terrorism policies. MQM is the 3rd largest party and they are unique because they listen, we need to avail this opportunity and make our concerns be heard in the highest echelons of MQM management. Lets be practical, MQM are good but they are far from the best. The people are the best but they are far from good. We as humans not as a nation, but as individual humans, work, brainstorm and put down on a piece of paper key points that will make the counter terrorism policy most effective. If we don’t avail this opportunity, than we are really not contributing towards Pakistan and no matter how much we condemn the attacks it really makes no difference.

We need action and we as HUMANS need to demand for that action,  otherwise the Taliban will slowly kill us all and destroy Pakistan.

121 dead; 345 injured; thats the official count.

Recently, with the total failure of the NRO political parties have been going back and forth with the most outrageous comments.

If your not in Pakistan its sometimes very difficult to follow what is exactly happening. Although the media doesn’t do the best job in reporting news, there are websites out there if you search.

One such website is PKPolitics. The site covers all the latest political talk shows in Pakistan and allows users to interact with each other.

If your an MQM supporter than you would be happy to know that they have finally embraced social media and have launched a regular updated Facebook fan page which you can access by clicking here. The Fan Page provides high-resolution interviews of of MQM leaders with the various TV channels and also provides updates.  Since the MQM website is still quite rubbish and PRAC and YAC have clearly failed in making an impact the boys who manage AllAboutMQM have had to launch a facebook fan page. Don’t bother visiting their website, it redirects you to a ning social site which is truly terrible.

NDUF7N9VARE6

The temperature was….

very low!

The number of people waiting in line…

was a lot!

However I managed to get 3 tickets for the opening night of 2012 in Paris at Champs Elysees and it was worth it.
It took us about 30 minutes to get in and there was a lot of pushing and shoving because the French cinemas don’t reserve seats, they just let you buy a ticket and find your own seat and the Cinema was one of the largest, with about 500 seats.

Now I had seen the trailer for 2012 and I was waiting for this baby to come out and I can assure you I wasn’t disappointed. The movie was very, very entertaining.

I don’t want to spoil it for you hence I will be as vague as possible.

Since 2012 hasn’t happened and there are a number of theories as to why it would happen, the movie took the standard theory of the world ending in total destruction as the basis. The plot line revolved around 2 people, a scientist and a writer.

The Government of several nations hatch a secret plan to save man kind and the rest of the movie involves some really nerve wrecking scenes and hilarious humor.

The movie isn’t much of a talker, apart from the end where they had an Obama styled moment of HOPE but luckily the rest of the movie is jam packed with cities blowing up, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, tidal waves and high-tech satellite imagery.

If you love science fiction and action and comedy you have got to go see this movie. I’ve added the trailer below, do watch it, find out where your closest cinema is and book a freakin’ ticket.  Do not DOWNLOAD this movie, DO NOT watch a shitty version of it and DO NOT think about NOT seeing it.

After the endless nights of watching GEO News or ARY Digital or CNN or BBC News, i’ve gotten bored with the same old stories re-running and re-running. Its so obvious that world leaders do not learn from past mistakes and keep making them over and over again.

Fear not, because some of the best entertainment are the awesome TV shows coming out of USA.

First up is House!

House

For those of you that don’t know House,  you might as well move to Afghanistan. House is one of the “awesomesttest” show out there. Its all about a highly qualified, obnoxious, self-centered, rude diagnostician who destroys everyone around him in his own caring way. The show has real interesting medical cases which Dr. Gregory House and his team solve every Monday. The show is currently airing its 6th season and if you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest you order a copy or rent it from your nearest video store or download it. (pretend you never read the downloading part)

But for now check out the trailer.

Stargate SG-1

If your into space exploration, alien culture and languages than Stargate SG-1 is the tv-show for you. It spawned off the original movie Stargate, where a archaeologist dig in Egypt finds this huge device that allows wormholes to be opened to other planets in other solar systems and eventually galaxies. Remember Mac Guyver? Well Dean Anderson is in this show and boy is his acting AWESOME.  The show has 10 seasons or space exploration and humans kicking some alien butt. Naturally, I have located a trailer for this TV Show, however before watching the TV Show I highly suggest you watch the movie Stargate

Stargate The Movie

Stargate SG-1

Heroes

Now Heroes has been a controversial show since its launch, millions of people loved it than got bored with it and than claimed it was boring. Hello? Heroes is the most downloaded TV show on the Internet loved by millions across the globe.

The show is based on the theory that some humans have special abilities, who can fly, move objects, heal very fast, erase memories, time-travel, freeze time and the list goes on. Now I personally loved the drama and the abilities and the action and I never got bored with it, perhaps once or twice because there wasn’t enough action but I stuck by it and Heroes is now in season 4. It comes out every Monday so right after House this is the TV Show you should watch. Do note that it isn’t an easy show to follow, it has a complex storyline and instead of each episode being called an episode and each season being called a season its split into chapters which equal episodes and volumes which equal season so again its in volume 4.

Thats all for now, there are other TV shows that I watch on a regular basis and will update this blog with those TV shows in the coming days.

I’m out for now.

In one of my previous blogs, I mentioned about the Youth Advisory Council of Pakistan(YAC).  A group started by MQM and led in its early days by Ali Rashid and Ali Raza Abidi. With lots of internal conflicts YAC split. Ali Rashid led YAC whilst Ali Raza Abidi incepted Professionals Research & Advisory Council of Pakistan (PRAC).

Although during my tenure in YAC which involved strategy and web development I had mixed thoughts about PRAC and its success. I disagreed with their online tactics of degrading rival political parties, in my mind MQM is better than playing blame games.  The hacking of the group and the inability for Ali Abidi to maintain basic security made PRAC a laughing stock. I met Abidi at an MQM meeting hosted by Dr. Farooq Sattar and in the small chit chat, Abidi seemed like an idealist. His only objective was to impress the higher echelons of MQM and he would not take no as an answer. There were rumours that PRAC is shutting down, MQM is fed-up with PRAC, but Abidi steered his growing group through all the stormy waters. Instead of giving up and disappearing from the new political scene, he stayed put.

Today PRAC has over 3000 members, growing at a dizzying rate and they have hosted their first summit which was broad casted live.  Whether PRAC has achieved all its objective or not, they have managed one thing, they have given MQM a much needed online face where anyone can come and discuss MQM without fear of being gunned down. Abidi has established himself as a social media expert, a skill MQM web developers require dearly. He has made himself easily approachable and generally comes off as friendly and he has developed a team that works even when he is not present.

I’ve quoted this before, but in this case it applies again.

Sherry Rehman said that no one can leave politics but politics can leave you at any time.

With all the anti-prac propoganda, Syed Ali Raza Abidi still stands strong.

Mistral House from Lalique

As I sit at the George V café on Champs Elysees in Paris reading the latest news updates on dawn.com from my PDA phone I cannot help but ponder on the future of Pakistan more specifically the future of luxury in Pakistan.

Luxury is the hidden desire amongst all of us to do better, to work harder, to earn more so we can enjoy the feeling of wearing a pair of sneakers from Louis Vuitton or admire the magnificent craftsmanship of the Antinea Vase by Lalique that is the constant reminder that yes, I worked hard to get here.

People often define luxury by its economic text book definition where they state that luxury is an indulgence, luxury is expensive; luxury isn’t required.

I say luxury is the key to our success.

If we were to live in a communist society where everything was distributed equally, where luxury is a word that does not exist what would be our incentive to work hard? To innovate? We would be no different than zombies.

What if the student in Pakistan who is in University studying to obtain his bachelors degree was to suddenly realize that no matter how hard he works he will still wear the same black trousers and white shirt for the rest of his life and work the same mundane job because that’s what he is trained for. Without luxury our entire economic system would collapse. Luxury and I repeat; is the very essence of what makes us work hard. The 12 years in school, 4 years in university and a further 2 years doing your masters is all so we can achieve that childhood dream of flying first class, wearing the top brands and decorating our homes with items that dazzle the visitor, because if we stop dreaming we might as well stop living.

With the tough economic situation Pakistan is in and the ping-pong war being played out in the North now spreading out to Baluchistan its even more imperative that the business society of Pakistan continues to promote luxury as it truly an important component in the salvation of Pakistan.