Mast Qalandar
Geo News is back on cable TV in Pakistan! It was banned along with two other popular TV channels on November 3 last year when Emergency was imposed in the country.
We don’t know on what conditions the channel has been allowed to operate again. We also don’t know how much dent the 77-day ban must have made in the profitability of the news company — it must be pretty huge — or to the livelihood of the journalists working for it.
But we do know that the ban made a huge dent in the government’s credibility and the image of “enlightened moderation” that it was so eager to project. It also left in its wake numerous angry messages and slogans on the wallboards outside the Geo office in Islamabad. They do give you a flavor of the general feelings prevailing at the time in a large segment of the civil society.
The photos with this post are here for you to decipher them, enjoy them, add to them, or ignore them.
Photos for this article are taken by the author himself. His full collection can be seen here.
We are all glad that geo is back on air.Hope it will continue to provide us with top class entertainment and at the same time more responsible, balanced and unbiased political reporting.
ALI
I have been watching Geo in the UK as it was restored here many weeks ago. It is a toothless channel now, they no longer dare invite people like Imran Khan and Aitazaz Hasan to speak on air…people who are blunt and mince no words. also note the absence of Capital Talk and Meray Mutabiq. These programmes always gave opportunities to both sides, as government reps were always invited but Musharraf could not tolerate the views expressed by his critics. Jamshed Nazar is absolutely right: Musharraf had no problem with free media as long as his ‘kursee’ was secure. The moment he felt threatened, he became a bull in china shop.
I feel sad when I see some people on this forum coming up with ‘treason’ and ‘Indian agents’ label for people in Pakistan media. This kind of mentality should have been buried after 1971, when we labelled half of the population of the country sa traitors and beckoned our army to crush and kill the ‘bloody ghaddars’. If we had listened to them instead and tried to redress their grieviences, we would have been spared the humiliation of surrender; our army ended up being accused of carrying out one of the biggest massacres of recent times. Do not dismiss people who criticise Musharraf as ‘haters’. I used to like him when I thought he was trying to do good for the country. Yes, I hate him now, but not because of any thing personal, or regional or ethnic; but because I strogly feel he has caused massive damage to my beloved home land.
The problem started not really becuase Geo had gone crazy and its achors were throwing punches at the Government as some have hinted in thier comments earlier.
The pandora’s box opened up with the events of March 07 when Musharraf lost his ability to totally control the helms of power. Musharraf wanted to be re-elected president for the next few years along with his General’s uniform and from the same parliament whose term itself was expiring and all this he could not do under the constitution and in the reality of 2007.
Rather than agreeing to STOP at the blinking red light, Musharraf, in his typical commando style, bulldozed all the traffic signs and created his own fast lane crossing by moving all the taffic posts and turning all lights to GREEN. Yes, he did finally manage to become the “President” through his manouvers but at what cost? He has lost all credibility that he had built up with the Pakistani middle classes over this first seven years.
Geo, like several other media organizations, was just relaying the circus coming out of the streets of Pakistan as Musharraf made his moves. All Geo was doing was discussing this farce live on air and this was resonating with the people’s impression of the General President. Add to this the gyrations of the Lawyers movement with its own “Justice Chaudary”, sooo much like a Hindi film from the eighties, and we had all the makings of a perfect “street revolution” live on TV.
The goverment tried to make the case that Geo in its ability to reflex the impressions back to its viewers was actually resonating the public mood – that its programming was resulting in an increase of the people’s disgust towards Musharraf’s actions.
This is quite true that Geo does have the power to reinforce the sentiment on the street. Geo’s anchors, by asking the pointed questions and leading the chisling news reports, were putting a sharp focus on Government’s ugly moves.
This reflexive power of Geo along with its focus on the President’s manouverings was what brought it to a shut down.
Geo will live another day and will become stronger. It has earned serious credibility among its viewers and this will be its lasting strength.
On the other hand, look at Musharraf and look at the state of Pakistan. Just because Musharraf wanted to stick to the anals of power, how far in the dust has he pulled out the state of the country.
Musharraf did a good job in his first few years – probably better than what Bhutto sahib accomplished 30 years ago.
But look at him now – watching him on TV walking around the conference halls in Paris, Brussels and Davos, I see a man sheepishly walking around trying to shake hands and also looking out half expecting that someone is going to throw an egg to his face.When he goes back in a couple of days to Pakistan, I wondoer what he will be thinking of – imagine all the mess that is out there in the land of Pakistan – BB killed along with the partnetship with BB, Taliban on the rise, the economy in a downspiral and no friends except for the buddy Generals in the GHQ.
Its time to go Mr. Musharraf, let the next generations of Generals take over.
And to Good TV I say “A job wel done” and kidos to “Hum Sab Umeed Sey Hain”, Anchors Iftikhar, Hamid Meer, Dr Shahid and the rest. Just take a chill on the breaking news part though — a gas lamp killing couple of people in the middle of nowhere is not breaking news really!
“Dr. Shahid and Hamid Mir were not neutral, rather they are the agents of Indian Intelligence Services!!!!”
Oh God….here we go again.
GEO like most of other Pakistani media is working in line with enemies of Pakistan or we can say a foolish friend who is trying in its capacity to harm the country. Stupid fellows who don’t know how to express or talk in such talk shows like Mr Kamran Khan and Hamid Mir pretends to be most wise persons contrary to their worth. The summary is that Pakistani media has always been working against any governmetn in Pakistan merely to get popularity and mony through blackmailing