Adil Najam

I have been traveling nearly non-stop over the last month, and events in Pakistan are headline news everywhere. More than that everyone is asking questions about Pakistan. An immigration official in Baku, Azerbaijan, asked me (2 weeks before the emergency) how long Musharraf will survive? A hotel receptionist in Musqat, Oman, asked more politely if “all is well in your country?” (one week before the emergency). In Pakistan (just days before the emergency) the question was more like “What is America planning for Pakistan?” A shop-keeper in Trondheim, Norway, asked (one day before the emergency) wondered if “Benazir will solve Pakistan’s problems?” And my driver in Cairo, Egypt, asked yesterday “Has Musharraf gone mad?”

You have to be impressed by how much ordinary people around the world know about Pakistan. But also sad that this is what they are thinking when they think Pakistan.

Adil Najam

News is that GEO Network is closing down. I hope the news is a false alarm, but I am told that this has been announced on Geo TV itself. An email making the rounds from someone at GEO itself reads:

At this moment we here at Geo are extremely SAD as Geo network is forced to shut down due to Govt pressure on UAE our base country.
Insha Allah we will fight. We are proud that the management of Jang Group never made compromise and prefer to fight till death.

I would rather wait to hear more details and to see reaction to this from the government, from the people of Pakistan and also the rest of the world before I comment in detail. But my first reaction is, yet again, one of disgust. The things that we coudl have been most proud of in recent years and months – an assertive judiciary, a free media – are being snatched away one by one. I hope it turns out not to be so. But if so, then who next?

Owais Mughal

This photo is courtesy of Mr. Khadem Hossein. It shows a barber shop in Karachi. I think it is a very creative name for this business.