Since Farooq is not not willing to talk about Atta Chors, Judiciary, then what is left to talk about. Now Mr. Farooq, how come Musharraf was not able to turn around things till 9/11 happened?

Why are you shying away from talking about Pak Army Generals? This Guy Mush goes on National TV and asks the western nation should not ask for Human rights for Pakistanis? You seriously think we are not human beings.

Name one thing this government has really build?

This piece of paper like a hanging sword is what owners of these TV channels are scard off and now Govt is trying to remind them of this contract that they have signed.

Since you seems to be the official spokesman for murderer, lotas, people without any moral standings(PMLQ) and much more. So I am sure you must have a lot of reasons for the following as well:

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/dec-2007/27/maxim.php

I try to be very specific and short this time. About closing the channels, I agree with you that the gov, should not have done that. I have been banned from this website several times and I think admin and Musharraf share same mentality in this regards.

What I was saying that there should be an org. which will act like a watch dog and the ordinance given by PEMRA seems pretty reasonable to keep certain amount of restrictions on the contents and we see these kind of organisation in different developed countries.

Let me tell you why there should be restrictions. About 2 months ago, I was watching ARY World with my family, and without any WARNING they showed the dead bodies and remains of people and head of the suicide bomber who got killed in Karachi – Karsaz carnage. At that time, my niece, who is 6 watching tv as well. She got really frightened and scared after watching that. This kind of situation needs to be controlled.

About the isolation of pakistan, let me correct you. Pakistan actually got isolated right after the nuclear tests during the NS gov. and remained isolated until 9/11.

On one hand when it comes to the boost of economy, rather than giving credit to gov. we say that all happened because of 9/11. At the same time, when people get killed in NWFP and Waziristan, we dont admit that terrorism is growing in Pakistan as an aftermath of 9/11, but, we consider that as gov. inefficiency. Is this right? We should come out of these double standards.

About the Pakistan’s economy, I was in Karachi this summer. In my opinion Karachi’ economy has imporved as compared to 1999. In 1999 it was so difficult to get the job, but now there are so many oppurtunities in IT, Banking, Telecommunications sectors etc… as well as the pay scale is much much better. So I diasgree with you that the economical affects didnot trickle down to common people. I can give other examples too, which i have witnessed, but I want to say that, yes, there are lot of problems which still needs to be resolved but at the same time there has been some progress as well, that we should admit, and if we keep on going in the right direction, we will be able to resolve more problems. Its really our perception, if we see the glass, half full or half empty.

I completely agree with you that we should come out of this binary thinking of Mush or BB/NS, but at the same time we should not critisize each and every thing as this created pessimism, sinicism and disappointment.

“every body should be accountable”, how come when Pakistan is ruled by Military most of the time. We don’t see corruption cases against them. All the generals were angels? I vaguely recall Mansur ul Haq, but even his charges were dropped it.

First of all thank you for a detailed and specific note…it is a rarity on this forum…

now, let me try and respond…

you say that I have taken the discussion to another direction from that of PEMRA…
I do not think so…and this is why…
I was making two inter-related points…let me reiterate them.

The first was that giving verdict is a legitimate actvity of media the world over…I gave examples from other countries. If anyone disagrees with a particular channel’s position, the response should be to either show that the channel is biased or open other channels which would counter that verdict. There is a very strong leftist media in many countries, such as India, which criticise the pro-capitalist policies. But, you do not see these governments cloisng down the opposing media. The government of pakistan has its own media, the PTV. If it felt taht some private channels are giving verdicts against it which were unjustified, it could have opened more channels. It could have encouraged pro-government businessmen to open channels. This is how freedom of speech works. You do not silence the other by the barrel of gum but respond to words with words.

Further, by your standards, even this website should be closed bacause it can be argued that most people are writing against the government and the admn him/herself may be implicitly giving anti-government verdict. The correct approach would be to either bring more pro-government people to write on this website or to open other more attractive sites. It would be nothing but shameful if the website itself was closed. And this is precisely what the government of Musharraf has done.
You did not respond to this matter at all.

The second related point I made was that the verdict was negative because the government has been disappointing. I listed its failures. What can one do? Even the most neutral observer will say that pakistan is in a mess. It may have made some economic ‘progress’ (and I will come to it below) but it is in a mess in almost every other area. And I listed those areas. So, how can the verdict be anything but negative.

These were my two inter-related points. I argued that to give verdict is a legitimate media activity and that in our case the verdict could not have been anything but negative. I did not change the subject but went in deatils…

Now, on the isuse of deatils…let me go to your praising of economic development under Musharraf.

I am sure you would recall that immediately after October coup, Pakistan was completely isolated. Have you forgotted the 4-hour visit of Clinton? What FDI was there between Oct 1999 and Sept 2001? We were a pariah nation internationally.

It was only beacuse of 9/11 that Mush became acceptable and Pakistan came back into the international fold. And do not think that Musharraf – the adventurer of Kargil and the supporter of Taliban – had a change of heart. He had absolutely no choice. He himself has said that he was threatened that if he did not join the US, Pkaistan would be bombed to stone age.

So it was 9/11 and not any wise policy of Mush that has brough some macro-economic changes in Pkaistan. I am sure you would know the magnitude of US Aid, the flexible loans, the change of terms of existing loans better than I do. Please talk about all this as well.

I am using the term macro-economic beacuse all the figures you have quoted pertain to that. Now, as you know very well that macro-economics works on avergars and averages are deceptive. A country can have large GNP, higher exports, more reserves, all this without any improvement in the distribution of economic gains. You are only talking about growth and not distribution. Can you tell me who has benfited from these macro-economic growth? Are commen people better off? Are prices of essential items within people’s reach? which heavy industry has came to Pakistan? The FDIs you are talking about are all consumer items…the mobiles, dvds, cars, mp3s…and franchises… which are produced somewhere else and we simply buy them and give jobs and profits to MNCs. This FDI is so flimsy and supercifial that it can be taken away in the blink of an eye. It has only made Pakistan more dependent on MNCs and global capitalist mafia. Further, has this so called economic boom tarnslated in any way into social development? Is there any good government hospital for common people? Good schools? In fact, Madrsas have proliferated beacuse of the failure of successive governmts, incluging this one, to provide a decent education. If this government claims greatest economic progress it must also be able to show greatest social progress. Can it do that? The rich have become richer and poor poorer. That is the economic truth. The latest wheat fiasco is an example. Yes, wheat got exported and we came close to meeting export target but at whose cost? Who is now paying for the millions that Mush’s cronies made? Have you forgotten thae steel Mill privatisation? Who was benefiting? So please do not hoodwink people. As you had written peiple are now intelligent and they can see through.

Now, even if I grant that there was some debatable economic growth, how can one achievement be said to equal dozems of other debacles, especially in terms of huam rights? You are wrong to say that the channels did not talk about economic ‘progress’. They did. This is all that pro-government ministers were talking about; this is all Musharraf talked about in his ‘qoum say khitab’. But how can one balance a single debatable achievement with dozens of fiascos? A neutral observer will still say that compared to one debatable achiement there was so much decline. How can you equate some debatable economic progress with the loss of thosands of lives in Swat, in Waziristan…with hundreds of missing persons.

Finally, to criticise Mush is not to side with BB/NS. Please get out of this binary thinking. People like us are critical of all who have looted pakistan. We are for free speech and free judiciary and believe taht without these two pillars, it really makes no difference if Mush is in power or not. That is why I and many other have consistently criticised BB and NS.

Kalila

I disagree with you on almost all points. I’ll just take the FDI issue here. You need to be clear about what is clubbed under the head of FDI. FDI includes, inter alia, (a)investments in manufacturing sector, (b)investments in services and consumer industries and (c) investments as part of acquisitions and mergers. An example of (a) will be some new industry (e.g.: cement plant, power generation plant etc.) while for (b) the investment will be like opening a McDonalds or KFC etc. (c) type investment will be privatisation (e.g.: PTCL, Steel Mills etc.).

Of these it is only the (a) type of investment which is proven to have paid dividends to the local economy by generating new jobs and improving overall productivity of the local economy. (b) type investments simply kick consumerism and are known to have hurt local business by MNCs. (c) type investments are even worse. These tend to eventually end up in right sizing (loss of jobs) and reverse flow of capital (from local economy to the foreign investor). Better management, at times, results in higher productivity but it very rarely translates in mass uplift of local economy. What our beloved ex-commando and his coteries have been doing is to inflate the FDI figures by including privatization proceeds in it. This is just jugglery of figures. I am no economic expert, but I can see that no trickle down effect, and I repeat, no trickle down effect has happened in the Pakistani economy in last eight years.

I can take other points that you have mentioned one by one but if you insist on FDI then you have to show me in which industrial sector it has gone.

BTW: I am happy that regime supporters are now forced to talk about only economy as the achievements of this regime. A year or so ago they would also always mention ‘freedom of media’ as singular achievement. Good riddance.

regards,
inaam