MQM's More Sensible Media Moves.

Check this out...

NOW the MQM is taking the semi-serious route of confronting the culprits instead of whining in the wrong channels and barking up the wrong trees.

However, as any racist Brit would dutifully do, while printing the letter the Guardian managed to stiff it to the MQM. At the end of the letter they wrote "Dr Farooq Sattar MQM deputy convener and four others," as if they couldn’t care less who Dr. Sattar were, and his opinion was as good as four others'.

The fully serious route is to write an opinion piece and get it published in the Guardian or another newspaper if Guardian refused to print it. That is instead of wasting their time with the Pakistani TV channels. Yapping away in front of moronic Pakistani TV anchors who ask four questions in one breath, have no courtesy to listen to any of the answers anyway, is not a replacement for the carefully crafted written word.

This is what I wrote about Guardian’s journalistic slight of hand on September 27, 2010.

There is an unwritten rule of the media to use the violent language when it comes to the MQM. Note the language of Faisal Raza Abdi at 4:50 onwards in this video. THIS is the reality of the Pakistani politics and especially that of PPP, which I have noticed since 1977.

The fish rots from its head. Most political parties in Pakistan are rotted at the head. Even with all of the talk of the MQM bullying, I have never seen any high level MQM spokesperson to talk like this in my life.

Any political party wishing to operate in Pakistan needs to be able to defend its leaders and members. In the case of the MQM that defense is promoted as offense, and the offense by the Jamaat-e-Islami, ANP, PPP, etc. is presented as defense. Case in point, the coverage of May 12, 2007. If the MQM men were seen firing with guns, who were responding to their fires? What were the other people doing with their ammunition?

It is about time the MQM started acting in the media offensively, instead of forever being on the defensive in front of the moronic TV anchors who are playing around with politicians to get salary boosts. From ARY to Geo to Samaa to Express back to ARY. That's their economic game.

From the MQM’s side, Haider Abbas Rizvi is the one to watch. He speaks with knowledge, authority and confidence. THAT is what is needed from the MQM in the machismo political culture of Pakistan. And last but not the least, stop reading those Urdu poetry. 98% of Pakistanis including the Urdu speakers don't understand most of them.