This isn’t funny anymore. I can’t keep a smiling face and honestly tell people that everything is okay. I can’t keep looking out the window when I drive through Karimabad, Nazimabad and Lyari at the numerous shops that go without electricity every day. I feel guilty when I turn on the air conditioner of my car.

I hate the voice of the people on television and radio who talk about the budget and the cost of living, when they have no idea what is going on. How can you create a public-friendly budget when you don’t know what the life of the average member of the public is?

I still see the young beggar boy, Babar, who used to sell cloth pieces at the FTC traffic light before the flyover was built and has since moved to the PIDC area, who I still end up giving a few hundred rupees a month because I once heard him say how hungry he was. Each time I bite into a McDonalds, I feel horrible because I, with all that God has blessed me and my family, have never experienced hunger like what I saw in that young man’s eyes.

I drove to the Paradise Super Store yesterday evening and bumped into the sales lady from Solo. For those of you who are unaware, there is a TON of development work being done and as a result, they have dug up the complete service road right infront of Solo and a lot of other commercial shops. How can these shops survive? Please don’t take me wrong. I am thrilled at the pace of the development work that is being done in the city. For the first time in the short, stunted history of this city, has the political party exhibited so much of its own vested interest in line with what is actually good for the rest of us. Why we are bent upon putting businesses through so much pain and misery because of poor planning and lack of knowing how to divert traffic around to places so the the few people who run businesses that continually attract foreigners, can be salvaged. Read more »

On the 4th of June, 2007, Tony Blair gave speech at the “Islam and Muslims in the World Today,” below is the text of his speech and great reading for every Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

I would like to thank Cambridge University and their partners, the Coexist Foundation and the Weidenfeld Institute for Strategic Dialogue for hosting this important conference.

As many of you will know, the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme is at the forefront of innovative teaching and research in terms of the study of world religions, their inter-relations and their relations with secular society.

The first and most obvious question about this Conference here in London is: why? The first and most obvious answer is that Britain is today a country of two million Muslims in a Europe that has over 20 million Muslims. I would like to pay tribute to our British Muslim communities today. In overwhelming part, they make a significant positive and growing contribution to modern Britain.

We have successful Muslims in all areas of our national life - business, sport, media, culture, the professions. We have our first Muslim MPs, first Muslim Members of the House of Lords; hopefully the next election will bring more and hopefully also the first women Muslim MPs.

Secondly, and again obviously as a result of what is happening in the world today, there is an interest and appetite across all sections of society to know more about Islam in all its diversity. This is not, repeat not, about equating interest in Islam with anxiety over extremism. But it explains, in part, the desire to learn about what moves and motivates our Muslim communities. Read more »

There is no way to censor or control the flow of information. It’s like saying you are going to block roads and not let people move around. There are always alternate channels, nooks, crannies, alleyways and openings. Believe it or not, it’s not a free world, but it has immense flexibility for us to work with.

I have a comment involving the manner in which people tend to protest and wanted to share it on this forum.

Dancing lawyers on the television don’t make much of an impacting statement. In fact, they make me want to change the channel. Riots make me feel frightened of change and feel sadness at the loss of life. But I’ll tell you a kind of protest that I will willingly participate in.

If the Government attempts to control the flow of information through newspapers and newsreaders, why won’t publishers just print blank pages where there SHOULD have been news? Why won’t producers produce the same program and air a segment without sound? That’s a silent, peaceful protest involving millions of people. Imagine the impact it can have. What would happen if one print run covered NOTHING about the Government? If Institutions wish to exert control over information ABOUT them, then I think we are ignoring the fact that the Daily News companies own the presses and pages where this information is ultimately printed on.

We tend to forget that as much as the Institution needs the media platforms as much as we need them. It’s a perfectly unhappy marriage filled with hatred and deceit. I’d imagine if our media platforms were strong enough, they would call for these drastic measures in these drastic times.

Pakistan is at the start of a Media Revolution - We just need to use these openings more effectively.

Aishwarya Rai with her annoyingly plastic and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth (although bigger and more solid things would) smile blowing at us. Abhishek Bachchan with a cat-who-just-licked-the-cream satisfied smile lying seductively in a big circle. No, no, this is not about the wedding or their post-marital relationship, which has been discussed and printed ad nauseum. Because we also have the retarded he-man Hrithik Roshan kicking in the air. I am talking about the giant billboards that have raided Pakistani cityscapes. And there is no escape from them. Open any magazine, newspaper in addition to editorial content, they are hogging the advertising space, too. What is happening? The Indianisation of our media.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not a hypocrite. Yes, I like India — the cinema, the music, the civil society, the literature, the people’s movements, the democracy and much more. I am deeply impressed by these aspects of Indian society. But I certainly don’t like these film stars morphing into our role models. That is not on. I will protest. I am all for creating our very own role models, or for that matter simply models. Indianisation of our advertising is a serious menace to Pakistani society on many levels. Superficially, it sends out signals that we have no celebrities to endorse our products (basically I am opposed to this very idea, however, that’s a trend internationally so one has to live with it). Agreed that Indian film stars are far bigger, but that does not mean we don’t have anyone powerful enough to endorse. Babra Sharif negates this notion in a beautiful and effective manner when she smiles at us from huge billboards. She still reigns supreme on our collective conscience and our popular culture canvas. Similarly, Shaan, ZQ, Vinnie, Waseem Akram, Iman Ali, Moammar Rana and Strings all successfully paint the town with half-rainbow colors and lend credibility to this endorsement game. And recently, Reema simply looks gorgeous and convincing enough to lead us to buy a brand of soap. Read more »