The Wind Cannot Read
Two momentous events concerning the media and Press freedom have recently taken place in Pakistan. During “the night of the Long Knives”, the PM Ms Benazir Bhutto, replaced the whole team of her media-handlers, from the Secretary Information, Hussain Haqqani, downwards, the only escapee being friend Farhat Ullah Babar, the PM’s loyal Press Secretary. Farhat is such a mild and honest soul that the PM’s hand may have been stayed by some angel.
Congratulations are in order to former PM Mian Nawaz Sharif because the incumbent PM has brought back into information power almost the whole team who had made her life miserable successfully during his tenure as PM. The PM kept one surprise choice up her sleeve, the aberration of Ms Rana Shaikh was transformed from being Secretary Culture to being the 22nd Managing Director of PTV since 1964. A former TV actress and Producer/Director, this was a natural end reward for the Herculean PR efforts of the wife of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Najmuddin Sheikh, to display the liberal side of Pakistan culture by a special “song and dance” fashion show in the US during the PM’s Yatra, a designer-clothing performance that could not be seen (being banned for TV viewing) in Pakistan by the likes of Maulana Fazlur Rahman lest he forget his holy vows of abstinence from such worldly pursuits. Ms Rana Shaikh shrugged off accusation of plagiarism, when you copy from many plagiarism turns into research.
