Boot Point

It was inevitable. Former Minister and host of a religious TV show, Dr. Aamir Liaquat, who is also known for delivering highly animated and dramatically choreographed naats, was recently thrown out from the party that he belonged to, the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Party chief Altaf Hussain and the MQM Rabita Committee cancelled Liaquat's membership after accusing him of "spreading religious hatred through his TV shows" and going against party policies.

The same day an English daily blamed an unnamed religious talk show for inciting the murder of two Ahmadis in Lahore. Many believe the referred show was the one hosted by Dr. Liaquat. If so, then this too was inevitable. Because such an incident should not come as a surprise in a highly charged and volatile environment that Pakistan finds itself quivering in.

Now imagine, in this Land of the Pure, where men have been known to have gone psychotic by killing Christians, Hindus and members of different Muslim sects merely at the provocative call of a fanatic in a corner mosque, what effect these religious talk shows are having on the collective psyche of the society? A society whirling helplessly inside a dangerous socio-political flux in which even the most sensible men and women are looking at everyone but themselves to put the blame on for whatever that has gone wrong in the spheres of economics, politics and religion in Pakistan.

Just as there is a serious lack of objectivity, responsibility or sometimes, simple decency, in most political TV talk shows, the religious shows too are riddled with a warped display of what could best be described as narcissistic anarchy. It is a reckless exhibition of love-for-self and loathing-for-the-other that overwhelms any realization associated with the notion of consequence. Thus, these so-called religious talk shows are simply adding to the already hysterical, self-righteous and dangerously paranoid concepts of morality and faith doing the rounds these days.

There was already a feeling in the MQM that Dr. Liaquat had become too big for his boots, even though the MQM also suggests that it was due to the party's influence that he got the chance to bag his own show on a private television channel.


Liaquat's show, Alim Online, began as an attempt to bring together scholars from the various Islamic sects that exist in Pakistan and rescue the religion from factionalism and misinterpretation.



However, soon he too started to experience the same kind of the careless celebrity complex his political talk show peers got afflicted with, leaving him toeing a hard-line that his more hard-edged televangelist contemporaries like Dr. Israr Ahmed and Ziad Hamid are known for.

Interestingly, some of Liaquat's more moderate sympathizers suggest that though most of his political and religious talk show contemporaries who too suffer from the same celebrity complex that blinds them about the repercussions their sophomoric brand of sensationalism triggers, however, unlike Liaquat they come in with hardboiled political and social agendas to push. Supposedly, Dr. Liquat's complex does not come attached with a personal agenda, other than that of mere self glorification.


This makes sense. Because whereas most political talk show hosts and Islamic televangelists on various private TV channels have off and on been accused of using their novae-celebrity status to push forward certain right-wing and reactionary strains of politics and religion, Dr. Liaquat does not have any such agenda. Instead, and as the MQM believes, he is over-smitten by his celebrity status, but so much so that he is now ready to become a mouthpiece for even the most sectarian line of thought if this means sustaining his celebrity standing.

Along with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Awami National Party (ANP), the MQM has evolved into becoming a prominent secular party in Pakistan. But it has been more demonstrative about its secularist credentials compared to the PPP and the ANP both of which are being seriously challenged not only by extremists in Swat and Waziristan, but also by large chunks of an urban middle-class that is rapidly being plagued by a highly schizophrenic form of conservative Islam. And it is from this class most of the TV talk show hosts and televangelists are emerging.


This leads to a rather potent point: Many of the political and religious TV shows anchored by hosts who hold masqueraded sympathies for Islamists, and TV shows in which televangelists passionately give Western countries a convoluted verbal bashing, some even calling them "economic terrorists" … ever notice how each one of these shows are punctuated by a gazillion commercial breaks, all stuffed with commercials of brands made by western multinationals?

I mean, if, say, Hamid Mir or Zaid Hamid, are always so incensed by "western interference" and "influence" and so sympathetic towards those "fighting a war against the West", how can they allow their shows to be sponsored by western multinationals?

Of course, the truth is if there are no multinationals sponsoring their shows, there will be no show at all.

My advise to these brave souls and revolutionary media mujahids is that rise and be the first to set an example of boycotting western multinationals. Tell your seths that your show will not accept advertising money from the economic lackeys of western imperialism and economic terrorism. Tell them you'll do the show free of cost for the larger interest of Islam and Pakistan!

Not a very practical idea, right? Then at least acknowledge the penetrating wisdom behind what that great unknown sage once said: Iss humam mein sab nangay hien.

At least Dr. Liaquat had a MQM to tell him that.