Look Ma—No Pants!

A great well-dressed nation always falls with its naked press.

Whatever one's hobby, keeping tabs on foreign journalists fooling themselves is a new full-time profession. How can a man read Dickens and Shakespeare—leave aside write memorable words—when foolish journalists rush in where angels fear to tread?

The angels record every move one makes. One wonders why journalists go further to cover the details of useless wars. Why cannot one wait until Judgment Day when trials will be open to public, and far more entertaining than the shows put up by O.J. Simpson and Bill Clinton?

Christina Lamb wrote a book titled Waiting for Allah; her next one will be appropriately called Look Ma, No Pants! This following story owes its success to her failure.

Miss Lamb—you guessed it brothers and sisters—came on a special mission, carrying The Sunday Times identification card hanging low over the bosom. Her Majesty the Queen sent her to pave the way for Tony Blair's rescue mission to Pakistan if she got caught. Recall how Tony dashed to meet un-elected President Musharraf and secure the release of Yvonne Ridley recently. Some girls have all the luck.

Christina—I have the poetic licence of using her first name only—bought a ticket from Quetta to Islamabad. That was no ordinary ticket; it was a PIA ticket. Any expatriate who frequents between the current country of residence and the beloved Motherland knows what a ticket to heaven that is.

The alert travel agent immediately informed the authorities about the novel request for a ticket in the name of a most wanted man. That name belonged to every Easterner's hero, every Westerners anti-Christ, the one and only, alone but not lonely, veiled in the right corner, weighing a full hundred and seventy-six pounds, scratching his-never mind, the mighty challenger, an emerging force to be reckoned with, one more round of applause ladies and gentlemen: OSAMA BIN LADEN.
Agreed, that any user of a public domain name like Osama Bin Laden is neither a 'trademark' thief nor a 'patent' pickpocket, but in all fairness, the man deserves royalty cheques in Saudi Riyals. If there is anyone who is being maligned, it is Osama. The West, when its software is pirated, comes after the Third World with the might of Goliath, and when it uses Osama's fame and name for blatant merchandising, there is no court of law that will condemn the act or pay punitive damages to the plaintiff.

People wish to name sons and daughters, after the most wanted man, and manufacturers cannot keep up with the brisk demand for Osama masks and posters. Bush is instantly forgettable: Osama is unforgettable. What does that indicate if not that the enemy of the most powerful nation on earth is in great public demand, all without the help of advertising gurus of New York's Madison Avenue?

One can only speculate over the manner in which Christina might have pressed against the government officials. They refused to press charges, declined to lambaste Miss Lamb for misusing Osama's identity, and merely prevented her from travelling to our Holy Capital: Islamabad.

The bureaucracy promptly issued her a one-way ticket to London town. After crying a bucketful at Buckingham Palace, she returned to Quetta in a vengeful mood, remained unrepentant, and claimed that the story in circulation was fabricated.

In order to fully benefit from the advantage of male company, and to make the American 'one-bomb-one biscuit' strategy appear photogenic to the West, she again brought along her trusted photographer, Justin.

One fine morning in November, after a sumptuous breakfast at Serena Lodge, they drove out to Chaman, a border-post beyond Quetta.

She broke the law that allowed journalists to travel to Chaman only under the protection of the security agencies. Nobody was permitted to loiter or mix with the masses unless being lynched, or turned into a local delicacy called Sajji, was on the itinerary.

Once there, she picked up breaking news by climbing atop a check-post, looking through the zoom lens, and sniffing in the general direction of Afghanistan. But these days, picking up deadly sexually transmitted diseases is easy; obtaining verifiable facts through an iron curtain stitched by the Taliban is impossible.

Then suddenly, someone suspected the couple of photographing Pakistani officials using X-ray film. The X-Ray sunglasses and camera were impounded immediately. Both the toys enabled one to see the big boys on 'as is, where is' basis—an uncomfortable thing for men who pulled each other's pants down or socks up while vying for endless promotions at various ministries and NGOs.

Once again Christina and Justin were swept off their intruding feet. The police happily watched over them at Serena Lodge. From there they were finally moved to a Government Rest House. After a nice siesta, and having brushed their teeth with electric toothbrushes, they were parcelled to Islamabad.

The real reason they were unceremoniously thrown out-and not officially flown out-was that Christina criticised Quetta for not having a single half-decent fish and chips restaurant. This unreasonable demand has remained a perennial British problem since colonial times. Everyone knows that the only waterhole at Quetta is a salty wasteland called Hanna Lake; a symbol of smuggling-fishy business-not fish.

Once Christina reached the capital, not a single room was available at any hotel in the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad; all rooms belonged to the queen of CNN: Christiane Amanpour. And she could not be reached. Her whereabouts were only known to top bureaucrats-let us not call them top dogs-who understood only the first rule of internal security: sleep in a different bed each night.

Osama makes similar moves but he remains untraceable to this day. The secret: he never leaves any telltale marks on the sheets despite having many wives. For this he deserves full marks and a star.

Before we proceed further, stop to note the remarkably similar sounding first names of Kerstin Beck (read the previous article, Right Burqa, Wrong Lips), Christina Lamb, and Christiane Amanpour. Jesus Christ! Bush was right; it really is a crusade.

Lack of decent accommodation at the capital is not a problem if one considers the Federal definition of tourism: the right of a ruler to remain on endless foreign tours at the taxpayer's expense. If rooms are unavailable at local five-star hotels, one can always stay with a three-star General as a paying guest, or at an Army mess.

The loveliest sight is that of the Federal police grilling those without accommodation, by the roadside. They are in league with marriage bureaus, and regularly ask one to produce a most dreaded document that makes grown men weep: Nikah-nama, a harmless marriage certificate really. Because all residents are actually out-of-towners, they wear the Nikah-nama around the neck like a good luck charm. The police work hand in glove with hilarious liberated wives who wish to ensure that their nefarious obliterated husbands never forget the mistake they made while signing the marriage papers and saying 'I do' thrice.

It is time to make an amendment to the Constitution that the General has very kindly suspended, and declare travel to Islamabad an offence equal in gravity and seriousness to high treason. Such travel must be condemned outright.

Nobody must travel to that Forbidden City, least of all women foreign journalists pretending to be Osama Bin Laden. That millions of men compete to look and behave like Osama is understandable; to have women do the same is cause for joyous celebration. Osama is now a cross-cultural symbol capable of influencing all sexes, and giving any Hollywood male mega-star a run for the money.

Because Christina failed in her vain attempt to impersonate Osama, her employer, The Sunday Times, was deprived of an opportunity to splash the headline: Osama travels to Islamabad dressed as a woman.

The people of the Federal capital were deprived of entertainment the Allied commandos might have provided pursuing the wrong man, ruining the scenic beauty of Daman-e-Koh and Shakkar Parian, and playing Merry-go-round-the-Georgey-Bush. Now imagine all that without commercial breaks.

The Federal begums also lost the perfect opportunity to organise yet another Walk-a-Cause over the capital's Constitution Avenue. That Avenue was not built to honour the martyrs; it was laid out for a martyred concept: democracy. It represents Plotocracy, Lotacracy, and Notocracy, not democracy.

Back to dear Christina again-when asked why she picked a household name like Osama, she admitted, "I was just joking." All the interrogators there let out a single 'ha' in unison instead of the habitual 'ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . '”, which meant, what she said was not amusing.

Accommodating Christane Amanpour and Christina Lamb simultaneously in the capital soon gave the Federal capitalists a migraine as they were only trained to handle acute shortages of cute thinking heads. Eventually the city, so in love with making boomeranging decisions, found a God-sent excuse to patronise the American queen. The worst woman eventually won.

History conveniently repeated itself on 11 November when, in order to show respect to the WTC victims, Christina and Justin were again 'expelled for being involved in undesirable activities'. If only they had tamed carnal desire and curtailed after-dinner activities.

What would one do without the press? It was reported in the press that 'upon reaching the airport lounge she staged a drama and tore off her trousers to protest against the expulsion.' One can tear off a shalwar in disgust, but certainly not English trousers.

'She was strapped to a wheelchair by the security staff and promptly put on a London-bound PIA flight.' Christina narrowly escaped getting straitjacketed and sent to the lunatic asylum: the abandoned National Assembly Building.

In this age how careful can one be? Each media conglomerate needs at least one journalist from a happy family, not a striptease artist without the ability to break news, and certainly not an individual who is torn between a sense of honest duty and poorly choreographed nudity.

The Lamb Episode is a full-blown exposure of 'mad cow' flesh. Who knows if it was not a multi-national company's pre-launch trial of yet another hair removal product?

One must feel concerned about the way they use women journalists in the West. In the East, there is no problem because none are allowed to travel to war-zones without their husbands. The only war-zones they face are the homes of their in-laws.

The child-labour issue is a non-issue compared with the concerted global effort required to have the wages of Western journalists increased. Their employment contracts-that perhaps covertly encourage them to dishonour their bodies when credit cards are not honoured-also need to be re-negotiated.

Unannounced military take-overs are nothing new in the Third World; sporadic nude protests by irresponsible journalists are, and which require great emotional adjustment.

A concerned citizen suggested that these concerns-more explosive than all the American bombs put together-must be appropriately worded, then sent as a petition to the United Nations to intervene.

Pending weak-kneed resolutions on Kashmir and Palestine can wait forever. Instead, the dirtiest one-track minds at the U.N. need to be tickled so that the issue of naked aggression can be resolved quickly.

Tahir Gul Hasan holds the copyrights to his work. Written permission of the author is required for reproducing or re-printing his work on any medium.

To further connect the odd dots , please read:
Malala Yousuf Zai: Genius Or Mouth-Piece (part-I)
Malala Yousaf Zai: Attack Of The Babbling Tongues (part-II)
Project Malala: Famous Lost Words (Part-III)