The latest of Pakistan's "gate" scandals

It was revealed in a survey conducted recently by Gallup that Pakistanis have a predilection towards conspiracy theories.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/05/what_pakistanis_think?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/conspiracyofthemasses

But can anyone blame us. After all that has happened to us over the years, we have developed into a schizophrenic nation suffering from the constant paranoia that vested interests out there are out to harm us.

The latest addition to this long list of conspiracy theories has been the expose of the talk show that was conducted by mehr bukhari and luqman with riaz malik as the guest. And among other things, this just shows how deeply the media has been involved in this historic case. Historic because it is treating the transaction between one private sector individual and another private sector individual as a criminal offense. Until now it was only government functionaries or people who have been given authority by the state who if they accept money from anyone were construed as being guilty of taking bribery. But this case has brought forth a case that involves two private sector individuals who have with mutual understanding conducted transactions with each other.

My analysis of the whole case is as follows.

Malik Riaz has learned how spending money on other people, whether they are journalists, serving or retired military personnel, bureaucrats, media owners, or family and relatives of influential people, pays its dividends. He literally believes the famous statement that every man has a price. And he has been able to accumulate all this power and wealth by constantly sharing his fortunes with other people of wealth and power.

He had several cases going on against him in various levels of court for around 4 years. This has unfortunately for him also been the time when there has been a revolution in the judiciary and has given rise to an unprecedented judicial activism. Resultantly, he had been unable to buy any sort of relief in these cases. So his devious mind led him to play the same tricks that made him what he is today. He started spending big amounts on the CJP’s son (& God knows which other Supreme Court judge &/or his family) in order to trap the CJP later. This is why despite the fact that he himself says, and is obvious from the proceedings held thus far, he got no relief in any of the cases, he kept spending money on the CJP’s son for years knowing that this ‘investment’ would come in handy. At the same time, he kept planning a conspiracy buying people from the media, the armed forces and intelligence agencies so as to build up support  for the time when he decides to expose the Chief Justice. And he did this with a bang using media as a tool.

The CJP cannot be completely absolved of the problem here. There’s no way he couldn’t have gotten  sniff of what was going on but his paternal instinct made him turn a blind eye to it. Eventually, as soon as he was sure that this was now going to come out in the open, he took a suo motu notice in this case.

As all of this proceeded,  the bought-out anchor persons kept carefully building up a campaign against the judiciary in order to change the only thing in this whole case that the CJP had in his favor : public sympathy. He’s been a source of hope for the nation that there is the possibility of someone taking up a stand against the vested interests. Hes been the hope that things WILL one day change and this country’s decline would be arrested and there would be peace, progress and pride in abundance all around. In any case, pride is such an important element of the identity of a Pakistani.

It was here that Allah intervened and exposed what was actually going on in the media regarding this case and indeed malik riaz is someone who buys out people and institutions so that they can be used as his tool. And this expose has in my opinion turned things on their head. Over night the ‘free’ media has taken a pro CJP stance and the nations’ soft corner for the CJP has been reinforced. They know that if they even continue to take a slightly inclined to Malik Riaz stance, they will be construed by the viewers as being sold out. This I believe will eventually turn out to be CJP’s savior.  But while I believe the CJP will survive this crisis the fall out of this will not end here. We have the Dunya News channel against the wall now along with the two anchors, Mehr and Luqman. While they are character assassinated by competing media channels, they will also dig up information against some of the other anchors that are present on Geo network. If they can arrive at evidence, they can even perhaps move the court. And as one person who is blamed and is guilty turns out and blames another person ,this is where the chain reaction will start that cans really u a big dent  in the social corruption of our society.

Remember, because of the Arsalan-Riaz case, such gifts form one private sector individual to another are not mere gifts anymore, they are a crime. Too long have we turned a blind eye to bribery in the private sector under the pretext of “relationship building”; not any more !