The gora factor

By Anjum Niaz
20-March-2009

The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting

It was the summer of 1976 (I think) when an Italian brunette by the name of Oriana Fallaci landed in Rawalpindi. She was svelte, sexy and terribly sharp. We watched her interview Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto rhapsodizing on our black & white TV sets. What the viewers don't know is how ZAB's handlers begged Fallaci to expunge his jaw-dropping junking of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Our ambassador in Rome, the late Brig Hamid Nawaz combed the length and breadth of the Italian peninsula and when he did finally find Fallaci, was told by the snarly journalist to get lost.

The snaky Zia was not known to make such media gaffes. He was a gora charmer. You must have read or watched Charlie Wilson's War where the Houston heiress and socialite Joanne Herring facilitated Zia get millions from the US to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was a blast with the foreign press. They were overawed by her. She enjoyed watching them squirm but in the end always preferred dishing out the juiciest news to the gora brigade. For the desi press she reserved the crumbs. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif avoided the gora hacks if he could. He seemed at his tentative best.

President Pervez Musharraf was a hopper. Immediately after 9/11 he became the darling of the press, as the phrase goes. The world media made him its centre spread. He got too cocky. His first spat came with The Washington Post editorial board where he announced that women like Mukhtaran Mai get purposely raped to get asylum abroad. Everyone was outraged. The president lied and said he had never made such a statement. The Post promptly put his interview on the Internet. Pakistan ended up with egg on its face. Nick Kristof of The New York Times too turned against the general when he was refused a visa to Pakistan. He abused (literally) Musharraf in his weekly columns whenever he got a chance. Jemima Khan, Imran Khan's ex was invited to interview Musharraf at the Army House. Media manager Gen (r) Rashid Qureshi bent over backwards to amuse, entertain and engage the celebrity-turned-journalist. She ended up making fun of everyone in her piece.

Our presidents and prime ministers are repeatedly rebuffed and ridiculed by gora journalists; still they hanker after them.

President Zardari is the latest casualty. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say.

Well the platinum haired, halter toting Daphne Barak is bombarding our cyber space with intimate photos and secrets of the Bhuttos, including her phone interviews with Asif Zardari. Recently she 'interviewed' Sanam Bhutto in London. Some of the remarks during dinner time – off the record most probably – found their way to the print media. They were reportedly anti-Zardari.

Our London High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hassan sprang into action. It was déjà vu all over again. Just as ZAB had opened his heart to the ferocious Fallaci and later got his ambassador in Rome to squelch bits, Zardari too tried distancing himself and Sanam from friend "Daphne." The presidential spin master who serves abroad but shoots off emails whenever he or missus get mentioned in the media has, I suspect, authored the following attack on Barak: "Daphne's references to Bhutto or Pakistan that she writes should be taken as near-fiction…[she] has done the nation of Pakistan and its people a grave disservice by manufacturing a news story featuring "statements" from Sanam Bhutto [who] is outraged and distressed at the lies attributed to her."

Years ago I watched Daphne clad in body-hugging shorts and a skimpy tube top interview Benazir and Zardari in New York. The threesome cut a cosy picture. The camera doesn't lie. So now to call her a "meddling tabloid vulture masquerading as a journalist" is politically dishonest. Daphne is not done yet…the readers should expect more explosions soon. Meanwhile the Foreign Policy magazine calls our president one of "the world's biggest losers." The tone and tenor employed would shame and humiliate every self-respecting Pakistani about his president.

If Zardari's spin master is reading this column, I challenge him to pick up the phone and lambast David Rothkopf, the gora writer or leave us desis in peace.

The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting. Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu

The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting. Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu