Dawn Images – SOUND CHECK: Pulp diction’

SOUND CHECK: Pulp diction

Source: Dawn – Images

A month ago while being interviewed for a documentary by DawnNews, I spontaneously said something that made the young producer raise an eyebrow. Well informed and conscious about the many rants by yours truly in the 1990s about the utter necessity of mixing politics with popular music, I saw the talented young man’s eyebrow racing across his forehead the moment I announced that local pop musicians should stay away from politics!

“Why?” Came the obvious question.

The reasons are rather simple. Over the years I have noticed that anyone in Pakistan — from a politician, to an artiste, to a drawing-room chatter — whenever they decide to make profound political statements, they are more likely to end up either mixing rhetorical religious imagery in their otherwise secular tirades, or worse, liberally sprinkle thoroughly clichéd and outlandish conjectures that are incoherently weaved from cheap pulp theories of intricate conspiracies; usually available in the shape of badly written books, the internet and television talk-shows.

Now, forget about Junaid Jamshed and Najam’s moralistic spiels, because Azmat has gone spread-eagle, mouthing, nay babbling, hackneyed pulp fiction in the name of “truth!”

In the new video for his song Tanha Hai Kyun, both Ali and the video’s director, Zeeshan Parwez, make a fine mess of their otherwise impressive creative credentials as they jot together random images of war, death and disease (picked up from YouTube perhaps!), to make a profound socio-political statement that is anything but.

But what is this statement?

Bear with me all you poor rational souls, as I utter the following brilliant insights us skeptics would never be able to comprehend. This is what Azmat and Zeeshan have to say through their goose-bumpy video: “There is not a single aspect of our lives which is not controlled (by capitalists/imperialists/Jews/etc.). All wars happen for profit gains and for banks. We call them ‘banksters’”

What utter nonsense! I thought all life was controlled by God. Is he a bankster too?

“The medicines shown in the video symbolise the various diseases that are used to spread famine and control profits. UG99 Pharma is one name.” Right, mate, but is that juicy Burger that you were modelling for on TV last year and that cola Zeeshan was playing for, I wonder, how healthier are they? What are the somber and intellectual slack, expose and conspiracy on those, my young Nostradamuses?

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In the new video for his song Tanha Hai Kyun, both Ali and the video director, Zeeshan Parwez, make a fine mess of their otherwise impressive creative credentials as they jot together random images of war, death and disease (picked up from YouTube perhaps!), to make a profound socio-political statement that is anything but.

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There is also a comment in the video on certain ‘isms.’ Communism, capitalism, fascism… according to the video they’re all the same.

First of all, I know that both Azmat and Zeeshan have absolutely no clue about the history and theory of these ‘isms’, (except, of course, capitalism, at which both are ironically very good at).

Secondly, such a statement and the ones above are reminiscent of those old 19th century proto-fascist and supremacist theories that emerged in Europe and were converted (for a profit!) into such awkward, unsubstantiated and paranoid literature as The Protocols of Zion and the recent spat of conspiracy literature doing the rounds (dished out for an even bigger profit!).

The video and the current interviews that I have seen of Ali, got me thinking. The man has started to sound a lot like Zaid Hamid. And voila! A recent newspaper report confirmed this when it quoted him as saying that he was a Zaid Hamid follower.

Now since that’s that, is there anything else left to say? But the smugness of Ali and Zeeshan; taking crackpot conspiracy theories that can at best be adapted as low-budget B-grade sci-fi flicks, and communicating them as “well-researched truths” is like intellectual crime against a thoroughly confused generation that had rather get its answers from urban sorcerers than real scientists, scholars and men of knowledge.

But of course, their writings just wouldn’t make a very good video, now would they? And I absolutely agree with journalist and radio man, Fasi Zaka’s assessment of the video. This is what he had to say: “Ali and Zeeshan have greatly disappointed me with this video. Their dishonesty with protest chic based on an intellectually-lazy premise, and that too, just to drum up business is concerning. And how come we haven’t heard a word from them on the situation in Swat and FATA?” — NFP