With Thanks from Agha Farrukh S. Khan Sahib!!!!! The GEO-Hamid Mir episode has helped to bring the battle line drawn between the government and the army into sharp focus. The day after the attack on Hamid Mir and GEO’s attack on the ISI, the army chief visited ISI headquarters to display his backing for the accused and the prime minister visited Hamid Mir in hospital showing that he stood behind the accuser. How much more focus do you need on the battle line? What has happened with GEO didnt happen suddenly. It is the culmination of a decade of unchecked, unregulated media proliferation and the damaging decision to allow cross-media ownership. When the regulator can be dictated to by the regulated, disaster follows. Instead of banning GEO, PEMRA should consider the Islamic thing: bring it to the Correct Path. Tell its owners that they must come out of hubris and understand the limits of power. Form an independent body comprising respected private citizens to manage it and its editorial policy for a time until its owners have learned their editorial responsibility. GEO thought that it had become so powerful that it could get away with murder. They must understand that there are limits to every temporal power. Misusing power and your mandate is the best way to bring your power to a speedy end. Taking on those more powerful than you make you a Don Quixote, a suicidal fool. The original DonQuixote was wont to tilt at windmills. Latter-day Don Quixotes find that a windmill tilts back at them when they go too far and its blades chop off their heads. That is why stupid people who dont know the limits of their power are called ‘Quixotic’. When they meet their end they cry foul, illegal, unconstitutional.For God’s sake, if you legally own a tiger but keep teasing it, pulling its tail and tweaking its ears, it will finally slash you into two without a thought that you are its legal owner.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 10:20:06 +0000
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