Streets of Karachi, nowadays, are littered with jumbo-size billboards, banners,and posters inscribed with appreciation and pictures of City Nazim Syed Mustafa
Kamal, the self-declared world’s second best mayor.
The Muttehida Quami Movement (MQM-backed city nazim, who according to him and his party, has been chosen the second best mayor in the world by a US magazine
namely “Foreign Policy”, thinks that it is a pride for Pakistan, and the whole nation should celebrate that.
Newspapers and TV channels ran headline news regarding a so-called survey,which according to the MQM, was conducted by the US magazine declaring Mr Kamal
as the second best mayor in the world after the mayor of Berlin.
As soon as the news was aired, almost all the streets, roads, bazaars, and markets of the metropolis were riddled with billboards, banners and posters
inscribed with appreciating slogans in favor of the MQM Chief, Altaf Hussein,and Mustafa Kamal.
Several associations like Motor dealers association, lines area welfare society, electronics dealers association, Lal Qila Grammar school etc were also
asked by the MQM leadership to display banners and posters to appreciate MR Kamal’s selection as the second best mayor.
Thousands of banners were displayed even in small streets of the slum areas,where sewage water has been standing for last many months.
The MQM claims that it has nothing to do with these billboards and banners,rather it was a prompt response from the people of Karachi as an appreciation to
Mr Kamal “fabulous” performance. One wonders when did the citizens of Karachi become as organized as they could get thousands of costly billboards,
banners and posters within 24 hours, and interestingly, with same slogans?.
Mr Kamal, who had been in London to attend party meetings, at the time when he
was allegedly chosen as the second best mayor, was welcomed by a large number of
MQM activists and ministers at Karachi airport, and brought to the party’s
headquarters “ Nine-Zero”, where addressing a gathering, Altaf Hussein said
if Pakistan is handed over to the MQM for a year, it would change its fate in
line with Karachi.
.As the celebrations were on compounded by welcoming messages from different units and ministers of the MQM, the Foreign Policy magazine, which was approached by some journalists and citizens for confirmation of the said survey,threw cold waters on all the enthusiasm.
The magazine, in a tersely worded statement, clarified that neither it has conducted any survey nor did it choose MR Kamal as the world’s second best mayor.
However, the magazine’s clarification did not find enough space in print and electronic media that ran the fabricated story as a headline. Only a few
independent newspapers dared to publish the clarification issued by the US magazine.
The clear-cut clarification, could not convince the MQM leaders and workers either. They are still busy in celebrating terming the so-called clarification
as a conspiracy against MQM.
Here is the text of the clarification. Read this and see how one could make mountain out of a mole.
“ One of my responsibilities here at Foreign Policy (Magazine) is manning the "FP Editor" e-mail account. It's always fun to come in the morning and see how readers around the world are reacting to what we print. Sometimes,the reactions can be a bit strange, though.
Yesterday, we started receiving e-mails from readers and journalists in Pakistan asking for comment on reports that we had named Karachi's mayor,Mustafa Kamal, the second best mayor in the world." This would be an understandable query if we had actually said anything of the sort.
At issue is a sidebar from FP's recent Global Cities Index that names Kamal, Berlin's Klaus Wowereit, and Chongqing's Wang Hongju as "mayors of the moment" who have found innovative ways to globalize their cities.
The mayors are not ranked, nor are we implying that they are objectively "better" than any other mayors, but that didn't stop the Karachi city government from issuing a press release on its Web site (they've changed the text since being contacted by FP) congratulating Kamal for being the No. 2 mayor in the world. For the record, the three names are not listed in any particular order.
Pakistan's biggest English-language newspaper, Dawn, then printed a glorified transcription of the mayor's press release by the government-controlled Associated Press of Pakistan as a front-page story without
ever checking with us to see if it was accurate.
According to the e-mails we've received, the inaccurate story has been widely reported on Pakistani TV, radio, and blogs. Most absurdly, Karachi's city council apparently held a heated debate over whether to pass a resolution congratulating Kamal for the honor we allegedly bestowed on him. Judging by today's e-mails, the efforts of some blogs to correct the story only seem to have confused readers more.
According to one reporter, who unlike Dawn contacted us for comment,"Karachi is riddled with banners by the local government, congratulating Mr. Kamal for being declared as second best mayor of the world by the Foreign Policy."
We hate to rain on Kamal's parade, and certainly intend him and his city no disrespect, but we simply never ranked him in any way. This entire mess could
have been avoided with some very basic fact-checking”.
Now, one does not has to be genius to understand what does the US magazine report mean?. And how brashly and cock-surely, the city nazim and his party
distorted that in their favour..
The people of Karachi are understandably disappointed by the electronic and print media that not merely ran a fake and fabricated story without any confirmation, but more than that it did not bother to publish and air the
clarification of the US magazine.
An editor of a local daily told weekly Pulse that he has to live in Karachi,therefore he would not publish the clarification.
“ What do you think, we didn’t know the reality. We knew everything, but we have to live here”, he said.
He was not totally wrong as the MQM workers forced the cable operators to keep GEO and ARY off-air till further orders on November 17 because they did not give
“proper coverage” to the speech of Altaf Hussein against so-called Talibanization. The channels were however restored after 8 hours.
Everybody knows who did that, but neither the state nor the TV channels owners are ready to name them. Is this a message for other parties and groups attracting them to use the same tactics if they are not given the proper
coverage?
The government forces are engaged in restoring the writ of the state in tribal areas, but who will restore the government’s writ in Karachi? Where is the
state Mr President?
