The media storm surrounding GEO and Hamid Mir made me realize that this world is ever-ready to exploit your misfortune to its own advantage! The beauty with which other news channels worked up a barrage of spiteful criticism was quite astounding! Not that I'm siding with GEO over its useless propaganda about Pakistani intelligence service nor am I a proponent of dancing on sacred qawalis. I'm so over the efforts of every channel to outdo each other with insane breaking news, talk shows and reports. GEO was going down fast like a leaky boat and the other channels pushed it down with gusto. I wonder how the GEO news team feels about landing in the grave it had dug for others?
Me, being an avid fan of conspiracy theories, thought about whether the downfall of GEO was a systematic chain of events planned by the "Unseen Hand" or was it all just a major coincidence? I have gotten so used to looking for clue and cues to the "bigger picture" in recent events that the most obvious facts don't entice me one bit :p Because they are usually dangled in front of our noses by the perpetrators of these events! When the Malala incident happened, I felt my heart break for the innocent little girl who had braved the harshness of her environment to raise a voice for female education. But as the incident unraveled further, all I could see was a carefully planned and executed media campaign that blatantly used Malala's tragedy to make Pakistan look like a place where no girl gets education because of the Taliban. If you closely observe the situation of educational institutions in the Taliban-struck areas, they are suffering from poor sanitary conditions, lack of teachers, absence of proper seating arrangement and damaged infrastructure. People refrain from sending their daughters to school in such pathetic conditions and on top of that primary education is not even free! Who wants to send their child - either male or female - to a useless school when they do not have enough money to feed the entire family? The impoverished and war-torn zone first needs serious rehabilitation measures before anyone can talk about education! But making Malala a martyr in the cause of education, suited the international media just fine, since it gave many stakeholders of the war against terror solid backing for promoting their agenda.
Sometimes the lines just blur and we can't even figure out who is benefiting more from this war against terror. Pakistan is right now a hub of external and internal influences, illegitimate funds, sordid schemes and unparalleled destruction. The people of Pakistan are caught in the crossfire and they are the ones losing everything - starting from their lives, loved ones, peace of mind and everything in between. On the other hand, the people orchestrating this war against terror have reaped countless geo-political and financial gains from all this. Who cares how many people lay down their lives, as long as it serves as media chowder that can be used for bigger purposes. It only goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison.
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