Big Mouth, Big Trouble

Who will bell the fat cats?

The incumbent government seems to have a knack for drawing negative publicity even where it could spare the blushes.

Perhaps, the least it could do is to check its cabinet members from falling out of the cupboard with ill-advised, ill-timed statements bordering on idiocy but there is just no respite.

That Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf is hardly the mettle inspiration is made of was obvious from Day One. To be sure, his choice as the country’s chief executive was a stunner even for his own dying hard breed/brood, but he has managed to muddle along against screaming odds.

Where he has come a cropper is not being able to put a lid on the freewheeling of some of his cabinet members. It may be down to his inability to inspire confidence about his rather unexpected rise ahead of his more seasoned/deeply connected erstwhile colleagues.

Regardless, the reactionary speak of federal ministers like Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, in particular, and on a lesser scale, Rehman Malik, have done quite a bit of damage to this government. In the case of the former, it will be sometime before Pakistan will be able to live it down.

For Bilour to put head money on the filmmaker of the anti-Islam film that has caused outrage across the Muslim world as well as invite the Al Qaeda and Taliban to join the “noble deed” was a decidedly, irresponsible act that has besmirched the image of both Islam and Pakistan.

For someone in his position, Bilour is clearly unfit for the job. That he is not up to it anyway — he is likely to go down in history as someone who led the early demise of the once kinetic railways — isn’t the best kept secret from Khyber to Karachi.

There is no place for people who incite murder — even if it has been explained by pundits as a point-scoring exercise with his constituents.

The fact is such an ‘illegal’ action — as admitted by the minister on second thoughts — is not only against the teachings of the Prophet (PBUH) but also totally counterproductive to what the Muslim world set out to register with the West regards the denigrating film.

Winning Brownie points with local constituents isn’t worth the price when the whole country’s image is muddied on the international stage. The irony is that Bilour’s motive “to kill the filmmaker with my own hands” may even be only personal in nature. His brother, Aziz’s, cinema was among those burnt down by the mob.

Considering the kind of sleaze fest run in cinemas owned by the politically influential family, the morality bit sounds all the more hollow.

Meanwhile, our now-in, now-out interior czar is in a league of his own when it comes to a statement-strewn mien.

After getting miffed with the Supreme Court’s order to deseat members of parliament for concealing/lying about their dual nationality — which incidentally, brought his own conduct under the scanner — Rehman Malik threatened to spill the beans about the whole lot, which he claimed, had escaped the net.

Malik was reported by the media as being ready to produce the list of who’s who. But then, he appeared to backtrack when the apex court called his bluff and asked him to assist the court with such evidence.

By way of mirth, the ‘second thoughts’ regurgitated the theory of mixing oranges with apples — as advanced by St. Zulfiqar Mirza. Malik may have thought it best to avoid rotten tomatoes for now.