Ladies and gentlemen, a few weeks ago, in this very space, we hosted an event called ‘Revolution Awards’. Although there is nothing original about this idea, yet our audience feedback tells us that it made us quite popular. So riding on this wave of popularity we now present to you another set of awards: the ‘Democracy Awards’.
We are giving out these awards to honour the successful completion of the five years of democracy in Pakistan; and we want to specially thank our sponsors, the usual hidden hands of our country, who during these five years remained just that. Hidden!
So ladies and gentlemen without further ado, let’s begin.
The first category of the awards is ‘the most democratic slogan’ award, and the nominees are: “A degree is a degree” by Mr Aslam Raisani; “Yeh tsunami nahin tsunaamaa hai” by Mr Imran Khan, and “Mubarak ho mubarak ho” by Dr Tahirul Qadri.
Now although “Mubarak ho mubarak ho” is our personal favourite for this category, yet keeping in view the democratic values of our undemocratic nation in mind, the award must go to none other than Mr Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his brilliant refrain “Democracy is the best revenge”.
After all this is the only phrase which has the word democracy in it. So Mubarak Ho Mubarak Ho, yeh democracy nahin “democracaah” hai, because democracy is democracy; whether with an ‘ee’ or an ‘aah’, it doesn’t really matter.
Our second category is the ‘fruits of democracy’ awards, and the nominees are: fruit number one, fourteen hours of loadshedding in Punjab; fruit number two, governor’s rule in Balochistan; and fruit number three, security situation in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Now although all these fruits were thoroughly enjoyed by the Pakistani nation, and provided a much needed boost to our immune systems, yet the most democratic fruit of the whole democracy was none other than fruit number four – the famous apple of Mr Rehman Malik (applause).
And yes. Please don’t confuse Mr Rehman Malik’s apple with Mr Steve Job’s apple and no matter what happens just remember an apple is not really an apple unless it’s also a banana. Period.
Our next category is the ‘most democratic music score awards’ and the nominees are: The civil society of Pakistan for consistently providing background music for all the misadventures in Pakistan; the judiciary of Pakistan for making everybody dance to the tune of their suo motu music, and the media of Pakistan for playing musical chairs with all the characters that came to their shows.
Although the judiciary should win this award hands down, yet the best background musical score award goes to Mr Altaf Hussain for his long distance crooning of popular Bollywood songs. Not only did this serve to provide excellent background music to everything happening back home but it also served to settle various undemocratic scores in various pseudo-democratic ways. Not to mention the motivation it provided to the Punjab CM for his own crooning of Jalib from time to time, and consequently entertaining us to the hilt.
Moving on, the next category is ‘the best make-up of democracy award’ and the nominees are: The Zardari-Nawaz Sharif make-up over the charter of democracy; the Zardari-Q-league make-up over the strengthening of democracy; and the Zardari-Aitzaz Ahsan make-up over defending democracy.
Now since all of these wonderful make-ups were in reality nothing but some equally wonderful break-ups, so we would, in protest, not give an award to anyone and rather keep the award for ourselves.
And now a very important category, ‘the most democratic imported goods award’, and the nominees are, Ms Hina Rabbani Khar’s Birkin bag for finding its way all the way from Paris; the deg of haleem cooked by Altaf Bhai that could never make its way from London, and, last but not the least, Dr Tahirul Qadri’s container revolution for finding its way from Toronto.
And the award for the most democratic imported commodity goes to none other than Pervez Musharraf and his imminent import from London today. We would like to announce here that Musharraf had already won the award for the ‘most democratic exported goods’ as well, but for some twisted reason he has decided to relinquish that honour.
Moving on, our next category is ‘the most democratic ban award’ and the nominees are: Mr Rehman Malik for the YouTube ban, Mr Rehman Malik for the YouTube ban, and Mr Rehman Malik for the YouTube ban.
Now ladies and gentlemen, please hold your breath; for the surprise winner is none other than, yes you guessed it right, Mr Rehman Malik for the YouTube ban!!
Sometimes you just can’t go wrong, can you?
And now for the closure. Readers, the awards are many but our words are few. We want to take it further but our deadline is due. So instead of wasting your time, we would call upon the ‘most democratic unopposed winners’ category, and allow them to take a bow.
Please welcome Mr Asif Ali Zardari for ‘the most democratic disappearing act award’; Mr Osama bin Laden for ‘the most democratic well kept secret award, and Mr Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for ‘the most democratic next generation award’.
And before we say goodbye, let us present to you our trump card; the unopposed winner of the ‘most democratic sacrifice award’. Please welcome Ms Fauzia Kasuri, for her sacrifice of relinquishing an American passport to meet a constitutional requirement. We wanted to give her the ‘lifetime-that-is-yet-to-come-achievement award’, but for that ladies and gentlemen you would have to watch more of this space. Adieu.
The writer is a teaching fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS. Email: adiahafraz@ gmail.com; Tweets: @adiahafraz
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