Note: We are cross-posting from Kafila an interesting article by Dr. Siddiqa on Pakitsan’s real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain. We are glad that Dr. Siddiqa has not written about M. Mansha and the other Billionaire supporters of PML-N. This is the time to show that PML-N is just as liberal as PPP and PML-N is headed by a mature NS while PPP is headed by adolescents. it’s time to get on the PML-N bandwagon by subtle digs at PPP so that the sins of PML N are covered.
It’s also time to ditch NAB’s chairman Bokhari who has turned into a corrupt leaf and is also not mature enough. The signal has been given. It’s now time to get behind the mature and incorruptible Suddle – the conqueror of Murtaza Bhutto and the Protector of Ibne Iftikhar Cahaudhry.
It seems that there is narrative being built that PML-N and PTI are the liberals and TTP the conservative. There maybe as many as four categories Animals (TTP ASWJ LEJ etc) conservatives (PTI and JI) Absolute sell your souls with no ideology whatsoever (PMLN), and sell out corrupt liberals PPP ANP and MQM.
This is how establishment hijacks and captures both, Islamists and liberals. Noora Kushti is an outcome, where real liberals are sidelined and impure Muslims are marginalized. (end note).
As Pakistan battles with militancy, part of the war is also being fought in the arena of ideas.
In order to fight militancy, some argue, Pakistani society has to win hearts and minds back from extremists. It is the ‘fundamentalist’ thinking in our midst that prevents us from confronting militants wholeheartedly. On the other side of the talking divide stand those who feel that ‘liberals’ are forcing the state to declare a war on its own people under the guise of fighting militancy.
There is, however, at least one way in which both camps are similar. Regardless of who is right or wrong, the two sides view each other as being incompatible binaries with nothing in common. This is a flawed approach. No society, and especially not one as complex as Pakistan, can be divided so cleanly into two groups that do not overlap.
Part of the reason that it is unfair to use the liberal versus conservative binary is because liberal has become increasingly fuzzy and difficult to define, especially with the gradual and systematic injection of new elites in the country. In fact, one of the most problematic binaries pertains to the idea of ‘feudal’ as being a permanent class in Pakistan. Surely, feudalism does exist in the country but less as an institution and more as a social norm. More important, by using this aforementioned category we forget that there were four systematic injections of elite in the country: (a) 1950s under General Ayub Khan, (b) 1970s under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, (c) 1980s under Zia-ul-Haq, and (d) 2000s under Pervez Musharraf. New individuals were inducted into the elite through forced empowerment mainly by military regimes. While most of the elites were inducted as part of the political process or through the local government politics, some people were taken on board for their capacity as economic players. Thus, with time the new elites, which largely came from the rural and urban middle class and sometimes lower-middle class, became part of the elite. These people are different from the old or traditional elite as they are more conservative; they are intellectually and emotionally neither secular nor liberal. Nonetheless, their lifestyle may often make them appear ‘modern’, a term that we tend to often wrongly misconstrue as liberal. The overall impact of this is that there is a less clear-cut division between liberalism and conservatism. And one person who is living proof of this is the well-known, controversial real-estate tycoon and philanthropist Malik Riaz Hussain.
How Malik Riaz Became Billionaire in No Time... by Awaiz_pp
Born 61 years ago in Sialkot to a lower-middle class family, Hussain never completed his education, having abandoned school before matriculation. In the early 1970′s, he joined the business of his father, a small government contractor. He has one son and four daughters. Working with the army in petty positions, Malik Riaz soon learnt to ‘work the system’. He understood that money and its use as a tool could take him a long way. He got a chance to use his lesson with the Pakistan Navy. Hussain first stepped into limelight after he made a deal with the Pakistan Navy’s Bahria Foundation in the mid-1990s to develop two housing schemes. The contract gave the foundation 10 per cent of the profit and 25 per cent of the plots without any financial investment, but by 2000 the organisation had transferred its entire shareholding to Hussain. Differences later arose and led to a legal battle; the Supreme Court ruled in Hussain’s favor, saying he had the right to use the Pakistan Navy logo till he voluntarily changed it. By this time the businessman had also developed a name for himself in commercial and social circles. It is also claimed that it was during this period that he made links with intelligence agencies through the naval chief Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari. Hussain probably remembered the favors and returned it by helping Bokhari get re-employed after a decade of his retirement as Chairman, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in October 2011 by the PPP government. Allegedly, Malik Riaz is close to President Asif Ali Zardari. The Bahria chief also employed Bokhari’s daughter in his organization which in itself is pretty scandalous as some of the corruption cases against Hussain were being investigated by NAB.
It’s also time to ditch NAB’s chairman Bokhari who has turned into a corrupt leaf and is also not mature enough. The signal has been given. It’s now time to get behind the mature and incorruptible Suddle – the conqueror of Murtaza Bhutto and the Protector of Ibne Iftikhar Cahaudhry.
It seems that there is narrative being built that PML-N and PTI are the liberals and TTP the conservative. There maybe as many as four categories Animals (TTP ASWJ LEJ etc) conservatives (PTI and JI) Absolute sell your souls with no ideology whatsoever (PMLN), and sell out corrupt liberals PPP ANP and MQM.
This is how establishment hijacks and captures both, Islamists and liberals. Noora Kushti is an outcome, where real liberals are sidelined and impure Muslims are marginalized. (end note).
As Pakistan battles with militancy, part of the war is also being fought in the arena of ideas.
In order to fight militancy, some argue, Pakistani society has to win hearts and minds back from extremists. It is the ‘fundamentalist’ thinking in our midst that prevents us from confronting militants wholeheartedly. On the other side of the talking divide stand those who feel that ‘liberals’ are forcing the state to declare a war on its own people under the guise of fighting militancy.
There is, however, at least one way in which both camps are similar. Regardless of who is right or wrong, the two sides view each other as being incompatible binaries with nothing in common. This is a flawed approach. No society, and especially not one as complex as Pakistan, can be divided so cleanly into two groups that do not overlap.
Part of the reason that it is unfair to use the liberal versus conservative binary is because liberal has become increasingly fuzzy and difficult to define, especially with the gradual and systematic injection of new elites in the country. In fact, one of the most problematic binaries pertains to the idea of ‘feudal’ as being a permanent class in Pakistan. Surely, feudalism does exist in the country but less as an institution and more as a social norm. More important, by using this aforementioned category we forget that there were four systematic injections of elite in the country: (a) 1950s under General Ayub Khan, (b) 1970s under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, (c) 1980s under Zia-ul-Haq, and (d) 2000s under Pervez Musharraf. New individuals were inducted into the elite through forced empowerment mainly by military regimes. While most of the elites were inducted as part of the political process or through the local government politics, some people were taken on board for their capacity as economic players. Thus, with time the new elites, which largely came from the rural and urban middle class and sometimes lower-middle class, became part of the elite. These people are different from the old or traditional elite as they are more conservative; they are intellectually and emotionally neither secular nor liberal. Nonetheless, their lifestyle may often make them appear ‘modern’, a term that we tend to often wrongly misconstrue as liberal. The overall impact of this is that there is a less clear-cut division between liberalism and conservatism. And one person who is living proof of this is the well-known, controversial real-estate tycoon and philanthropist Malik Riaz Hussain.
How Malik Riaz Became Billionaire in No Time... by Awaiz_pp
Born 61 years ago in Sialkot to a lower-middle class family, Hussain never completed his education, having abandoned school before matriculation. In the early 1970′s, he joined the business of his father, a small government contractor. He has one son and four daughters. Working with the army in petty positions, Malik Riaz soon learnt to ‘work the system’. He understood that money and its use as a tool could take him a long way. He got a chance to use his lesson with the Pakistan Navy. Hussain first stepped into limelight after he made a deal with the Pakistan Navy’s Bahria Foundation in the mid-1990s to develop two housing schemes. The contract gave the foundation 10 per cent of the profit and 25 per cent of the plots without any financial investment, but by 2000 the organisation had transferred its entire shareholding to Hussain. Differences later arose and led to a legal battle; the Supreme Court ruled in Hussain’s favor, saying he had the right to use the Pakistan Navy logo till he voluntarily changed it. By this time the businessman had also developed a name for himself in commercial and social circles. It is also claimed that it was during this period that he made links with intelligence agencies through the naval chief Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari. Hussain probably remembered the favors and returned it by helping Bokhari get re-employed after a decade of his retirement as Chairman, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in October 2011 by the PPP government. Allegedly, Malik Riaz is close to President Asif Ali Zardari. The Bahria chief also employed Bokhari’s daughter in his organization which in itself is pretty scandalous as some of the corruption cases against Hussain were being investigated by NAB.
