I must admit to missing the needle match of the Asia T20 Cup tournament. No, it was not India versus Pakistan. That we lost as usual, showing that Salman Ali Agha is as aware of the diplomatic niceties as his predecessors. The real match was UAE versus Oman. Think about it. Both small countries, both at the bottom of the Gulf, and sharing a border. That’s a sporting rivalry made more piquant by the fact that there’s no difference in ability. Anyhow, the UAE won, which was perhaps not a surprise.
The match between Pakistan and India involved handshakes not being exchanged, and the PCB threatening to pull out of the tournament if the match referee was not withdrawn. I wonder if the PCB would have made such a fuss if the team had not lost the match?
The Middle East was central last week. Not only is the Asia Cup happening in Dubai, but a little further north, there was a Summit in Qatar where everyone turned up and said that it was a pity that Israel attacked it. They added that it shouldn’t. I’m sure the Ambassadors to Tel Aviv of the growing list of Arab states recognizing it will tell the Israelis in no uncertain terms where they get off.
I notice that the focus is shifting a little. It’s now about Qatar, not Gaza, where Israel is really on the rampage, having launched a long-expected offensive into Gaza City.
I happen to have seen a podcast, or perhaps a vlog, about how journalists keep getting killed in Gaza. In my salad days, I was a couple of times under fire while reporting, in the technical sense of being in the area when someone fired a gun. But I was never the target of any firing.
I remember my chief reporter telling me that it was my duty to return and file my story, with death no excuse. “Never be part of the story. Report it.” was the way he put it. If killed, I was supposed to send my ghost to file. Along with most of my predecessors, contemporaries and successors, I learned that the best thing was to go to the scene after the shooting had stopped. But I don’t know if that would have worked in Gaza. You have to file, and what if the shooting doesn’t stop, as it hasn’t in Gaza since 7 October 2023?
That’s the problem in Gaza, where Israel has shown clearly that it’s going after journalists. They’ve become part of the story now, even if they survive. What are the journalists supposed to do? We should know, because we recently had a clash with India, and we had to be objective. That did not mean we had to have no opinion, but it meant sticking to the facts.
Whatever we did, no smart munitions were set our way.
Well, they aren’t killing talk show hosts in the USA over what they might or might not have said about rightist youth icon Charlie Kirk. Late night TV is a thing in the USA, and NBC has just cancelled Jimmy Kimmel Live because Kimmel said that Kirk was shot by a young man who belonged to a rightist family. Kimmel was not cancelled for not being funny (he wasn’t, because Tyler Robinson is indeed from a rightist Republican family), but for being offensive, and because the regulator had threatened to cancel NBC affiliates’ licenses. This follows the firing (less unceremonious, but still a firing) of Stephen Colbert at CBS. Seth Meyers of NBC, who inherited to original show hosted by David Letterman, is still around. Well, so long as he lays off President Trump, he should be OK.
Charlie Kirk’s murder was sad, because violence has no part in political discourse. That said, are restrictions on free speech justified? Can facts be considered hurting someone’s feelings? Like saying that Kirk was shot dead while advocating for gun rights? Or saying that the shooter’s family was solidly Republican?
Well, Kirk wasn’t the only person who died in the USA recently, though the wailing and gnashing of teeth among Trump supporters make it seem that way. Robert Redford passed at 89, showing that even the most good-looking among us is mortal. And then there was Nhubiy Stallins, just eight, who was left in the car by her mother. That her mother got 105 days in jail for it. That might show why the waif died because of her mother’s neglect.
Over here in Pakistan, we didn’t have better news. Dr. Waqar Masood Khan passed on. He was one of the few economists serving in government. He knew his stuff, but no one listened to him. Or even asked the right questions. That’s why we’re where we are.
