CITY NOTES
Donald Trump suffered one of the greatest disappointments of his life last week, when the Nobel Peace Prize was thrown away on some Venezuelan woman, Maria Corina Machado, for her resistance to the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, even though he had settled more conflicts than he could remember, including the latest, the Gaza conflict.
As if to heap burning coals on his head, she praised President Trump for having helped her win by his actions against Venezuela. As if to show there were no hard feelings, he ordered that the CIA be permitted to operate in Venezuela, while saying that he was considering a land attack.
However, one hears that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is especially peeved and is resentful that the Norwegian Nobel Committee ignored his recommendation. Whereas a Pakistani might win the Prize, it seems, it won’t go by a Pakistani’s recommendation. The PAF would have liked a nomination for the manufacturers of the Rafale fighter jet, but no one listened to them.
The Nobel awards this year did not go well for Trump or his friends. The Literature Prize went to some Hungarian novelist instead of Kanye West, who is properly called Ye. Kanye, sorry, Ye is perhaps the only African American friend Donald Trump has and also probably the only rapper he is on talking terms with. And it’s the rap that gave Ye a chance, because after Bob Dylan was given the Nobel, every rapper in the world, whether it be Ye, Dre or Snoop Dog, has become a candidate. Well, after a rapper, what next? A blogger? Or a murder convict?
The Economics Prize didn’t go to Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, who Imran Khan thinks is USA-friendly, nor to Imran, for his contribution to Pakistan’s economy. Instead it was wasted on a Frenchman and an Israeli-American for their contribution to development economics. No doubt the award committee did not realize the irony of giving an Israeli the Economics Award, and that too for a contribution to development economics, the same year as Israel contributed so much to the economic development of Gaza.
Others will now contribute, though it has not been specified who or how much. The summit at which Hamas and Israel signed a deal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange was ornamented by Shehbaz Sharif. The prisoner exchange showed that the Israeli cops have been taking lessons from the Punjab Police. After one Palestinian went home, the cops raided his home and hassled his father and mother. I bet they didn’t leave without taking something to cover ‘petrol expenses.’ I’m surprised we were not told of a police encounter.
I’ve heard that killings continue, and that so do bombings. It’s like the alternative definition of ‘ceasefire’: ‘Palestinians cease, Israelis fire.” You can’t really imagine how things are going. I suppose one is most affected by what one is closest to. Me, I can’t help getting over how many journalists have been killed. I’ve spent a working life enjoying a certain kind of immunity. I’ve never passed between two armies, but I have passed freely between protesters and police. At no time did I feel a sense of danger. Even when teargassed, I accepted it as an accident of the profession, not a personal affront. I was never a target, not the way Palestinian journalists have been.
I’ve been more accustomed to the sort of protests the Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan people launched, and which were ultimately stopped at Muridke. It was a violent clash, and led to rumours that TLP chief Saad Rizvi had been wounded, killed or arrested.
It turns out he was very much alive. The same, unfortunately, can’t be said about Agha Siraj Durrani, the former Sindh Speaker, or Diane Keaton, the actress who starred in The Godfather I. But perhaps the most memorable person to leave us was Wazir Muhammad, who along with Hanif and Mushtaq appeared in a Test together, providing only the second instance, after the Grace brothers, of three brothers appearing in a Test together. A fourth brother, Sadiq, also played Tests, but Wazir had retired by then.
It was good to see Pakistan won the First Test against South Africa, even without one of the brothers, but made memorable by Shan Masood’s captain’s knock of 7 in the second innings, when Pakistan made 167. He found a worthy counterpart as captain in Aidan Markram, who made 20 and 3, as South Africa went down. Well, there’s still the 2nd Test, which started on Monday.
