Bashar Al-Assad proved that he was a coward, and it was also shown that the Syrian establishment did not have a single patriot in its ranks. You can’t imagine the sort of people who have taken over in Syria. Out-and-out terrorists, successors of Al-Qaeda. One would have expected the patriots in the ranks of the Syrian Army to have stopped them.
Of course, the Syrian Armed Forces are a little unbalanced, and have been so historically. After all, Bashar’s father Hafez, the founder of the dynasty, was an air force officer In the first, he was jumped from major to major-general as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. In the next he became Defence Minister, and even though the Syrian Air Force took a pasting in the 1967 War, he not only faced down calls for his resignation, but took over as President in the third coup in 1971.
I suppose the Baath Party was weakened in the intervening 53 years, because it was unable to stage a coup against Hafez’s son Bashar, leaving it to the ex-Al-Qaeda people. Bashar was a trained ophthalmologist. I also wonder if he was corrupt. Those who replaced him say he was, but until I hear it from Imran, I can’t be sure.
Another place which doesn’t have any patriots is South Korea. I see they’ve impeached the President for imposing martial law. The Supreme Court will decide whether to remove him from office. That they should do, because you can’t have civilians imposing Martial Law. Aren’t there any patriots in South Korea?
Imran is busy drumming up support for the civil disobedience movement. I wonder how that works. You don’t pay land tax, and you return your civil awards. Will Imran return his winner’s medal from the 1992 World Cup? And what about the Hilal-i-Imtiaz he got for it? And what about the President’s Award for Pride of Performance that he had been given in 1983?
I see Umar Ayub Khan is also calling for support to the civil disobedience movement. I don’t think he or his father got any awards, but his grandfather the Field Marshal. Not only did he have slew of Pakistani medals and awards, such as the Hilal-i-Jurat and the Nishan-i-Pakistan, but pre-Partition medals like an MBE and a Burma Star. I have no idea of how the Field Marshal’s awards were divided between his two sons, but if Umar got any from his late father, now is the time to fling them in someone’s face.
But maybe we should be looking to the next step. Either the Reshmi Rumaal Tehrik, or the Hijrat Movement. Considering the support Imran has among the diaspora, it’s possible to argue that the Hijrat Movement has already taken place.
It’s just something that has happened, but these notes are appearing on what has become the anniversary of two entirely separate tragedies, which both involve Imran. One hopes he navigates this day safely. The more recent event is the anniversary of the APS Peshawar massacre. It let Imran end the famous dharna 10 years ago.
Then, back in 1971, just a few months after Imran’s Test debut, on this day the Fall of Dhaka occurred. The main Pakistani figure of that surrender was Lt Gen A.A.K. Niazi, who was one of the principal guests at Imran’s first walima, when he married Jemim Goldsmith. General Niazi was the sort of person that Niazis are supposed to be: tall, physically imposing, with a certain devil-may-care attitude. A bit like Imran, actually.
Imran has done a bit of a disservice to the Niazi tribe, actually. General Niazi was typical, but different standards were being set, and a different type of Niazi was emerging. Like Maulana Abdus Sattar Niazi (whose seat Imran sat for), or Munir Niazi the poet, or Prof Ajmal Niazi. But then we get Imran. Who has left his tribe to be named by his opponents.
Well, perhaps we shouldn’t harp too much on the Fall of Dhaka. Who surrendered at Paltan Maidan? Who was General Niazi? The Dhaka City President of the Mazdoor Kissan Party? Or the Information Secretary of the East Pakistan PTI? The Fall of Dhaka was a political defeat, remember, not a military one. So General Niazi must have been politician, right?
