January 9, 2010

Applying the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle, I would like to offer my sincerest support to PCB Chairman Ejaz Butt, who is once again being attacked by Jamshed Dasti, the chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Sport.

Dasti obviously has no clue what the job of the chairman entails. He seems to think the chairman is the star player of the team. Why else would he question his physical fitness?

“Mr Butt is physically unfit, he can’t even walk properly, he can’t even see properly.”

And Stephen Hawking can’t even speak properly, yet there he is telling us about science.

Dasti wants Butt to take on more than one role. Chairman, fitness trainer, eye doctor and even interior minister.

“Mr. Butt has also done nothing to help in finding what went wrong when gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan team in Lahore last year”

What went wrong was that there was a security lapse. Mr Dasti, call Rehman Malik and he’ll tell you all about it. Or at least he should. That’s his job.

The Standing Committee on Sports probably expects Butt to play all these roles because it too likes to meddle in things that are none of its business. They’ve taken over from the Taliban as guardians of morality, fining the hockey team for hugging a woman. Take it away, Jamshed Dasti:

“It is not our culture to hug a lady,” said Jamshed Dasti, chairman of Pakistan’s lower house standing committee on sports. “The players are ambassadors of their country and they should remember this well.”

One of his counterparts, Nasim Akhtar Chaudhry, chimes in as well:

“We live in an Islamic country,” she said. “We didn’t shake hands with males when our women parliamentary delegation visited the U.S. last year, and here they are giving a hug to a lady.”

No word yet on what fine will be levied on Zardari for going against our culture.

Nadir Hassan is a Pakistan-based journalist and assistant editor at Newsline.