Opinion Both sides against the middle

The other video is an irreverent music clip by Beygairat Brigade,two 20-somethings and a teenager who’ve become an overnight sensation. The band’s debut song,“Aalu Anday”,got 85,000 YouTube hits within days of its release in mid-October. It has been hailed as a liberal anthem for,in off-the-cuff Punjabi lyrics set to a repetitive canned-pop melody,kicking all the country’s sacred cows: government corruption,soaring inflation,the persecution of the minority Ahmadi community and deluded public sympathy for terrorists like Ajmal Kasab.

One doesn’t expect such searing criticism from a video that opens with three boys in an empty classroom complaining about the potato-and-eggs lunch their mothers packed for them. But as they make their case for chicken instead,the boys transform into rebels,with painted faces and spiked hair. They raise placards that take jabs at political parties. One says “Nawaz Sharif bye bye,papa Kyani no likey you,” alluding to growing tensions between the head of the historically pro-establishment PML-N party and the chief of the army. The band even mocks Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani for delivering little despite receiving ample US aid — a taboo even for Pakistani satirists.

Though they hail from opposite ends of Pakistan’s ideological spectrum,these two videos highlight the same point: Pakistan’s current problems are of its own making. For years,government officials and conservative commentators have blamed militant violence — which has killed over 35,000 Pakistanis since 2007 — on “foreign elements” or “external forces,” implicating the Americans,the Israelis,or the Indians. Each in its own way,the TTP video and the Beygairat Brigade clip suggest that the truth is far simpler.

The TTP video shows that the group consists of Pakistani Muslims on a vendetta against their own state. A voiceover identifies and threatens three more high-ranking police officers. As if to underline that the danger is homegrown,“Aalu Anday” satirises the tendency to invoke conspiracy theories to explain Pakistan’s predicament. In one shot,a band member holds up a clumsily hand-painted placard proclaiming,“This video is sponsored by Zionists.”

This unlikely convergence is a new twist in the battle between extremists and liberals for Pakistani cyberspace. Internet access in Pakistan remains limited — just over 10 per cent of the population is connected — but opposing ideological factions have been vying for prominence.

The first flare-up happened in May of last year,after a Facebook page invited users to participate in an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” contest. A Pakistani court briefly banned Facebook for promoting such blasphemous content,sparking a liberal movement against censoring the Internet. Facebook was unblocked,but in response Millatfacebook,a Muslim equivalent,was launched.

Then in January Salman Taseer,the former governor of Punjab,was shot dead for championing the rights of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. Within hours of his death,group pages on Facebook glorifying the murderer as a “holy warrior” had racked up thousands of followers. Liberals responded by setting up their own pages in honour of Taseer’s memory — only to see them overtaken by conservative voices. Twitter eventually emerged as the liberals’ refuge online.

The schism persists. But the parallel popularity of the TTP and Beygairat Brigade videos also signals an important shift. Now that the two sides of the ideological divide are both pointing a finger at the government,Pakistanis may start to face some ground realities rather than continue indulging conspiracy theories.Huma Yusuf