My Tweet Threads with Kamran Shafi

I had posted a response to this slanderous article in the Express Tribune but the online editor chose not to publish it. I have complains from many more you posted in my favour but had a straight No or clipping of their remarks. I has asked the editors to give me space for a rebuttal and I await.

The fact is that I was in discussion on national security and the fallout of the MEMO issue.I proposed questions of Security that needed answers in this perspective. I also linked it with my article in the Nation,written in May 2011 and a Talk show last month

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/08-May-2011/Pakistans-long-war-has-begun

That is the point when Mr. Kamran jumped in and questioned Imran Khan’s Clean laundering. Later he seemed irked by some tweets sent deliberately or through spamming with supposed abusive content. It transpired that many PTI tweeters had passwords compromised and someone else was spamming abuses on their IDs. One such gentleman is from Canada who apologized four times from Kamran Shafi. On my part, I tweeted that PTI is not a Moral Brigade and only voices the conscience of people awoken from slumber. Because I know Kamran Shafi from Army and Ex Servicemen Society, I candidly ended with the remark that “plz do not jump to score brownies. this is a cyber world with all sorts of people and Trojans”. I also apologized to him on behalf of all PTI tweeters and issued instructions on our email system. Nonetheless my sixth sense told me that he was up to something, proven later by the article ‘The Smell Test’. Part one slanders me and part 2 proceeds to depict the MEMO as a Deep State a la Military ploy. Readers can find the thread with timelines here.

I continue to respect the gentleman for whatever views he stands for but would request him to resist the slanderous temptation.

Cheerios

KamranShafi46

@Samson_Sharaf @mazdaki @beenasarwar So then, politicians aren’t all bad, eh?I thought IK said they were all filthy?Clean after laundering?

15 Nov

PakistanUnited

@KamranShafi46 u haven’t seen N r PP guys abusing Imran&family. PTI leadership has asked its supporters to stop such language @Samson_Sharaf

15 Nov

KamranShafi46

@samson_sharaf: Samson PTI ought to be ashamed of itself for the vulgar language its supporters use. Is this S. Mazari’s rude daughter?

15 Nov

KamranShafi46

@RashidEjaz @BBCHaroonRashid @samson_sharaf How does cursing someone help you/PTI Mr Rashid Ejaz? You said: ‘This harami @KamranShafi46‘ Sad

16 Nov

RashidEjaz

@KamranShafi46 @BBCHaroonRashid @samson_sharaf Sir I think you did not read my last tweet. I did indicate my acct security was compromised

16 Nov

RashidEjaz

@Samson_Sharaf @KamranShafi46 @BBCHaroonRashid I also expressed my regrets at the language used. You were not the only one who recieved msgs

16 Nov

RashidEjaz

@Samson_Sharaf @KamranShafi46 @BBCHaroonRashid If u didnt get those messages 4rom me then I once again express my deepest regrets & apology

16 Nov

KamranShafi46

@RashidEjaz @mazdaki Just seen your vulgar and abusive tweets, Mr. Ejaz. Sad, so sad. @samson_sharaf. Read ’em Samson and IK and be ashamed.

16 Nov

Samson_Sharaf

@

@KamranShafi46 @RashidEjaz @BBCHaroonRashid Sorry, I have never used foul or unfair language

16 Nov

Samson_Sharaf

@

@KamranShafi46 I saw tweet by one earnest adviser calling her vulgar names. We have directed all our members not to follow them

16 Nov

Samson_Sharaf

Pti is not a moral brigade. It is just a manifestation of national conscience awakening from slumber. Jaag Utho

16 Nov

Samson_Sharaf

@KamranShafi46 Kamran plz do not jump to score brownies. this is a cyber world with all sorts of people and Trojans.

16 Nov

RashidEjaz

@KamranShafi46 @mazdaki @samson_sharaf Ok I give up… Sir never mind.

16 Nov

KamranShafi46

@Samson_Sharaf I complain against a party man of yours for using filthy language and I am scoring ‘brownies’? You chaps will sink IK yet…

16 Nov

KamranShafi46

@Samson_Sharaf …Trojans you say? These filthy msgs have been out there for weeks … Mr. Rashid could have apologised/clarified before now

16 Nov

KHAN’S NOUVELLE PAKISTAN

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf (Retired)

Like an ocean moving inland with tremendous force and fury, they swept inland beyond imaginable expectations in waves of green and red Bumper to bumper, every road, bypass and short cut was crowded. I saw Fauzia Kasuri standing in a float with extra voluminous speakers chanting motivational themes leading the way from Gulberg. This was the same all over. These were the so called and satirically dubbed ‘the mummy daddy generation’ taking to roads in Land Cruisers, BMWs, Hondas, trolleys and rickety buses. They were flanked on the sides by motor cyclists, rickshaws and cyclists waving the red and green. Like a filled kaleidoscope, all roads choked with traffic and pedestrians led to Minar-e-Pakistan. The most heartening symbol was a ten year old boy doubling on a bicycle with a younger colleague all the way from Liberty to the venue. As he sweated and paddled the long distance, he added the icing to the day that was 30 October 2011.

Just as I was leaving, my two daughters and a nephew jumped into the car. I could not refuse them. These were youngsters who were hell bent on breaking the taboo; and change forever the complexion of what is described as Dirty Street Politics of Pakistan. The age of Pakistan’s nouvelle generation had arrived with a Big Bang. This sea of emotions wants a paradigm shift lest it becomes a destructive energy. It demands a new social contract as nothing will remain the same anymore.

At the park, the fortunate and early birds poured and sank like a whirlpool around the historic monument, colouring the huge public park green and red. Those who could not find space turned on their lap tops connected to flat screens and watched the hysteria on jam-packed roads. Shop keepers put their televisions on the roadside for public display. This was no show of desperation, anger and hate, rather a brightened landscape with a hope that the winds of positive change were not afar. Unlike a tsunami that wreaks destruction, this high tide is to set the stage to remove debris from Pakistan’s charred political landscape. Each one of them wanted to be counted as Pakistan led by Imran Khan was turning the corner.

Unlike the doom that surrounds the country with successive tragedies, the faces were lit brightly; reminiscent of a closely contested victorious cricket match with the captain going for the kill. They reflected the mood that Pakistan needed to move on and that, enough was enough. Amidst a depressing scenario underlined by a lack of national worth, as also true to his leadership traits, such were the rallying points built tediously in the past fifteen years by Imran Khan; to build courage when valour seems to fail; to regain faith when despair abounds; and to create hope when it is forlorn. Unlike Benazir Bhutto who had been blessed with a legacy, Imran was a silversmith who had to sit in vigil for a very long time.
It was in 1940 that Lal Din Sharaf, my father had recited a poem before the historic event under the leadership of Jinnah. In the interim Jinnah created a space called Pakistan which we denied him for the next sixty years. So instead of going on the stage and joining the leadership, I stood in the front ranks of the audience with my children. I wanted to have a drift of how it must have felt to my father; with the faith that I was to view a historic evening that would begin the process of reclaiming Jinnah’s Pakistan. I also had a score to settle because my father had died resisting the invasive forces that truncated this vision. This was my revenge.

That day, even the local police looked bigger than we normally see it. They were disciplined, diligent, kind and yet forceful. For sure the elixir had also invigorated their body language.

Pakistan over the past has had its share of leaders but none as unadulterated as Imran Khan. Dreamers are impulsive and sprint to every ray of hope. Yet in his long vigil, Khan learnt and applied correction courses. Certainly it needed much more than a self centred and attention seeking individual to roam the wild for over fifteen years and yet be as persevering and resilient as him. In the process he took flak from all directions but did not budge from his principled views. His family life became a victim of malicious and frivolous propaganda but failed to drop his gloves. His allies used him for his charisma and then discarded him. Beset with successive challenges, the fighter in him got sturdier and stronger. As an icon, he mentored a new generation of Pakistanis with pride, patriotism and self belief. He taught them how to face adversity and emerge stronger at successive impediments. Most he taught them how to conquer fear and utilise adrenaline induced emotional intelligence positively. Pakistan’s Khan has arrived with a vengeance of a striker playing within the rules of a game.

As I stood in military fashion to the National Anthem being played, the dam of emotions burst not only in me but in every Pakistani there. Everyone joined the choir with tears rolling down the cheeks like an oozing wound delivering elixir.

So what does this mean? Indeed it shifts a heavy responsibility on our shoulders to deliver and see the flock home. In the interim, we must win hearts and minds through our compassion, human values and neat political conduct. Each Pakistani is expected to become a building block of La Nouvelle Pakistan.

Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a Political Economist.
Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com