Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid, the person who styles himself as a Defence Analyst and is famous for his charismatic personality often features in the news these days. His attacks on Hindus, his attitude towards the west, his conspiracy theories and his call for Military and Islamic rule in Pakistan is seen as a headache by most but he is equally revered by a huge number of people. His facebook page has 108,000 likes. Similarly his site has had more than 1 Million hits. His memoirs from Indus to Oxus have been published and are selling at an alarming rate. Zaid Hamid, at a young age joined up for the Afghan-Soviet war. Later he returned as an ideological warrior of Iqbal. For years he has had a program on News 1 where he has been hosting a defence related program known as Brasstacks, one of the most famous series ever to be aired on News 1. A charismatic figure who knows how to play on emotions, he has captivated audiences worldwide just as an equal number of people loathe him. He is an ardent supporter of Iqbal and his ideology as he interprets it. His vision is a Pakistan as an Islamic welfare state, something that hasn’t been accomplished in 60 years. This call has always drawn groans from the liberal crowd and cheers from the conservative crowd but in Pakistan this line of thinking sells. Controversy Zaid Hamid seems to bask in controversy. He has called SAFMA an Indian lobby and a front for RAW, he has referred to Hamid Mir as a CIA agent and been involved in a war of words with Hassan Nisar. But unsurprisingly the blame has bounced back and he has been called an ISI mole, a fanatic and presented as a Jihadi in a number of shows including one where he was called by Wajahat Syed Ali Khan only to be abused as a conspiracy theorist on live television. It doesn’t end there. He has been blamed as a blasphemer by the conservative lot, if anyone can be more conservative than Zaid Hamid without being a Taliban supporter. Each one of his claims is unproven but so are those charges levelled against him and just as Zaid Hamid hates liberals the liberals hate him as well. Furthermore there is a character that looks very similar to Zaid Hamid in the Lollywood song Loota tuney loota mujhey in which Veena Malik also features. It has been debated that this character may indeed be Zaid Hamid. Why Zaid Hamid sells? One of the reasons Zaid Hamid sells is because he raises issues about which the rest of the media, the government and the military is completely silent. For example he opposed the India-US nuclear deal bitterly, he knew of the offer US made to offer better quality F16′s than Pakistan to India and he wasn’t quiet when Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in cold blood in Lahore. A lot of Nationalists do not believe in the chauvinism Zaid Hamid promotes which includes hatred for Hindus, calls to make Pakistan an Islamic Republic, allegations left and right and a lot of hatred for Pakistani liberal figures that go against his narrative, but despite all of this he does talk about Pakistan and its interests on the foreign policy front. This might be what gives him the influence he has. Other than this he plays on the emotions of a gullible people led to believe from childhood that Hindus and Indians are the enemies. Most worrisome is his support for military dictatorships with Islamist tendencies. It is a fact that Pakistan should guard its interests but there is no reason Pakistan should hate others in doing so. But right now all we can do is call on Zaid Hamid not to hate Pakistan’s minorities or call for a system we know failed in the 1980′s. But until he keeps playing on emotions he will remain highly successful in polarizing Pakistani society into two camps. One of supporters, the second of opponents.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 02:37:11 +0000