Reddington
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These people who call themselves liberals these days came to the forefront of national discourse only after Musharraf took over the rule and started his so-called "enlightened moderation" movement in early 2000s, I remember he used to get his photos published in newspapers along with his pet dogs, something that was unseen from any head of pakistani state before him in my memory, he also used to organize dance parties and used to sing together with mirasi singers who are raag specialists, one of his mirasi type singing performance became quite a hit on youtube during 2006 or 2007, I believe. It was during this time that nobodies with deviant behaviors and thoughts started calling themselves "liberals" and took full advantage of Musharraf regime's patronage and got integrated in the mainstream national discourse.
We had these kind of so-called liberals with deviant thoughts and behaviors even before Musharraf time too but they never got the chance to influence the mainstream national discourse of the country, they were always treated like any other fringe groups, nothing more than that. Asma jehangir was quite popular in the printing press and newspapers in those days even in 90s but I never saw her given the platform of PTV to spew her deviant agendas and thoughts. With Musharraf's liberalization of private electronic media, suddenly these people got an easy platform to propagate their fringe ideologies and thoughts on private news channels and they made full use of it and are still making full use of it. Then came off course social media like twitter and facebook which increased their reach to the mainstream national discourse ever further. So these days these so-called "liberals" are everywhere in national discourse. A fringe groups until late 90s is shaping the mainstream national narrative these days because there is no check balance in place in electronic and social media in Pakistan.
As I see it in Gen. Zia ul Haq's time, the religious extremists got integrated in the mainstream national discourse of Pakistani state but in Musharraf's time it was these fringe deviant "liberals" got integrated in the mainstream discourse. So one ill was replaced with another ill. What pakistan now need is that pakistani state needs to bring back the mainstream national discourse back in the hands of levelheaded mentally and ideologically moderate and flexible people and stop integrating extremist deviant groups on both left and right of political spectrum.
100% agreed. Musharraf is solely responsible for this mess. Musharraf's decision of private electronic media gave a platform for these liberal fascists to propagate their views. Media like Dawn, Geo are now the fifth column for the enemies.