Free for all

JUNE 2003 - We are all into piracy of one kind or another. True we don’t have a parrot, a crutch and a game leg and also true that Long John Silver is not a close relative, but this is a society that lives and thrives on piracy. We all play the piracy game without having to launch into ‘ho ho and a bottle of rum.’ As usual, Pakistanis have found the short cut that matters but as always it’s the shady route they have taken – like ducks to water.

According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance based in Washington, Pakistan now ranks as one of the world’s largest producers of pirated CDs and other optical discs. In 2001 piracy of movies and music cost the industry a staggering US$ 71 million and a year later, the figure was up to US$ 72 million. The IIPA wants Pakistan placed on a priority watch list and has asked that trade privileges on our exports be withdrawn till such time as our government starts to implement some of the many laws it has to deal with such a situation. The Commerce Ministry adept at making all the right noises claims that it is planning to set up an Intellectual Property Rights Organisation to improve the situation. We of course have heard this kind of talk before. As soon as the heat is off or a new crisis has engulfed our minds, this piracy business will be placed on a back burner, a commodity that has never been in short supply in this country. It is of course another matter that one of these days we will simply run out of back burners. But then since no one plans for longer than a few moments, chances of back burners going out of stock are remote.

Time and again, someone or the other gets up and reminds us that there is no shortage of laws in the country but there is no one to implement them. The police for instance which is supposedly the law enforcing authority we have are the first and flagrant violators of the very laws. In fact any one remotely expecting the police to observe laws needs to be put away. Go to any road anywhere in the country and the first people you will see are the police squads, cutting red lights, violating one-way streets, taking turns without indication and all manner of other actions. They treat the laws of the country with contempt and should you be so foolish as to challenge them – like I did one night when I almost telescoped into a police van driven recklessly up a one way street, the wrong way of course and without lights!! After doing a Schumacher number, I yelled out in anger, frustration and panic at the near miss only to see Punjab’s best alight, all armed to the teeth and with faces that would send Uncle Dracula running into his coffin. Two glares were enough to put the fear of God in me and I bolted since I had no wish to be among the recipients of the famous police muqabalas. The question of engaging them in a logical discussion or making them realize the irony of the situation that they were blatantly violating their own code was so far fetched that one didn’t even try. And this abiding disrespect for the law is widespread amongst each and every section of what passes for society here.

Witness the movements of a VIP these days. It is a perfect picture of complete chaos. Yesterday afternoon, a minister with the regulatory white Toyota Corolla complete with green plate and flag, emerged from a building after having had a meeting, which seemed more in the line of a private one. Between the main door and his limo which had by this time slithered to wait for his excellency, he was mobbed by frantic officials, semi-officials and other penguin variety, file-loaded gentlemen all waving various pieces of paper at him. There were a dozen conversations going on as people jostled for his attention. He was carrying on conversations simultaneously with half a dozen people while his wretched mobile was also making sure it was also heard from time to time. So insignificant is this minister – there is no question of recognizing him by face, that it was pointless to even ask who he was, but for all the halo of confusion and frantic activity going around him, he might as well have been God’s special emissary on his last mission to earth before it was to be destroyed. When the very system manifests itself in nothing but pushing and shoving – when was the last time someone said ‘excuse me’ to you – there can be no hope of discipline or respect for rules in the rank and file of the country.

There are thousands of shops in Pakistan, which thrive on illegal sale. In fact, almost their entire operation is illegal because Pakistani companies pirate all that they sell. These outfits, known to all including the great ministry in Islamabad and to every ‘law enforcing’ agency, have huge manufacturing outlets where they print music and films of every kind. There is nothing you cannot find and the prices are so ridiculous that all of us are willing, happy and repeat customers. In the area of films, there were first the videos or VHS tapes. They were fuzzy and the sound was crappy but in a short time they began to get better and cheaper. They are now icons of an age fast gone and have been replaced in quick succession by VCDs and now, DVDs. The latest, complete with original covers, dutifully shrink-wrapped sell for what VHS tapes used to not so long ago. Karachi’s Rainbow Centre, a more innocent name for a nefarious business I have yet to hear, is a bewildering maze of shops selling everything for a song and they do an amazing volume of business daily, both wholesale and retail. Lahore’s Hall Road is equally large and every locality in every city and town has innumerable outlets, all carrying on an illegal trade in broad daylight and long past sunset. There is no question of raiding these places or God forbid, shutting them down. There is already a ‘moral’ voice being raised in their favour that these outlets provide livelihood to thousands of families and shutting them down will affect them. This argument should also legalise heroin manufacture, gun production, homemade spirits and every single spurious drug, drink or product that infests the country.

We could move a step forward and defrock the police and the judicial system since crime too brings food at the table for some and mourning rituals for others. There need not be any further check on anything. It should be a free for all scenario and may the most powerful win the day. None of this will of course stop any of us from stepping out and buying what we fancy. Pakistani musicians who spend months, sometimes years, putting together their work, remain suspended between going to the recording companies and getting nothing or living on, unrecognized. In the end, they succumb and the system, illegal as it is, grinds on successfully. Can the government actually do something? Not a hope in hell. They are still battling for life with or without uniforms.

And finally, a medal for Justice Farrukh Mahmood Malik of the Lahore High Court. A silly senior patrol officer stopped him while speeding on the motorway near Bahawalpur. The good judge served him a notice (on the spot?) for daring to check him and not showing due respect and protocol to his flag-car. The officer has since rendered an unconditional apology!! Any hope for us? Sure. The same as a snowball in hell.