Zombies chasing Shahid Afridi

Shahid Afridi is experiencing a "boom boom” of a different kind, one that you feel in the head when it is banged against the wall. Poor chap.

Shahid Afridi is experiencing a “boom boom” of a different kind, one that you feel in the head when it is banged against the wall. Poor chap.

He had expressed an opinion a couple of years ago. In that opinion, there was absolutely nothing even remotely news-worthy except that it came from an international cricketing celebrity: that there are good and bad people on the government and opposition sides; that Pakistan belongs to everyone; that politics is tricky, and the right to grant NRO — a Pakistani addition to the political vocabulary that means arbitrarily forgiving old crimes for temporary gains — belongs to the Establishment and not to the prime minister.

When a gutter-storm broke out three days ago on his alleged (and now proven to be fake) remark that asked for the strictest punishment for the 9^th May perpetrators, this old statement was used to prove that he was a lackey of the Establishment and an Imran-hater.

And that’s a serious crime! Fakedia goons got down to their dirty work following their pet procedure to nail the victim to the wall. The 9^th May fake news was picked up by Fakedia Mafioso who popularized it with their comments, paving the way for the lower-ranking assassins to fire away at the man.

Since then, Shahid Afridi has been soaked in abuse, besieged by calls for a boycott of his brands and any others that he may represent, and bombarded with threats that promise to make his life miserable.

His explanations and reiteration of his respect for Imran Khan as a cricketer (imagine the lengths he had to go to) have all failed as he is mocked everywhere his name pops up. Make no mistake about it. This is NOT a national outrage against Boom Boom Afridi. It is nothing but it is promoted and projected across the social media spectrum by Fakedia in such a way that it looks to be a national movement!

Such is the depth of this pumped-up anger around a baseless controversy that PTI stalwarts are fighting among themselves. Sher Afzal Khan Marwat — Imran Theatre’s newest item song (though I have suspicions about who his real writer is) — has tried to speak for Shahid Afridi. He has appealed to his party’s biting bugs to stop trolling him. (Him representing sense and sensibility in the PTI frames the desperate moral straits the party is in.)

Even he has been roasted for his remarks. Sensing that he has by mistake dived against PTI’s torrent of toxicity, he is now reclaiming his lost ground with the party by threatening to march on Islamabad on the 30^th of this month even though the administration has not permitted the PTI to hold a gathering in the capital.

Do you see what Fakedia’s hounds do? They set the lowest bar of behavior and then force everyone (including their own) to either meet that bar or be barbecued.

This structured strategy of target selection, softening of the target, and multi-pronged sustained attacks is now the standard manual that PTI’s hate brigades follow like clockwork. They are good at it because they have been trained in this trade for years.

Almost all those gunning for Shahid Afridi were declared members of one of the four components of the Imran Project, its launch, implementation, projection, and protection. The Judicial Component included Nisaris, Azmatis, Khosavis, Gulzaris, Bandiyalis and the NAB. The Political Component was Imran and all his allies. The Administrative Component, and Ops Planner, were Pindi and Aabpara's high command. The Media Component included mostly all big channel owners, majority of current affairs and morning show anchors, print editors, freelancers, singers, dancers and infotainers, many reporters, and a special social media cell that launched over 300 activists.

After the collapse of the Imran Project, while the first three components were somehow managed, the fourth, the Media Component, acquired a life of its own. This was due to exponential growth in and sophistication of new media technologies. It is this component that has become the Obs and Gynae Ward producing a steady stream of baby monsters joining their seasoned test-tube-birthed elders once deployed to defend the Imran Project and destroy its critics.

Mentally-stunted, these soldiers of national misfortune are now running around killing sanity and reason wherever they see it because that’s what their DNA was designed to do by Pindi and Aabpara’s Fifth Generation War experts.

Shahid Afridi is their newest scalp. He isn’t the first. He won’t be the last. We are witnessing a zombie stomp in Pakistan. It will trample upon everyone. Only the brave who can squeeze and slice the complex brains of the undead will survive. This is not a place for the weak-hearted. Or for the weak-kneed. It is a battlefield. Either boom or bust.