So they're at it again. The "Islamists" at the red/yellow/pink mosque in Islamabad. The government in its infinite wisdom reopened it for Friday prayers and promptly had a riot on their hands. The images on BBC World were just awful, but confirm that, in situations like this, while their reporting is fairly even-handed, they opt for the most bogeymen-like images they can get. Over and over, they showed footage of this lunatic with a beard down to his stomach punching the air so hard he kept falling over. Whatever the reporter was saying, whatever other innocuous images they showed, this is the one that'll stick because it's the one closest to what the terms 'fundamentalist', 'Islamist', 'terrorist' all conjure up.

It had the required effect on us too, scaring us into calling our families in Islamabad. But when my brother-in-law finally got through to us, it was just to say that he'd seen the news reports on TV, figured we'd have freaked out, and wanted us not to worry - that what looked like the entire city going to hell was a couple of blocks in one corner and that life was going on as usual in the rest of the city. That was a relief, but I figured I should still call my brother who lives only a few kilometres from the Lal Masjid. Turns out he didn't know there had been a bombing at all. He knew about the Friday prayers being suspended and the government-appointed Maulvi being kicked out, and had heard an explosion, but that was it. Why?

His cable was out.

That's not to say the situation itself isn't awful because it doesn't affect my family or my neighborhood or the majority of the population of the city, but it does put the media caterwauling in perspective. I can understand the reporters on the scene being shaken though - the BBC person was only a few yards from the explosion and other local reporters have been unable to say much except how much blood they can see and how many pieces of those closest to the bomb are scattered about - and this is only going to make the tension between the government and the fundos worse. But it's still just a symptom. The bigger problem is still unaddressed and will probably continue to be so.

Despite the media crap, Pakistan is still on the fence about a lot of things. Yes, there's a funamentalist government in the NWFP (the province that, joy and happiness, borders Afghanistan), but in five years, they have been unable to implement any meaningful legislation. Yes, they've turned off TVs in public places. Big whoop. The area was conservative to begin with.

And speaking of TV, because of Musharraf, the media is now more free than it has ever been; so much so that the goverment cannot prevent it from turning on Mush now. That is fantastic not just because of the free media song-and-dance but because it means that at least some part of society isn't entirely dependent on the will of one person. That's a first in the history of the country.

But despite the fact that I'd vote for Mush over the other clowns vying for power if it came down to that, he's on his way out. He has to be - he's messed up too badly to not go. And that'll coincide nicely with Bush's exit, so that the popular view that the army leadership gets its orders from the US (and is therefore on a quest to exterminate all Muslims - a view that the Lal Masjid situation will go a long way towards perpetuating) will not taint the next administration. Convenient, no? But then again there's that execrable bill being proposed in the US that will give financial aid to Pakistan based on its performance in the 'war against terror'. (Dance, monkey, dance!) If it goes through, our next collective of charlatans may have some fast talking to do. Given that one is barely literate and the other unable to speak a language the population of the country can understand, that should be very interesting indeed.