Trump: Some Historical lessons.

When Donald Trump announced his decision to make a bid for the Republican nomination for the Presidential race, many of us choked on our dinner and said, "He did what?" The thought of a man who had driven a couple of companies bankrupt, been crude about women, and essential portrayed himself as the epitome of greed and avarice being taken seriously was a remote possibility. Even the Republican Party vanguard considered this billionaire upstart as nothing but an irritation. As the Trump message picked supported with the extreme, mostly white, working class and the young Republican voters, his bid for the nomination became not only real but as it has now emerged he is most likely going to be the nominee of a party he has taken over through nothing short of a hostile raid.

The joke that Trump is also carries with it now the need to seriously look at the danger of the man and most of all the historical lessons we seem to forget in even considering him as a contender for the White House. There is no denying that Trump has a fascist flair to him; extolling supporters to 'punch' a protester at his rally. He has a bent of mind that is racist, (Muslims not welcome in America and Mexicans to be walled out), and a fascist tendency to blame others for the ills of America. His solutions to every problem is radical, lacking intellectual thought and most of all based on a egocentric belief that only he can fix things.

As the Trump bandwagon has gained momentum there are many of the Republican Party who will hop on to it, and eventually even the vanguard may realise that they are better off backing the man they cannot depose. While this may sound like an endorsement of the Trump dictate, the truth is that it highlights a schism which is a moral one. Trump extolls his audience to violence with carefully planted words and innuendos, his recent one being if he loses the nomination then there will be 'riots'. Most of all he has shown a unique trait of going after his most vocal critics with a pettiness that is not becoming of a public figure. He has be particularly harsh on Megan kelly of Fox News and David Brooks of the New York Times, both of whom are established journalists.

History teaches us that even Hitler was elected and as his bandwagon gained momentum many sane thinking men joined it not because they may have believed in Hitlers racist views but because they felt they could temper the message from the 'inside'. History tells us that this did not work. Stalin and Hitler and many other dictators showed an intolerance for being questioned by the press or by people who even dared to say that their views or policies were misplaced.

Hitler hated the Jews, Trump seems to hate the Muslims and wants to keep out the Mexicans. One forgets that Trump was fine accepting being paid by the Muslims for endorsing projects in the Muslim world with the Trump brand name. His solution for bringing back jobs to the US is at best emotional. The very electorate that endorses him also want the cheapest products at Wallmart, forgetting that if they want the price lower for a US produced item then it means lower wages. Thus the out sourcing of production has been to meet the very need of his backbone support to buy cheap! His stance on immigration is contradictory considering two of his wives (one of which is an ex wife) are immigrants; the pun being that perhaps he could not find an American woman who would accept his chauvinistic views so he had to import a woman.

On a serious note, Trump stands for everything that the vast majority of educated American abhor; racist, fascist, ego centric, sexist and enticing people to violence. He appeals to the anger of a segment of the population, who may count well in the Republican nomination race, but on the broader national platform will be a minority. Americans must stop and think if they want a petty minded ego maniac to be in the White House? A man who will divide rather than unite, a man who may isolate America from the rest of the world, a man who lack the finesse and manners that are essential for being the leader of the strongest nation in the world.

Dividing America: The Trump card.

Usually by this stage of the US nomination race it is clear who would be the front runner for the race in each party and by and large the race is down to two candidates for each of the party nominations. While the Democratic Party nomination race has crystallized to Hilary versus Sanders, the Republican Party on the other hand is down to Trump versus others. In truth the vanguard of the GOP are not amused by Donald Trump who in effect has done a hostile take over of the party. As amusing and entertaining Mr Trump has been thus far, many serious pundits know that when the final showdown happens for the Presidential campaign Trump may well lack the seriousness to beat Hilary Clinton or even Bernie Sanders.

To simply say Donald Trump is not Presidential material is political snobbery, but that aside there is no denying that he has attributes and a political stance that, on a serious note, makes one wonder how can he be taken seriously. He is not only a bundle of contradictions he also lack finesse and manners and, more recently, added a vulgarity that demeans the stature of a candidate for such an important office. There has been little to the man that indicates he can unite Americans having already dismembered the GOP. One could cynically claim that Mr Trump has been placed by the Democrats into the Republican party to destroy the roots of the GOP.

The big question is whether Mr Trump can pull himself out of the gutter of cheap insults, tantrums and fantasy proposals to really tackle the seriousness of the issues that a Presidential race will demand. The GOP stalwarts realise that this is precisely the Trump parade will fail and have encouraged Ted Cruz and Senator Rubio to remain in the race with the hope that if there is a deadlock of delegates then there may be chance to wrest back control of the GOP. Polls suggest that a Hilary-Trump show down will favour Hilary and the only GOP candidate, if polls are to be believed, who can derail Hilary Clinton will be Ted Cruz. Given rumps verbal diarrhea on the issue of immigration it is not surprising that the Hispanic vote will certainly not be in his bag.

The GOP also as a strategy has exhausted itself trying to weaken Trump and the division within the party cannot be healthy for the final race. Judging by the quality and content of the debates the Democrats have managed to show a more deeper understanding of both domestic and international issues, where as the Republican debates while passionate have degenerated to mudslinging and little in terms of solutions. Clearly the stark contrast between the Republican and Democrat race for the nomination must worry the GOP establishment. Irrespective of whether it will be Trump or Cruz in the Presidential race the GOP will face the challenge of changing the tone and texture of their message. The problem is that Trump is not a Republican party man and his gambit has been to appeal to the Republican voters ignoring the party politics. This is a division that is messy and begs the question whether these divisions can be healed to taken on Hilary or Sanders if Trump were to win the nomination.

Both Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have had the luxury to debate the issues with intellectual depth and keeping their campaign clean of insults and personal attacks. In a sense they are talking now on a national platform while the GOP is still addressing their Republican vote bank only. For the GOP a Trump nomination would mean a deeper division not only in their party but also split the nation and the floating undecided vote may move to the Democrats. One thing is certain the times ahead are going to be very interesting.

The Rise of Trump: An international perspective.

Donald Trumps rise in the domestic political platform of US politics carries its own malaise of the lack of serious intellect within the Republican Party allowing a conceited ego maniac to hijack the party. While his presence on the political scene started as a form of abstract entertainment he moulded himself, backed by his panache to be racist, sexist and conceit, to appeal to a debased anger that underlies many Americans personal thinking, he catapulted himself to be a front runner by projecting the unthinkable and the unsaid. Domestic politics aside, Donald Trump is perhaps the scariest of the candidates when it comes to visualising his potential role and impact on international politics.

Should be be taken seriously enough to ever become the President of the United States his current menu of recipes for approaching the international political scene is not only fraught with a demagogue's ideological frame of mind but more alarmingly a lack of intellect and finesse. His flippant remarks about Mexicans being rapists, Muslims being barred from entering the United States and the not so welcoming attitude towards all and sundry suggests Trump is way out of his league in understanding how world politics works. One cannot help but imagine a world with Trump as the leader of the most powerful country being a more unsafe place than ever before.

If his appeal to the average American is that he represents their anger at the loss of jobs to China and invasion of low paid foreign immigrants, he is also out of the touch with the anger that a large body of people around the world have towards America's lack of empathy for the political and social needs of the people they have tried to shape into their own mould of foreign policy. While Trump as the leader of the free world may still have some affinity to the likes of Putin's leadership of Russia (he did admire Putin's hatred for the press), Trump will certainly be out of his depth in dealing with the Chinese, Japanese and the large assembly of Muslim leaders whose people he has sought to paint in one sweeping stroke with his demagogic brush.

On a more deeper note Trump has thrived off harping on what is wrong with the world, including the American domestic scene, but has not offered any solutions on how to fix things. Whenever the debate has turned to a serious note Trump has had the nerve to bring the discussion down to raw emotion even centring on the vulgar. However, Trump's antics are not just some school boy tantrums but a carefully designed charade to keep the debate at an emotional pitch, a almost vulgar disdain for the serious question, the serious answer or indeed an agenda that begs anything more than a rhetorical profanity for what this man can end up projecting.

If ever elected as the President, Trump will have the power to take military action, and given his bullying style could well even pressure Congress into creating a world order where the search of peace will be replaced by a search to get even. Sadly as much of his anger on the domestic front is misplaced, the same might well be true of his vision of world politics, leading us to foresee a World According to Trump where the dictum of 'shoot first question later' might well be the order of political action.

Trump die hard supporters will argue that he will mature and mould himself into being a leader of the world and while projecting a strong America will also forge a more effective leadership on the world map. This might well happen, especially if he leaves world politics to a competent Secretary of State, however given his ego this is highly unlikely. One can only wonder in fear of how he will approach the thorny issues of Middle East politics, or acceptance of China as an equal partner on the world scene or engage in a serious dialogue with Europeans or the Mexican and Canadian neighbours (both of whom he has not been kind to).

Political watchers can only hope that even if he wins the Republican ticket  Donald Trump may fail to raise the ante when it comes to the final stretch of the Presidential race. Indeed from an international perspective we know too well that US Presidents are not elected for their acumen of international politics but more on the basis of their domestic agenda. Let us hope people within America realise that Trump may appeal to the unsaid within American society there are still a vast silent majority who balk at his egotistical style which offers only platitudes of hate and no substance on solutions.

Pakistan Cricket: A saga of hope.

Charting Pakistan cricket teams progress in the current 2015 Cricket World Cup with comparisons to 1992, when they won the tournament, is perhaps clinging to the hope that somehow miracles can mysteriously reappear. The possibility to reach the next round largely depends on their performance for the last three matches, but more than that a statistical hope that other teams don't do well. The drama of Pakistan cricket is precisely that, a large dose of hope; hope the pitch conditions suit them, hope the other team does not do well, hope that a catch is taken, hope the batsmen can see the ball....


 Cricket in Pakistan lacks leadership in its administration, leadership on the field and most of all the testosterone of becoming a winning side. Yes we have heard its a side steeped in natural talent and who knows if they make it to the next round suddenly they be a rejuvenated side. Yet that simple statement is also tinged with a large measure of hope than objective planning and the certainty of performance.

The team selections are amazingly bizarre, almost if the opposition was asked to choose who they would like to play against. We cannot bring the players from Pakistan who were dropped for reasons that were explained with cricket logic that in any case is absent from the selection process. What the team lacks is heart and passion, and Fawad Alam certainly could have provided that, and a measure of better success than the team that is down under.

Some comments on the individuals would not be out of place.

 Misbah as a rear guard player has held his own, but at best he is merely been holding the enemy at the gate till the troops who had no heart to fight can retreat into a dismal defeat. What he has lacked is the flair and attacking mindset that captains should bring to the pitch. In fairness to him he would say 'attack with who?'

 Nasir Jamshed: He was picked to replace Mohammed Hafeez who had a leg injury and had to pull out. Frankly a one legged Hafeez would be better than a blind batsman, who cannot catch the simplest of catches his grandmother would easily take. How much longer will we hope he will perform with a 50 or a 100? I just wish when he injured his finger in the last match it would have broken so he can be sent home and someone who plays cricket replace him.


 Shahid Afridi: Pakistan cricket lives on the hope that when he does not perform with the bat, which has been more often than not, he will perform with the ball. Of late it seems he has done neither. The fans and pundits agree that he can change a game, but does Afridi know he needs to change his mindset first? He is so taken up with the 'Boom Boom' label he has that he plays to the crowd by trying to slog every bowler out of the park. Most days that just cannot happen.

 Umar Akmal: Every time he comes out to bat the commentators always say he has tons of talent. Somehow he has to find a way to carry that talent into the batting crease with him. Talent in his kitbag does no good to the cause and is akin to sending a soldier to war without a weapon. Why should he even be considered a keeper at this level is beyond comprehension.

 Younis Khan: The former stalwart of test cricket, is nothing more than an ageing aspirant of one day cricket, and somehow feels he is sent in to give the other side catching practice. Yes he can bring stability to a side but more often then not when the side crumbles he joins in the rout.

 What ever happened to the idea of playing Sarfaraz Ahmed as a specialist keeper and even opener. He certainly would take the catches that Umar Akmal felt were not necessary to grab and the results may have been different. Why isn't a specialist spinner like Yasir Shah being played? Are we so plagued by batting failures that adding a batsman, especially the likes of Nasir and Younis are the only solution.

 Pakistan side's fielding is simply a joke. Perhaps after their batting has given the other side catching practice they feel its not necessary to take any more catches for the day. The spirit to fight back is just absent. As someone said that now the team has to fight like cornered tigers; well the team is cornered now we need to find some tigers.


 What makes this whole saga so hard to watch is the fact that teams like Ireland and other minnows have shown more heart than the professionals of the Pakistan side. Yes there are many recipes to try and get this Biryani of failures right but getting the mindset right and making the proper selection choices is a basic requisite before cooking up success is even possible. The alternative is that we continue to rely on hope and somehow through some customary magic wand the one or two players who can carve out wins turn up on the pitch.

Discussion on Education and change with a closed minded Taliban sympathiser.

Not long back the young Pakistani girl Malala Yousufzai was in the news with the launch of her book and narrating her struggle and the need for education for girls in Pakistan. The majority of Pakistani's were proud of the bravery of the young girl and while her endeavours will raise awareness of the issue of education for girls in the North West of Pakistan, there is no doubt that in some very conservative quarters there is a Taliban type sentiment that educating girls is counter productive.


 Around the same time the debate about education and what Malala Yusufzai was promoting came to a head with a discussion with a person who I would best describe as a Taliban sympathiser. I shall simply call him TS and the dialogue went like this.

 "This girl should not be allowed to appear on TV, especially in England (he pronounced it Ing-land)she is bringing shame to our country."

"How is she bringing the country to shame?" I asked.

"We should only teach girls home economics, to make them better mothers and wives." TS fancied he was a little liberal than the Taliban in his position.

"Well why not a doctor or a teacher, or any profession." I enquired.

"How can you have your daughter working in a public place, seeing men who are not related to her, and with it come all the vices of the West?" TS was getting worked up.

"What vices? Look TS if your daughter has a good upbringing then she will up hold the values that are ingrained in her." I offered my conciliatory view.

 "You do not know these vices." TS asked accusingly.

"Education is not a vice." I answered.

"Perhaps not, but then the girl is working, comes in contact with men, they take her phone number call her for work and then slowly they tempt her to this dating thing and next your daughter's reputation is in the gutter and no one will marry her." TS had figured out the whole script.

"Are you saying that girls should not have mobile phones?"

 "Actually no they should not. Its an evil in their hands." TS smiled.

"This is character assassination of all women which logically one cannot accept." I told him.
 "OK lets stick to the job thing. So you do not want your daughter to be a doctor because she will meet men?"

"Absolutely not." TS answered.

 "TS who do you love the most in the world?" I asked.

 "My mother ofcourse!"

"OK not lets assume God forbid your mother is seriously ill and needs to go to a hospital and if as you say girls should not be educated it is natural then only a male doctor will examine your mother. Right?' I asked TS.

"What are you suggesting?" TS was getting a bit aggressive.

"Well if you do not want your mother to be touched or examined by a male doctor then the only choice is a female doctor, who obviously will be someone's daughter. So how can you be against educating women?" Even though I am not suggesting education for women should only be to become doctors, but for the limited closed minded thinking of TS I took the narrow route.

"See this is the problem with you Western minded Pakistani's you twist something so simple of education and make it too complicated by giving these examples which are all theoretical. My mother, may she be blessed, is in good health so why should i think of what you are saying." TS was getting even more aggressive.

"TS may your mother never be sick but just hope when she does go to a hospital she is not having to be examined by a male doctor. My suggestion pray someone else has had an open mind enough to educate their daughter to be the doctor who will examine her." I was smiling.

 TS stood up, glared at me and walked out. Lucky for me he did not come back with a gun and shoot me for being an infidel.  

Pakistan: Negotiating with Militants.

The recent spate of attacks by the Pakistan Taliban, most notable of which was the attack on Karachi Airport, backed with a promise by its leadership of more attacks, scuttles any belief that negotiating with the Taliban and other militant elements is a senseless position. Imran Khan, the leader of the PTI, and who govern the province where the Taliban and co have most of their activities, was for a few years adamant that the a negotiated settlement with the Taliban was not only possible but desirable. As noble as the desire for peace and negotiating it across the table sounds the idea of negotiating with someone who says, "if i do not get my way I will fire my guns", can only be a non starter. In the wake of the attacks even Imran Khan has been quick to back the military action against the militants and he must realise that negotiating with the Taliban and co is not a feasible position. In Pakistan we have been stressing we are a democracy, and for the first time in its checkered democratic history, the incumbent government handed over power after losing in the elections to another civilian government without the ignominy of the military stepping in. Pakistan has a parliament and has elected representatives, no matter how weak the democracy may seem, so negotiating with a power group that has not got any representation from the people through the democratic process is like admitting that political groups who are well armed can hijack the 'democratic' process whenever they wish to. The statement by the Taliban that as the peace talks were faltering they have decided to take revenge and there will be more attacks is simply saying that if we do not get our way we will kill you and kill a great deal more innocent people. Imran Khan and his party should wake up and if they do want to make a difference, and a positive difference, they should simply say, 'so long as you carry a gun there cannot be a discussion'. This has to be non-negotiable, and then it as to ask what is there to negotiate? Taliban was the Shari'ah law in the country, well there already are Shari'ah laws as approved by the Parliament in force in the country! They want a society where selective education of their flavour is only allowed; ask them to win enough parliamentary seats and with a majority in the National Assembly pass the laws they want. In essence one has to wonder when one says we will talk to the Taliban one had to wonder that in a democratic system, as rickety as it may be, what can you talk to them about? The audacity of the recent attacks, and the targeting of military targets by the Taliban has infuriated the Pakistan Army, perhaps more so that the attackers were foreign nationals who form the cadre of the Taliban militant force also. The moment has really come for Pakistani politicians and the public to reject the politics of violence and there has to be no giving in to talks where the basis of a discussion is enforced through guns. The only talks that can be held with the Taliban is their disarmament and to only give them the option to be a political party that can try its luck at the polls. The politics of division especially on religious grounds where each may claim to be 'better Muslims' then others is not in the spirit of Islam, where tolerance is the creed and not the intolerance that these militants espouse. Imran Khan, Nawaz Sharif and the other parties within the Parliament should all agree to a single plan on the issue of terrorism and militancy. There has to be a national program for also educating the masses on the real issues of national reconstruction and how the rigid position of the militants is against the very edifice of statehood. Any change that must happen to the social and political fabric of the country must happen through the democratic process and not through the power of militancy.

ICC Reorganization: A case of faulted logic.

India, Australia and England have created a triad of exclusivity to essentially take over the administration of cricket world wide. Each has their own logic to why they have worked secretly for months to hijack the cricket world and their logic is nonsensical to say the least. It ignores the welfare of the sport, scuttles the work to create a wider worldwide appeal (why else would we have T-20), and tries to create a Security Council type of structure which can hardly benefit anyone other than the three countries mooting this hair brained idea. England's argument would be simple; the inventors of the game, the home of the ICC till it was moved to Dubai, and essentially the people who taught the rest of the world the game of cricket and its bizarre rules that outsiders take a while to understand. I always argued that apart from the commercial reasons for colonization the purpose of the British Empire was to teach the world their sports so in time the former colonies would beat them at the very games they were taught. Need I say more than England's performance in Soccer, Rugby and Cricket? So other than a sense of nostalgic history England's claim to be in the elite Group of Three is without any basis. Australia, perhaps because of the longest run as the world's premier Test playing nation and one day side could lay better claim to an exalted position. However, performance on the field does not mean you end up with a position of power in the ICC other than what other nations would have. Besides when the fortunes of performance vane, as they eventually do, does the position of power be surrendered? Just because China dominates, say diving in the Olympics does not mean the power of the sport administration should shift to Beijing? By the argument of performance, South Africa has shown its mastery in test and one day cricket in recent years, why are they excluded? Both Sri Lanka and Pakistan have carved out their own short periods of supremacy on the cricket pitch; so do we end up with a power shifting structure that changes with each world cup? India's claim to be in the elite club and control the destiny of cricket is perhaps the most illogical. Its argument that it generates 80% of the viewership of the sport on TV media it deserves the right to be in the Group of Three is contradictory. While it argues this position on the world scene, its own Premier League (IPL) is based on a more equitable formula of revenue distribution where the last placed club would get perhaps 50% of what the winning club would get, but more importantly, this is based on a formula of the number of appearances and matches you play. If India's argument is based on viewership, considering its massive population, then asking for a different revenue sharing formula for matches that India plays would be fair, but to want a bigger share of ALL worldwide revenues even when India is not playing a series is arrogant to say the least. Another problem with India having the power within the ICC rests upon the state of cricket administration within India. To say that Indian cricket administration within the country is rotten to the core would be an understatement. The scandals involving IPL and members or relatives of members of the BCCI board are well documented. Why would the world cricket administration allow these rotten corrupt scoundrels into their portals of power? Will the code of ethics of the ICC be totally ignored? The fact that India offered side deals to Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where by saying that revenue sharing on bilateral series will be open for discussion and distribution/adjustment from India's share is really a form of bribery to get into the Group of Three. I would venture that South Africa would also have been offered some treats on the side to accept the new structure. But stop and ponder, if all the other countries stood together and told Australia, India, and England to pack their cricket bags and play amongst themselves, I doubt that it would have made a huge difference to the world of cricket. In the long run cricket would remain healthy as South Africa, Sri Lanka and Pakistan combined have enough of a pull to keep their own audiences entertained. Sure an South Africa-Australia series would be missed but by the same token Australia beating England and India each time would get boring too. Sadly the future of cricket will be scuttled for ever by the problems that three countries will bring to the ICC and none of the other boards see that.