Pakistan's who's who love foreign press

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Agencies

Posted online: Sunday , February 24, 2008 at 02:16:43
Updated: Sunday , February 24, 2008 at 02:36:16

Islamabad, February 24: Pakistan's political elite may share a love-hate relationship with the West, but that does not stop them from tucking away their exclusives for the foreign press.

Consider this: President Pervez Musharraf first put forth his strategy of ‘enlightened moderation’ in the Washington Post, slain former Premier Benazir Bhutto reserved her exclusives for the western media, and more recently, her widower Asif Ali Zardari made her will public in Newsweek magazine.

Former Premier and PML-N Nawaz Sharif, who brushed up his English while in exile, surprised many by penning ‘specials’ for the foreign press and the PPP's low-key vice chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, a front runner for the Prime Minister's post, has also jumped on to the bandwagon.

The obsession for the foreign press is not restricted to the politicians of the country.

Booker shortlisted novelist Mohsin Hamid wrote a nostalgic piece on his homecoming to Pakistan -- "It's troubled, but its home" -- in the Washington Post.

This wasn't Hamid's first such piece. He wrote a special on Pakistan's 60th birthday in the New York Times too.

Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan -- Lady Diana's ‘Mr Wonderful’ -- broke his 11-year silence on his relationship with the Princess of Wales to the western media, snubbing many requests for interviews from the Pakistani press.

The messiah of lawyers and Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan too likes to court the Western press. In this scenario, the local press seldom have access to such ‘exclusives’ and end up reproducing excerpts from the foreign press a day late.

Soon after Bhutto was assassinated, her fiery 25-year-old niece, Fatima was approached by the local press for an interview.

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