احتساب

I was asked for my comments after this Junoon video made the rounds of Pakistani Twitter recently. One of the early moments where Junoon got into trouble with the authorities. Later they would spark ire by criticizing the nuclear arms race, among other fights they fought.

There is little to say on this video beyond this conversation between the top two comments on YouTube:

This video shows headshots of Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and then Benazir Bhutto again. It shows victims at gunpoint, a monkey dancing to the beat of a drum, and a parody of Asif Zardari’s horse.

A few years after this Junoon, or at least part of Junoon, embraced the platforms of Pervez Musharraf and later Imran Khan. Ali Azmat has said that he now looks at their time in the limelight as being played as pawns. In this video there is a gripping frame of a board being taken over by knights.

Political parody is not new in Pakistan. And there is a tendency to hit the easy targets. Like the country, Pakistani music is generally forced to wear a blindfold to the underlying framework of power. For those with a brave heart and an ear for catchy melody I recommend this as well, using a refrain from this man to comment on the situation created through him.