Ever since Shireen Mazari took over as editor of Lahore-based Nation, the quality of the newspaper has gone down exponentially, to the point that it’s not even worth the paper it’s written on. Take, for example, this opinion piece by one Sultan M Hali. It’s abundantly clear that this article is complete nonsense, and any editor worth his or her salt would never publish such drivel.
Sultan M. Hali calls himself a political and defense analyst. He is nothing of the sort. In reality he’s a professional hack, and a very lazy one at that. His latest analysis, for instance, is so shallow, it’s an insult even to the barely intelligent reader. Hali doesn’t waste time sounding stupid, he starts in straight away:
The 2010 Nobel Prize for peace has been awarded to China’s Liu Xiaobo, a criminal, convicted by Chinese judicial authorities for dissidence and attempting to spread insurgency. The decision to award him the Peace Prize is not only controversial, but runs contrary to the testament of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the century-old Nobel Peace Prize.To be honest I didn’t even know who Liu Xiaobo was until he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, but even a cursory Google search would educate Hali, and everybody else, who Liu Xiaobo was. From Wikipedia:
Liu Xiaobo is a human rights activist who is little-known inside China. His writing is considered subversive, and his name is censored. He has called for democratic elections, advocated values of freedom, supported separation of powers and urged the governments to be accountable for its wrongdoings.By China’s standard, anybody who challenges the government, controlled by the Communist Party of China (CPC), is a criminal. All Liu Xiaobo asked for was democratic reform (like elections!) and freedom. And Mr. Hali calls him a criminal and an insurgent! The last is such laughable. What insurgency is Hali referring to aside from the one floating around in his empty head?
I won’t even bother with rest of the article it’s so bad.
Did Hali do any research at all or is he just parroting what the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad is telling him, which he has shamelessly done in the past.
What Hali needs to do is to get a clue. His analysis is shoddy. He’s more sycophant than analyst. In the end, he comes off as an idiot.
