Catch 22 1/2

NFP:

while I can somewhat understand where you`re coming from in that Zia did encourage that sort of a model for Pakistani men - stubborn, close-minded, hawkish etc. but Amjid Islam Amjid`s Chauhdry Hashmat was much more than that. some of his regressive personality attributes could`ve been popular at the time and perhaps even encouraged. but Amjid Islam Amjid did not glorify the feudal system and its adherents which is why there were constant references to the upcoming plan to build a dam over the village and the impending relocation. which eventually culminated into the self-destruction and death of the zameendar family and symbolically that of the feudal system for that village. if there are people who actually got inspired by Hashmat as a person, they must be pretty sick and twisted to begin with - not the drama`s creators fault.

I`m a little surprised at how different our interpretations of the play are. and yup, I am a drama geek.

Re:#17
samb, again, point taken but not entirly accepted. And since it is a matter of interpretations, this is how I see it. If one looks at all those serials and long-plays scribbled by the likes of Ashfaq Ahmed (Aik Haqueeqat, Soh Afsanay, Totah Kahani) and Amjad Islam Amjad (Waris, Samandar), it is clear that the kind of Islamic fatalism that was being propagated was suggesting the looking towards divine reward and justice in the afterlife. Such plays offered only patience and the quiet tolerance of injustices in the material world. In other words the emergence of a rampant culture of corruption and mafia violence during the Zia dictatorship were not to be questioned (especially not through the more secular outlets), but rather to be quietly lived out with prayers (salaat), “simple living” (sadigi) and a stoic hope of a better, fruiter hereafter!
The propagation of the so-called “traditional values” too had little or nothing to do with traditions held by the more urbanized Pakistanis. Conveniently, and as seen in Amjad Islam Amjad’s most popular serials, all talk about “traditional values” were actually mostly about traditions and values associated with staunch feudal classes.
This two-pronged strategy (Islamic Fatalism, ``traditional values``) was undertaken to at one hand keep in check Zia`s Islam from turning into something a lot more radical (and thus against the status quo that was supporting the political and economic interests of the Zia regime), and on the other hand control the urban classes which due to the fast changing economic scenario were reaching a point in which the middle-classes usually start demanding things like democracy, freedom of speech, etc. And it was this change that eventually set in and actually helped the country sustain the ten years of ``democracy`` that followed Zia`s death.

Rgds,
NfP