Nobel nuisance

Published in DAWN on April 13, 2025

Embed from Getty Images

HONESTLY, I personally never wanted to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I may have occasionally told someone years ago how nice it would be to win the prize and live the rest of my life in luxury, but that was all. Imagine how shocked I was when a friend called one day and said that I had been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize.

But why, I asked. Frankly, I have not done anything to advance the cause of peace. Stranger things have happened, he said. Remember, Barack Obama got it for doing practically nothing, or maybe it is a computer error or something, I was told.

The news about my so-called nomination spread like wildfire. I started receiving calls from people I had not met since childhood. In fact, within a couple of weeks, such people began to believe that I had already received the prize money, and would dole out loans to help them survive.

My phone would ring constantly, and in a few days I became a nervous wreck. I visited the Nobel website to find out who had nominated me, and discovered that I would have to wait 50 years to get that information. Even those who are nominated are not informed.

Since the chances of my winning the prize are one in a trillion, I appeal to friends, acquaintances and strangers to stop bothering me, and let me live in peace.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi 

https://www.dawn.com/news/1903938/nobel-nuisance

Bilawal Zardari's "advice" to President Obama!

Published in The News on May 25, 2012

I salute Bilawal Zardari for advising President Obama to be courageous and apologize for the killing of 26 Pakistani soldiers. I hope he will now ask Prime Minister Gilani to be equally brave and do what the Supreme Court asked him to do, to bring the $60 million dollars of looted money from Switzerland back to the country. 

Shakir Lakhani 

Karachi 

Obama and India

Published in The Express Tribune on November 16, 2010

Embed from Getty Images

KARACHI: This is with reference to the US president’s recent visit to India. About 80per cent of India’s population (which comes to around 850 million) lives in abject poverty, desperately struggling to survive on half a dollar a day. This, coupled with the fact that India faces insurgency in more than half its states, should be a cause of concern to everyone.

Obviously, an unstable India is a threat to the region and the whole world. One hopes that Washington will persuade New Delhi to concentrate on feeding its own hungry millions and to stop its brutal subjugation of Kashmiris and Christians in its northeast.

Shakir Lakhani

Obama picks openly gay lawyer as ambassador

Embed from Getty Images

I used to respect Obama a lot, even though he turned out to be a spineless wimp when dealing with Israel. But now I think the man has lost his marbles. He has picked an openly gay lawyer (David Huebner) to be an ambassador. Now let’s get one thing clear: I know that gays can’t help being homosexuals. They’re born that way, just as a man can’t help it if he’s a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu. But while I have no reservations having lunch or dinner with non-Muslims, I do have this strange feeling about homos. I mean, as long as I don’t know whether he’s gay or not, it doesn’t matter (by the way, I’ve never come across an openly gay person in my life), but with someone who openly admits to having sex with members of his own gender, I feel queasy.

How does one shake hands with such a man? I only hope this guy Huebner (he seems to be Jewish) is not appointed ambassador to Pakistan or any Muslim country. Of course, the question of him being appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia or Yemen doesn’t arise (in those places, they take homosexuals to the roof of the tallest building in town and throw them down). But I do think it’d be nice if he’s made ambassador to India (I think they need such people there, they must be bored with so much female nudity around).

Be convincing, Obama

Published in Khaleej Times on June 8, 2009

To convince Muslims that he’s sincere, Obama should have threatened to carry out drone attacks on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. After all, he’s bombing Muslim terrorists. So what’s stopping him from doing the same thing to Jewish terrorists?

Shakir Lakhani

Poetic justice

Posted on Chowrangi blogs

Embed from Getty Images

They tried everything to ensure that he would lose. There was, of course, the damning fact that his father had been a Muslim. They reminded people again and again that his middle name (Hussein) was the same as that of Saddam Hussein, whom they had earlier hanged. And then, of course, he was black. They picked up Joe the Plumber (a Jew) who said that Obama’s win would mean the death of Israel. Nothing worked. Barack (from “Mubarak”, meaning blessed) Hussein Obama, will be the president of the world’s sole superpower for the next four years, assuming of course that no one bumps him off (as feared by Gore Vidal, the well-known American writer).

But if Muslims (particularly Pakistanis) think that U.S. policies will change in their favour, they are in for a nasty surprise. Bush of course was favoured by Al-Qaeda, because they knew he was stupid. But Obama is not suddenly going to stop bombing FATA in Pakistan, nor will he start giving Muslim countries billions of dollars (since the U.S. economy is in deep recession, thanks to Bush’s policies). But at least there is poetic justice here. Bush got one Hussein killed, only to find himself replaced by another. This is, indeed, poetic justice!

Obama and Voters

Published in Khaleej Times on October 20th, 2008

Embed from Getty Images

This is with reference to the article ‘So What If Obama is Indeed a Muslim?’ on October 16. I agree with the assumption that Barack Obama is at a disadvantage because of the colour of his skin.

Even though he’s ahead in the polls, there is a strong suspicion that many whites may not poll for him on the fateful day.

To add more confusion, he is being presented as a Muslim.

The media in the West has left no stone unturned in demonizing Muslims, which is why most white Americans believe that Islam is synonymous with terrorism.

-Shakir Lakhani, 

Karachi