Pakistanis Watch "Bush-Mush" Satire Over and Over

Reuters

March 15, 2006

By Simon Cameron-Moore

U.S. President George W. Bush went home two weeks ago, but ever since his visit Pakistanis have been watching multiple daily repeats of an animated television satire of his meeting with their own president.

Geo News, a private Pakistani channel that also beams to North America and Europe, first ran the take off of Bush and President Pervez Musharraf addressing a news conference on March 4 -- just after hours after the two leaders had, indeed, held such a news conference.

"I am feeling lonely. Osama is also feeling lonely," Bush laments at one point, as the script made light of the U.S. president's main reason for coming to Pakistan -- to check how committed Musharraf was in the war on terrorism and the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The piece uses footage of the actual news conference, with computerized renditions of Bush and Musharraf's faces.

It was first aired in English, but Geo quickly produced an Urdu version to reach a wider audience, and the channel has been running it several times a day since.

"It's very funny, I have seen it three times," said Mohammad Aftab, a businessman in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

"It was full of satire and taunts but it really showed what most Pakistanis think --- America is the boss and we are the subordinates."

Imran Aslam, president of Geo TV, said he had been engaged in political satire for decades, and had so far escaped with no more than "a few rapped knuckles."

"Things could be bad under Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. They had a problem with satire," said Aslam, referring to two former civilian leaders, now living abroad.

While making fun of Bush, the skit "Bush, Mush, Hota Hai," lifted from the title song of a popular Bollywood comedy romance, also touched on several sore points for Musharraf -- who during the real news conference took credit for "liberating" the media and a proliferation of television channels in Pakistan.

The show made fun of the reluctance of Musharraf, who came to power in a military coup in 1999, to step down as military chief and the slow restoration of democracy in the country.

It also joked about Pakistan's refusal to let U.S. investigators question Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist under house arrest for selling nuclear parts to, among others, Iran.

And it raised some uncomfortable comparisons with India.

"It's strange people ask for jobs in India. They talk about energy, software," said the animated version of Bush before adding, "Here people ask for tanks, missiles, ask for bombs."

The animation broke new ground for satire in Pakistan, but Geo already has a mock political talk show -- titled "All Of Us Are Expecting" -- featuring politicians' lookalikes.

The reaction from the government has always been good humored, though political parties are sometimes thinner skinned, said Azhar Abbas, the channel's managing director, adding that people were now learning to laugh at themselves.

"When we started this we hoped that through humor we might develop a culture of tolerance in the political parties."

see video: http://www.geo.tv/