"PTI Trolls"!

Trolls are idiots; no second guessing that. If they weren’t idiots, they wouldn’t be called trolls; it is as simple as that. A troll is an on-line idiot, while an off-line idiot would be just, good old idiot. It doesn’t take burning of the mid-night oil to become one; all it requires is a myopic and insecure state of mind. Willingness to listen to the other person’s argument and then answer it with a marginally intelligent and coherent counter-argument is all that it takes to become a “non-troll”. So it is both easy to be a troll as well as a non-troll. “Trollism” (I am inventing terms along the way) is universal. It has no specific caste or creed. The behavior is not a domain of any one religion, region, or natonality. Like a disease, it is everywhere. If the term “troll” did not require being on-line, Newt Gingrich would qualify as one, so would Jean-Marie Le Pen, and our very own Qibla Zaid Hamid Sahib. While Trollism may be universal, the way it has been associated with only one political party in Pakistan, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) by the left-leaning intellectuals (some of them have questionable and arguable leftist credentials though!) of our country is indeed unfortunate. It is not that on Imran Khan’s prodding they abuse you online! That you classify every abusive tweet as typed with the blessings of the “Kaptaan” is indeed wrong! It is certainly not the policy of PTI to have a cadre of trolls. No party does (although some parties have cadres of heavily armed men, but then a pen is mightier than a sword or in modern parlance a tweet mightier than Uzi!). However, I suspect a bit of foul-play on behalf of the “victims” of these “PTI trolls”. They were inherently biased against “King Khan” and his anti-West policies even before the first troll signed up with Twitter. The idiots however provided them with a common platform to get together and denounce the Khan of Zaman Park and his party’s policies. A closer look at some of “victim tweets” and it becomes abundantly clear that Khan’s policies are being denied as naïve simply because these idiots are supporters of these policies. As far as naivety of PTI’s policies are concerned, I’ll be the first brave PTI supporter to admit that some of them indeed make no sense at all (my biggest fear is what if the Patwari refuses to issue a fard in my favour by saying Khan sahib nay rishvat na lenay ka hukam diya hey, fard denay ka nahi). But to belittle PTI policies simply because some online “genius” follows and supports them, smells of premeditated bias. Our Left-leaning liberal intellectuals, most of them associated with leading English-language newspapers, often point towards Jemima Goldsmith’s former husband and try to make a case that since he is reckless in his speech while referring to other political leaders that is why his online followers send abusive tweets. I beg to differ. Even if there had been no Imran Khan there would still have been trolls, period. And if his mannerisms have been contagious, then there should have been “PML-N trolls” as well as “PPP trolls”, since both parties have been at each others throat ever since the 1980’s. The “flowery language” that they have used to refer to the opposite party’s main leader especially during the 1990’s and before the signing of CoD, is still not forgotten, at least not by me. Sheikh Rashid of Rawalpindi (minus the express off course) and his less than impeccable manners, to put it mildly, towards the late Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto during numerous National Assembly sessions, allegedly at the prodding of his then leader, Nawaz Sharif, is a case in point! The more recent, “talented younger bro’s” rant: hum tumhey Zardari olta latka dain gay (or something to the effect) should have released a volley of abusive, anti-PPP/Zardari tweets by “PML-N trolls”! In submission, a troll is a troll. He (and yes to date they are all “he”) is neither PTI, nor PPP or PML-N troll. He is in a world of his own which is easily shattered by one marginally intelligent tweet. He is insecure because he either does not know the facts or has the stomach to digest them; he is someone who has never had time to read books, etc. Either try to “un-troll” him by supporting a party that advocates a more egalitarian, uniform, and universal education policy, or stop stamping him as “PTI troll”! All it takes is an underdeveloped brain, and an access to moderately good internet connection to be a troll, not Imran Khan.