Deconstructing Zaid hamid

Zaid Hamid is a media phenomen popularised by his programs “Brass Tacks” and later “Iqbal ka Pakistan”. He has been frequently mocked in the mainstream media due to his espousal of conspiracy theories about Global Domination of Jews and Economic matters. These theories are a side effect of the information age. Youtube, a website created to share home videos is filled up with such stuff, so is Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world today but whose only catch is the lack of authenticity.

In my opinion, probably no one in the mainstream media has taken the threat posed by Zaid Hamid and people of his ilk, seriously(except by Fasi Zaka in 2 of his articles). The fact that Zaid Hamid filled the ideological chasm in the youth formed due to pathetic textbooks and even pathetic media, was not discussed or dissected in detail. Nadim Farooq Paracha observed how such propoganda gained ground in apolitical Private educational institutions and not in the Public Universities. He was saying all that the youth wanted to hear and thus his fame amongst students sky-rocketed.

He was repulsed initially(in 2009/10) by the dangerous Khatme Nabuwwat people and very few people raised the objection that just by labelling him a heretic would do him no harm in the log run. He came back with a bang riding on shoulders of Ali Azmat and Maria B. A detailed study of the problems posed by Zaid Hamid is reuiqred.  

Recently Ayesha Siddiqa commented that “liberals fail to ask themselves is that in the absence of any legwork to eradicate growing radicalism, such as having the will to change the curriculum or creating a social agendatied with political objectives, how can anyone even begin to change the mindset of Zaid Hamid followers?” I don’t claim to start a “social agenda” but I am willing to throw the gauntlet as far as the “legwork” is concerned. As a small first step, I am going to highlight the factual errors in History made by the ever-reliable Mr Hamid during the show “Iqbal ka Pakistan”. I have tried to highlight only those points that are established facts and not the wild theories that he loves.

Episode 1

ZH:- Tipu sultan was the greatest visionary of 18th century. He was the pioneer of Rocket Technology and also creatd a “military industria cmplex” in maisore.

Comment: . I have 2 issues with these statements.

i) Based on which criteria is a Military ruler of a small south-indian state a bigger visionary than Voltaire,Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin franklin(authors of the Legendary Declaration of Independence which begins as “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”.),Adam smith,Goethe(who had more influence on Iqbal's philosophy than tipu).?? All these people lived in the 18^th century.

2. Tipu sultan didn't 'invent' rockets, the Chinese did. Instead he introduced metal-coated rockets which were improvd by a british scientist William Congreve.

ZH: Tipu Ki rocket bateries main pani mila dia gya.(Translation:- Tipu’s Rocket Batteries were rendered ineffective by adding water to them)

Comment:- This is scientifically absurd. John volta, an Italian physicist invented the commonly used batteries in 1801.!! And which primitive rockets ran on bateries.? Which bateries.? How did water change the chemical composition.?

ZH:-East India company was financed by Jewish Rothschilds. Comment:- This is an established fact that Nathan Rothschild invested in East India Company. Problem is that ZH got the time-line wrong. East India Company was formed in 1600 A.D. Rothschilds started their bussiness in 18^th century. Who financed the company before that.?  

ZH:-30 milion people(Muslims/Indians)were slaughtered by East India cmpany and there is no trace in history of that.

Comment:- How awfully convenient in that.!! This pretty much sums up the authenticity of ZH’s own claim. There actually is NO proof of any such genocide in history books.

ZH:-The mutiny of 1857 was a war of Independence and there was a 'massive uprising'.

Comment:- As I have mentioned in my article “10 historical facts our textbooks forgot to mention”  The 1857 mutiny was no more than a localizd uprising in sm parts of india.Surendra Nath Sen, in his Eighteen Fifty Seven(Calcutta,1958) says “Outside Oudh and Shahbad there are no evidences of that general symapthy which would invest the Mutiny with the dignity of a national war”. R.C Majumdar, in his The Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857(Calcutta,1963) declares that “it cannot be regarded as a national rising, far less a war of independence, which it never professed to be”.

Reference:- KK Aziz, Murder of History,Sang-e-meel Publishers, Chapter 2, p149

ZH:- 1857 kay baad Musalmano ki masjidain ghoron ki astabl banay(After war of 1857,Mosques were used as stables)

Comment:- This also is a fact that has been modified for the sake of convenience. This indeed happened after the fall of Baghdad by forces of Halaku Khan and in Punjab during reign of Ranjit Singh(much before 1857).

ZH:- Forces of Napoleon were defeated at Waterloo because the Brits had rocket technology that they stole from Tipu Sultan.

Comment:- Lying about probably one of the most documented war of the modern times is easier said than done.ZH was not deterred by this minnor fact though. Tipu Sultan died in 1799, Watreloo happened in 1815, Napoleon was defeating forces left right and centre for more than 12 years before Waterloo happened, Why did the rocket technology used against him so late? Infact there was a war between Napoleon and English forces in 1805, Why were the stolen rockets not used then.?  

ZH:-Naom chomsky is Amriki taliban.

Comment:- Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics ast MIT, one of the top universities in World today.  According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. He is also the eighth most cited source of all time, and is considered the "most cited living author". He is also famous for his critique of US Foreign Policy and hegemonistic attitude of US Government toward the world. Comparing such a figure to Taliban is not only stupid, it also explains how little ZH knows about the Taliban(while ZH also claims to have fought alongside such people).