Top Pakistani journalist and host of Hard Talk, Dr Moeed Pirzada’s recent tweet caused quite a stir on social media. On Sunday, Dr Moeed Pirzada started a poll on his Twitter handle where he asked people to vote between ‘Women must wear Hijab’ and ‘No, we are Pakistan.’
In the poll, Dr Moeed Pirzada wrote that the Afghan Taliban defeated the US with the power of faith and imposition of Shariah Law. He further wrote that if Pakistan wants to be successful, then it should follow Afghanistan’s example. Therefore, as a first step towards “empowerment,” Pakistani women should wear hijab.
Needless to say, Twitteratis did not respond well to his post and failed to understand the sarcasm.
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Afghan Taliban have defeated America with the power of faith & divine support; imposition of Sharia will further empower them; we need to follow them with Sharia to become more successful; as first step all Pakistani women should start wearing hijab to make us more Powerful!
— Moeed Pirzada (@MoeedNj) August 22, 2021
Twitteratis, while misunderstanding his post, began criticizing Dr Moeed Pirzada. They accused him of promoting the narrative that a woman’s modesty is responsible for the success of a nation. The Twitteratis expressed their disapproval of Dr Moeed Pirzada’s post and said they did not expect such views from him.
https://twitter.com/abdullahsultan/status/1429449206859771908?s=20
Dr Moeed Pirzada clarifies his tweet
As the criticism racked up, Dr Moeed Pirzada uploaded another tweet to explain the purposed of the poll. Since satire is not understood in Pakistan, he explained his point of view in easier words.
According to Dr Moeed Pirzada, the poll exposed the confusion and misunderstanding regarding the Taliban’s victory and US’ failure in Afghanistan. He also clarified that he is not responsible for the confusion.
The confusion and misunderstanding exist due to certain Urdu websites and vloggers. Such platforms claim that the Taliban won due to divine help and their strong faith in religion. Through this narrative, they insinuate that only religion and firm faith can lead a country to success.
However, such platforms fail to take into account the complicated political factors which actually led to the American’s “defeat” in Afghanistan.
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Urdu columnists, websites, bloggers & vlogs have convinced majority of us that Taliban have won because of divine help and faith ignoring the complex political factors behind America's failure in creating a broad based Afghan political structure. We mustn't draw wrong conclusions
— Moeed Pirzada (@MoeedNj) August 23, 2021