This is second part of the documentary which Moeed Pirzada & his ‘Sochta Pakistan’ team made on the eve of 10th Anniversary of 9/11. This was an attempt to bring out a purely Pakistani perspective on how the Muslim world saw 9/11 and its tragic implications for Pakistan, Iraq, Middle East and the Muslim world at large. But above all for Pakistan – a country that had nothing to do with purely middle eastern origins of violence that hit United States but became a principal battle ground between Islamists and the West.
This was a unique effort, one of its kind in Ptv, which Moeed Pirzada, as Director World Affairs Ptv, proposed and then MD Ptv, Yousaf Baig Mirza and Secretary Information, Taimoor Azmat approved. Ptv teams under the guidance and supervision of Moeed Pirzada travelled across Pakistan and Pirzada himself interviewed ten key prominent Pakistani opinion makers who widely differed in their intellectual positions and world view. These ranged from the ultra-conservatives like Gen. Hameed Gul and Zaid Hamid to the Pakistani origin US scholars like Prof. Adil Najam at Boston University and Dr. Moeed Yusuf of United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Top foreign policy experts like Ex-Foreign Secretary, Riaz Khokar and Ex-Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri and media persons like Adur Rauf of GEO TV, Mujib ur Rehman Shami, prominent Urdu Columnist and Rashid Rehman, Editor Daily Times and Art Critic, Saleem Hashmi added their voices to make this a unique Pakistani comment on 9/11. Narrated in the voice of Moeed Pirzada its a quintessential Pakistani story of 9/11 told by Pakistanis.
At the very last moment, President Zardari’s Office tried preventing its broadcast on the grounds that Zaid Hamid and Gen. Hameed Gul are radicals and therefore unacceptable on Pakistan’s state broadcaster. However Secretary Information, Taimoor Azmat, boldly intervened and advised President’s Office that art products have to be provocative and without the radical voices this important comment will remain incomplete. Whole two part documentary was then broadcast without any censor.
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