Exorcism of Erika Kirk and Mosharraf Zaidi

A week before Christmas, the most widely celebrated festival of Christianity, it’s worth remembering that much of what we associate with Christmas is not purely biblical, but deeply historical and political.

When the Western Roman Empire declined in the 4th–5th centuries, power in Europe shifted to various Germanic peoples. Goths, Franks, Lombards, Saxons tribes the Romans once dismissed as “barbarians.” These groups did not destroy Rome; they inherited its lands, its administrative structures, and eventually its wealth. Over centuries, they became Europe’s new ruling elite, accumulating vast estates and constructing the castles and fortresses that still dominate the European landscape now admired by tourists from across the world.

Christianity itself spread among these peoples gradually, often from the top down. As Germanic kings converted most notably the Frankish king Clovis around 496 CE the religion followed power. The Church and the emerging European nobility grew together, shaping doctrine, festivals, and calendars in ways that aligned faith with social order and continuity.

The celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th fits squarely into this process. The date does not come from the Bible. Instead, it was formalized by the Roman Church in the 4th century, likely to coincide with existing pagan festivals such as Sol Invictus and winter solstice celebrations already familiar to both Romans and Germanic converts. Rather than erasing older traditions, Christianity absorbed and reinterpreted them to keep the masses occupied and busy.

Christmas,  that is celebrated today, is not just a religious event. It is a product of conspiracies from falling empire and rise of feudal lords and Kings and castle politics. 

That logic never disappeared. It only learned to speak better.

I recently watched two interviews. Different continents. Different politics. Same stare.

The stare of Erika Kirk.

The stare of Mosharaf Zaidi.

Eyes are windows to the soul. They are extraordinarily good indicators of allegiance of where a person’s survival, ambition, and fear are anchored.

Erika Kirk’s husband was shot dead in public, and not long after, she emerged as CEO of Turning Point USA, a multimillion-dollar organization. Her sudden ascent alone invites scrutiny. Her recent hug with VP Vance also was talk of the town as she was sliding her hands into his hair which was odd. It was a clear sign of her internal brain vectors and ambitions. No doubt she is putting Darwin and Nietzsche to shame by showing the speed with which she is riding the aftermath of her husband death and use it to be able to buy a few more rings in her fingers and probably some Hermes...Alas no matter how much makeup she can do the demon still peeks through.

In her interview, she is bland, a bad actor, emotions are fake and eyes devilish. No softness. No residue of grief. The eyes lock forward, the gaze overshoots conviction and lands somewhere uncanny. She seems totally possessed by demons. It is interesting as in with christians exorcism of possessed is part of their made up christianity. They really believe in it depicted in many hollowood dramas...Erika surely needs that.

Mr Zaidi, the call me Mosharraf the think tank. Or is he? The only degree related with Pakistan political know-how he seems to have is his Canadian Born English accent. He belongs to a cult of thought that have all their bases covered which are a western country nationality a house in posh sector in Islamabad the latest model of either Toyota Corrola or Honda Civic and some obedient religious school going children with strict secrecy and fuck everyone else class signal attitude. He was once some advisor to Shahbaz Sharif when he was the Chief Minister of Punjab and now once again speaking for Pakistan’s prime minister who happens to be again Shahbaz Sharif. Back to interview the forever lying smirk the restless and annoying flipping of papers by dampening with spit. I definitely dont want to get those wahabi germs by shaking that spit laden hand. The irritation when interrupted despite already drifting off topic. Then comes the moment of exposure: his own old tweets, contradicting his present stance.

His defense is astonishing in its clarity: at that time, he was not a spokesperson for the government. Aha! So belief has an employment date and truth begins when the paycheck does. 

He maybe kicking himself in hindsight once he playbacks this interview but this is normal buddy thats how nature works:

Surah An-Nur (24:24)

On the Day when their tongues, their hands and their legs will testify against themselves of what they used to do

I am not being sanctimonious...happens with each one of us but so we know.

What emerges isn’t just inconsistency, but an entire mindset. Curated religiosity that signals belonging without inconvenience. Class chauvinism softened by fluency. Condescension wrapped in civility. Opportunism reframed as pragmatism. And always the background hum the whispers of bosses, friends, relatives: say this, not that; dress like this; don’t lose everything. His eyes don’t burn with conviction; they flicker with anxiety. Not fear of being wrong, but fear of falling out of favor.

And this is where Christmas returns.

The medieval Church didn’t merely offer salvation; it administered populations. It absorbed older rituals, monopolized moral authority, and taught people where to look upward while land, wealth, and lineage hardened below. Modern pawns such as Erika Kirk and Mosharaf Zaidi perform the same function now. Talking points replace doctrine. The stare replaces the sermon. The audience is comforted, distracted, reassured anything but invited to ask who owns what, who benefits, and who changed their beliefs when the role required it.

Zardari last stand

It was some decades ago. I’m in Grade 9, the year is 1989. Mard-e-Momin Mard-e-Haq Zia is no more and Benazir of PPP is in power.

I’m hanging out with a group of students who could memorize entire chapters from those “keys” sold in the market, hacking the education system to secure top positions. Good for them. Meanwhile, I’m busy entertaining myself by studying the weird twitches, accents, and physical quirks of classmates and teachers like some undercover anthropologist, and firing off whatever youth-adrenaline political opinions I had absorbed from the atmosphere during lunch breaks. You could almost predict a person’s political stance by the food on their plate, and since nearly everyone was munching on white-flour rotis, maybe that diet had a built-in side effect of reduced critical thinking. But hey, who am I to argue with carbs?

Despite being observant, I wasn’t watching every new Amitabh Bachchan flick coming out in those days, so I wasn’t armed with the punchlines and hit dialogues that everyone else used as ammunition in daily conversations. Sure, I had read some Ishtiaq Ahmed mysteries and a few paragraphs from the Imran Series, but none of that prepared me for the simplistic but supercharged political chatter of the time, how to defend Benazir against rumors about her dancing, how to respond to the “Zardari is corrupt” chorus, how not to commit blasphemy by countering the Hadees that a woman cannot rule an Islamic country, or how to debate the idea that Nawaz Sharif was some shining symbol of purity.

I was still smart not to side with any party but yet any countering ideas would be zoned in that you are a PPP influenced. My only argument was simple: I won’t call Zardari a thief because that’s an accusation, and I cannot accuse anyone without full knowledge. Looking back, that stance probably made me the “topper” of the class, refusing to parrot the herd. I’m still proud of that tiny spark of rebellion, that stubborn insistence on fairness at an age when most of your peers were mimicking whatever the mohalla maulvi was shouting at the jumma khutba. And maybe, even Zardari didn’t yet realize that the average hobos orbiting around him could be bought for the price of a biryani plate.

From the pop explosion of the late 80s to the peak of 90s alternative rock, from the raw chaos of early 2010s social media Web 2.0 to the smartphone ubiquity of the early 2020s, one way or another, we as Pakistanis (well certian Pakistanis) always carried an admiration for Zardari.  For his political acumen, manipulation, survival instincts, and the ability to outmaneuver opponents. He survived a military dictator, seen off a dictator by giving him a guard of honor such that he then could never come back to Pakistan, stitched alliances no one thought possible, and pushed through reforms like the 18th Amendment that reshaped Pakistan’s entire constitutional structure. For a long time, he seemed like the architect of a stable democracy with subconscious leanings of Pakistan Khabbey and democracy is best revenge

But something changed since the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, and it is now Pakistan will not khabey. Zardari has begun to look frail. Physically which is understood but politically as well and distant, almost like a man who wants to enjoy a long, cushy retirement that just happens to take place on the presidential chair, with his two heirs frolicking around the political stage like overconfident extras in a play they didn’t write but think they’re starring in.

His alliances with the Sharifs,
his handing medals to Field Marshal,
his effortless surrender of political space,
all of it feels like a deliberate dismantling of everything he once constructed. Provincial autonomy, civilian rule, constitutional balance… all reversed in broad daylight.

Then comes his support for the 26th Amendment.
His support for the 27th Amendment.
Layer after layer of erosion, as if the old Zardari, the tactician, the survivor, has quietly packed his bags and left the stage.

And meanwhile you have that joker, the young Bhutto, grinning ear to ear and bouncing around Parliament while helping pass the 26th Amendment that has gutted the judiciary, thinking this is how he avenges his grandfather’s blood. Imagining himself some master puppeteer, a political prodigy untouchable by the forces around him. Does he really think he’s playing everyone?

And all the while Zardari keeps giving space to the generals by cozying up to the most corrupt political dynasty in Pakistan, the Sharifs. What do the Sharifs care? Their only mission is to keep their business files moving through the bureaucracy. They’re there to protect their empire, not Pakistan. And Zardari, unbelievably, is now sleeping politically with his arch enemies, enabling them, legitimizing them, and calling it politics.

For me, someone who was once an unnamed foot soldier, a brother in arms who defended him, who sent him my Star Wars level “the Force” decibels of loyalty, those decibels have now turned squarely against him. Compromise in politics is necessary but to his level is not politics; it’s capitulation. For me, his opportunism has crossed into something rotten. For me, he should rein in that overgrown, self-enamored young Bhutto. For me, he should return to the real PPP, the theley wala, the sabzi forosh, the rehri wala, the people whose backs carried the party long before palaces and protocol swallowed it whole.

And now, of all people, Imran Khan is the one standing up against the Generals, while Zardari has reduced himself to a pawn on their chessboard, waving the flag of a pseudo-democracy that fools no one.

So what happened?

Here is my theory, and my hunch has rarely betrayed me. Zardari himself has already given the clues. In interviews over the past ten years, he repeatedly tries to bring up the global climate, the international pressures, and the shifting regional dynamics that, according to him, have forced Pakistan’s democracy to retreat and the “Riyasat” (as Talat Hussain conveniently calls the military establishment) to reclaim the driving seat. For me, this is one major reason why Zardari has given up hope. He believes the world stage dynamics it may not be possible to have a good opposition to the military elite. 

The second reason is the weight of tragedy. The Bhutto family has endured hanging, assassination, exile, imprisonment, trauma on a scale unmatched in Pakistani politics. Perhaps the burden has finally grown too heavy. Perhaps they no longer want to risk more blood in the name of public service. Survival may now matter more than struggle. And so, along with the Sharifs, they have effectively signed off on a kind of legally sanitized martial law.

If you map Zardari’s past maneuvers, his strategic brilliance, his willingness to outplay every opponent, with his current willingness to give space to those same opponents, it suggests something deeper. Maybe Zardari believes Pakistan has no real future left. Maybe, in his view, the country is headed toward a Bangladesh 2.0-type fragmentation. And when that happens, he will have Sindhu Desh to fall back on.

So there you have it. I’ve broken it down for you. Balochistan has an ongoing insurgency, Pakhtoonkhwa is still seen by Afghanistan as disputed territory and we’re constantly skirmishing with them, Kashmir is raam raam, a constant conflict we pretend to own but can’t resolve, and that leaves Pakistan essentially reduced to Sindh and Punjab and well everyone hates Punjabis. This would be the final act of a country that was, in many ways, a tiny union carved out by a Muslim elite who feared living under Hindu-majority rule. And so my prophecy or wish, however you choose to judge it,stands fulfilled. A part of my anarchic soul believes that this undoing might be the only mercy left for the people of Pakistan.