...there was no Facebook

Facebook is now so widely trafficked that it's fast becoming a routine aid to social interaction, like cell phones, e-mail and antiperspirant. But let's not get into deep philosophical ruminations of what would happen if there was no Facebook. The only things that would be really interesting are that we will miss the gems of one-liners such as Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook claiming "if Facebook were a country it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria" or the story in Time magazine stating that "People playing Farmville are greater in number than the population of Australia."

Also the often hilarious, short, continuous, low-content updates about the particulars of your friends' lives -- Mushtaq has the flu, Natasha can't believe what just happened on Malaal, or the all-time favourite, Omar is in a relationship with Sana (posted mainly to spite Sana's ex-boyfriend).

Also gone will be trying to spy on your old fling, your new fling, your next employer, or that friend-of-a-friend you just met at a party who says he can give you some great tips on how to invest money in the stock market.

My personal favourite is that no one from the fifth grade will contact me and say, "Hey, I sat behind you in class, wanna chat?"

Without social networking, many people would be still meeting in tea houses and each others homes than sitting in a chair and staring at a screen. But it would also means that the shy introverted types that already shun socialising would have no avenue to express themselves freely.

...there were no

private TV channels

For starters, we'd be 'condemned' to live with the lopsided version of stories -- the likes of which were beamed our way by PTV in good ol' days. With no local competition in sight, the state-owned television channel would have continued its unthreatened rule (read monopoly), across the length and breadth of the country, and not quite pushed to try new things. How long could it have rested on its past laurels?

Sure, it gave us some of our most celebrated artistic geniuses, but soon its reserves were to run dry, because the old guard was beginning to look stale and out of sync with the demands of the changing times.

The Internet revolution, that threw the entire world together in a single cyberspace, was anyway going to dictate changes that couldn't be turned a blind eye to. Eventually, as PTV failed to incorporate new ideas or create a fresh pool of talent that would be competitive, it began to lose its credibility, not to forget a loyal viewership.

The mushrooming of private channels in the 2000s clearly shook it out of its complacency, but PTV -- it seemed -- had lost the game already. Perhaps, the only edge it still enjoyed was its (much-trumpeted) terrestrial spread/access across the country.

There are those who say the world would be a better -- if not more peaceful -- place to breathe in, if it was minus the noisy and belligerent talk show hosts hollering one political cliché after another out of our telly screens. They are right, to some extent.

Media in the 2000s introduced to us a particular 'style' of going about news coverage -- they called it minute-to-minute, we thought it was redundant -- which was however an instant 'hit' with the general masses, because it made news & analyses 'look' and 'sound' ever more 'entertaining'. The days of PTV's terminally boring current affairs programmes were over. A lot of those hooked on the wicked queens and the peter pans of the saas-bahu soaps now found their staple diet of masala in the very news-based shows that would thrust MPs (chiefly women) of rival groups together in (petty) cockfights.

As the world around us changed for the worse -- post-9/11 and all -- there would simply be no takers for a partial, establishment-friendly media group. Hence, PTV was rejected in favour of the Geos and Aajs of the decade.

The trends were picked up by the lesser mortals and the common viewer is again caught in a situation where he can't decide who to trust and whether to trust at all. Clearly, he is not willing to switch back to PTV.

...there were no portable mp3 players

Though portable mp3 players had been unveiled in the late nineties, they really took the world by storm in the last decade. Initially, it was just the techno-geeks and music freaks which bothered themselves in this new technology. However, with the introduction of the iPod and mp3 playing capability being injected into cell phones, people of all ages started moving their feet with the beat of thousands of songs at their fingertips. But what if the pleasure and fun of listening to music the mp3 way had not yet been made mobile? Would we still have been lugging around walkmans and Discmans?

Though listing to music had been big in the eighties and nineties as well, listeners had to be content with the limitations of the cassettes and then later CDs, with their 12- or so odd tracks. Exposure to music was also limited to music channels and live performances. Yet with the 2000s with all their power of the internet and online streaming sans portable mp3 players would have meant carrying around boxes crammed with cassettes or a bunch of CDs in specially designed backpacks. Instead of swapping mp3 files over the internet or via USB sticks, music lovers would have been going crazy exchanging cassettes and CDs at schools, offices as well as via parceling them over long distances.

Portable mp3 players also have the advantage of playing music longer on a single battery charge and are ideal for journeys. Still, having to make do with walkmans and CD players would have meant strapping oneself with cases of batteries (besides the other ones holding all the cassettes and CDs we could carry). Though this would have made it cumbersome for grooving to your favourite tune while working out in the gym or jogging, perhaps the effectiveness of burning all those extra layers of fat would have been enhanced by the added weight of all the music paraphernalia.

...there were no

call centres

The call centre is somewhat of a vampire's lair. A person, who works in one, wakes up after the sun goes down and sleeps when the sun comes out. Instead of white skin, mysterious goings-on and lots of blood, however, one finds normal people of all shapes and sizes (their eyes a little droopy), working hard, wearing headsets and the latest in fashion, either giving customer support or trying by any means possible to customers who usually live on a different continent.

Call centres are somewhat of an anomaly in Pakistan. Where academic degrees -- foreign ones are preferred -- are all the rage for getting a good job, call centres where one can work after an A or even an O Level degree, and get paid in double figures -- the main requirement being able to converse in English with an accent and work at night -- is not short of a miracle.

Having none would mean that a lot of men and women with spouses will be able to see each other in the light of day and have a normal social life. It would also decrease the significant boost in the revenues of tea and coffee companies of whose products are consumed probably by the tonnes to keep awake. Also all-nighter cafes would lose much of its clientele. On a serious note, however, a vibrant, growing industry that employs thousands of people will die.

What if there was no editorial for this Special Report today that marks the end of the decade? What if there was a two-line introduction instead -- to say that we only want to imagine how it would look like if the important events of the last decade that had a bearing on Pakistan had not come about. Of course we can't wish any of these incidents away except on these pages. Welcome to our version of alternate history....there was no loadshedding

Somebody suggested something rather funny: if there were no loadshedding, summers would be without those frequent states of euphoria we experienced every time power supply was restored. How about that?

Of course, when we talk about loadshedding happening on the hour, round the clock, this is the only blessing you can count.

Again, if there were no power outages happening on such regular intervals and with such amazing regularity, the lazy bones among us might not have learnt a few important lessons on 'discipline'. For instance, whereas earlier you were casual about timings, now you had no choice but to 'time' everything -- dinner at 8 or 9 (depending on the loadshedding schedule), study at 10 or 11, etc.

When you have a serious time limitation, you are bound to plan your day-to-day things -- when to iron your clothes, when to finish a book or catch the repeat of your favourite day soap… before lights go out.

Life is full of unpredictability and Wapda has taught us this -- albeit the hard way.

Loadshedding has always been there in Pakistan but the last couple of years have seen it assume unprecedented proportions.

On a more serious note, if there were no loadshedding, the PPP government wouldn't have a mighty tool in hand that they could use in order to expose the hollow economic policies of the previous regimes. Besides, the many industries and small businesses that had a premature demise could have been saved (barring of course the business of manufacturing and selling UPSes and generators that saw a remarkable boom in the last couple of years).

...there was no Lal Masjid operation

If the Lal Masjid operation had not been conducted, we would not have witnessed so many suicide bombings and killings. The students of Lal Masjid might have expanded their 'moral' operation against 'vulgarity'. They might have closed down video shops and banned all 'vulgar' movies. They might have expanded their campaign to extend their writ beyond Islamabad. Thus, the students might have taken matters into their own hands, much as the Taliban did as they emerged as a power in the 1990s in Afghanistan and in the Waziristan tribal areas.

The organised campaign against the security personnel which has now expanded to civilian areas may not have been launched. There may not have been a Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan. We would not have made wild guesses about the amount and nature of weaponry stored in the Lal Masjid and the number of students actually killed in the process. We wouldn't have realised the virtues contained in the burqa if Maulana Abdul Aziz hadn't given us the lead.

...there was no NRO

Ah yes, the million dollar question that never got asked in the first place! Put simply, there would have been no opposition of NRO if there was no NRO. There would have been no petitions against the Ordinance and the petitioners would have stayed devoid of all fame. Moreover, there would have been no occasion to question the judgement itself.

The leaders of two major parties would not have had a chance to return to the country. Charter of Democracy Phase 2 would have been signed in Jeddah and Phase 3 in London. Gen. Musharraf would still be president holding two offices while Gen. Ashfaque Parvez Kiyani would have happily retired and gone home. A 'free and fair' election would have brought PML-Q to power again while PPP and PML-N would be sitting comfortably on the opposition benches, with Amin Fahim and Chaudhry Nisar taking turns as leaders of the opposition. The cases against the political opposition would have continued slowly and gradually in the NAB courts, not one of them decided so far. All political forces would have boycotted the elections in Balochistan and the province run by a governor, appointed by the federal government. There may have no let up in the suicide bombings across the country.

In short, all would have stayed hunky dory in this land of ours.

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This indeed was the singular most significant incident of the decade that has gone by. The world would certainly have looked different had there been no 9/11 terror attacks in the US. The 21st century received a brutal beginning. Hard to believe that it was then President Bush who had put it so aptly: "All of this was brought upon us in a single day. And the night fell on a different world."

For us in Pakistan, had there been no 9/11, it is quite possible that the dictatorial regime of Musharraf may not have got a new life. It's hard to imagine though if the new government would still have sided with the Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan.

There would not have been a place called Guantanamo Bay prison thrown into limelight after the Americans stuffed it with suspects rounded from around the world. We would not have heard about Tora Bora and other secret caves in Afghanistan frantically combed by US commandos in search of bin Laden. Nor about the soft-sounding huge Daisy cutters that flattened Afghan towns.

One doesn't know about the fate of Saddam Hussain in this decade but Iraq would certainly not have faced charges of hiding weapons of mass destruction and be saved from an unnecessary war.

It would have taken some time to know about the terror camps operated by Taliban and al-Qaeda on Pak-Afghan borders. We wouldn't see the new security protocols hindering free movement of people. Open Western societies would not have closed their doors to Muslims, and they would not have faced undue embarrassment at strictly guarded airports after the 9/11. 9/11 introduced some new words like war on terror, making war seem like a harmless act compared to terrorism. It changed the identity of the erstwhile respectable mujahideen into the condemned jihadis.

...there was no recession

What if the spectre of the recent economic recession had never cast its shadow over the world? Well for one, American taxpayers would not have had to part with $800 billion for bailing out Wall Street financial institutions. Instead all that money would have been directed towards building further on the American dream: more luxury cars, beach front properties, designer clothes and accessories and bigger theme parks where the entire family could vacation to their hearts' content.

For the developing world, not having undergone an economic recession would have translated into lower mortality rates, and subsequently higher fertility rates, more children being able to attend school and access to better health facilities. It would also probably have been possible for workers slaving away in Nike sweat shops to actually afford a sneaker.

So, if the global economic meltdown had not happened, the efforts of all the activists attempting to "make poverty history", such as Bono of the rock band U2, would have actually started to bear fruit. Even a so-called developing country like Pakistan would not have had to resort to a $7.6 billion bailout package from IMF. Its foreign debt would not have then bloomed to such an extent that further debt servicing would have virtually becomes impossible as has happened now, and its Human Development Index Ranking would actually have gone below 100 (as was 20 years ago) instead of being at 141 out of 180 countries.

Yes, it is indeed wishful thinking on any one's part to foresee the world wide economic recession not happening, as tragically such scenarios are part and parcel of the modern financial system. As if the world central banks were not to call in their debts and contract the money supply, how else would the international power players be able to maintain their tentacle-like grip on world's teeming billions and continue to dominate and dictate the course of global history.

...Bugti wasn't killed

The killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 in an army operation adds another chapter to the gory episode of state terrorism against the Baloch people. The question, "what if Bugti had not been killed", takes us to two different scenarios. One, the military regime of General Musharraf would not have opted for confrontation with the Baloch leader. Instead, Musharraf would have talked of a dialogue with the dissenting voices within Balochistan, including Bugti and, there is every possibility that things would not have gone this far. There would not have been a flaring up of the Baloch emotions that widened the trust deficit between the province and the centre. And certainly, life would have been a little easier for the foreigners who have been working at various development projects in Gwadar and elsewhere in the province.

Another possibility, and a more likely one, is that Bugti would have succeeded in dodging the security apparatus in the mountains of Bhambore and would have lived up to the tribal traditions by continuing an armed struggle against the suppression of the military regime. That would have continued for a couple of years.

It now seems a probable scenario that after the removal of Musharraf from the presidency, the democratic government would have succeeded in bringing Bugti to the negotiating table and the recommendations of the parliamentary committees would have once again come up for discussion.

If all this or anything even similar to it had happened at that time, we can say that the Balochistan package would have been announced much earlier and the rebellious elements in the province would have been sidelined to a large extent. A good beginning on both sides.

...Mumbai attacks hadn't occurred

The Indian government's official stance today that it will not resume composite dialogue with Pakistan until the Mumbai attackers are brought to book and Pakistan dismantles terror infrastructure on its soil tells a lot about the situation on the ground -- and what it would have been if 26/11 had not happened.

The first and foremost casualty of the Mumbai terror attacks is the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan that had seen its ups and downs since it started in February 2004. What if the attacks had not happened? Presumably, the two once arch-rivals would have covered considerable ground in being able to bringing peace to the region.

On the political front, leaders on both sides of the border would have somewhat matured, issuing statements acknowledging the value of brain over brawn. High-level periodic meetings of officials from the respective ministries of foreign affairs would have taken place, identifying points of agreements between the two countries.

Besides, the people to people contacts would have multiplied.

The element of distrust, which was already there between the two countries and increased after the Mumbai attacks, would have remained in the background.

Seen from another angle, the media in both the countries would have avoided its proclivity to sensationalism and hasty conclusions. There is every likelihood that the Pakistan government would have restrained from readily pointing its finger towards India for its alleged involvement in fomenting insurgency in Balochistan and indirectly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan. This would have been possible due to a regular exchange of information between the two countries.

On a more cautious note, even if 26/11 had not happened, there might have been some other disturbing possibility of a terrorist attack. Considering the precarious situation that the two countries have been through in the past, there might have been some other security disaster, perhaps on the Mumbai scale if not bigger.

Still, one would like to believe that in a friendly atmosphere, the dividends of peace would have been shared not only by the two South Asian neighbours but the entire region in the shape of bilateral trade and other confidence building measures.

...there were no drones

Had drone attacks not occurred in Waziristan, the firebrand leader of the Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Meshud would never have been eliminated. Despite what the critics say, the drone attacks in the region have created a strategic advantage for the army who has made its main goal to get rid of the Taliban. Starting out, the drone attacks initiated debates across several sectors of society in terms of morality and nationality.

With the first revelation of drone attacks in 2003, it was the first time the public was alerted about the issues in the region. Even now, limited media influence in the frontier has led to a blanket on the knowledge of the area.

Taking advantage of this veil, the politicians waved their hands and screamed slogans against anti-imperialism. In general this meant that people would pursue an emotional debate. The views that developed revolved around the imposed terror or the anti-Taliban sentiment.

People who have studied the region or area have come to terms with the fact that the original sin was committed during the 1980s when the Mujahideen forces were mobilised as an ideology and strategy against the invading soviets in Afghanistan.

As the state continued to descend into a state of war, the impact on citizens was this culture of blaming outside hands for its poor leadership. The drone attacks have hardened this belief or understanding that the failure of Pakistan was due to the western hand in the region. Now on every coffee table conversation, one will cringe to stories of Blackwater and other invisible forces. This psyche has manufactured fear in the society to further distance the public from realities of the state.

Fleeting images of the IDPs give some accounts about the impact of drone attacks in the region. The people of these areas have definitely been impacted by it positively and negatively.

Had there been no drones, there would definitely be carpet-bombing on ground forces by the US-led NATO forces, with a lot more than collateral damage. Had there been no drones, the debate about Pakistan's sovereignty and its meaninglessness would not have been initiated.

...the chief justice

wasn't removedIf one incident changed the face of Pakistan's politics in the last decade, it was this: the president wearing his chief of army staff's uniform sitting with the chief justice of the country and reading out to him the orders of his removal. It was a high point depicting the power of the new media when this television image remained engraved in people's minds and evoked a strong reaction among the lawyer community. The baton-charged wounded lawyers and the CJP being dragged along by the police officials made the next strong visuals on our television screens and the rest we all know.

But what if this had not happened?

That is all conjecture and that too in retrospect. But since this is all about letting the imagination go really wild, one would have imagined that Musharraf would still be the president. PML-Q would have miraculously won the 2008 election yet again and formed the government in the centre with MQM and JUI-F as allies for sure. But some things would not have changed. With their few parliamentary seats, the PPP and PML-N would still be crying hoarse about the removal of seventeenth amendment. "Go Musharraf Go" may still be a relevant slogan.

And what about the judiciary or the lawyers who have seen some genuine glory during the Lawyers' Movement? What about the common people? Someone mentioned that the traders on Lahore's Mall Road who suffered the regular Thursday lawyers rally would perhaps have been happier and a little more prosperous. Mr Naeem Bokhari would have already published a book -- an anthology of letters against the conduct of CJP. We can't say if he had escaped contempt charges or not for that bold attempt of his.

Opinion editorial pages in newspapers would be questioning the limits of judicial activism; majority of the op-eds having been written by retired bureaucrats.

There would be no traffic jams in Karachi or Lahore. Ms Amina Janjua would have met her husband by now and at least half of the missing people would be home already. Aitzaz Ahsan, an MNA, would be fighting Nawaz Sharif's case in the Supreme Court while majority of Pakistanis would have been deprived of the privilege of knowing Ali Ahmed Kurd.