smokerings

[ a corporate story. ]

so one morning in good old lums, we open our eyes and see this



and this



and this



and this



now, naturally, those of us who
a) know that advertising, selling or endorsing tobacco within 5 miles of a university campus is explicitly prohibited by law
b) dont like a bunch of ugly men with puppoo sideburns and shiny white teeth staring at us
were obviously very, very annoyed. and many of us are smokers, however we know that at the end of the day tobacco is tobacco (a carcinogenic drug, not a pretty little plant), PTC is big tobacco (affiliated with the British-American Tobacco company), and the only reason THEY still have a business is because of their advertising, governement pay-offs, and our dedicated chain smokers. so lets be honest. if PTC wants recruits to sell, manage, manufacture and advertise their tobacco, we'll give em something better. many many very very happy happy SMOKERS!!!! :D

at the end of the day, it was just a move to slam the hypocrisy of our administration in their face. for those of us who know lums history and the babar ali foundation, we know that this joint was established as a manufacturing plant for yuppies. in the 80's big business needed dedicated young managers in their outlets in pakistan, and the Lahore University of Management Sciences was set up to provide just that. for those of us who study here, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the highest bidder owns the walls, pillers, arches, and any other sqaure foot of advertising space in this uni- no questions asked- while our societies scrimp and struggle to get a single banner or poster up to advertise a sports tourney, or a mela... and even those are confined to specific softboards. this isnt the first incidence of corporatization of this campus: PnG, unilever, Nestle are in our faces twenty-four/seven. and you might argue that- well, what do you expect- a business is a business. yes, but then people's power is people's power. moreover, while some people might not be aware of the creepy underbelly of happy-happy brands like Nestle and PnG that own everything from your butter to your toothpaste, the tobacco issue is blatant.





thanks.. adeel, emad, izhar... good work :D

i made the poster in the labs at about 12. qasim and i got it signed by azmatullah (it says "SUPPORT British-American Tobacco," after all) at 1, and by 1:30 there were thirty of these all over the place. at 3:00 ammara decides that confining ourselves to softboards is useless, and slaps one on one of those standing banners that you see there. very effective. you know where it said "you know who you are, but who do you want to be?".. she took a piece of paper and wrote in huge letters "CANCER PATIENT", and stuck it at the bottom :D
twenty minutes later, a huge suited booted guy comes around, does a double take at the poster and rips it off, shaking his head, muttering "this is such bad publicity.."
twenty minutes later, the posters mysteriously reappear... :P

by 5 pm, everyones confused. who put these up? who keeps putting these up? qasim and i go around and meet the PTC guys... salaam, shake hands, take pics etc :P
azmatullah came running up at that point, with a bunch of torn down posters in his hands. apparently, some MBA faculty member had FINALLY gotten it, and called azmatuallah up and asked him to take them down.... beychaara, he was obviously very confused and kept asking us.. iss mey kuch ghalat to nahin likha hai?

the next day, at 6:30 we meet the vice chancellor (they still dont know we did it, we went voluntarily). he informs us that sending such confusing messages was unethical on the part of the miscreants.. that some society should have endorsed it.. and that "if you have an anti-smoking campaign, ill be right behind you!" they LOVE the idea of these little channels of communication ... they wont support dissent, but they'll loudly tell us to "voice your opinion". dont have protests... have debates, have little little petitions with lots of nice signatures. they wont answer straight... there was no mention of responsibility of the admin to the students, no.. "the students can start a program where you make one smoker into a non smoker everyday!!" ohh goody gumdrops i feel so much better knowing that its so freaking easy getting hard smokers to quit gee whiz thank you for your ignorance, sir...

hassan j and qasim kept their cool and decided that the green light to "express any opinion" is all we really needed. and we will start an awareness campaign about smoking. however, i still maintain that there was no time, during this whole process, to make our point in any way other than what we did. we went in with the explicit purpose of embarrassing and slamming both the PTC (for sheer audacity, if nothing else,) and the LUMS admin (who probably thought no one would notice, that no one would care...). and we'll take your debates, and your petitions, and we'll make you honor them, no less.. all in good time.
but this was just sneaky. touche. :)


nausheen... thanks so much for the pics :)