Daily Times

There is a place in Islamabad, Bunny Gala, and Hugh Hefner is going to buy it. A place called Bunny Gala must have Hefner in the middle of it, and live up to its name.
Don’t ask me how Hefner came across a reference to Bunny Gala. It may well have been through some respectable gent, formerly of the Pakistan government, the type that the place is teeming with. These gents mostly have impressive business cards, put neatly in gold-encrusted card-cases from where they pull them out with a practised ease that would make the gunslingers in the West look positively slow.
Of course this is my hunch. Hefner might just have been googling and come across Bunny Gala — type “bunny” and get Bunny Gala also; everyone googles everything nowadays. In terms of frequency and the spread across cultures, gender and age-groups googling is the modern, tech equivalent of onanism. If someone says they don’t google, they are lying.
In any case, how Hefner might have come across the reference to Bunny Gala is irrelevant. The essential point is that he has, and, as reported in the US press, wants to buy the place. Not only that, he has come up with a novel plan and met with the new Veep Joe Biden. The purchase will be made a component of the non-military Biden-Luger aid package for Pakistan. Bloody smart, I say.
Consider.
The new US administration has already made clear that it wants to change course and make others do what it (US) wants them to do in a way that others feel this is what they themselves wanted to do it in the first place.
It’s the difference between making the girl think she wanted it as badly and getting charged with rape. It is also the difference between successful choice engineering and using force. Trust me, this is a BIG difference.
And if you think, sceptical reader, that I am making this up, you need to read the book titled Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. Sunstein, a law professor, was also advising Obama and is the creator of what he described in a 1995 article in the Harvard Law Review as “incompletely theorised agreements”.
Or, if you don’t want to read the book, which is fine by me, how about reading Riccardo Rebonato’s brilliant view on the whole idea of nudging — just across from this on the same page!
Nudge, I almost feel, is the next station from the point where parties have agreed to accept a decision or verdict that is not ideal but gives everyone something even as it takes away much from everyone. Depends on how one puts it: everyone has lost or everyone has gained. The only net gainer is the one who is making the decision or perhaps nudging everyone to think that what has been decided is what everyone wanted.
It’s always smart to use someone else’s resources to make money for oneself. For instance, all you need do is convince someone that you are better able to read the market and use his money to invest and take a share of the profit without much liability.
So, basically, the nudger mustn’t even let the nudged feel that the latter is/are being manipulated. The nudged are liberated and secured from their follies which they would have committed unless nudged.
Guess one needs to revisit Isaiah Berlin on liberty!
But back to Hefner. As part of the global nudging by the Obama team, Hefner seems to have plugged into this whole idea of reaching out. I am all for it.
Back in April 2006, I wrote about the Bunny Theory of Peace. It was simple: no two countries with Playboy editions can go to war. My theory was in line with, and complemented, Thomas Friedman’s Golden Arches Theory, which says that no two countries with McDonald’s go to war, and its parent, the Democratic Peace Theory.
We now have democracy in Pakistan and India; McDonald’s has been here a while. The missing factor was the Playboy Bunny.
Now you know, dear reader, how Bunny Gala fits into this larger scheme of things?
Pakistan, we know, or at least are constantly told, is both troubled and troubling, though there is not much consensus on whether it is more troubled than troubling or vice versa. I haven’t, of course, figured it out because everything seems normal to me as I pull out of my driveway every day. But then I guess the view from Lahore is either unclear or, more likely, I am too close and miss the wood for the trees.
Be that as it may, there is something wrong with Pakistan, says the world and the world can’t be wrong all the way. So nudging is in order. Enter Hefner with his bunnies. Hallelujah! Time to transition from Neo-con Paternalism to Libertarian Paternalism.

Ejaz Haider is Consulting Editor of The Friday Times and Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times. He can be reached at sapper@dailytimes.com.pk