He Who Does Not Ask, Goes Boom!

Washington’s latest weapon in the War on Terror is Elmo: the popular children’s television program is going to Pakistan. The U.S. is in the middle of financing a remake of the popular children’s television program in Urdu with $20 million. USAID, the national U.S. aid organization, intends to win the hearts of Pakistani children with the cute dolls — and in doing so, bring them onto the straight and narrow.

Pakistan’s version of Sesame Street aims to promote education and prevent terrorism. The U.S. organization is spending $20 million in aid on this. The talking puppets aim to make reading, writing and arithmetic appealing to Pakistani children so that they do not easily come under the influence of radical Islamists.

First Episode in the Fall

It will be filmed from this summer onwards in Lahore. The first episodes will be broadcast as early as autumn on the national television channel PTV, even to the smallest of villages. The new puppet show’s setting, however, is not a street in New York, but a Dhaba — a typical Pakistani village — including the small tea stands at the side of the road.

Neither Cookie Monster nor Big Bird will star in “SimSim Humara” (or, “Ours”) — the name of the Pakistani version of Sesame Street — but Rani, a six-year-old farmer’s daughter. The puppet figure has plaits, a smart school uniform and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. There will also be a wise old woman called Baaji who loves tradition, and a hard-working donkey called Baily, who would like to be a pop star. The only guest star from the West will be Elmo.

“This is a gift to the children of Pakistan,” said Faizan Peerzada, one of the producers of Pakistan’s version, “I think the American taxpayers will be happy with the results.” However, it has also received criticism: “A contextualized Sesame Street would be good, important and useful,” writes columnist Mosharraf Zaidi in one of Pakistan’s newspapers, The News, “But if I had $20 million for education in Pakistan, it’s not the first thing I would do.”