Portrayals in Popular Culture
Zia has been portrayed in English language popular culture a number of times including:
- In the comic Shattered Visage, it is implied that Zia's death was orchestrated by the same intelligence agency that ran The Village from the show The Prisoner.
- Zia was portrayed by Indian actor Om Puri in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson's War.
- Zia is caricatured as one of the main protagonists in Mohammed Hanif's 2008 satirical novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes which is loosely based around the events of his death.
- Zia is the basis for the character General Hyder in Salman Rushdie's novel Shame (1983), which describes Zia's long-lasting relationship with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (here known as Iskander Harrapa), the president whom he would later overthrow and "put to death".
- Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's takeover of Pakistan and circumstances of his death were referenced in the Star Trek novel The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One. In a prelude to the fictional Eugenics Wars, it is implied that genetically engineered "superman" Khan Noonien Singh arranged the crash.
- The oppressive regime of Zia-ul-Haq and the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was referenced in the book "Songs of Blood and Sword", a non-fiction memoir by Murtaza Bhutto's daughter Fatima Bhutto with chilling intensity.
Read more about this topic: Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Famous quotes containing the words portrayals, popular and/or culture:
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video pastthe portrayals of family life on such television programs as Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)
“We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle- class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)