Pakistani veteran actor Iffat Omar has always made headlines for speaking her mind. Omar has found herself in hot water multiple times for being her unapologetic self and recently in an interview with fellow actor Nauman Ijaz.
The actor said, “If I point out faults in the current government, that doesn’t mean I support the opposition. If I’m calling out Imran Khan over his shortcomings, that doesn’t mean I associate myself with any other political party”.
Omar, “If relevant departments keep interfering in other departments, we will never head towards success. We need pro-peace, we need education, we need science. In the next 30 years, technology will take over. Artificial intelligence is the new revolution.”
Ijaz questioned how the government has promoted Islamic history by airing popular Turkish shows. Omar responded, “They [Turks] invaded us. Understand this. We do not need fictional characters, we need stories about scientists. There’s not a single mathematician, a scientist in Pakistan that is known the world over.”
Upon being asked about the upcoming Pak-Turk collaboration on an upcoming series on Salauddin Ayyubi. She asserted, “He [Salauddin Ayyubi] is not our hero. This has been indoctrinated in Pakistanis since our country has been formed. We think of ourselves as superiors. Our history is of sub-continent, we need to endorse that. Our history isn’t of Turkey.”
Asked whether Omar would be interested in stepping into politics, the actor laughed and said, “I can’t do that. Never. I am not qualified for it. I am an actor, this is my profession, this is my career.”
Ijaz also asked Omar, “When Pakistani audience is watching the same content as you are. When Pakistani broadcasters and producers are watching it as well, why do you think we are unable to change the speed, pace of our dramas?” Omar responded, “We’ve been fed this is what heroes look like,” she shared. “We’ve been made to believe [that this is what the reality is]. This is the priority that you keep fooling the public and the institutions keep on doing as they please.”
Omar does believe that the impending change is due soon. She said, “Evolution will happen, it has to,” The actor then shed light on how important it is for her to express her opinions, “What no one else can say, I say”.
The former supermodel then talked about the threats she had faced over the years as a price for speaking her mind, “I had received so many threats over the time, women usually get a lot of rape threats. Those are very scary. Several times I trended on Twitter and the hate was traumatizing. But then I decided that I will respond to everyone. Once I started doing that, they eventually stopped because they had no reason to hate me.”
