Osama Bin Laden is dead: what next for Pakistan?
The dramatic events of May 2, enacted in Pakistan’s small, sleepy town of Abbottabad have surely shaken the world. The global icon of al…
Mukhtaran Mai: Pakistan betrayed you once again
April 21, 2011 will be remembered as a black day in Pakistan’s history. Not because this was the day when the Supreme Court acquitted…
Our textbooks and the lies they teach
By Raza Rumi Due to the 18th Amendment, a momentous shift in Pakistan’s governance arrangements is taking place through a politically mediated and largely…
Alternative narratives: History rewritten to further political ends
The view that Pakistan was conceived as soon as Muhammad bin Qasim set foot in Sindh amounts to rewriting of history, Historian Manan Ahmed…
Raymond Davis and our national honour
A few weeks ago, when the Raymond Davis saga had gripped the public imagination, I had humbly suggested, on a TV show, that this…
Karachi Literature Festival: Too many divides to bridge
By Ali Syed KARACHI: ‘Bridging divides’, as the name suggests, was about a certain disparity within the Pakistani society, perhaps religion vs secularism, moderation…
Civil versus political society
By Raza Rumi Several self-styled analysts on ‘civil society’ have articulated contrarian views about the kind of choices they face, particularly with respect to…
Jinnah’s Pakistan is not dead
In recent weeks, several commentators have dwelt upon the amorphous notion of Jinnah’s Pakistan, challenging its notional contours and exposing its overt ideological underpinnings.…
Another blow to Pakistan: Salmaan Taseer killed by extremism
Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s brutal murder at the hands of a security personnel is a cruel reminder of where we have landed ourselves: in…
RIP Salmaan Taseer: this country did not deserve you
Salmaan Taseer’s brutal murder at the hands of a policeman is a cruel reminder of where we have landed ourselves: in a dark morass…
Veena Malik and the moral brigade
Pakistan’s electronic media is now a repository of the grand opinion setters of the Urdu press. Almost all channels have employed conservative writers of…
Our brotherly friends
Thanks to sensational reporting on WikiLeaks, the relationship of Pakistan with Saudi Arabia has been spotlighted. We have known of ideological links between radical…
Wikileaks and Pakistan
The WikiLeaks saga has reconfirmed the status of Pakistan as a client state. Its leadership – civilian and military – as a matter of…
Strategic grandeur
As if Pakistan’s domestic woes were not troubling, the unravelling of the US strategy and its implications are eluding even the best of strategists.…
Who’s afraid of Sherry Rehman?
Published in The Express Tribune: It has been rather disturbing to witness the way Sherry Rehman has been the latest target of the purists…
Asma Jahangir’s election: A step towards a progressive Pakistan
Asma Jahangir’s victory in the Supreme Court Bar Association elections is a momentous event in the country’s political and legal landscape. Even the worst…
We’re all to blame for lawlessness
I have been quoted in this report – on law and order in Pakistan (the backdrop is World Justice Report). My quotes are slightly…
Living in Denialistan
The recent attack on Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s shrine is another reminder of the plain truth that the Pakistani state needs to focus on its…
Ardent messiah lovers and regime change in Pakistan
Erosion of public institutions under authoritarian regimes is an undeniable lesson of our history. At a time when al Qaeda and its cohorts are…
Failed prescriptions for a failing state
The cat is finally out of the bag. The MQM chief has issued a statement on how the country needs to be saved from…