A column in Pakistan Observer by Sajjad Shaukat calls on Pakistanis to “unite against the foreign enemies”. In case you don’t know who “the foreign enemies” are US, India, Afghanistan and Israel who “are in collusion as part of a plot to ‘destabilize’ Pakistan for their common strategic interests…while main aim remains to disintegrate the [...]
From Huffington Post, the following article by Aparna Pande provides an excellent examination of competing political perspectives. We have often made the argument that debates should focus on reason, and the following piece gives some important historical context to the struggle between the preference for rational thinking which can be quite messy and the preference [...]
In the spring of 1992, a confident young mother of two took her children to Karachi, at the invitation of friends from college who now resided there. One bright afternoon, she took her children out for a walk to explore the city. They were only a few blocks away from her friend’s home when the [...]
A number of things have happened lately that, when looked at all together, point to a pretty interesting phenomenon in popular politics. By popular politics, though, I don’t mean what most people support, but what is the popular perspective among those privileged enough to spend all day talking about politics. Feisal Naqvi dismisses intellectuals as [...]
Robert Anderson is a professor at an American Community College, and was in the US Air Force 44 years ago. He claims that, while he was in Vietnam, he was ‘loaned’ to the CIA for covert work. He also says quite explicitly that he was “was not an official of the CIA”. Nevermind that small [...]
GREAT new video! I dare you to watch this video and not feel your heart swell with pride.
The promise of a better life for themselves and their children led my grandparents to leave behind their home and make the arduous journey to a new nation. The hopes and dreams they must have had continue to inspire me today. As a proud Pakistani, I am consistently awed by our national capacity to be [...]
When I saw the opposition walk out during the president’s address today, I expected it to be over something substantial. As I listened to the president’s speech, though, I couldn’t figure out which part exactly these politicians objected to so much that they had to get up and leave. Chaudhry Nisar says they walk out [...]
BISMILLAH- IR- RAHMANIR-RAHIM Madam Speaker Honorable Members of the Parliament! AssalamoAlaikum! May I at the outset, strongly condemn, on behalf of the people of Pakistan and on my own behalf the deliberate de-sec-ration of the Holy Quran by a fanatic in Florida. We condemn this act in the strongest possible words It is a serious [...]
Pakistan was founded by poets. Our heritage is found in the words of those who understood and related to the world using their hearts as well as their minds. They understood that the world was too complex for easy answers, and they left a legacy not of formulaic solutions but of words that require thought [...]