Search Results for *talibanisation*
April 30, 2009
The Fruits of Appeasement
The gruesome scene of a young girl being flogged in public illustrates the brutal rule the Taliban have enforced in the Swat valley, raising serious questions about the government’s policy of appeasement of militants trying to push the country back…
March 4, 2009
The Taliban are Here
Lahore has long been regarded as the cultural, intellectual and artistic capital of Pakistan, famous for its poets, writers and artists; and its gardens, historic sites and educational institutions. The mayhem sown by militancy in the NWFP and FATA had…
March 3, 2009
Actions Not Words
Are we still invisible, voiceless and powerless? It is indeed a sad reflection that 36 years on — since the adoption of the 1973 Constitution, with its several articles and clauses guaranteeing the protection and promotion of women’s equality and…
February 4, 2009
Art Over Militancy
Though militant forces are destroying the seats of learning, peace and harmony with a vengeance and silencing all forms of liberal expression in the picturesque Swat valley of north-western Pakistan, a whole village of cotton weavers and artisans in the…
January 31, 2009
The Power of the Pulpit
Maulvi Karim, who taught me to read the Quran and led prayers in our village mosque for 40 years, was one of the most powerless men in our community. The only power he assumed for himself was that of postman.…
November 3, 2008
Gone With the Wind
The devastating suicide blast at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, apart from its heavy death toll, also had severe economic ramifications. The first economic casualty of the blast was the hotel industry, when a majority of foreigners cancelled their advance…
August 7, 2008
The Looming Threat
Sixty-one years old this August, Pakistan is still confined in the cradle of its confusion about what it wants to be: a modern democracy or some kind of an Islamist polity. And in this season of national disenchantment, prospects of…
July 13, 2008
This War is Our War
There is no dearth of Pakistani politicians and analysts who brand Islamabad’s fight against religious extremism and militancy purely an “American war.” Notwithstanding the numerous UN resolutions, which have made it mandatory on all its member states to cooperate in…
July 13, 2008
Editor’s Note: July 2008
After publicly stating that the Taliban were knocking at the doors of the NWFP and that the government needed to move fast to stop Peshawar from falling into their hands, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is now expressing displeasure at…
July 14, 2007
The Battle for the Soul of Pakistan
Maqsood Ahmed sat in a corner of a tent packed with parents praying for news of their children trapped in the besieged Lal Masjid. An impoverished farmer from northern Pakistan, he had been waiting for five days to be reunited…