Pakistan: An Unstable State?

– Pakistan: An Unstable State? featuring Prof. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

Event – (Two times – two locations) Thursday, October 13

1) 12-2pm at York University (HNES 140)

2) 6-8pm at the University of Toronto (Rm. 1200, Bahen Centre, 40 St. George St.)

While mainstream depictions of Pakistan are focused primarily on a narrative of war, terrorism and instability, there is much more to understand about the rich diversity of the peoples of Pakistan and their day-to-day struggles against oppression and exploitation — whether it is peasant farmers struggling against military landlords, or Baloch & Sindhi nationalists struggling against the central state for greater autonomy and independence. The Pakistani state, too, is a complex institution, with its varying mechanisms of establishing control and extending it. Join us in a discussion with Professor Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (Yale, SOAS) of Quaid-e-Azam University as he explores some of the complexities of state and society in Pakistan, and proposes lines of struggle and engagement for progressive change.

Co-sponsored by: Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians, Forum for Democracy in Pakistan, South Asian Peoples Forum, Pakistan Development Fund, OPIRG Toronto

Sindh Assembly will consider approval of dictator Musharraf era system on 20th October

– by Ali Nawaz Memon

Sindh Assembly will consider approval of dictator Musharaf era local bodies Nazim system on 20th October, 2011. Sindh Assembly rejected it a few months ago. Now our MUFAHIMAT PASAND PRESIDENT has canged his mind. Will Sindh Assembly eat crow and make a U Turn? Do people of Sindh have any voice? Time will tell.

The unspeakable horrors of Delhi, 1947

by Sohail Hashmi

Excerpt;

…. Read this book if you want to understand where we went wrong and to see the fault lines, to see how we need a secular state and not sarv dharm sambhav. Read this book also if you want to understand the falsity of the self image that we have created of ourselves and of our nation, but read it most importantly to understand the fragility of the premise upon which is built the idea of India and the need to protect and nurture this premise and to make it real. Because this premise is India and it is people like Anis Kidwai that made it possible.

(First published in The Book Review, Vol XXXV, Number 8-9 August September 2011.)

To read compete article » KAFILA

Ardeshir Cowasjee – WE are determined never to learn from history. In our universe, we are in the middle of a party celebrating our greatness and self-glorification but in the real world, Pakistan is in big trouble is unlikely to go away.

– Killing the messengers

by Ardeshir Cowasjee

WE Pakistanis are determined never to learn from history. Our leaders deem ignorance to be bliss and choose to pay no attention to what the world thinks of them or of our country.

Pakistan is more isolated internationally than at any time since 1971. That year, for those of us who care to remember, the country lost its erstwhile eastern wing after a civil war and a humiliating military defeat.

Any other nation would teach its young the lessons of its greatest tragedy in the hope of avoiding it. We, on the other hand, are insistent upon re-enacting every mistake we made then as if to prove Einstein’s definition of insanity. “Insanity,” said the great scientist, is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

This is not New York, London or Toronto, this is a Park Tower, Karachi, Sindh

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