Reading a few articles exhorting people to donate to the Pakistan floods, I literally feel sick by the hateful and ignorant comments posted on the articles. A case in point is an article by Ethan Casey that appeared in the Huffington Post. The comments range from paranoid Pakistan-bashing (‘what unites Pakistanis is their hatred of [...]
Hilary Clinton’s latest visit to Pakistan this week ended up in the reiteration of the same old messages and not-so-covert threats. The key message boils down to “we want more from Paksitan” and the warning this time being: “There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that should an attack against the United States be traced to be Pakistani it [...]
It’s been two weeks since I started work at Oxfam as a campaigner on their Conflict & Humanitarian campaign. We are currently focusing on two priority countries: Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Joining the team made me realize how little I know, or care, about some countries such as the Congo. Also, [...]
Referring to Pakistan’s relations with India, he recalled being told in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, of a proverb which said that when two elephants fight the grass gets trampled. “I shudder to think if two elephants start making love the grass gets more trampled,” he said. (Pervez Musharraf quoted in the Guardian) This is [...]
A few weeks back, I joined this organisation called Social Enterprise London. SEL is the largest network of social enterprises in Great Britain. I found this out after I attended their Annual General Meeting (AGM) a few days ago. Of course when I had joined it was just a google search…as all important internet decisions are [...]
Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. Every day there seems to be some blast or bad news. As I said previously, the day that goes by without incident is considered out of the ordinary and a blessing. We dread watching the news and live in constant fear of what’s going [...]
There seems to be split opinion on Obama’s win of the Nobel Peace Prize today. One thing’s unanimous: everyone’s surprised (including Obama himself), some pleasantly and others incredulously. To me what was really absurd was that the nomination was made just two weeks into his presidency. How could the committee judge his efforts for world [...]
It seems the space for women’s freedom and choice just keeps getting smaller in France– ironically in the name of freedom. It’s absolutely appalling for me to hear the sort of intolerant statements that some of the French politicians make and get away with. I remember the hijab ban from a few years ago, then recently [...]
A recent discussion Asim and I had on ‘democracy in Pakistan’ turned into a heated debate as I saw myself unflinchingly supporting the idea of ‘democracy’ (albeit imperfect) and felt that my basic beliefs were being challenged and threatened. Asim was suggesting a political system (not necessarily ‘democracy’ as we know it) that would be [...]
