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The Guantanamo “Suicides” – The other front forgotten
Not everyone who is involved in this matter views it from a political perspective, of course. General Al-Zahrani grieves for his son, but at the end of a lengthy interview he paused and his thoughts turned elsewhere. “The truth is what matters,” he said. “They practiced every form of torture on my son and on many others as well. What was the result? What facts did they find? They found nothing. They learned nothing. They accomplished nothing.”
Semantics of Terror
On “how or rather who to be a terrorist” – as Greenwald puts it himself: All of this would be an interesting though not terribly important semantic matter if not for the fact that the term Terrorist plays a central role in our political debates.
Read his opinion here.
Plight of Islam in the Modern World – Egypt of the Muslim Brothers compared to post 9/11 Pakistan
While Pakistan in the first decade of the 21st century may be very different to Egypt in the high time of the Muslim Brothers (1930s – 1950s), there are some striking resemblances concerning modernity and religion and how the conflict between these two terms has influenced society or in reverse was shaped by it. In this paper some of these similarities are portrayed. While Hassan al-Banna stood for a defense of the (Muslim) East against the West based on reasoning coming from the Quran, Sunna and Sufism and trying to find a non-violent consensus, his movement is remembered as radically conservative and an intellectual base for today’s leaders of terroristic activity. Similarly an underlying intellectual development in Pakistan is disregarded over the rising violent outbreaks in the name of religion.
heer ranjha or terror, taliban and totay – where is Pakistan’s cinema?
I just returned from the cinema watching Boz Salkyn, a Kyrgyz movie – a simple story about bride-kidnapping, love and the Kyrgyz people. It has some Heer Ranja aspects. It’s emotional, completely a-political without the aim to critizice society, the state or question religion
SufiLore #2 – The Regional Perspective
I was reading today’s DieZeit articles on Afghanistan, in particular the current discussions in Germany going on over the air strike on petrol trucks in Kunduz and wondering how here in Central Europe the war in Afghanistan is primarily a war over our morale. As McChrystal has suggested we are leading a completely people-centred COIN [...]
Exit Strategy III – An Austrian Solution for Afghanistan
Peter Tomsen (former chargé d’affaires of the US to the Northern Alliance) has proclaimed a possible exit strategy from Afghanistan based on an Austrian State Treaty Model from 1955. in: Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 25, Winter 2001
The same guy had a shot at the predictioner’s game concerning the Taliban way back in 2000, [...]
Forgotten Promise – Pankaj Mishra on Kashmir
Pankaj Mishra writes about the neglect of the Kashmir issue on the wide political scale, especially in light of increased focus on the AfPak area from the West that always seems to mention the Kashmir issue as a basis to the problem but never addresses it directly (similarly to the Nuclear Arms threat that Seymour [...]
reason vs. polemics – how Pakistani intellectuals face the looming US approach on their country
Qalandar Bux Memon has recently published an article commenting on Hillary Clinton’s visit and her statements in Pakistan. Read it here at the Samosa, but it was also published in DAWN and referred to by Yasir here. I recieved emails from Pakistani Leftist Political Activists who praised the article and I guess it was cheered [...]
Is it really India?
Pervez Hoodbhoy once again in DAWN.
Rebuttals where quick from the reasonable and the unreasonable side.
SufiLore #1 – Which way, Taliban?
Copying Tim Stevens’ (on ubiwar) and others’ concept of a material list provided continuously on stuff previously read or dealt with, I will start a regular material list, always on a specific topic, including a small number of links, with one line each to underline the reason why I included it. The material will include [...]
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