The Other View
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
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 [...]
Dog in the well
In Punjabi folklore there is story of a dog that fell into the village well and died. People asked a wise-man what they should do so that the water doesn’t get infected and people suffer from the diseases because of the dead dog. The wise-man asked them to take out 100 bucket loads of water from well so the [...]
Flawed Questions, Missed Alternatives, Rethinking Causes – lecture by Nazif Shahrani
Christian Bleuer on Ghosts of Alexander has provided some excellent material on AfPak – a lecture at ANU by Nazif Shahrani, which can be accessed here as an mp3.
He is talking about alternatives to the current war that were never considered, a Bonn agreement that was leading into the wrong direction looking for the wrong [...]
L’Usage de monde I – elections then and now
I am currently reading L’Usage de monde (The Way of the World in an English translation) by Nicolas Bouvier who travelled, accompanied by his friend Thierry Vernet by Fiat Topolino from Geneva to the Khyber Pass and on to India in 1953/54. I plan to give a lengthier account of the book as soon as [...]
The McChrystal Report – a summary
40.000 – from Kabul to Washington this number achieved media attention a number gets not that often (except maybe the Down Jones: 10.000 break through). 40.000 this is the speculated number of troops the new ISAF Commander General McChrystal wants to finally win the war in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s report on the situation in Afghanistan is [...]
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