I have recently written on migration in Pakistan from different angles. The most recent is a book review for DAWN on Fragments of the Afghan Frontier by Hopkins and Marsden and Under the Drones which includes a number of contributions. I explain here, why the latter lacks in what one would expect from the catchy … Continue reading
The debate on the use of drones in the Afghanistan – Pakistan borderlands has been hijacked, by its defenders just like by those who condemn the drone war. Statistics, legal arguments and some dramatic personal accounts can all be used to argue for or against. What these debates all fail to do is to describe what significance the drone war actually has for the population in the targeted areas – they are largely used to keep people who are far away from the Predator’s impact busy. People like me. I am just acting in perfect bhutto/zardari-like fashion – have a say in it all while keeping my assets save here in Switzerland. Continue reading
In the Afghan’s carpet shops letters and photos of female Swedish NGO workers are passed around while a family member just returned from Waziristan talks about his experiences with a Mehsud lashkar which he left to take some days off in cooler Kashmir. Continue reading
