Fear and loathing for military coups
Three unrelated stories reported in the mainstream media recently gave me an emotional high — and a low. The first story was about a decision by a court in the Turkish capital of Ankara to indict and charge the leader of that country’s 1980 coup with crimes against the state. Bravo! This was a high. But a sudden low came with a news piece on a tribunal’s decision in Bangladesh to send 90-year-old Ghulam Azam, the country’s most prominent Islamist leader, to jail, pending trial for war crimes. The 90-year-old was accused of helping the Pakistan Army in the 1971 ...
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Saving Face at the Oscars
In the midst of all the negativity that seems to be coming out of our country, every now and then a bright spark emerges. Sometimes it’s a win against the best Test team in the world of cricket. Sometimes it’s something a little more enduring – like Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. This remarkable woman’s documentary “Saving Face” has been nominated for an Oscar. Yes – you read it right – a Pakistani is going to the Oscars on the basis of a project which highlights “acid violence”. Instead of showcasing the negative, the documentary shows the resilience of its Pakistani victims. ...
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Video blog: Why Toffee TV is awesome
I’ve always been concerned about what children watch on TV every day. The absence of quality, locally-produced cartoons in Pakistan has always been disheartening for me. I remember a teacher who went through a lot of trouble and spent a huge amount of money only to order a Spanish cartoon TV series Pocoyo for her pre-school children, because the ones that are aired here in Pakistan are not appropriate. A recent laudable effort by Rabia Garib and Talea Zafar, called ToffeeTV, was a welcome sign. The online initiative is based on promoting our ...
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Uninspired grandmas, dusty fairytales
I don’t mean this to be a newsletter. In fact, I really mean to discuss a poem by Agha Shahid Ali, but a plug here and there does a reader only good. Besides, how else would you know there is a charming new fairytale out there waiting for you — or that there is a writer in this country who writes fairytales for a living? And to be fair, I am big on fairytales for another reason as well. You see, I am quite aware, given the evidence of evolutionary psychology, that irrespective of the stories we hear when young, ...
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Reading for the soul: Helping kids love books
Today was the last day of my self-conceived experiment at a school in Lahore. A few months ago I had offered three hours a week of my precious time to read stories to my daughter’s kindergarten classmates. I was convinced that after months of interacting with these children I‘d be able to flush out and pacify a bully terrorising my delicate daughter. It would also, I reasoned, provide a good opportunity for a bookseller like myself to test that age-old lament that the youth of today lack the attention span for books – although granted, by “youth” most parents ...
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Pakistan needs to celebrate Mothers Day
Today is Mothers Day – a day specifically marked in the calendar around the globe to honour the women of our society who throughout their lives labour so that their children may have better lives. At first, I didn’t believe in celebrating a day created by the Hallmark Card Company to make profits off emotionally charged children. But, after reading some of the most shocking stories related to mothers in this very newspaper, I have been forced to change my thought process. Mothers Day is important for the entire world – but more so for Pakistan. While we are going through, what can ...
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The big bra brouhaha
Working in the online news world helps you develop a certain knack for determining viral stories. Words like sex, death, rape, religion and blast call out to you from the screen. So, when a headline like “Padded Bras are Devil’s Cushions says Council of Islamic Ideology” pops up in the wires I can understand why a bored sub-editor would sit up and take notice. Here’s a story about extremist mullahs from terror infested Pakistan cracking down on a symbol of women’s sexual liberation – it’s so perfectly cliché, it’s almost funny. The small story soon found its way to international websites, ...
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We do not deserve Shahbaz Bhatti
Minister for minority affairs Shahbaz Bhatti has been brutally gunned down today – joining the list of many to have been killed.Voices of sanity do not do well here in Pakistan. Just when you start thinking things will be okay, that now the maniacs have safely put away Aasia Bibi and they’ve killed Salmaan Taseer so maybe that’s enough to make their point – you are jolted into the reality that is Pakistan. You understand completely and fully, even if you did not that morning when reading the opinions page of The Express Tribune, why George Fulton is leaving. Today’s breaking news ...
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If you can’t control rape, legalise prostitution
In 2005, thirteen year old ‘S’ was sodomised by a truck driver. After 5 long years in court, ‘S’ finally saw Mola Dad, his abuser get convicted. The judge has given Mola Dad the maximum punishment. But for this monstrous act, even the maximum means only three years mprisonment, a Rs45,000 fine and Rs200,000 compensation. So while the victim spent five years striving for justice, the criminal would be free in three years and can resume his life. When “success stories” are like this, what can be said about the countless incidents that never reach the police station? The street I grew up on ...
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Pakistan army and the latent power of cinema
It’s safe to say that as a nation we don’t believe in the power of cinema. While it’s true that currently Lollywood doesn’t offer us much in terms of cinematic thrills, it doesn’t mean it has lost the power to deliver. Recently, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in collaboration with a private production company launched Faseel-e-Jaan Se Aagay, a drama series based on the true stories of the brave Pakistanis who stood firm in their fight against terrorism. The principal objective of this drama series is to pay homage to those who sacrificed their lives in the name of their ...
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