Posts Tagged ‘Nadeem Paracha’

The Pakistan army as an institution is a curious creature. A self-absorbed bulky white elephant, it can suddenly transform into becoming a raging bull in a china shop every time it feels the vast political and economic space it needs to move around in is being shrunken with the help of fences and boundary walls. Though it has lost almost all [...]

Editor's note: Pakistan's urban elite have mostly been contemptuous of the passionate supporters, workers and activists of the Pakistan People's Party.  The bulk of PPP activists come from the less previliged income groups and do not possess the urbane sophistry of the educated elites and the latter's propensity to present half-truths and urban [...]

Related Post: Najam Sethi parrots Deep State’s lies by equating Pashtuns with Taliban – by Salma Jafar A manufactured perspective about the Pakistani media is that the sauve English speaking types are somehow more objective in their reporting and liberal in their outlook. It is also derived from this basic false assumption that the English [...]

Related posts: Imran Khan’s Lahore rally offers no hope to Pakistan’s religious and ethnic minority groups Imran Khan takes over Lahore – by Riaz Malik Editor's note: In this post, we offer two thought provoking commentaries on Imran Khan's speech in the PTI rally in Lahore on 30 October 2011. The first commentary is by Nadeem Paracha [...]

* Photo illustrations by Nadeem F. Paracha Source: Dawn

Editor's Note: We are pleased to cross post this excellent article for DAWN Blogs by Nadeem Paracha.  Kudos to the Beygairat Brigade for their bold, audicious, subversive and darkly comic song on the prevailing Zeitgiest of the Urban elites. Just when one thought Pakistani pop music had eaten itself and choked on its own self-indulgences, [...]

Are ‘soft’ Islamic evangelical organisations playing an unwitting role in the radicalisation of urban youth?   Storm after storm After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), the Pakistani society was flushed with the idea (duly propagated by the military-establishment) that it were the [...]

      Editor's Note: We are pleased to cross-post Nadeem F. Paracha's interview to Sobia Ali and Raza Raja Habib from Huffington Post.  The interview is an articulate discussion of politics, sociology and culture.  Such interviews are needed to highight the mindset of Pakistan's youth and we also recommend the following [...]

Source: Dawn

In a recent statement, Interior Minister Rehman Malik came down hard on the Tableeghi Jamat (TJ), claiming that the Islamic evangelical movement has become a breeding ground of extremists. His statement understandably ruffled quite a few feathers, especially within parties like the PML-N and the JUI-F. PML-N’s Sharif brothers have had close [...]

Related articles: MQM Right Wing Alliance Narrow moves The Muttahida Qaumi Movement is one of the most enigmatic political parties. It has been enjoying overwhelming support in Karachi and Hyderabad ever since the late 1980s, in the process becoming perhaps the country’s first true urban party with a significant middle and lower-middle [...]

Related articles: Let’s have a revolution in Pakistan: Yeh, Yeh, Yeh! A conversation with Raid Shamat and Sasha Sham-me – by Razzak Memon The Civil Society Bulletin – by Abbas Baloch One of Pakistan's renowned social commentators, Nadeem Paracha wrote this about the lawyers 'movement' nearly three years ago: The truth is, had the "civil [...]

The urban trader class in Muslim countries — usually comprising middle-class urbanites — is a conservative section of society. In Pakistan too it has been one of the most willing recipients of faith-based socio-political trends and phenomena that began sweeping the country in the 1980s. It was the trader class — that included some [...]

Violent ghosts Ever since 2009, the secular Awami League government in Bangladesh has been moving the country’s law enforcing institutions and courts against various members of the Bangladeshi Jamat-i-Islami and other rightist groups. The League accuses their members of taking part in the genocide that took place against Bengali nationalists [...]

Divided they preach A lot of young people wonder why last year Zaid Hamid was chased out from Peshawar University by the students. He had gone there to speak and spread his call for a ‘revolution’ that (not so surprisingly) was squarely based on the usual right-wing clichés about patriotism and pride. A call aimed at a generation brought [...]

Related articles: Shahbaz Bhatti assassinated: Thank you, deep state! LUBP Archive on Shahbaz Bhatti The Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti was killed today in an attack on his vehicle in Islamabad. Two gunmen fired on Bhatti’s vehicle in I-8/3 area of the capital. He was taken to the hospital where he succumbed to [...]

Sixty-three years old and suffering from grave identity crisis. Sixty-three years old and still requiring hoards of people to continue knee-jerking their way across a number of hyperbolic patriotic clichés and chants. This is Pakistan. Ours is a country with an economic, political and military elite and an awkward but growing urban middle [...]

A Tunisian man who put himself on fire has set ablaze the spirit of revolution various Arab countries in Africa and the Middle-East. It is a remarkable turn of events triggered by a disgruntled Tunisian vendor who became an angry human torch after police confiscated his wares and humiliated him. I have heard a number of young Pakistanis [...]

Related articles: Student politics in Pakistan: A history, lament and celebration – by Nadeem F. Paracha Special Report on PPP – by Amir Mateen A review of PML-Q and other factions of PML – by Amir Mateen Special report on Jamaat-e-Islami – by Amir Mateen Understanding Nawaz Sharif – by Amir [...]

Part-1: First steps In 1947 the only established student organization in the newly created country of Pakistan was the Muslim Students Federation (MSF), the student wing of the ruling Muslim League. MSF had been formed to assist the Muslim League in recruiting students and young Muslims of undivided India and help it achieve its goal of [...]

Loose cannons In countries where democracy hasn’t had the time to strike root in political institutions and the social psyche, there is always the danger of it becoming a backdoor sanctuary for mobs of intolerant thugs who are the first ones to start misusing democracy’s many principles — especially freedom of speech. Interestingly they [...]

The following is what Sindhi nationalist leader and scholar, G.M. Syed, said about Pakistan’s future – and mind you, he said this way back in the summer of 1953: “In the years to come, Pakistan will not only become a problem for itself, but it will pose a danger to the world at large.” Now how prophetic is that? Very. However, he was [...]

Oh, my, that label again: ‘Liberal extremist.’ What on earth does it mean? Absolutely nothing. Great wordplay and deliciously idiosyncratic, but that’s about it. However, since the popular electronic media in Pakistan is usually about a rather nihilistic strain of whatever it considers to be news and analysis, this topsy-turvy label has [...]

The list of reasons that MQM gave for quitting the coalition reads like a summarised series of slogans and concerns that one gets to hear over and over again on talk shows: NFP. - File Photo So, the MQM has finally decided to quit the PPP-led coalition government at the centre. I am not sure what the fallout of this event would be like by the [...]

Related article: A glaring example of how ISI dictates Pakistani newspapers: The case of a missing WikiLeak cable The liars collective If you think people like Zaid Hamid, Aamir Liaquat and Atiqa Odho are kind of silly with their usual convoluted rants studded with the most worn-out clichés regarding India, Israel, Islam and more – [...]

Now how bad can it be for a president to be criticised by a monarch who is alleged to have asked the Americans to bomb Iran and whose countrymen are still thought to be one of the leading donors to terror organisations like Al-Qaeda? Well, that’s what the recent US intelligence documents uploaded on WikiLeaks suggest. To a lot of Pakistanis, [...]

Related articles: Sindhi Topi, Indus Valley Civilisation and Our Fast Track Intellectuals – by Qais Anwar Fareeda, turya turya ja: In support of internal diversity of Islam – by Dr Jawad Syed LUBP Archive on 'Sindhi Topi Day' December 4 is Sindh Culture Day. A day when the people of the Sindh will celebrate the cultural heritage of [...]

Related article: In rejection of pseudo-liberals of Pakistan – by Sarah Khan We shall overrun: The young, urban, middle-class Pakistani’s manifesto – by Nadeem Paracha and Abbas Baloch The Civil Society Bulletin – by Abbas Baloch Smokers’ Corner: Che, cola and hijab Here’s a fascinating series of ironies: Folks who for [...]

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com. Here is his exclusive interview for LUBP, which is being published as the first interview in the LUBP Critical Interview Series. LUBP: Nadeem, thanks for taking out the time to interview with us. Tell us about your background in politics and your [...]

Source: Dawn, October 24, 2010 I don’t know what the situation would be once this column goes into print, but a TV channel’s all out, constant outburst against Zardari certainly seems something that has very little to do with democracy or the notion of free media. If the PPP is to be believed, this channel is on an absurd anti-Zardari [...]

A changed political landscape This may sound surprising, but the truth is that the recent spat of violence in Karachi is quite unprecedented. Violence between the city’s major political parties and ethnicities has been an unwelcome aspect of the sprawling metropolis since the 1980s, the understanding of which was based on a largely [...]

Want to be a successful TV anchor and talk show host in Bakistan? The following is what you need to know … Amreeka A modern-day Babylon. Run by evil men whose bloodlines are linked to epic, evil characters such as Sodom & Gomorra and Gog & Magog.  Can be a nice place to visit though, for a personal trip. Amreeka has a very [...]

Welcome to the LUBP Denial Archive. Here we have have compiled some of the most useful resources which will shed light on the psyche and though process of supporters and apologists of jihadi and sectarian violence committed by the Taliban, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Al Qaeda. The Archive also sheds light on the modes and processes of denial, and [...]

With thanks : Pak Tea House This article is critical of Imran Khan’s political orientation and tries to introspect middleclass liking for him. It admits Imran’s virtues as a cricketer and philanthropist but argues that his politics is the wrong medicine for the country. It also tries to examine as to why he has not been able to connect with [...]

Generation Axe by Nadeem F. Paracha Source: http://blog.dawn.com/2010/08/08/generation-axe/ It does pain me to see a lot of ground-level PPP workers being pushed into a corner by their party leader’s nonchalant ways. They seem and sound helpless and exhausted in trying to defend their leader who has become the target of an [...]

The more mischievous among us even prayed to the Almighty to let the Saudis fall in love with this eminent ‘Islamic scholar’ and fund his outlandish theories, leaving television viewers ever so grateful for keeping him there. But, alas, he is set to make a comeback. This time he would be seen on a different channel. Of course, just [...]

The worst poster boys for Islam Source: Dawn I received a number of emails on my last blog, Reform Now. Most of the people who wrote to me asked whether I could comment more on the list of reforms that I suggested in the second part of the blog. Well, here is a sincere attempt. I would like to acknowledge eminent scholars and authors [...]

Excuses, excuses By Nadeem F. Paracha Source: Dawn, 11 Jul, 2010 Here’s a brief knee-jerk guide to fend off ‘lies’ about Pakistani society becoming intolerant, delusional and paranoid. It was prepared and inspired by hours of TV-watching and passionate middle-class drawing-room navel gazing. * In case of a suicide attack [...]

Due to the demands of a majority of Pakistanis and leaders like Shahbaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Munawar Hussain and other such groovy people, the Pakistan government has signed a peace agreement with the Taliban in Waziristan and South Punjab. The peace deal comes after several rounds of negotiations and many glasses of orange juice. The major [...]

Source :Dawnblog Hello this is Radio Conspiracy FM-70 and I’m your host and RJ, Ali Azmat. Today in the studios we have with us Pakistan’s leading DJ and rock star from the band Conquering Israel, Ghalat Hussain, hello Ghalat … Hello. You’re bleeding. Yes, I am. Maria B. said the colour red goes well with my wild shining [...]