All posts by Zubeida Mustafa

Peace in Afghanistan will come at a price

International Politics, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE U.S. is now trying desperately to pull its forces from Afghanistan. Seventeen years of war is long enough. The human toll has been heavy, with more than 2,200 American lives lost and 20,000 soldiers wounded. This figure doesn’t include the Afghan and Pakistani men, women and children who have suffered. Imperial powers still have to learn that it is easy to jump into another country that is weak and unstable—but to get out is a tougher job. And waging war in Afghanistan has never been a cakewalk for any outsider.

Moves are afoot there to work out a compromise, but the U.S. government has no understanding of how the present moves will change the diplomatic contours of Southwest Asia, the hub of America’s longest war in history. An American negotiator of Afghan origin, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been talking to the Taliban since August 2018.

Continue reading Peace in Afghanistan will come at a price →

Construct/Deconstruct

Guest Contributor, History, Politics, Social Issues

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

Devising and furthering ‘suitable’ national narratives is a much recommended culturally and intellectually highbrow activity for the awed and awesome amongst us.

Speaking as one at the receiving end of proliferating narratives I cannot but feel that, important as constructing an appropriate narrative may be, it is even more important to deconstruct some existing ones. The more so when they crystallise as one-liners, slogans that are accepted unthinkingly and allowed to be unquestionable. Take just one to begin with: Pakistan was founded as a Muslim homeland. Continue reading Construct/Deconstruct →

Ebbing or incoming?

Guest Contributor, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

THE PTI tsunami epithet is becoming woefully apt. Not in terms of the overwhelming sweeping force of Imran Khan’s political victory – that may be understood as less of a natural occurrence than a technical one – but in terms of the aftermath of the victory: Tsunamis sweep things away and the new government has debuted in tandem with a demolition process: What we have around us is debris. Literally, figuratively and politically. Nature hates a vacuum but we don’t see the space vacated by outcast governments being filled with the kind of tabdeeli we thought was voted in. Administratively we have a case of posttraumatic stress disorder – bewilderingly manifest in paralysis and shrill hyperactivity and declarations that go around in well-meaning circles of clarifying retractions and reiterations so that even U-turns cannot be relied on as lasting second thoughts. Continue reading Ebbing or incoming? →

The dream house

Development and Poverty, Economy, Housing

By Zubeida Mustafa

AFTER Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Naya Pakistan Housing Programme had received considerable publicity, I asked Sakina Bibi if she would apply for it. Sakina is a housemaid, and her family income amounts to Rs20,000 per month. She lives in a rented house (Rs8,000 a month) in a squatters’ settlement. Hers is a small family of four, and her economic status should qualify her for a house under the PTI’s ambitious scheme of building five million houses for the poor in five years. Above all, her lifelong dream has been to have a roof she owns above her head. Continue reading The dream house →

To read or not

Book Reviews, Books, Children and Youth, Education

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE tenth annual What Kids are Reading Report released earlier this year in the UK got educationists worried. After surveying a million primary and secondary schoolchildren, the author of this document concluded that the country faced a persistent problem of getting young teenagers “to read challenging and age-appropriate books”.

It is now suggested that the secondary school pupils should benefit by having 15 to 30 minutes of time for independent reading integrated into the school curriculum. Continue reading To read or not →