All posts by Zubeida Mustafa

Culture agonistic

Culture and the Arts, Guest Contributor, Islamisation, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

guest-contributorTo understand the dynamics of our present cultural conflicts we need to go back to General Zia’s way of playing politics. His commitment to a self-interpreted Pakistan ideology and his martial power in super-imposing it on his subjects –- for that is what citizens become in a dictatorship –- had a profoundly disruptive impact.

He controversialised religion, making it into an instrument for repression and domination. Thus, legislation in the cloak of Islamisation haunts us in the blasphemy laws and Hudood Ordinance. Selected religious bodies and clerics gained a new voice, latent with intrusive powers, to guide public morality and personal conduct. He formulated distinctions between shura and parliament which often took the form of a dissociation from or incompatibility with “westernis ed” political and social practice and inevitably enhanced bigotry. Continue reading Culture agonistic →

What is LSBE?

Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Education, Human Rights, Information, Population, Social Issues, Women

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By Zubeida Mustafa

I WAS first introduced to the term ‘life skills-based education’ at a forum of the Indus Resource Centre a few weeks ago. The term was used freely but it was not elucidated sufficiently, at least not for novices like me.

The IRC, which is doing very good work by promoting education in Sindh, had just completed its Reproductive Health through Girls’ Education project and we had gathered for an independent assessment. This was basically a population venture funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation but fitted into IRC’s agenda since it sought to change the mindset of girls vis-à-vis reproductive health issues. This was expected to impact on the galloping population growth rate of the country — one of the most serious concerns of the day. Continue reading What is LSBE? →

Wanted: truer democracy

Constitution, Guest Contributor, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

geust-contLOCALLY  we are hearing rather a lot about what PMs in truer democracies than ours did after getting not-so-honourable mentions in PanamaLeaks. In Greenland (or was it Iceland? Do a Google) the impugned prime minister resigned.  In that hallowed parliamentary prototype Great Britain, the PM’s public and parliamentary response after a Panama reference to family embarrassed him has been exemplary, as Nawaz Sharif’s challengers love to remind. Maybe our PM has other role models. Our Youth Bulge electoral segment may not know that even before the internet, in Great Britain’s truly salubrious democratic clime, the Iron Lady’s Dennis was not allowed to menace once the veil was lifted on his delinquencies. He went right off the island if not offshore (Mummy stayed in office). Continue reading Wanted: truer democracy →

Enemies of the poor

Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Environment, Housing, Justice, Notable Personalities

By Zubeida Mustafa

EIGHT years ago, a young woman from Khairo Dero (Larkana district) was so touched by the plight of her people that she decided to work for their uplift.

She had been fortunate to receive a privileged education abroad, was doing a lucrative job and had all that one could wish for in life. Today, she has renounced these privileges to work for her people. .

Thus Naween Mangi set out on her journey of creating a model village for development in Khairo Dero. Continue reading Enemies of the poor →

Change: at all costs?

Administration, Constitution, Defence and Disarmament, Guest Contributor, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

guest-contributorIT is time we stopped taking the easier choice of setting out to scrap a faulty political setup and system and focused on laboring to better it: That means allowing it to function and, in that very process, rectifying its deficiencies. For what is the innovative alternative?

We have tried both parliamentary and presidential democratic modes. We have undergone four varieties of military dictatorship. We have framed and discarded more than one constitution. We have journeyed from centralising West Pakistan’s provinces into one unit, into the mysterious provincial autonomy of the Eighteenth Amendment to the 1973 constitution. Continue reading Change: at all costs? →