SUNDAY will be the 10th anniversary of 9/11 which turned out to be a watershed event in contemporary politics. It also changed the lives of millions across the globe.
In the United States, which was the main victim of the vicious attacks on the twin towers, and to some extent in neighbouring Canada, there are Continue reading Canada and 9/11 anniversary
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
MORE than six decades after Partition, India and Pakistan continue to be locked in disputes which even take them to the brink of war.
It is difficult to believe that people who had lived side by side for centuries now refuse to recognise the commonalities in their culture and languages. Against this backdrop comes a breath of fresh air in the form of a new book that focuses on social harmony rather than cultural discord.
Continue reading Language can unite
by Zubeida Mustafa
Last night I went to a mehfil-e-qawwali. It is impossible for me to describe the beauty and the exquisiteness of the performance. It was other-worldly, if I may use this term. But that is how I have always found Fareed Ayaz-Abu Mohammad and his brothers’ renderings. They hold one qawwali session every year in memory of their father, the legendary Munshi Raziuddin Qawwal, who died eight years ago.
Continue reading Can qawwalis defeat terrorism?
THE question above is agitating many minds today. If we believe in the domino effect, other states should follow suit. Egypt came after Tunisia and now there are rumblings in other parts of the Arab world.
I tried to look for the answer to this explosive question in the poem Fahmida Riaz recited at the Critical Discourse session of the Sindh Education Foundation recently. The Critical Discourse is designed as a staff capacity enhancement programme.
Fahmida Riaz spoke on the Urdu dictionary published last year by the Urdu Dictionary Board of which she is director. This 22-volume publication is no ordinary work of lexicography. In Fahmida’s words, “it actually traces the history of our civilisation, being a discourse on 1,000 years of our culture, tradition and customs”. Hers was an insightful talk on her team’s experience of compiling the Urdu dictionary. The animated discussion that followed made it a wide-ranging dialogue on the Urdu language.
It was her poem that she recited at the meeting that was thought-provoking in the context of Egypt. It shed ample light on our national psyche as it has evolved over the centuries. The fact is that the people who stage revolutions — it is still too early to say how much will change in the land of the pharaohs — should have the capacity for collective action of the kind that was witnessed in Cairo. Do Pakistanis have it?
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
IN her latest book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong describes music as `the limit of reason`. She finds it inseparable from religious expression when religion is at `its best`.
We do not get the best demonstration of this connection in the Taliban brand of Islam. The faith practised by the Sufis, however, shows an intrinsic link between the two.
Continue reading The Taliban and music