By Zubeida Mustafa
THE grass is always greener on the other side, so it is said. Crises also assume a more horrific image when viewed from a distance, especially when the media is there to beat the drums. But when you get closer to the scene of action in both situations you find that things are not always what they appear to be. Continue reading Manufacturing happiness
by Zubeida Mustafa
NOT widely noticed internationally, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in July declaring “happiness was critical in advancing economic growth and social progress”. The “pursuit of happiness” was described as a “fundamental (universal) human goal”.
Psychologists have Continue reading Can happiness be measured?
By Zubeida Mustafa
A NEW book that is making waves in the West these days is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
Written by Harvard’s professor of psychology Steven Pinker, the book argues that “violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most ‘peaceable era in our species’ existence”. Continue reading Violence: beyond statistics
By Zubeida Mustafa
It was April 6, 1992, Eid for the Muslims of Bosnia, when the Yugoslav army struck. The Serbian soldiers had been taking up position on the hills surrounding Sarajevo since winter and we sensed that something out of the ordinary was taking place. However, we never really anticipated a war. Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic society but we had never been conscious of our ethnic distinctiveness. Many of my friends were Serbs and Croats with whom I had grown up, and none of us believed that we would fight each other.
By Zubeida Mustafa
According to experts from WHO, nearly one out of ten people in Pakistan suffer from mental illness at one stage or another in their lives. It is estimated that 14 million people in the country and 1.2 million in Karachi need psychiatric attention. There are only 200 psychiatrists and 3500 hospital beds to take care of these patients.
Appalling figures no doubt. They, however, do not tell the whole story. Since psychiatric conditions are not major killers they tend to be ignored. Yet the fact is that out of the ten leading causes of disability (in terms of the number of years lived with disability) five are psychiatric disorders. They are debilitating and account for a tenth of the disease burden in all societies.