Category Archives: Social Issues

Wages of the rulers’ sins

Politics, Social Issues, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

Howard Zinn, the American historian and activist, once said that when you look at history from the “point of view of people at the bottom rather than the people at the top, everything looks different” . The criteria you use to judge policies are also different.Hence to be meaningful history must be written as the people’s history.

What happened in East Pakistan in 1971 when Bangladesh was born in blood and tears has been recounted by bureaucrats, military generals, historians, economists and scholars prolifically—but mostly from their own subjective point of view. Not much has been said about the people whose story remains largely untold. Much has been written about the exploitation of the eastern wing by the centres of power in the west. What befell the people has remained buried in silence, at least in Pakistan.
Continue reading Wages of the rulers’ sins →

Broadening the mind – as a life-long process

Development and Poverty, Education, Social Issues

Tasneem Siddiqui, retired director of SKAA, (left) speaks at a critical discourse session. SEF's MD, Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, is presiding. Photo by Sadaf Zuberi
By Zubeida Mustafa

THE concept of education and knowledge has changed over the years. It is not just communication technology with the accompanying information explosion that has triggered this change. Also responsible is the phenomenon of specialisation that encourages people to know more and more about less and less. Hence the trend towards continuing and life long education. But this education is generally highly focused. This can pose a challenge in an age when the range of knowledge is becoming wider and to be effective one needs to adopt a holistic approach. It pays if you are a jack of all trade and also a master of one. Continue reading Broadening the mind – as a life-long process →

Manufacturing happiness

Development and Poverty, Education, Mental health, Social Issues

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 →

Violence: beyond statistics

Media, Mental health, Social Issues, Terrorism and Violence

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 →