Category Archives: War and Peace

Media’s role in war and peace

Media, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

AT a time when the media in India and Pakistan is virtually driving South Asia to the brink of war, it is sad that journalists’ professional bodies have failed to moderate the hype that has been created. The only voice of sanity to be raised was that of 22 editors from the region — only three from Pakistan — in the form of a release issued by Kanak Mani Dixit, the editor of the South Asian magazine Himal (Kathmandu).
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No Time for War: A Call for Peace Amid Rising Nuclear Tensions between Pakistan and India

Kashmir, Nuclear weapons, Politics, Terrorism and Violence, War and Peace, ,

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: The WIP

Peace activists in Pakistan and India are attempting desperately to be heard above the din raised by warmongers – elitist by all counts and claiming to be patriotic as well – in the wake of the Mumbai carnage. Jingoism is in the air – be it from so-called nationalists (posing as analysts on television) advocating a nuclear attack for the defense of their country, or the man on the street. Be they from Pakistan or India, they speak of war with great abandon as if it is child’s play. For the electronic media it is a race for sensationalism.

• Peaceful protests are being held throughout Pakistan in what many are calling the most significant mobilization for peace in the country's recent history. Photograph by Naeem Sadiq. •

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Time for a peace initiative

Politics, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

WILL President Pervez Musharraf’s pacification mission to Karachi last week bear fruit? From the accounts given by some of the “elites” and “notables” who attended his briefing, no healing of wounds can be expected. One of them disclosed that they had been advised not to be negative in their approach.

The president acknowledged that a few “after shocks” are still being felt but he believes that if we “suppress” them they will die out. Surrounded by self-serving advisers, the president failed to sense the undercurrent of tension in the city.

He commended the political parties for their positive role in trying to bring harmony and peace to the city. But he seems to have spoken prematurely. Soon thereafter, a war of words erupted between the MQM and the Tehrik-i-Insaf which degenerated into personalised attacks against each other’s leaders.
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Building defences for peace

Defence and Disarmament, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THE preamble to Unesco’s constitution contains these words of profound wisdom: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” The founding fathers of this organisation recognised the role of education, science and culture in promoting peace and harmony.

Yet the world has so far failed to reach these elusive goals. But is it too late to try to build the peace structures that statesmen of yore dreamed of 60 years ago?

The answer to this question came last Saturday when the Human Rights Education Programme, an NGO working for what its name unambiguously spells out, held the ground-breaking ceremony for the Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR) that it had been dreaming of for five years. Designed to provide space for children to get together and interact, the museum will be based on the precept that “education must be life-long and socially relevant”, to quote Zulfiqar Ali, the director of the HREP and general secretary of the museum.
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War as Eqbal Ahmad saw it

International Politics, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

EQBAL AHMAD, the academic, writer and activist, died over seven years ago. But even today, in the words of the American intellectual activist, Noam Chomsky, it is a “fascinating experience” to view major events of the past half century through his (Eqbal Ahmad’s) discerning eye”.

The Columbia University Press has facilitated this exercise by publishing The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad (produced in Pakistan by Oxford University Press).
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