Category Archives: War and Peace

The genesis of violence

Balochistan, Culture and the Arts, Terrorism and Violence, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN his excellent keynote address at the fourth Karachi Literature Festival, Urdu fiction writer Intizar Husain, one of the 10 finalists for the Man Booker International Prize for 2013, eloquently reflected on a dilemma.

Should we be celebrating literature in the catastrophic times we live in when people are being killed by the hundreds?

Intizar Sahib said he first delved into the wealth of Urdu and Persian poetry but could not find an answer to his question. To his credit, the speaker turned to prose and the legendary One Thousand and One Nights provided him an insight into how literature could be turned to one’s advantage in adverse circumstances. Didn’t Scheherzade buy her reprieve from execution by her storytelling gift? “Literature can change human nature,” Intizar Sahib concluded in support of the literature festival. Continue reading The genesis of violence →

One billion rising and…

Social Issues, Terrorism and Violence, War and Peace, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

EVE Ensler, the American playwright and feminist activist, is set to give the final push that she believes will banish violence against women from our lives for ever. She has declared Feb 14, St Valentine’s Day, as V-Day.

Moved by the oft-quoted figure that one woman in three worldwide — that is one billion — is subjected to some form of violence in her lifetime, Ensler has in effect declared enough is enough. It is time for women to rise to proclaim their aversion to violence. Hence the campaign for One Billion Rising (OBR).

These are the women whose problem Ensler wants to bring into the public consciousness. She wants governments to know that “ending violence against women is as important as ending poverty, or AIDS or global warming”. Continue reading One billion rising and… →

An unfinished agenda

Human Rights, Islamisation, War and Peace, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

IT is gratifying that the government of Pakistan has conferred a civilian award posthumously on Iqbal Haider, a former law minister and senator but remembered now as one of the country’s foremost human rights and peace activists.

The award came befittingly on Dec 10, Human Rights Day. This was shortly after a reference was organised by the Joint Action Committee and a number of civil society organisations at the Karachi Press Club last Wednesday.

When the reference was held, it was over three weeks since Iqbal Haider had departed from our midst. But a sense of loss continued to haunt the occasion which brought together a large crowd of his friends and admirers who recalled his services to the numerous good causes he passionately supported. Continue reading An unfinished agenda →

Cheryl, the peace envoy

Education, Foreign Policy of Pakistan, War and Peace, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

BEFORE India’s external affairs minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday, there was talk of the low expectation of progress in bilateral relations between Pakistan and India.

We were warned against expecting anything ‘spectacular’ coming out of the visit. Do we need spectacular developments in everything we do? Mercifully a peacenik, ex-ambassador Aziz Ahmad Khan, was realistically positive when he pointed out that the ‘good atmospherics’ that exist today can strengthen the India-Pakistan peace process. Continue reading Cheryl, the peace envoy →

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 →