Dr Moeed Pirzada

My parental home was like most homes in Pakistan. Each year just before Eid-ul-Azha or ‘bari Eid’ we talked of the prices of goats, of lambs, and how such and such corrupt official, thekedar (contractor) or smuggler (basically everyone our parents hated) has bought a big fat healthy cow for qurbani (sacrifice). And each year […]

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! O times…” Is this not how Englishman William Wordsworth had once summed up his feelings about the French Revolution? But forget about the English and the French, and let’s be honest for once, let’s put those pretensions of cold […]

Fyodor Dostoevsky had once written: “Nothing is easier than to denounce the evil doer. Nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” Almost 140 years after the publication of Demons (or The Possessed, as it was called in English), this is still as difficult if not impossible; especially if the demons are our own. I […]

Senator John Kerry is arriving; he is flying in straight to Lahore, where among other meetings to assess the situation, he will also speak to the Pakistani media. Kerry, the custodian of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, is often introduced as a friend of Pakistan. I think this chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee represents […]

When Secretary Clinton came to Pakistan in July of 2010, I again got an opportunity to moderate a discussion with her. But that morning I struggled hard to find an opening sentence that could encapsulate the rather sedate mood since her earlier visit in October of 2009. And I opened by saying, “Secretary, I am […]