The Wolf and the Lamb – II on November 8, 2021(Recap: Since Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s first 24-day state visit to the US in May 1950, Pakistan has kept all its eggs in the American basket. Successive governments have been boasting of being a non-NATO ally of the US – with mismatched strategic objectives, though. Pakistan needed the US support against India but was […]
The Wolf and the Lamb – I on October 27, 2021The US continues to play “Wolf and the Lamb” with Pakistan; this time to avenge the “most humiliating defeat in history,” inflicted by the Taliban creditably but being “credited” to Pakistan incredibly. On September 27, 22 Republican senators, including the former presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, moved a bill in the Senate. Titled the “Afghanistan Counterterrorism, […]
Pakistan’s Unenviable Democracy on October 9, 2021Pakistan is alleged to be a democracy. This is the only allegation the country’s politicians don’t deny. Nor do their colonial godfathers, who taught them that the worst of democracies was better than the best of autocracies; and hence, the worst of politicians were entitled to the best of treatments. They must, therefore, be bailed […]
Talibanisation of Afghanistan and Pakistan on September 27, 2021“Afghanistan has been Talibanised.” The Taliban have “occupied” their motherland. They are “uncivilised – primitive, obscurantist, repressive, and retrogressive.” They are averse to the Western values of individualism, unbridled freedom, liberal democracy and secularism. They have scrapped the country’s “democratic” constitution, gifted by the West, and are reverting to Sharia laws. Ethnic and sectarian minorities […]
Empowering the Third World Women on September 11, 2021The universally recognised human rights, as stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are holistic in nature. But, the free world’s human rights campaigns in the Muslim and the Third World begin and end with individualism […]
“Frailty, Thy Other Name is (Afghan) Woman”? on August 31, 2021Wujood-e-zun se hai tasweer-e-kainaat main rung; Issi ke saaz se hai zindagi ka soz-e-daroon (Iqbal) (The existence of the woman provides colour to the painting, called the universe; She is the lyre that imparts pathos and warmth to human life) The Taliban are back. With a big bang. Our “incompetent and corrupt ally” in Kabul […]
Reminiscences of My Wanderings is a lucid narration of diplomatic intricacies on April 8, 2021Ambassador (r) Arif Kamal, in his Reminiscences of My Wanderings walks the reader through his memory lane to share his varied experiences, spanning over seven decades. “The Chronicle of (his) wanderings”, which he describes as “one more addition to oral history”, marries his personal and official perspectives beautifully. A scion of a noble Kashmiri family, […]