Munir Attaullah

Today’s column is little more than a hotchpotch of tangled reflections. Has this not been a politically eventful year, in more ways than one? Adding them all up, the question I ask myself is this: is it only my personal impression (possibly biased) that — taken cumulatively and in historical retrospect — 2011 may well […]

The 21st of May was predicted to be Judgement Day, according to the American preacher, Harold Camping, who runs his own radio station. The Lord was supposed to destroy the world with a series of devastating earthquakes while the true believers would ascend to Heaven and be saved. The day came and went (but has […]

Regular readers will have noticed the absence of this column for the last three weeks. What happened? Was I (a) in mourning at the death of OBL, or (b) as the secret ISI operative charged with protecting Osama, keeping a low profile out of deep embarrassment at my failure, or (c) as head of CIA […]

We are not much of a reading public. Nor do many of us have a taste for serious analysis, or dry and largely factual subjects such as economics. We prefer to deal mostly in opinions and beliefs, often strongly held. No wonder we love gossip and discussing politics, religion and cricket so much. For, these […]

As the government continues its shaky existence — lurching from one political mini-crisis to another with its indispensable but prickly coalition partners — and seemingly unable to come to grips with, let alone overcome, the multiple challenges the country faces, everyone is predicting its imminent downfall. Given the history of our democratic experiments, mere survival […]

I sit on the spacious balcony of my hotel room in Beirut, idly smoking a cigar and sipping steaming black coffee. A Lebanese friend of old standing has promised to come by. On a perfect spring afternoon I have politely excused myself from going shopping with friends. Is the Ashrafiah district any different from the […]

Last week I narrated the events leading up to our revolution. This week I take the story forward from that point in time to the present day. So: how was the revolution consolidated? In one brief phrase, effortlessly and on its own irrepressible momentum, such is the magic of people’s power. There was no need […]

As I write this, the calendar on the wall says it is early in the year 1435 Hijri. That means it is now some two years since, inspired by events in the Arab world, we successfully carried out our own people’s revolution in Pakistan. As an aside here, and as a surreptitious concession to those […]

Analogies are never perfect but seldom useless. A well-chosen one can be very persuasive; while even a far-fetched one may well offer at least a clue to the mindset of the person employing the artifice. But let us not overlook a little local difficulty: how does anyone decide if a given analogy is an appropriate […]

The bad news is that our economy is in a mess. Worse, in such circumstances, few politicians or media personalities these days seem able to resist the temptation of projecting themselves as populists. After all, there are no costs attached to such rhetoric, and the posturing may — nay, surely does — help polish that […]