The personality cults of Trump, Modi and Imran Khan on March 14, 2021One of the great advantages of democracy is that it resists personality cults. The two are so mutually incompatible that when personality cult grows, democracy recedes, and vice versa. Durable democratic processes do occasionally produce very popular leaders, but rarely one with a cult following. One very popular democratic leader was President Franklin D Roosevelt […]
Good liberals, bad liberals on February 20, 2021Liberals are the favourite whipping boy of governments and their loyalists, not only in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh but in all pseudo- and quasi-democracies, autocracies and dictatorships in the world. From Europe (Belorussia, Hungary) to Southeast Asia (Myanmar, the Philippines) and from Africa (Uganda, Egypt) to Latin America (Venezuela, Brazil). But there is a paradox. […]
Wondrous world of the great Khan on February 5, 2021Surely I am not the only one so enthralled by Imran Khan. He continues to amaze me. Consider his latest discovery: Pakistan’s five-year prime ministerial term is too short. But allow me to go back a bit in time before I return to this subject. To become prime minister of the country, in terms of […]
Lessons ofTrumpism: Nations need leaders, not liberators on January 15, 2021The events of the last few days in Washington where, following incitement by the sitting president himself, a hysterical mob besieged, stormed and violently disrupted a session of the Congress, has shamed the vast majority of Americans and embarrassed supporters of democracy around the world. But it has also provided ample raw material to the […]
Salman Taseer: tribute to a true hero on January 4, 2021It is nine years to the day that the life of Salman Taseer was cut short at the age of 66 by an assassin’s bullet. His killer was none other than one of the trained men officially assigned, paid and sworn to protect him from harm. Taseer was a man of many talents:accountant,politician, publisher, businessman, […]
Making light of an elephant on December 22, 2020Just over four decades ago, as I was driving my VW Beetle in Islamabad, a street dog standing aimlessly on the edge of the road suddenly decided to cross directly in my path. I applied the brakes, swerved a little, but a corner of the front bumper of the car collided with his head. With […]
War crimes and election results on November 27, 2020Two recent events on far sides of the globe have given many people in the Third World, from ordinary folks to autocrats and dictators, occasion to gloat and beat their chests triumphantly. Though they are different in every respect, one in the United States and the other in Australia, what ties the two events is […]
Our planet, us and Covid-19 on April 24, 2020Howsoever one looks at it, Covid-19 is unprecedented in living memory. A microscopic, non-living organism has battered every economy and humbled all the great powers. It has exposed man, with his awesome arsenals, supercomputers, interplanetary rockets, and sophisticated hospitals as weak and helpless. Before this coronavirus, all are equally vulnerable. Rich countries and poor tremble […]
Covid-(20)19 and Stupid-2020 on April 10, 2020Practicing social distancing at the officially vulnerable age of 70 as far as practicable and hoping to keep Covid-19 at bay, I would rather not get into controversies. But the number of theories regarding Coronavirus now floating on the internet, and proliferating like the dreaded virus itself, compels me to speak. Only one of the […]
Of patriots, liberals and traitors on March 11, 2020Liberal-bashing is becoming fashionable in Pakistan.Liberals are regarded as unpatriotic and pro-West, inclined to malign and defame their own country. The dictionary definition of a liberal is a person “favourable to progress or reform, as in religious or political affairs, free from prejudice or bigotry, tolerant”. Sounds like the kind of person who can bring […]