Saad Hafiz

Despite allegations of polling irregularities, Pakistanis can be rightly proud of the outcome of the electoral process that culminated on May 11. An unprecedented turnout around 60 percent Pakistan’s 86 million registered voters, and the exceptional enthusiasm and political maturity shown by the voters who braved Taliban threats and violence have bolstered the democratic process. […]

Pakistan’s historic path has been ridden by intrigue, strife and bloodshed overseen by power-hungry generals and money grubbing politicians. The chaos in the country also proves that a common religious identity is not a guarantee of stability, security, democracy and free elections. Past elections have not been able to foster a feeling of common destiny. […]

Ironically, an irony that escaped him, Sardar Akhtar Mengal’s decision to participate in the forthcoming elections coincided with March 27, the day Baloch nationalists observe as a ‘Black Day’, because that day in 1948, Balochistan was forcibly annexed, depriving the Baloch of their freedom. Interestingly, on March 25 on arrival he had said that nothing […]

By most accounts, this weekend’s run-off elections in Egypt have resulted in a victory for the Islamist Mohamed Morsy over the military candidate, Ahmed Shafik. The big question that has haunted Egypt since the advent of the Arab Spring and the street battles that forced the overthrow of the 29-year-old Mubarak dictatorship is whether the […]

The British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that all societies and civilisations have a cyclical course. According to Toynbee, the mark of a decaying and disintegrating society is the transformation of its ruling elite from a creative minority to a dominant minority. Creative minorities have drive and inspiration, do not need to justify themselves and simply […]

It has been reported from the interrogation of the bin Laden widows in Pakistan that Osama Bin Laden admired Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. Che Guevara was the charismatic Argentine-Cuban revolutionary and close confidante of Fidel Castro, who was executed in Bolivia in 1967. It is worth exploring bin Laden’s admiration for Che beyond just as a […]

Pakistan’s troubled history has been dominated by power-hungry generals and mostly corrupt and incompetent politicians, supported by a cast of cunning bureaucrats, pliant judges, invisible spooks, political fixers and middlemen, and biddable media persons. These well known ‘pantheon of villains’ thrived in an arbitrarily divided country where unrelated areas and peoples were just illogically and […]

The heavy baggage of history in Indo-Pakistan relations includes partition, Kashmir, armed conflict and the ongoing arms race, Bangladesh, Siachen, Kargil and Mumbai. Mostly shrill jingoism and xenophobic nationalism on both sides has historically overshadowed sane discourse or encouraged conflict resolution. The institutionalised machinery of hatred on either side of the border comprises politicians, generals […]

One is probably familiar with an inspirational slogan of the American Revolution: “No taxation without representation”, originating in the 1750s and 1760s, which meant that the British imposition of taxes on its American colonies was unacceptable without the expressed will of the people.In Pakistan, an arguably perverse view of this American proclamation has been in […]

Nation branding is an increasingly important and influential field of theory and practice, which attempts to measure a country’s reputation and provide guidance on a country’s image management around the world. This is because the branding and image of each nation state is becoming increasingly important in a nation’s sustainable competitive advantage. Nations like corporations […]