Celebrating radicalism
As we mourn Martin Luther King Jr and celebrate his life, we must remember that he was violently assassinated. His ideas were seen as radical and dangerous. He critiqued liberals…
Not ‘radicalism’
When you are in the dominating position in which the United States is vis-a-vis Pakistan, the tendency is to look at only its side of the picture and ignore the…
Revisiting the hard approach
AFTER Zohran Mamdani’s victory as mayor of New York, academic Vali Nasr remarked on social media that the moment symbolised “the end of the era of the Global War on Terror”. Yet,…
Extremism: the unfinished war
ALTHOUGH the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan represent two contrasting shades of religiously inspired violent extremism in Pakistan, they share at least one characteristic: both soft and coercive measures have failed to work against…
Barricades can’t build confidence
Last week, Islamabad was once again turned into a fortress. Long walls of shipping containers and trailers, meant to carry trade goods to and from Pakistan’s ports, blocked the main…
Deradicalisation
IN a country where political and religious leaders often fall victim to extremism, there is a dire need to understand the linkages between the health of a democracy and the…
Power of education
In a historic moment for Pakistan and the global discourse on education a few weeks back, Islamabad became the epicentre of an international conference that shed light on the pressing…
BOJ bids final farewell to Kuroda’s radical policy experiment
In rare criticism of its past policies, the Bank of Japan said former governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s stimulus didn’t change consumer psychology as much as planned, continuing a symbolic shift away…
Cui bono?
It didn’t take long for headlines out of Syria to turn, did it? Locals that set fire to Hafez al Assad’s grave and celebrated the “dawn of freedom” could ignore…
Costs of calcification
If you don’t understand something you cannot change it. Pakistanis are constantly bombarded with news that prompts a sense of utter helplessness and a feeling that state and society are…
