Past to the present
IT’S been a year since the election, an election which sprung a surprise. And then those who yield power sprung an even bigger surprise. From the changing of results to the defanging of the…
Autocracy on the march
The portents point to an overwhelming march towards autocracy. A country in the throes of unremitting crises in the political, economic and social fields will inevitably give rise to opposition…
‘Democratic’ ethnic cleansing
THE discourse on democracy in the West — in particular — is self-congratulatory, and other systems that have delivered hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, hunger, illness, illiteracy…
Gloomy prognosis
WHEN I first started working as a journalist, my senior colleagues and field-hardened editors introduced me to the concept of the release valve. I was often surprised that we were…
Rest in peace, USAID
IT was a showdown for the ages. This past week, the Trump administration issued an order placing all workers of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on leave. The direct-hire…
Shattered ideals vs bitter pragmatism
Stricken by democratic ideals for decades, one is faced with harsh, unbeatable realities in Pakistan. Our heroes shatter ideals, and bitter pragmatism haunts us. If pragmatism is to be believed,…
The price of curbing dissent
The government’s latest push to prosecute violators of Pakistan’s electronic crimes through fresh laws against electronic crimes runs the risk of yet another failure to curb growing dissent in an…
American exceptionalism
What happens when a nation feels imprisoned in its own myths? Perhaps it starts considering itself as an exceptional nation. That is the subject matter of a new book by…
A malignant appeasement
Adolf Hitler destroyed the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic (1918-33) and twelve years later destroyed Germany itself. Weimar has since become like the palantir in ‘The Lord of the…
Empowering women, empowering Punjab
Gender equality is more than a moral imperative; it is essential for a fair and just society and a catalyst for economic and social progress. It is enshrined in Pakistan’s…
