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Our cartoonist's viewpoint

 

Marxism in the age of ‘posts’

Adnan Farooq

With the crumbling of Berlin Wall, the world was, to quote Eduardo Galeano, ‘invited to the world burial of socialism’ (1991:250). Marxism was declared dead. We were nudged...

 

Postmodernist ‘war on truth’

Sahar Saba

Sahar_story_headIn Afghanistan where we have been consigned to the stone age, middle-class students returning from the US/UK universities as Fulbright and Chevening scholars...

 

Postmodernist communication

Durriya Hashmi

With the launch of each new smartphone or an intriguing social networking website the so-called postmodernist consumer society or the popular...

 

Postcolonialism and Marxism

Masood Ashraf Raja

I must declare at the outset that I do not see these two concepts in a binaristic fashion as both these conepcts, at least in my field of study, have more of a dynamic and...

 

Mazhar Ali Khan: fight goes on

Mahir Ali CENTURION SPECIAL

Mahir headBarring a year as acting editor-in-chief of the Dawn group of publications, Mazhar Ali Khan had not been employed full-time as a journalist for some 16 years when he set up Viewpoint in 1975. Between the government takeover of Progressive Publications Limited (PPL) in 1959, where he was editor of The Pakistan Times, and the end of the Ayub era, he was effectively unemployable in that capacity. Mazhar Ali Khan, almost 30 at the time, found his vocation on the cusp of India and Pakistan’s independence — and partition — when Mian Iftikharuddin, then in the process of setting up PPL, solicited his interest in the post of news editor at The Pakistan Times. He became editor a few years later when the incumbent, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, was arrested in connection with the so-called Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. (Upon his release, Faiz returned to the paper as editor-in-chief.)

 

Our Viewpoint will be victorious

Hassan N. Gardezi CENTURION SPECIAL

It was my second year of studies at Government College, Lahore when I saw Mazhar Ali Khan for the first time. The occasion was an inter-collegiate debate and we were waiting in a chattering and packed hall for the guest speaker and adjudicators to arrive. All of a sudden, on a signal from somewhere, there was dead silence as Mazhar Ali Khan, the young editor of Pakistan Times, entered from the door at the rear of the hall and walked straight to the dais through the centre isle. He was smartly dressed with a determined and focused look on his face. By his side was Tahira Mazhar...

 

Meet Viewpoint’s cartoonist!

Riaz ul Hassan CENTURION SPECIAL

interview headSabir Nazar’s cartoons for the Viewpoint [online] ever since its launching on May 22, two years ago, have been winning a lot of appreciation from Viewpoint readers as well as Sabir’s countless fans in the blogospehere. A leading cartoonist known for his excellent strokes with his brush, Sabir is also famous for his sharp wit. He has worked with the Daily Times, The Friday Times, daily Aajkal, and daily Pakistan Today. His weekly cartoons, for the Viewpoint, have become an identity mark and promotional fare for the Viewpoint. As we post Viewpoint’s 100th online issue, member of Viewpoint’s Redaktion Riaz ul Hassan interviews Sabir Nazar.

 

The detailed judgment

Hakim Hazik justicedeniedpk.com

The court has with patience and with a generosity of spirit examined the presentation of the learned defense counsel Aitzaz Ahsan ASC and has been unimpressed with his bizarre antics. This is a far cry from the time when he was the doyen of the movement for the rule of law in this country. To our greatest chagrin, he has swapped his penchant for writing vigorous poetry with the unholy desire to defend the larcenous political figures who have squirreled away the national wealth. They could have easily invested...

 

Siachen tragedy– who to blame?

Mohammad Nafees DEBATE

Greed and sense of insecurity are the two worst psycho cases where a person or in some cases the whole nation is driven with an insatiable desire that seek infinite acquisitions and protections. Leo Tolstoy has very beautifully depicted this tendency in his short story “How much land does a man need?” It talks of a man who is permitted to select as large tract of a land as he can on one condition; before sunset, he has to get back to the spot he begins his selection from. The man, pursuing for a largest piece, dies before reaching the agreed spot and all he gets at the end ...

 

History and violence

Jamshed Iqbal COMMENTARY

One of the main causes of our unhappiness, as human persons, is our being divided in time and seeking timeless ONE. Desire for simple ONE holds universal fascination for humanity for we subconsciously endorse that division is painful. The quest for ONE is not just confined to religions but we see the same pursuit in philosophy and science as well. In philosophy and science the pursuit of ONE is called monism. Monism is affirming that there is only one kind of ultimate substance or reality: unitary organic whole with no independent parts. In our times when Stephen Hawking, for example, calls out, “we are getting closer to physicists’ primal dream of “grand unified theory”, he in fact, is celebrating the same fascination with The ONE—singular master key to unlock the all phenomenal secrets.

 

Aristocratising discourse

Farooq Sulehria THEORY

The so-called scholarly works are often presented in such inaccessible idiom that most readers hardly benefit from them. No doubt, certain complex issues require complex theoretical formulations and professional sophistication. However, in the first place, a scholar’s job is also to simplify a complex issue in a way that it becomes accessible for the many. Secondly, as Noam Chomsky points out, “it’s extremely rare, outside of the natural sciences, to find things that can’t be said in monosyllables.”

 

A Noble for corruption

Ahmad Seyf TEHRAN DIARY

It is my contention that if there were a Noble Prize or an Academy Award for corruption, it would have regularly been claimed by the officials running the Islamic Republic of Iran [hereafter IRI]. There is hardly a day that ends without a surprise in Iran. There is not one single government department immune to the virus of corruption. In this short piece, I will highlight a couple of mega corruption scams. There are revelations in the press about Mr. Masha-ee and Mr. Bagha-ee, two...

 

Greece elections: left makes historic gains

Éric Toussaint ANALYSIS

At the May 6 polls, the radical left-wing coalition Syriza becomes the second "party" in numbers of voters as it moves from 4.5% at the previous elections (2009) to 16.8% (52 MPs instead of 13). It is the first party in the major agglomerations and among people aged 18-35. The Socialist Party (PASOK) lost 2/3 of the votes it had received in 2009 (from 44% to 13.2%, a loss of 119 MPs, from 160 to 41!). PASOK pays ‘cash on the nail’ their rigorous austerity programme and subjection to the ‘Troika’ and big private business interests. New Democracy, the main right-wing party that...

 

The missing Baloch

Mohamamd Nafees REPORTAGE

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), 169 people have either gone missing or killed during May 2010 – 30 August 2011. However, a comparison of the AHRC report with the data available on the South Asian Terrorist Portal (SATP) reveals that at least 29 dead persons were not included in the AHRC list. Similarly, the incidents of abduction involving 40 persons were also missing from the AHRC list. In most of the lists issued by the Baloch nationalists, it was observed that non-Baloch victims of abduction and death couldn’t find any space.

 

Has average height declined by 4 inches in Pakistan?

Omar Ali DISSIDENT'S DIARY

No, it has not. But some “scientist” in Pakistan either said it, or was reported (by an idiot journalist) to have said it. I have some professional interest in this topic and wrote about secular trends in height here I would regard this claim (that average height has dropped 4 inches in Pakistan) as complete nonsense for now. Official figures for different countries (as much as is known) are given in this link A quick search of the medical literature turns up no such trend. I did find a publication for India which indicates that Indian average height has increased, though slowly. I would guess the same for Pakistan...

 

Online petition demanding the release of Baba Jan

Redaktion PICKET LINE

For the past 8 months Baba Jan Hunzai and four fellow activists have languished in various jails of Gilgit. Twice in this period he has been removed from jail and tortured by military and police agents. He and his colleagues have been charged under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Ordinance. Baba Jan, however, is not a terrorist. He is a respected political activist of Gilgit-Baltistan (the mountainous north of Pakistan). He is being held due to his activism in support of the oppressed of the region and must be released immediately. In January 2010, a mountain collapsed into Hunza River and created what is now termed the Attabad Lake. As the lake formed, village after village was submerged. In total, over 1000 were displaced and over 25,000 were cut off from the rest of the country (the lake had destroyed the one road that connects the area to Pakistan). The plight of...

 

PPP and minorities

Kapil Dev COMMENT

With due anger and sheer frustration, it is stated that the first ever slogan I had heard and chanted as a child was “Naaraye Bhutto: Jeaye Bhutto”. My political consciousness had an upbringing deeply rooted in the surroundings and circumstances when Shaheed Mohatramma Benazir Bhutto took oath as the first women Prime Minister of the Muslim World. The songs I liked were the PPP anthems and the pictures I adored in my childhood were that of Benazir Bhutto and Zulfiqar Bhutto. People of Sindh who idolize Bhuttos, even more than idol-worshippers, always pin their hopes in the PPP government. They hope a PPP government would bring prosperity to their lives, provide jobs and much-awaited relief promised...

 

Facts Are Facts (Part 22 )

Wali Khan NO COMMENTS

Cunningham's next concern was that having spent the money  to  court  the  Mullahs,  it  must  now  be  ascertained whether or not they were actively engaged in anti-Congress propaganda. He wrote that several spies were dispatched to various mosques to observe and report back whether or not the Mullahs were working for their allowances, or absconding from the assigned job! The reports pleased him since they stated that the Mullahs were working hard for their money and were happily  trafficking  in  Islam  for  a  monthly  sum  of  fifteen rupees. The progress made by Hazrat Ali of Swat was a special source of satisfaction. "Hazrat Ali, Wazir-i-Azam of Swat, is doing excellently in Swat and Buner, he uses Pir Baba Ziarat. Hazrat Ali now covers the whole of Swat, Buner and Mardan border."

 

Same themes, different conclusion

Amit Ranjan

For almost a decade, Pakistan is mired in all sorts of troubles. Internationally, it is facing ire of the ‘international community’ and domestically, a Taliban blowback. In a single decade it has witnessed a strong military rule, a powerful anti-military rule movement by the civil-society, assassination of its most popular political leader, and return to a fragile democracy. Culling all these ongoing developments in Pakistan, two books have hit the stalls in recent months. Pakistan:Beyond Crisis State is edited by Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistan ambassador to Washington and editor The News. Owing to her professional engagements, she has been witness to policy making process, especially on foreign policy issues. The other book, The futre of Pakistan, is edited by Stephen. P. Cohen, an academic guru for many South Asia experts and South Asian scholars.

 


Catastroika
 
One hundred years of Manto: Rakhshanda Jalil

Centenaries are useful occasions for reflection and understanding. In the case of someone as contentious as Saadat Hasan Manto, his hundredth birth anniversary, on May 11, offers an occasion to make amends. Of course, those who regard Manto as a writer of a “certain” sort of stories would do well to study his oeuvre to understand its range and complexity. But, more importantly, those forces and those writers’ blocs — now diminished and depleted — which marginalised and mocked Manto during his lifetime can redress an old wrong. I am referring to the influential group of writers called the “progressives”, who had established the Progressive Writers’ Association in 1936 and in the years leading up to Partition set themselves up as a controlling authoritarian body.

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What now for François Hollande? Alain Gresh

So François Hollande has won the second round of the French presidential election on 6 May — the most important ballot in France’s political system. This is the first time a Socialist candidate has won the presidency since 1988, when François Mitterrand received a triumphant second mandate.

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Plutonomy and the precariat: Noam Chomsky

The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead -- because victory won’t come quickly -- it could prove a significant moment in American history.

The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society, and not always in very pretty ways. That’s another story, but the general progress was toward wealth, industrialization, development, and hope. There was a pretty constant expectation that it was going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.

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Most dangerous place for journalists: Kiran Nazish

On Press Freedom Day, Pakistan is reminded of its grave journalistic challenges.

It is known that the risks of working as a journalist in any country are highlighted most in times of political turmoil. According to reports, 2011 was one of the worst years for journalists the world over, and Pakistan was called the "most dangerous place."

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Africa & the struggle against imperialism: 40 years after Kwame Nkrumah

April 27 marked the 40th anniversary of the passing of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the founder of modern-day Ghana and a leading theoretician of the post-World War II national liberation movement for unity and socialism. Nkrumah’s legacy is reflected in the ongoing efforts of the peoples of Africa and the world who seek genuine freedom from colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism.

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Stephen King, taxes and charities: Michael Roberts

What’s wrong with charities?  Well, nothing in themselves; people want to help others in difficulty and do so every day. It’s just that in a modern capitalist world, charity has been usurped into a business that employs thousands to raise funds (some of whom earn fat salaries administrating it) to squeeze ordinary people on the streets to make donations, while the very rich make donations in order to avoid paying huge amounts of tax that they ought to make.  Thus, charitable organisations now oppose any attempt to reduce exemptions and tax allowances for the rich in case it damages charitable donations, while democratically-elected governments are starved of tax revenues from the very people who could afford to pay up.  This reduces what an elected government has to spend on the ‘public good’.

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