Highlights of the September 2007 issue
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Between the Lines
Idrees Bakhtiar
It came as a shock, partly because of failing memory. Or is it that
people, myself included, have short memories? I had wanted to write on
the prospect of people thronging the airport upon the possible arrival
of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister. And to draw a comparison,
I wanted to refer to Benazir Bhutto’s historic arrival in Lahore. And
in order to do so, I wanted to check some old facts; for instance when
had she left the country? I distinctly remember her returning home to
a tumultuous reception in Lahore on April 10, 1986. But when had she
gone away? I was under the impression that she had been away from the
country for quite some time; that is why on her return, the people
accorded her such a warm reception. But she could not have been away
for long — she was still around to lead the protest of the Movement
for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in 1983?
.
I am usually very bad with dates and years and if I remember the day in 1986
it is because Zaffar Abbas (now resident editor of Dawn Islamabad) and
I witnessed the sea of humanity that spilled onto the roads. It was an
unprecedented event. We had jointly reported it for the erstwhile The
Star. But I could not recall the date of her departure. So I tried to
check the back issues of newspapers. And there the shock was waiting
for me, a reminder of the authoritarian rule of the army junta.
.
Interrogation of people caught in botched suicide bombing bids has
provided officials a peep into their network
Pakistan has now attained the unenviable distinction of being the only
country, apart from Iraq, where suicide attacks seem to be increasing with
dangerous frequency. The ‘jihadists’, who till a decade ago would not even
have contemplated taking a recourse to this mode of hurting the ‘enemy’,
have now adopted this as their primary tactic. They now run a large network
comprising master trainers, first-stage persuaders and would-be bombers.
By Umer Farooq
The government is considering extreme measures to deal with an increasingly assertive judiciary
In this open season for presidential setbacks General Pervez Musharraf has
had to contend with one unpleasant configuration after another, with the
general’s fiercest opponents gaining unexpected judicial reprieves in
August. However, the sternest test of Musharraf’s political life still
remains. A close adviser to the general described the threat to the Herald
in uncharacteristically candid words. “The real problem is not the release
of jailed Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz’s vice-president, Javed Hashmi or
the apex court ruling on unblocking Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan, it is
how the court will treat Musharraf’s candidature,” says the aide, who also
happens to be a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ).
Should the court block Musharraf’s re-election, the country would plunge
into turmoil.
Extremism: How real is the treat?
By Muhammad Badar Alam
A growing cacophony of expert voices, both from home and abroad, predicts
that Pakistan faces a gravely precarious fate. As the Musharraf regime, set
in place since 1999, approaches its end – marked by the unrest in the
country’s northern parts which briefly even reached the capital – there are
fears that it may spell the beginning of the end for Pakistan, as we know
it.
“Extremist movements have emerged to make a splash but
have quickly faded”
Vali Nasr teaches at Tufts University and is the author of acclaimed
books on political Islam, including The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the
Making of State Power and The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The
Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan
Q. It is said that the state of Pakistan and the government face a threat
from Islamic extremism. How will this threat materialise: an electoral victory
for Islamist parties as in Algeria or a revolution à la Iran or the weakening of
the state through a war of attrition as in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or will it
remain a low-intensity conflict that could escalate into a civil war?A. I do not believe that the state of Pakistan faces the kind of threat that confronted Iran in 1979 or Algeria in 1992. There is no revolutionary movement in Pakistan comparable to the one in Iran in 1979. The state of Pakistan (and the military leadership) are not as alienated from society as the Pahlavi state or the National Liberation Front in Algeria. Pakistan is ethnically heterogeneous and it lacks a cohesive society, and hence does not lend itself to a threatening social movement. Moreover, in Pakistan, the state has embraced Islam and hence is not as divorced from society as was the case in Iran in 1979 or in Algeria in 1992.
To have a better understanding of a writer we are required to approach
him or her from different angles. In the case of Qurratulain Hyder, my
limited knowledge of literature suggests two ways of judging her, which
may allow us a better understanding of her as a fiction writer.
One is trying to see how Hyder made a break from the traditional novel
and chose to write in the modern mode. Thus she associated herself with
that modern tradition of novel that had made its appearance in the early
twentieth century in consequence of the experimentations carried out by
writers such as James Joyce. In fact, Professor Usloob Ahmed Ansari, the
distinguished critic, insists that Hyder’s novel can only be properly
understood when one has an understanding of the modern novel promoted by
writers such as Joyce and Marcel Proust.
Ingmar Bergman -
1918 - 2007
“Ingmar Bergman is dead.”
“Isn’t she the one who was in Casablanca? How sad.”
“No, that was Ingrid Bergman.
Ingmar Bergman was a man.”
“Oh, I see. Was he Ingrid’s father?”
Philistinism can be so infuriating. Especially cinematic philistinism, to a cinephile like me. But I imagine that when Ingmar Bergman, the legendary director from Sweden, died last month at age 89, many conversations in the vein of the one above must have followed. Bergman was a deservedly acknowledged and much lauded master of the cinema — the Academy loved him, awarding him three Best Foreign Language Film Oscars (a record bested only by Federico Fellini’s four wins). He is idolised by innumerable film-makers, Woody Allen and our very own Mehreen Jabbar among them. But I would venture that fewer and fewer young people know who he was. We, as a species, are forgetful (ergo all the repeating of history); well, our loss I say. If the blog generation is unfamiliar with the connotations of the adjective ‘Bergmanesque’, then they are poorer for it.