Imaduddin Ahmed | The Friday Times 14 April, 2005 At first glance it could have been mistaken for just another commercial fair; over 30 stalls, four nations and Pakistan’s four provinces and northern areas represented, people coming in and enjoying … Continue reading Lending a hand
by Imaduddin Ahmed The Friday Times | 24 March, 2006 For expatriates, cricket represents a tangible symbol of being Pakistani and gives hope that better times lie ahead [newer version] I grew up in England, yet I never felt ‘English’. I was born in Lahore but emigrated months after via San Francisco to England, where I would live the next 18 years, before returning to the San Francisco Bay Area for university. “To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life,” colonialist Cecil Rhodes once asserted. Not born English, but naturalised as a Brit at … Continue reading Playing to the homesick crowd
The Friday Times | Feb 22, 2006 Imaduddin Ahmed “Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim” By Ziauddin Sardar; Granta Books (2004); Pp 356; Rs 445 Islam is all the rage. The charade Hudood laws debate continues in parliament as I write, taking prime media space. Scholars and politicos are discussing how Islamic the Hudood laws are. The Islamist politicos in favour of the Hudood laws say they are defending the Shariah. Yet how often do you hear ‘the Shariah’ being questioned as a valid basis for law?. . . I thought so. Want to see how it is questioned? In his book … Continue reading Questions are never indiscreet: answers sometimes are
The Friday Times | Feb 13, 2006 Imaduddin Ahmed The Lahore Marathon: a day of mixed success It was ‘Run Lahore Run’ day and I had run out of run. I was walking to complete the 5km ‘Fun Race’. With me was a motley collection of retired army officers, schoolboys in tight jeans and open slippers and other slim but struggling young men, also getting a reality check about their fitness levels. As I approached the finish line, I heard young men cheering in the distance behind me. I could guess the cause – my friend Jacqueline Fellner, who had … Continue reading Legging it
The Friday Times | Jan 3, 2006 Imaduddin Ahmed Why Pakistani communism lags behind India’s – an encounter with Taimur Rahman “Marxist” is not a term of abuse in India, at least not to the voting majority in West Bengal or Tripura where the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), currently holds government, or to its over 800,000 paying, participating and versed members. The CPI(M), also a dominant force in Arundhati Roy’s Kerala, is only one of several communist parties in India and boasts to be India’s third strongest party in the national parliament. CPI(M) Marxism is an institution … Continue reading Marx out of ten
“I thought this was a dead nation, but the earthquake has woken us up. Everybody is doing what they can. You can see collection points on every chowk. Even children are collecting door-to-door and contributing pocket-money,” commented my dentist, a few days after the earthquake. An NGO executive had a different perspective: “People have been surprised at the activism of ordinary Pakistanis in the wake of the earthquake. But we have known this for a long time; indeed, we’ve relied on the activism of civil society. Our paid staff can only do so much; we wouldn’t be able to run … Continue reading Making it happen
I was at my biweekly Urdu class before work with Dr. Safia at a fly and police-infested canteen next to my office. Batting away a fly from her left eye, her lip, her cup of tea, Dr. Safia turned her eyes slowly to me. She gave me the stern look that a discontent anthropologist gives paying students when she wants to scuttle off for a cigarette and spend the rest of the day in the depths of her own mind. She pointed to an adolescent with a fluffy beard. “Speak to that one. He will give you good practice.” I … Continue reading Preaching to Osama
energy and a just transition 