Tag: Notes from Pakistan

* Governments, i.e. ruling elites kill their own citizens, sometimes by their unwise vested policies as in Pakistan, and sometimes using the same weapons they manufacture or purchase with their citizens’ money as in Syria.

* Growing up beyond the boundaries of his own culture is the first precondition of a thinker.

* If your passion starts paying, it means it has the potential of becoming your profession.

* When fascism pervades the air, Philosophy is there to give solace.

* A government does eat our money; it eats our time also.

* When we read a book, and write about it, we try to recreate it, by negating it or by affirming it.

* A nation is known by the values which it not only espouses but follows both in letter and spirit.

* Presently a fierce fight is going on in the Human Mind – to broaden or

So, this time Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) is on a mission to define Obscenity. It may be a political ploy and what’s the story behind the curtains the managers of TV and Radio channels must be knowing well. Also, the issue of Obscenity may be a covering fire and the intended target is something else, such as editorial independence of the electronic media in Pakistan. Better the electronic media should regulate itself and before the PEMRA comes in to strangulate its freedom!

Many a questions need to be raised about the character and mandate of PEMRA, and a 10 year report card is required to view its role as a facilitator.

The following piece was written in May 2004 and is still relevant:

PEMRA: Regulating the taste of people

This evening I finished reading, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, by James Rachels (McGraw-Hill College, 3^rd edition 1999; previous editions 1986, 1993).

It is no gainsaying that the government has completely failed the citizens of Pakistan by mismanaging the electricity generation and distribution. This government-made crisis is immeasurably hurting every aspect of the society. But there is no sign of any realization of the magnitude of the crisis on the part of the present government which through its 5 years of rule did nothing to resolve it.

My reading room is 11 X 9 feet. The wall on the left contains built-in-wall shelves measuring 10.5 X 3.4 inches. Against the front wall are placed two steel almirahs. They are all full of books, old, new, and on various subjects. Their number is irrelevant to the purpose of the present writing. Apart from technical subjects such as relating to physical, scientific and technological disciplines, I have books about many subjects and disciplines.

As the Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has recently clearly identified who are extremists and who are terrorists, and as these extremists and terrorists are waging a war in Pakistan to impose a world view of theirs on the people of Pakistan through the use of gun, this war in its truest meaning is a war against Virtue. Here are the arguments:

War against virtue

 All coercion is part of the war against virtue unless morally and legally justified.

Our share of the terrorists or Taliban has perfected what we have been suffering in our country at smaller or somewhat larger scales for the last six decades: the moral policing. Sometimes it was individuals or well-knit groups, and sometimes it were governments that resorted to moral policing. However, now in the shape of Taliban, the moral policing has reached its climax, i.e. it has become

Yesterday’s Pakistan Print Edition of International Herald Tribune contains Why waiting is torture, by Alex Stone.

A very good piece which discusses our psychology of waiting in line and how we respond to various waiting situations.

Alex Stone writes: “Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting in line.”

I wonder, how much time Pakistanis spend waiting in lines here and there, both at private and public establishments! I do not know about any such study for Pakistan. Actually, it’s no “issue” at all here. No guessing – how much time Pakistanis spend in waiting. But no doubt their life is full of suffering related with waiting.

And apart from this, what is important to see in the case of Pakistan is that often and time there are fights on breaking the queues. The queuing culture has no roots here.

Surprisingly, the multinational food chains which have already

Usually I do not read statements and speeches given by government officials, elected or nominated; but only when due to the interest in a certain issue it requires to go into its detail.

It’s strange but is true. Even after the constitution of 1973 was enforced, if we go through the writings, be they are Leftist or Rightist, there is talk of government, society, politics, and such things, but no mention of the constitution, its provisions could be found in the intellectual / political discourse of the country.

This does not relate to the crimes states commit against one another.