Author: Dr Khalil Ahmad

That there is no sense of direction in what is happening or cooking to happen is not far from the truth. An 18th Amendment, a 7th NFC Award, autonomous status for Gilgit-Baltistan, or the Reconciliation mantra appear like in-connectible jots on a maze of unattended urgencies.

This is an attempt to refresh memories of us all, especially the politicians and the Armymen, with the sense of direction reached in 1973.

A constitution is never a political document. It is not

This article does not aim to dwell on the issue of dual nationality. The same

This writing too intends to discuss afresh some such propositions which relates to the affairs of the governments. For instance, whether governments are justified in keeping various types of information secret. In Pakistan and maybe in other such countries also, this is an accepted truth. People outside governments than those inside seem more convinced in this regard. That is to be more loyalist than the king. As is the case, in contrast to the ordinary people, the elitist both inside and outside governments are to be blamed for this myth. They present government as a transcendental entity, and attribute it with similar characteristics. Without going into a lengthy debate, the simple truth is that rulers

For Dr Farooq it was a violent, brutal end. For the MQM, it was the start of a process that six years later would leave the party divided, weakened and under assault from the Pakistani state. We can never know what would

No doubt, both camps are talking quite heavily meaningfully. When Khawaja Saad Rafique, or anyone from the Pakistan Muslim League (N), says the PP is using all its energies in defending the President Asif Ali Zaradri against his Swiss money laundering cases, when Fauzia Wahab or anyone from the PP says media is targeting President Zardari, and when Qamar Zaman Kaira says the PP is always a victim of anti-people forces,

-Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826.

American people create abundant wealth. So, they are prosperous and happy. It is only because they are economically freer than many nations on earth. In consequence, that makes them politically freer. What makes all that possible is their declaration of independence, constitution, bill of rights, and their independent courts, which promptly ensure the continuance of rule of law, which in turn help a free media to exist, and it is this combination that guarantees personal freedoms to American people: to do whatever they like to do, of course, under the state and federal laws. Despite their state’s encroachments on their freedoms especially after 9/11, they are free to pursue economic, political, social, intellectual, philosophical, moral, spiritual, aesthetic enterprises, or whatever they like to seek.

In sum,

– Warren E. Burger (1907-1995), Chief Justice, US Supreme Court.

The best thing that explains the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) July 20 judgment is: it is never too late to mend. As is being claimed, the judgment is historic, it is daring, it is a people’s verdict, and a turning point in Pakistan’s history. Of course, it is all these or maybe more, but things are meaningful only in a context. Without context, they lose their import. This is more so with the SC’s judgment that unanimously reinstated Mr. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Chief Justice (CJ) of Pakistan, setting aside the presidential reference against him.

Besides its own significance, what makes the judgment unusually extraordinary are the reservations, apprehensions and

The story goes thus:

On June 29 the Federal Defense Minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, who had been sleeping all through the May 2 Abbottabad-Osama-Bin-Laden and May 23 PNS-Mehran-Karachi happenings, awoke to talk to a group of journalists apprising them that Pakistan had asked Washington to vacate the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan which was used to launch Drone strikes against the militants. The Minister remained awake to tell the Reuters on the following day that Islamabad had been pressing the US to leave the base even before the ‘Abbottabad incursion’ and did so again after the ‘incursion.’

Very next day, the message had already generated its rebuke. The US officials in Washington reacted that there was no plan to vacate the base.

Then it was on July 1 that the Federal Minister for Information, Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan, had to settle the matter.

“Pakistan is under siege.”

We had enemies from the very first day. With time, the list of our enemies grew longer. So much so that today we have neighbors not friendly to us and a world all hostile to us. We are alone in a wilderness created of our own. Isn’t it Greek mythology whose gods and monsters we have resurrected in ourselves? Like the one-eyed monster, we have no second eye to look inward. This on the one hand has transformed us completely into subjects perfectly suitable for psychological pursuits. Or, for instance, how can a judge of a higher court find fault with bare feet of a dancer, and ban it? Or

“Pakistan is under siege.”

We had enemies from the very first day. With time, the list of our enemies grew longer. So much so that today we have neighbors not friendly to us and a world all hostile to us. We are alone in a wilderness created of our own. Isn’t it Greek mythology whose gods and monsters we have resurrected in ourselves? Like the one-eyed monster, we have no second eye to look inward. This on the one hand has transformed us completely into subjects perfectly suitable for psychological pursuits. Or, for instance, how can a judge of a higher court find fault with bare feet of a dancer, and ban it? Or

“Pakistan is under siege.”

We had enemies from the very first day. With time, the list of our enemies grew longer. So much so that today we have neighbors not friendly to us and a world all hostile to us. We are alone in a wilderness created of our own. Isn’t it Greek mythology whose gods and monsters we have resurrected in ourselves? Like the one-eyed monster, we have no second eye to look inward. This on the one hand has transformed us completely into subjects perfectly suitable for psychological pursuits. Or, for instance, how can a judge of a higher court find fault with bare feet of a dancer, and ban it? Or

[Hon. Auberon Herbert]

Every time Pakistan Muslim League (N) comes to govern in Punjab, it tries its hands at innovative approaches to solve some of the crucial problems facing ordinary citizens. But unfortunately all of them prove unproductive, consume resources wastefully, and leave the ‘attempted problem’ in a greater mess. An important case in point is the problem of public transport – requiring resolution since long. In this regard, every new innovation can be cited as evidence for its previous failure. It seems the Party is fond of focusing

Their recommendations weren’t useful and not very good. You have had some experience with troubles in South East Asia in the second half of the 1990s – it seems to me that it has become an accepted truth that it was a tragic mistake of IMF policies for all of what happened in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere.

And, he goes

A case in point is Czechoslovakia. It provides us with a very good learning experience to see how after the fall of a collectivist state the gigantic task of changing the economic system was handled.

Presently, Dr Vaclav Klaus is President of the Czech Republic. He was Prime Minister from 1992 to 1997. Dr Klaus was one of the key members of a movement, Velvet Revolution, which overthrew communism in Czechoslovakia and one of the founders of the Czechoslovak Civic Forum Movement, the leading political organisation following the Velvet Revolution

People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
[Lao Tzu, 604 BC – 531 BC]

Underneath our views of everything lies a theory of knowledge.

We have views about the world, and what exists in and beyond the world. We have views about man, his nature, his destiny, and his place in the society and the world. We have views about society, about people and about the things people believe in and do not believe in and about things people do and do not do. We have views about everything. Sometimes we are aware of the implications of our views and sometimes not. But most of the time we are never aware of the theory of knowledge lying behind our views.

We make a cultural conviction: The

The Theory of Lesser Evil (TLE) is a manifestation of cynicism. As cynicism finds its meaning mainly in negativity and faultfinding, TLE too believes that everything is Evil; there is no Good. If everything is Evil, and there exists no Good, then what we are free to do is make a choice between all the Evil things. Nonetheless, TLE makes room for things which are more Evil and which are less Evil. This seems to be a ploy to carve out a niche for human choice; otherwise, if everything is Evil, then there is no question of making any choice. In that case, we are all condemned and doomed to live with Evil. But the choice between the things more Evil and the things less Evil allows for us to live with things which are less Evil. Herein lie