Declan Walsh begins his captivating new book on Pakistan with an account of how he came to leave the country for the first time, abruptly and involuntarily in May 2013. “The angels came to spirit me away,” is the way he puts it, using the Urdu slang for the all-powerful men of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), whose presence is felt, even when not seen, throughout The Nine Lives of Pakistan.

The ISI goons give Walsh no hint as to why he is being kicked out, and the government officials he quizzes simply shrug. His quest to unravel that mystery drives the narrative of the book as he goes back through his nine years as a correspondent in Pakistan, first for the Guardian and then for the New York Times, in search of an answer. The solution to the riddle, which emerges out of the haze, says a lot about the turbulent, fractious country Walsh is trying to understand.

The subtitle of the book is Dispatches from a Divided Nation and the author criss-crosses those political, religious, ethnic and generational fault lines, assembling a portrait of the vast country of 220 million people through his travels and the lives of the nine compelling protagonists.

Walsh is a wonderful writer, with a gift for sketching an impression of a place, time and ambience with a few brief lines. He knows how to interweave travelogue with an account of the relentless tensions that always threaten to burst through each vignette in the book. What also shines through is the relish with which Walsh throws himself into the far corners of Pakistan, into crowds, celebrations and rites, with a drive born of fascination with the land and its people.

He is not a war correspondent. Most of the time he is not looking for trouble, and it is hard not to envy him all the parties and feasts to which he finds himself invited. He seeks out oversized characters and makes sure not just to interview them, but to linger at their shoulder to experience Pakistan through their eyes and ears. These are eight of the nine lives of the title. The ninth is Pakistan’s conflicted and complicated founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a spectral presence.

It says a lot about Pakistan’s bloody history that only one of the nine subjects is still alive by the end of the book. Five of them meet violent ends, either killed by jihadists or the security forces. “You see, this murder and fighting business is very tricky,” as one brave Pashtun politician says, summing up local politics in the northwest. Accompanying him as he went from village to village campaigning, Walsh observes drily: “I didn’t see a single woman. Guns, on the other hand, were everywhere.”

full article

posted by f.sheikh

One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution

by Mahboob A. Khawaja,

Lambert Academic Publishing Germany: 12/2019:  537 Pages

Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD in interdisciplinary Social Science (Syracuse University, New York, USA), an academia and international scholar believes in One Global Humanity living peacefully on One Earth and shares new ideas and vision for change and critical thinking action to transform the obsolete global systems of thinking and governance into remaking of global peace, security and conflict resolution. While science and technology has advanced immensely the human thoughts, pleasure-seeking sports and entertainment, comforts and lifestyles, the mankind remains disconnected to the imperatives of its own origin, purpose of life and relationships to the Nature of Things within a splendid Universe.  The 21^st century of knowledge and advanced artificial intellect, the Nation States, global institutions and large segments of the humanity live as if they do not belong to the Earth and continued to undermine the viability of peaceful co-existence in complete violations of the basic norms of understanding and living in harmony within the natural environment. The author reminds the global political elite and institutions of reasoned vulnerability to avoid indifference, ignorance and arrogance in the conduct of global affairs and to return to foment human relations based on human equality, justice, solidarity and freedom for all.

One Global Humanity – the concept articulates an enlightened vision of globalization of the people, by the people and for the people.  To avert the coming of a Third World War, the book envisions the transformational change of global politics and sustainable future for One Global Humanity and calls it ‘The Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Management.’

 “Globalization of the People, by the People and for the People.” Success is power of visualization and affirmation by doing the best asserts the author. Rejecting cynicism and contemporary political quagmire, Dr. Khawaja offers a new vision of One Global Humanity – the globalization of the people, by the people and for the people – a revulsion against the contemporary standardized norms of  global systems of thinking, institutions, peace and security and focusing on global capacity-rebuilding of human communication, systematic institutions and accountability with decent progressive normalization of global society; and transforming superpower’s indifference and political chaos into peaceful co-existence and security for all.

Could the obsolete 20^th century engineered thoughts, facts, figures and systems foster “change” in an informed age of knowledge and innovation of the 21^st century informed global community?  We are witnessing a world order completely devoid of broken dreams, ideals and sense of truth and political accountability.  The speculative economic theories and money making stock markets do not change the destiny of people and nations. The global challenges demand realism and responsible rethinking for planned change. Destiny and future making are always timeless moving and young phenomena with inner evolutionary spirit seeking new and creative horizons beyond the obvious. The contemporary world is fraught with man-made problems unfolding ignorance, exploitation of the Nature of Things, political indifference and wars against the humanity, wars on moral and socio-cultural and spiritual values and the larger universe in which we breathe and maintain our hopes for the future. But the earth is continuously an abject of destruction by wars and weapons of mass destruction, global warming, and greenhouse gases, rising temperature and depleting natural resources affecting the entire spectrum of human existence and survival on this planet. What is being destroyed was not created or built by the human beings, institutions or the world governments. We, the people of the globe must ponder at our own ways of thinking and human priorities, hegemonic control of the natural resources, exploitative policies and practices and to discover workable solutions to ensure the sustainability of our future on Earth.

The author highlights current global topics in the following chapters of particular interest to academics, researchers, global thinkers and scholars. Dr. Khawaja shares knowledge-based experience and passion to articulate innovative approaches to peace, security and conflict resolution — all contributing to the importance of One Global Humanity:

• How to Cope with the Emerging Global Crises? A Test of Human Ingenuity or a Challenge to our Intellectual Strength
• Western Political Leaders used a False Theory of the ‘Clash of Civilizations” to Terrorize the Muslim World
• Political Tyranny of the Few Warlords and Why Do Soldiers Commit Suicide?
• From City States to Nation States: Humanity Searches for Imperatives of Change and A Sustainable Future
• The Global Community, Time and Opportunities Call Israel and Palestine to Concrete Action to Finalize the Two-State Peace Deal 
• Humanity and the Universe Co-exist in Mathematical Order. Do We Understand the Intricate Relationships for Global Peace and Security?
• Towards Understanding Mankind, the Earth and the Universe that We Live In
• Global Thinking and Rethinking: Emerging Models of a New Rationality to Combat Human Ignorance and Arrogance in Global Affairs                                                                                   

While all the laws that regulate the universe are not understandable by human thoughts, reason and perceptions, do we possess enough verifiable knowledge to understand our own origin, physiology and working systems within the human construct – both material and spiritual?  We, the people of the globe, must ponder our ways of thinking and human priorities, hegemonic control of the natural resources, exploitative policies and practices and to discover workable solutions that ensure the sustainability of our future on Earth.

( This article is part of discussion on next TFUSA meeting-f.sheikh)

Many discussions about the end of “liberal international order” play out in extremely stylized (one might even say “crude”) terms. Some treat liberal ordering as an all-or-nothing deal, in which the only alternatives are a “rules-based order” or realpolitik, unconstrained great-power conflict. Those who treat American leadership as essential to international liberal order sometimes adopt this rhetoric—even if some of the same analysts elsewhere stress that other liberal democracies may be able to substitute for the United States.

Liberal order is not all or nothing; we do not face a future that either takes the form of “rules-based order” or “the law of the jungle.” There have been many different forms of liberal ordering over the past two hundred years.

In Exit from Hegemony we distinguish between three major components of liberal order.

• Political liberal governance: “The architecture of international orders is politically liberal to the extent that it establishes the responsibility for governments to protect some minimal set of individual rights for their citizens, with more liberal orders favoring developed liberal-democratic governance among their members.”
• Economic liberalism, which “refers to the belief in, and commitment to, encouraging open economic exchange and flows among states.”
• Liberal intergovernmentalism “concerns the means, or form, of international order.” It “favors… multilateral treaties and agreements, international organizations, and institutions that make rules and norms; monitor compliance with those rules and norms; resolve disputes; and provide for public, private, and club goods.” It “also manifests in bilateral agreements and institutions that reflect principles of juridical sovereign equality even when concluded by states that are significantly unequal in their power relations.”  Full Article

How did Gilot break free? It helped that she had a fling with a suitor her own age, who didn’t understand why she was going crazy over such a mean old man. And she had her art. Late in her book comes this perverse, delectable scene:

Once as I was working at a painting that had been giving me a great deal of trouble, I heard a small timid knock at the door.

Yes,” I called out and kept on working. I heard Claude’s voice, softly, from the other side of the door.

“Mama, I love you.”

I wanted to go out, but I couldn’t put down my brushes, not just then. “I love you too, my darling,” I said, and kept at my work.

A few minutes passed. Then I heard him again, “Mama, I like your painting.”

“Thank you, darling,” I said. “You’re an angel.”

In another minute, he spoke out again. “Mama, what you do is very nice. It’s got fantasy in it but it’s not fantastic.”

That stayed my hand, but I said nothing. He must have felt me hesitate. He spoke up, louder now. “It’s better than Papa’s,” he said.

I went to the door and let him in.

The art monster versus the mother: this struggle is familiar to many women. What comes through here is the strength of Gilot’s ego. “It’s got fantasy in it but it’s not fantastic”: What child says that? One who has been trained to flatter his mother.

Full article

posted by f.sheikh