spark

I attended the March 26th demo held in Lahore in support of the CJ. But strictly as an observer. No slogans, only photos. I was scared, a little paranoid about IB/ISI/MI plants in "plain clothes".

On my return, I sms’ed a friend, asking him what his excuse was for not attending. He didn’t reply, but the remark seems to have got to him. He’s now in the forefront - organising seminars at his alma mater, a meeting with Imran Khan for his colleagues and former classmates, attending as many rallies as he can afford to.

Inspiring.

Meanwhile, Ayesha Siddiqua has quietly slipped away. But she’s played her role - and what a job she’s done. Thorough, factual, logical. All it takes is a few good men and women.

Apparently, today’s demo on the Mall attracted between 6 and 10K... it’s hard to judge these things because bystanders join in at various points and then leave before the formal ’ending’.

Which means that the spirit of resistance has not died down... it was in danger of doing so, but this beautiful government aborted that trend by issuing those PEMRA ordinances. Shweet.

One should keep in mind that this will be quite a long one: twelve years elapsed before the Soviets once again came close to bringing down the Czar in 1917. Trotsky almost got killed in the 1905 uprising and Lenin had to flee to Europe.

Aung San Suu Kiye is still under house arrest, the Dalai Lama still in exile. Allende was killed in 1973. Chileans finally regained their independence in the nineties, despite all the dogmatism of the Chicago school.

These things can take their time.

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NFP’s take on the MQM is interesting - unfortunately, he’s too smart to ever explain himself. Or maybe he did and it got lost somewhere in the gazillion bickering comments that attached themselves like so many leeches to his article. I sure would like to understand MQM’s modus operandi, the reasons for their popular support.