Pakistan at Sixty

"Pakistan is best avoided in August, when the rains come and transform the plains into a huge steam bath. When I lived there we fled to the mountains, but this year I stayed put. The real killer is the humidity. Relief arrives in short bursts: a sudden stillness followed by the darkening of the sky, thunderclapslike distant bombs and then the hard rain. Rivers and tributaries quickly overflow; flash floods make cities impassable. Sewage runs through slums and posh neighbourhoods alike. Even if you go straight from air-conditioned room to air-conditioned car you can't completely escape the smell."

Tariq the Bourgeoisie Travel Agent -- for the proletariat Pakistan -- bravo!

Tablighi Jamat is not the breeding ground for terrorist. It restricts itself to Tabligh and in fact keep the youth away from more political and militant version of Islam.
If some MQM cadre comes from Jamat-e-Islami and Jamiat Talaba does not mean Jamat is breeding ground for MQM workers. That would be far fetched.
A person like Tariq Ali should not leave objectivity for ideological argument.

It took me quite some time to read this article. After I understand it, I shall write my comments.

Re: # 5
I am neither a communist nor a capitalist, nor either of their apologists, thank you very much.

i think someone should put tariq ali out of his misery - the poor man has obviously lost it ..... what was this rambling rant all about? ....... did anyone really read it ?

Tariq,

I know that age is catching up so please try to focus

your energies on Pakistan almost exclusively from now on.

Your insights are needed there more than ever.


Next time in Berkeley a visit to Kips for refreshments..

Re: # 5 Unfair attack on MQM. MQM should just ban this marxists coming to Karachi and inciting revolution. He is hoping for break of pakistan so he can boast he had predicted demise of Pakistan. He criticises general but general is living in pakistan which is hardship but this person livews in usa, uk, england etc. Nothing going to come good if such people start doing politics. He is saying bad things about Quaid E Awam Altafbhai Hussain , yes he lives in safety of uk ( as it is not possible for him to have safety here) as its national but is not Tariq Ali also englishman ? He should not throw stones on King of Hearts of karachi Mr.Altaf Hussain when this little crumy ali also lives in britain also.

Re: # 4
Mangotree

Are you the commie’s apologist or something, he didn’t write about guantanamo, he wrote in Britain . well the law in Britain is they can’t hold for more than a month without charge, that’s not indefinite by any stretch of imagination

Re: # 3
*guantanamo

I know some commies went crazy after the demise of soviet union, but I didn’t know ali was one of them until I read this article.

“They were convinced that Basit was a terrorist who should have been kept in prison indefinitely, as he certainly would have been in Britain or the US.”

You should know better than this to write this crap, or is the hatred of capitalist west getting the better of you, there is a rule of law in britain no one can be kept in prison indefinitely, even the brit-muslim detainees of gauntanamo have been released.

...... the elder ghazi brother is making porn films with umme hassan ?.......... now, that is really disgusting!

........ the tableegi jammat is running brothels in islamabad and fishermen in karachi are eating lobsters ? ....... wow !