Oh god…it’s the usual problem, the problem I’ve been having so often lately, especially in the last week. It’s the problem of reading about something that’s so disgusting it’s hard to keep reading. It’s the surge of fear and loathing at the malevolence and brute stupidity and more malevolence in fellow human beings. Like this:

is in jail, desperately praying that she won’t be executed. Her neighbours are hoping she will be.”Why hasn’t she been killed yet?” said Maafia Bibi , a 20-year-old woman standing at the gate of the house next door. Her eyes glitter behind a scarf that covered her face. “You journalists keep coming here asking questions but the issue is resolved. Why has she not been

You know Deeyah? She’s doing a great thing.

Now a project to recognise the contribution of some of the world’s most important protest singers has been pulled together by a woman who was forced to give up performing on stage because of threats made on her life. Listen To The Banned is an album including the work of 14 international artists, all of whom have experienced imprisonment, censorship, harassment or violence because of their music.

Deeyah, a classically trained singer born in Norway, of Pakistani and Afghan parents, had a burgeoning career in pop music when she had to leave Norway because of harassment and disapproval from hardline Islamic groups. She moved to the US and then the UK,

I think Ahmed Rashid, much as I value his work, is over-optimistic about what is possible.

Taseer’s death has unleashed the mad dogs of hell, inspiring the minority of fanatics to go to any lengths to destroy the democratic, secular and moderate Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

How can there be such a thing as a secular Islamic Republic of anything? Or a secular Christian or Hindu one either?

I don’t think there can. That’s where Jinnah went wrong, and it’s where the whole idea falls apart before it takes its first breath. People who think there can be such a thing don’t grasp what “secular” means. An Islamic Republic is, obviously, an officially religious state, and that is … Read the rest

Sadly, poignantly, indeed tragically, Aatish Taseer sees things more clearly than his father did.

Pakistan was part of his faith, and one of the reasons for the differences that arose between us in the last years of his life–and there were many–was that this faith never allowed him to accept what had become of the country his forefathers had fought for.

…

And where my father and I would have parted ways in the past was that I believe Pakistan and its founding in faith, that first throb of a nation made for religion by people who thought naively that they would restrict its role exclusively to the country’s founding, was responsible for producing my father’s killer.

For if it

Mohammed Hanif asks who is responsible for the murder of Salman Taseer? (And who is responsible for the multiple deaths and critical injuries in Arizona? Who is responsible for the attempted assassination of a Congressional representative and the successful assassination of a federal judge outside a Safeway in Tucson? The questions are related. It’s not just a single assassin in either case – it’s also a society, a culture, a discourse, a world view, a rhetoric, a climate, a mindset, and the people who help to create them.)

When Pakistan’s television anchors and newspaper columnists describe Salman Taseer’s assassination [as] a tragedy, they are not telling us the whole truth.

Because many of these very anchors and columnists have stated,

Oh jesus god now it’s our turn – a Democratic representative and a federal judge and a bunch of aids shot at an outdoor meeting.

I’ve been to meetings with my representative, often. They’re wide open. You can chat with him up close and personal as well as during the meeting.

Salman Taseer refused to hide, Gabrielle Giffords held a public streetcorner meeting…and look what it got them.

We’re all doomed. I feel sick.… Read the rest