New Age Islam

Books and Documents

12 Sep 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

Pakistan Playing with Fire

By Afrah Jamal

Pakistan Playing with Fire
	Pamela Constable, foreign correspondent and former deputy foreign editor at The Washington Post puts the nation under intense scrutiny, identifying the war for Pakistan’s soul “with one set pulling it forwards towards a modern international era, the other back toward a traditional and ingrown world”. Her new book knits disparate elements of Pakistani society extracted from various testimonies into a grotesque tapestry littered with bloodcurdling tales of injustice and violence. Segments from crisply titled chapters — Hate, Khaki; Talibanisation; Honour; Siege — read like a dystopian novel where a society is slowly being unravelled by its own prejudices and “where no cause (is) too noble to subvert, no beneficiary too humble to cheat and no martyr too scared to exploit”. But at the same time it is hard to deny the disturbing trends where “an accusation of blasphemy — however vague and unsubstantiated — has the power to sweep away reason and objectivity even among officials charged with enforcing law and administering justice” or the closet Taliban mindset that allows the real deal to thrive. Or the fact that the sole noble laureate Abdul Salam, an Ahmedi, is seldom mentioned and whose achievements she insists “were an embarrassment and a glitch in the official narrative that Ahmedis are enemies of Islam — infidels to be avoided, mistrusted and despised”. -- Afrah Jamal http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamBooksAndDocuments_1.aspx?ArticleID=5458