Current Issue

Issue 8: Language & Politics

Winter 2014

 

Previous issue:

Issue 7: Beyond Tremors & Terror

Fall 2014

REPORTAGE

Islamabad’s Forgotten Villages

By: Zehra Hashmi

Two villages encircled by the capital’s naval complex fall outside the state’s security concerns.

The Road to Bannu

By: Asad Hashim

Even though Bannu is governed by the Pakistani constitution, the Pakistani state views it in almost colonial terms. For this part of Pakistan, then, the Raj isn’t over.

ESSAYS

“We should be resettled there”

By: Omer Aijazi

Humanitarianism without politics has helped maintain the conditions of risk that expose people to harm in the first place.

Neoliberalism against Privatization

By: Sonia Qadir

The Supreme Court’s decision to void the privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills retained an unsaid pact with capitalist interests even as it seemed to subvert them.

How the State Sanctions Bonded Labor

By: Sarah Suhail

Slavery is intrinsic to modern-day capitalism.

Sit-ins with the Dead

By: Ayesha Omer

The Hazara sit-ins began as protests with broad potential, only to become ritualized under the undemocratic organization of the QYC and Shia leadership.

Protests in Search of a Movement

By: Katja Mielke

There is no rights-for-shelter or housing movement in urban Pakistan like Brazil or India because conditions force katchi abadi dwellers often to work with land developers rather than against them.

The Allure of Al-Huda

By: Nadia Hasan

Liberalism lies at the heart of the practices of Islamic piety by the Al-Huda organization. That affects how certain Islamic practices are understood — and denounced.

Memory in Pakistani Cinema

By: Rabea Murtaza

Khamosh Pani and Ramchand Pakistani are the first films by a generation that did not directly experience Partition. They plumb memory and examine living with what comes after.

Going to the Movies

By: Hira Nabi

Just sitting through a film creates its own social norms and that — more than the films that cinemas screen — may be what worries those who burn them down.