Democracy is hit hard as the PPP and the PMLN renew their old rivalry
 

By Massoud Ansari

The Supreme Court decision to disqualify former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother and now former Punjab chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, from contesting elections was not unexpected. Nor is its aftermath surprising. Still, the revival of mortal combat between the two main players in Pakistan’s year-old democratic system does not augur well for the future. Even more worrisome is the fact that these players, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PMLN), are not averse to the idea of mobilising supporters in the streets to take up the fight on their behalf.
 

Arrested Development


By Umer Farooq

Zainab Khan was working in the offices of Plan International – a foreign non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works in and around the North West Frontier Province’s (NWFP) Mansehra city – when about 15 armed gunmen entered the building. The organisation’s offices are located in upmarket Township locality, close to the Karakoram Highway as it passes through the city. “There was no prior warning or threat and the attack came out of the blue,” Khan tells the Herald while describing the February 2008 assault. The attackers had already blocked the Township’s main road and warned neighbours not to come out of their houses. “They threw grenades into the reception area and started firing indiscriminately,” Khan recalls. She and two of her colleagues locked themselves in a room, preventing the attackers from entering their side of the office. Nonetheless, four people, including three employees and one visitor, lost their lives.
 

A culture of fear
 

By Asad Hashim

News of terrorist attacks in general and suicide blasts in particular has become commonplace. But quite aside from having any impact on the government’s policy concerning the ‘war on terror’, the persistent attempts of militant groups to destabilise the Pakistani state are also having a very real effect on citizens. As an atmosphere of violence and uncertainty descends on the country, its citizens are now being forced to confront their own mortality.
 

By Rubab Karrar

While it is hard to get Ardeshir Cowasjee to disclose anything about himself, he enjoys speaking of others and laughing. But the laughter seems kind, as a lot of the time the people he criticises are also his friends. One obviously does not preclude the other. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf remains a friend, in spite of Cowasjee’s unflattering opinion of governance in his tenure. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, killed in an army operation in 2006 during Musharraf’s government, was also a friend. Cowasjee spoke to Bugti, he says, a short while before the military operation after noticing a couple of things: that Bugti was sitting on a chair rather than on the ground and that he was using a walker. Cowasjee deduced that his friend was unwell and made no bones telling him that “taking on an army of 500,000 sitting in a cave” was “primitive” and foolish. If anything, it seems that Cowasjee has a streak of pragmatism.
 

By Huma Yusuf

Karachi’s premier film event went ahead this year, albeit in a glam-free, pared-down incarnation. Here is the Herald ’s cache of some of the festival’s most interesting feature films and documentaries.