Why so many honor killings on Pakistan?

It happens so many times that I'm no longer surprised when a girl elopes with a boy from another tribe and both are killed a few days later. The police, who are remarkably inefficient normally, are easily able to locate and arrest the runaway couple.

In the latest case, the girl's family burnt all the houses in the village where the boy lived. The father of the girl claimed that she is only 14 years old, and the marriage should be declared illegal. The girl says she's 20, but the irony here is that most girls in the rural areas are married off as soon as they attain puberty (which happens at the age of 12 or 13).

I remember a woman with three daughters whose husband was a drug addict. She used to work for a neighbor of mine and asked her employer to help her in getting a divorce (the employer was a female lawyer). The husband got the notice from the court, and he immediately came over with ten armed men. I was struck by the fact that he didn't want his wife to return, he demanded that she surrender her three daughters to him (whom he could sell to support his drug habit).

I've wondered many times if the men of this country will ever learn to treat women as humans, but I doubt if this will happen in my lifetime. 

Why do some people live longer than others?

I've always been interested in longevity, why some people live longer than their close relatives. I've seen men die before the age of 65 or 70, while their wives and sisters lived up to the age of 85 or even 90. Last week, a distant male relative aged 55 kicked the bucket, but his father is still around even though he's over 80. The father's three brothers died before they attained the age of 70, and (like him) they were chain smokers and consumed mostly unhealthy food.

I have another male relative approaching 80 who has been a heavy smoker, yet he's healthy (his wife and her two sisters died in their early sixties). So what is it that makes some people live long, while others are not so lucky?

Perhaps it's hereditary. But again, in the case of the 55 year old cited above, the father is still alive, so heredity can't be the deciding factor. It's possible that the father spent a lot of time walking when he was young (most people didn't have motorbikes or cars in those days), so his heart is healthy. 

In my case, two doctors warned me that I wouldn't live past forty or fifty. One of them died at the young age of 45 or 50, while I'm still around, approaching 82.

Trump virtually insulted by the Chinese

The Chinese are very subtle when they want to insult someone. Where an American would yell "S.o.b.!", a Chinese guy would merely point his index finger. During Trump's visit to China, he was insulted badly, although he doesn't know how much.

Trump expected Chinese President Xi Jinping to hug him on arrival. Instead, the prime minister greeted him, and when Trump was taken to meet Xi, the latter welcomed him with just a handshake. Being welcomed by a prime minister (the president's junior) at the airport signified that China doesn't view Trump with respect, a mere handshake shows that Xi doesn't think that Trump is as important as he thinks he is. In fact, it is reported that the Iranian foreign minister was shown more courtesy during his visit (which was a couple of days before Trump's).

Another insult to Trump was that the Chinese government's website completely ignored him during his visit. On Chinese social media websites, private individuals were allowed to make fun of Trump (something which was banned during the visits of Tajikistan's president and that of the Iranian foreign minister).

But the biggest insult of course was Xi warning Trump not to fall in the Thucydides trap. When Trump was told of its meaning, he lost his temper but later said that Xi was referring to the US's decline during Joe Biden's rule. But whatever he may believe, it's apparent that his visit was a failure. Note how, immediately upon returning to the US, he asked Taiwan not to declare independence.

 

India is no longer a democracy

Modi's party (BJP) has swept to power in many states which it had never ruled so far. It has done so mainly by removing the names of more than ten million Muslims in voters' lists in West Bengal and many more in other states like Assam (where Muslims comprise more than thirty percent of the population). The Indian Election Commission is headed by someone appointed by Modi, so it colluded with him in disenfranchising Muslim voters. It's evident now that India is a one-party state (like China), and it is no longer what its founding fathers had hoped it would be (a secular democracy).

Modi had postponed raising fuel prices as that would have meant alienating voters, but now Indian newspapers predict that petrol and diesel prices will soon shoot up (LPG prices have already gone up by fifty percent). So we know why Modi appealed to his fellow Indians to conserve fuel, stop importing gold and reduce traveling to other countries, to conserve foreign exchange. It must've shocked those Indians who've been brainwashed into believing that their country's economy is the third largest in the world. If the Iran war continues, India will no longer be able to pretend that it's like China or the US.

Will the UAE be able to survive?

With the imminent peace deal between the US and Iran, there is every possibility that Israel and the UAE will try their best to sabotage the deal, as both want the Islamic Republic to be bombed into the Stone Age. But what the UAE rulers don't seem to realize is that their country is the most vulnerable to attacks from Iran, as it is only about 50 km away. Already predictions are being made that instead of Iran, it will be the UAE that will be reduced to rubble. And there are many reasons to believe that the UAE will not be able to survive this war.

By leaving OPEC to put Saudi Arabia and its other neighbors in a quandary (they will have to reduce oil prices, affecting their revenue), the UAE has no friends in the region (except of course Israel). So presently it is just like a colony of the Jewish apartheid state. But even Israel will not be able to help it rebuild its damaged infrastructure, and no foreigner would be willing to invest in the UAE after its currency collapses. 

The UAE was once part of Oman, and that is how it might end up (perhaps Abu Dhabi will be able to remain independent, if its oil wells survive the war).

 

 

Why are salaries so high?

My first salary after graduating was Rs. 500. Those were the days when you could buy a seer (kg) of beef for a rupee. One could travel in a rickshaw or taxi for ten miles (16 km) and pay only a rupee or even less. As the years went by, and inflation took its toll, salaries grew almost exponentially, and today I heard that the son of a class fellow of mine (an engineer, now dead) has been offered five million a month, while his soon-to-be ex-boss is offering him twice that and many perks (like a hundred million rupee loan to buy a house).

I wonder what exactly does such a man do that he is considered so valuable? When Americans managed the oil industry in Karachi, they used to say, "If you go on leave and your subordinates aren't able to run your department, you are useless". In those days they sacked such a man, who used to work fifty hours at a stretch without going home. He thought the boss would be impressed, thinking that he was a hard-working man. It didn't help him. 

I've heard that nowadays it's the other way around. Every executive makes sure that among his subordinates, there is no one as competent or as intelligent as he is, so if he's absent for a couple of days, the boss calls him back to work as the organization can't function without him. During a management course I attended in 1967-68, an engineer was called by his boss on the third day of the course, and he announced that he had to go to the factory because it couldn't run without him. He said it with a grin, as if it was something to be proud of.

  

Israeli law targeting Muslims

Targeting Muslims

ACCORDING to an Al-Jazeera report, “... of the Palestinians tried for offences committed in the occupied West Bank, 99.74 per cent were found guilty ... conviction rates for settlers found guilty by civilian courts of committing crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) between 2005 and 2024 ran to about 3pc”. Also, the same channel reported, quoting The Guardian newspaper, that Israel has yet to prosecute any of its citizens for killing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank “since the start of this decade”.

Just imagine, if another country were to sentence only Christians or Jews to death, for any crime, there would have been a huge outcry, with possible sanctions imposed on that country. Even the widely reviled apartheid regimes of South Africa never enacted such a law. Yet, just because it is Israel, Western powers have only voiced mute criticism. This is shameless hypocrisy and double standards at work.

Shakir Lakhani
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2026

https://www.dawn.com/news/1995120/targeting-muslims

 

 

Because of Trump's lies, no one will ever trust American politicians

If there's one thing we've learned from the war on Iran, it's that Americans (especially politicians) can never be fully trusted again. Trump lies so much that one can only wonder how such a man was ever elected president.

During his first term he tore up Obama's nuclear policy agreement with Iran (he also moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem). He bombed Iran's nuclear facilities despite ongoing talks. As if that were not enough, he again did the same thing even after Oman announced that negotiations with Iran were successful and it was ready to sign an agreement acceptable to the US. After spending 55 billion dollars on the war and not achieving his aims, he keeps declaring that the US has won, but doesn't explain why he has blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, a step that is causing oil prices to increase.

Yesterday, when Iran's foreign minister arrived in Islamabad, he announced that it was Iran that had requested that talks be resumed, although Iran categorically said that it was not interested in talks. But Trump nevertheless said that he's sending two envoys (including his son-in-law Jared Kushner) to hold talks with the Iranians (who will not be there).

One can only wonder how a man like Trump has been able to fool so many Americans into voting twice for him.

Democracy vs dictatorship

Until recently I was a diehard supporter of democracy, but recent events have compelled me to change my opinion. Even though Socrates opposed democracy, most countries have opted for it. But considering that it was democracy that cost Socrates his life (he was judged guilty by twelve men who were not his equal in intelligence), it is obvious that democracy is not suitable for mankind.

Consider this: what kind of democracy is this where people like Trump, Netanyahu and Hitler get to be leaders? Trump himself is a convicted felon who knows that he might spend the rest of his life in jail if he's impeached and deposed. Netanyahu is facing corruption charges, so he wants to cause ruckus and mayhem to remain in power. Hitler, it must be remembered, was also elected. Since it's evident that the common man is easily fooled (as in Pakistan where a nincompoop narcissist ruled for four years). a new system (like that in China) would be more suitable for modern times, with some safeguards (like easily removing an incompetent leader like Trump). Of course it will mean doing away with some freedoms, but even in the US, most people don't get the rights given to them by the Constitution.

Failure of talks and future of UAE

It would have been too much to expect the talks to result in any agreement, although there are rumors that it was Netanyahu's phone call to Vance that scuppered a deal. But the cease-fire holds, and there is talk of another meeting between Iran and the US in a couple of days, again in Islamabad. But even if there is a deal, the Gulf States have a lot of thinking to do, and one hopes that they don't align with Israel or India (as the UAE has done).

In fact, the only visitors to the UAE will probably be Indians, who own a lot of property in that country. If ties between Pakistan and the UAE don't improve, Pakistanis will no longer want to remain there, and some of them might even be deported. Whatever happens, the UAE will no longer be the bastion of stability it has so far spent hundreds of billions to portray itself. The Europeans will hesitate to settle there, even if it continues the tax-free regime for them. It will take at least a year for the UAE to attain some semblance of normality, if ever. It is desperately short of money, and one indication is the restriction on foreign airlines to operate only one flight daily to the UAE. This applies to all airlines in the world, not only to India and Pakistan. It will take a long time before the UAE is able to extricate itself from the mess of its own creation.