It's impossible to negotiate with the Taliban

 As expected, talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been stalled, despite Turkey's best efforts to get the Taliban to agree. By now it should be clear that the Taliban believe that they are right and every one else is wrong. Perhaps they think that because the Americans and the Soviets had to leave their country, they are invincible. They've forgotten or are ignoring the fact that it was Pakistan that helped them throw the invaders out. As for that phrase    "Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires", nothing could be further from the truth. Afghanistan has been ruled by many invaders before. The British, the Moghuls, even the Sikhs occupied the country for many decades. it's only because the country is mountainous that rebels are able to fight the invaders. But it's also a fact that they can be subdued with money.

The Taliban's intransigence is evident from the fact that even today they allowed infiltrators to enter Pakistan, despite talks being in progress. They are helped of course by the Muslim-hating Hindutva government of India, which wants to occupy not only Pakistan but parts of Afghanistan and Iran as well. Hindutva bigots should understand that if Pakistan falls to the Taliban, they will invade India as well (to turn that India into a Muslim-majority country). 

Banning political parties is not the answerr

Many political parties were banned in the past, but that has never worked. Bhutto banned the National Awami Party (NAP), but it resurfaced as Awami National Party (ANP). For some time, even the Peoples Party was banned, it once contested elections as PPPP (Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians). After the recent failed march to Islamabad by the extremist TLP, the government is considering banning the party, but this will make the party even more popular.

In fact, the TLP (Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan) is already very popular among Pakistan's largely illiterate population of those who follow the Barelvi version of Islam. The Punjab government is planning to take against those who have financed the party in the past (there are about 4,000 of them). The party head (Saad Rizvi) has gone underground, but in a raid on his house, the cops found gold and currency (including Indian rupees) reportedly amounting to more than a hundred million. The TLP chief also has 95 bank accounts, and the party "owns" three hundred and thirty mosques as well as 223 madressas. 

All this proves that extremism in Pakistan is rampant and will be difficult to eliminate merely by banning politico-religious parties. One wonders why the government did not take any action when the party was building mosques and seminaries on government land. But perhaps it was because the TLP was encouraged in the past to destabilize Nawaz Sharif's government by those in the Establishment who wanted to remove him from power and install their puppet Imran Khan in his place.

 

Ungrateful Afghans: will they ever change?

Afghanistan has always opposed the existence of Pakistan, right from day one. It opposed the creation of Pakistan, claiming most of the territory of the new country (despite their former rulers having accepted the Durand Line as the border). India helped them claim that the two provinces of Pakistan (KP and Baluchistan) belonged to Afghanistan. Pakistan helped Afghans in expelling the Soviets from their country. They seem to have forgotten that India did not oppose the Soviet invasion and did not boycott the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow (most countries including Pakistan boycotted). 

The Taliban government currently in power has allied itself with India to destabilize Pakistan, their foreign minister even supporting India's illegal occupation of Kashmir. He was unable to justify his government's treatment of its women. He forgot that Pakistan gave refuge to three million Afghans (half of them are still in Pakistan).

After years of bomb blasts carried out by Indian-supported Afghans, Pakistan decided that it could no longer stay silent. After Pakistan's bombing of the terrorists' sanctuaries in Afghanistan, the Taliban begged for a cease fire.  The cease fire agreed in yesterday's talks in Doha and more talks in Istanbul to be held next week, perhaps the Taliban may agree to stop terrorist activities, but I doubt if they will ever change. They want Pakistan to hand over its two western provinces to them, where they want to impose their version of Islam. Pakistan should retaliate whenever a terrorist attack takes place in the country. That's the only way to defeat them.  

Israel's so-called "victory" is anything but that

Both Trump and Netanyahu have proclaimed that the Gaza cease fire agreement is a victory for Israel, but they're both mistaken. Israel has actually lost the war and has lost the support of most Americans and Europeans. In years to come, Israel will do everything it can to sabotage the agreement, but it won't have the backing of those who were its allies until now.

Even a significant number of Israelis have turned against Netanyahu's government. During Trump's speech in the Israeli parliament, some members openly called for recognition of Palestine. In the US, opinion polls show that a majority (including Jews) believe that Israel has committed genocide. It seems that every American under the age of 30 is against Israel, and there will be immense pressure on the US government to curtail military aid to the apartheid state.

The best thing would be for Netanyahu and his hawkish ministers to be tried by the International Court of Justice and sentenced to prison terms, but of course that is not likely to happen soon.

A different approach (dealing with India)

Published in Dawn on October 12, 2025

WITH the Bihar elections in India due soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his henchmen are likely to do their best to blame Pakistan for all their failures. They want their people to believe that Pakistan is responsible for all their problems, including the fact that 40 per cent Indians are living below the poverty line, and many children have died after consuming contaminated cough syrups.

I suggest that instead of responding to any threats hurled by Indians, we should stay calm and not respond in kind. The best thing to do, of course, is to pretend that India does not exist, but since that is not possible, we should find an alternative way.

We could, for instance, point out that India could solve most of its problems by reducing its defence budget by half, and spend the money saved to feed its hungry masses. We could suggest that India would be better off buying fighter jets and missiles manufactured in Pakistan instead of France. Of course, the Indian government would not respond, but at least our offer would go some way towards convincing ordinary Indians not to fall for Pakistan-bashing.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1948353/a-different-approach

History proves that Israel can never be trusted

The cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel has been approved by both parties. Initially, Hamas will release forty eight hostages and Israel will set free a couple of thousand Palestinians in its jails. Israel may do this, but knowing how it has behaved in the past, it's doubtful if it will honor the other clauses in the agreement. Israel has consistently violated all previous agreements, including the Oslo accords, that stipulated the creation of a Palestinian state.

Most Western countries support Israel, despite evidence that a majority of their populations are sympathetic to Palestinians. Even Sweden supports the apartheid state, despite the evidence of its famous activist Greta Thunberg that she and other flotilla activists was severely maltreated after being arrested by the Israelis. 

We can be sure that Israel will go on killing innocent Palestinians, seizing their land and committing genocide as long as it has the support of the US and other Western countries. It will never agree to the formation of a Palestinian state. Perhaps the growing support for Palestine in the US may persuade American politicians to insist that Israel agree to give freedom to the Arabs but it won't happen soon. In the meantime, South Africa should insist that Netanyahoo be tried for genocide by the International Court of Justice.

More non-Muslims supporting Palestinians

For some reason, we see more and more non-Muslim states openly opposing Israel. On the other hand, leaders of Muslim countries are lukewarm in their statements. Until recently, Pakistan's position was that there should be no Israel, the country should be known as Palestine. Now it supports a two-state solution. Israel, of course, will never agree to it. As far as Arab countries are concerned, the UAE actually has recognized the apartheid state, while even Saudi Arabia appears to be neutral. Why is this so?

The only reason is that Arab states are more scared of Palesinians than of Israel. Too much oil wealth has made them soft and scared to fight. In fact, there is only one Arab country which is prepared to take on Israel, and that is Yemen. The only Muslim country which is directly fighting Israel is Iran (a non-Arab country). Pakistan is another country which has fought wars, but it is not in Israel's neighborhood, so a direct confrontation with Israel is not possible.

Whatever the reason, leaders of Muslim countries will have to unite and prevent Israel and India from invading neighboring countries. 

Disqualified or not

Published in DAWN on April 27, 2013

THE Election Commission of Pakistan has reportedly not disqualified some people who have submitted fake degrees.

One is tempted to ask about the use of Articles 62 and 63 if wrongdoers are not restrained from contesting elections. Knowing the mindset of the majority of our voters (who mostly vote on a caste basis), immoral and corrupt people will be elected again, giving them ample time to loot the country.

The next government should do it immediately.

Shakir Lakhani,

Karachi

Nationalisation of education

Published in Dawn on April 27, 2013

I SEE returning officers behaving like Taliban, when I see lawyers garlanding a man who killed the Punjab governor in full view of the public, when I read of a judge who acquitted three rapists (despite DNA tests proving their guilt) because the rape victim could not produce the mandatory four witnesses to the crime. 

When I see all this, I know that this almost total collapse of society is due to the nationalisation of education by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the first and the only civilian martial law administrator of the country.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

15 year old girl allowed to be married by an IHC judge!

I was not at all surprised when the learned Justice Mohammed Azam Khan of the Islamabad High Court did not annul the marriage of an under-age girl and allowed her to live with her husband (whose age was definitely more than 18). For those who don't know, the minimum age for marriage in Pakistan is 18, but in practice this is widely flouted. Practically every male in Pakistan considers himself an expert on Sharia (without ever having read it), so he naturally assumes that a girl should be married off the day she finishes her first period. There is therefore no way of preventing this, as even a judge of the high court believes it.

Around the time I was 15, two girls in my neighborhood (both sisters definitely aged less than 18), were married off. There was a German engineer and his wife who were employed by the girls' father at the time. The German woman actually wept and asked the father of the girls why he was giving away two helpless children so soon. I think the father must've said the usual thing about all Muslims being ordered to do so.

Come to think of it, even some US states allow girls as young as 14  to marry. So I guess we shouldn't be shocked that there are more than 19 million child brides in Pakistan.