Dispatches from Pakistan

by Madiha R. Tahir (Editor), Qalandar Bux Memon (Editor), Vijay Prashad (Editor)

Since 9/11, Pakistan has loomed large in the geopolitical imagination of the West. A key ally in the global war on terror, it is also the country in which Osama bin Laden was finally found and killed—and the one that has borne the brunt of much of the ongoing conflict’s collateral damage. Despite its prominence on the front lines and on the front pages, Pakistan has been depicted by Western observers simplistically in terms of its corruption, its fundamentalist Islamic beliefs, and its propensity for violence. Dispatches from Pakistan , in contrast, reveals the complexities, the challenges, and the joys of daily life in the country, from the poetry of Gilgit to the graffiti of Gwadar, from an army barrack in Punjab to the urban politics of Karachi. This timely book brings together journalists, activists, academics, and artists to provide a rich, in-depth, and intriguing portrait of contemporary Pakistani society. Straddling a variety of boundaries—geographic, linguistic, and narrative— Dispatches from Pakistan is a vital attempt to speak for the multitude of Pakistanis who, in the face of seemingly unimaginable hardships, from drone strikes to crushing poverty, remain defiantly optimistic about their future. While engaging in conversations on issues that make the headlines in the West, the contributors also introduce less familiar dimensions of Pakistani life, highlighting the voices of urban poets, rural laborers, industrial workers, and religious-feminist activists—and recovering Pakistani society’s inquilabi (revolutionary) undercurrents and its hopeful overtones. Mahvish Ahmad; Nosheen Ali, U of California, Berkeley; Shafqat Hussain, Trinity College; Humeira Iqtidar, King’s College London; Amina Jamal, Ryerson U; Hafeez Jamali, U of Texas at Austin; Iqbak Khattak; Zahra Malkani; Raza Mir; Hammad Nasar; Junaid Rana, U of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; Maliha Safri, Drew U; Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Lahore U of Management Sciences; Ayesha Siddiqa; Sultan-i-Rome, Government Jahanzeb Postgraduate College, Swat, Pakistan; Saadia Toor, Staten Island College.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Pakistan, Politics

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Faaiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for the effort to bring forth something about Pakistan that is different from the same regurgitated tired political analysis written by and for the Western eye and more crucially from a position that is at least left-adjacent, with a critical view of neoliberalization, austerity, anti-labor policies and actions.

The book is a compilation of already published essays and articles. The tone is journalistic and some read like op-eds which is not my favorite mode of writing and reading about something because it can be very surface-level and not in-depth. Nevertheless, the book does a good job of presenting slices and snippets of the things that happened and were happening in Pakistan. However, since it was published in 2012, a lot has changed since then and some in significant ways that would render the analysis and coverage of some of the topics dated, which is not unexpected but still something to keep in mind.

This may not be the book for you if you don't know much about Pakistan. Even I found some essays difficult to keep track of because of the whirlwind of names, places, and events mentioned that I had little prior knowledge about. Plus the essays are all disparate and don't build off of one another. But there is good information here about events, people, and activities that do not get much, if any traction in the mainstream media and news outlets. Some of the notable essays included:

The Neoliberal Security State: covering the struggles of the Okara farmers, Anjuman-i-Mazarin-i Punjab against the crackdown of the Army.
Feminism and "Fundamentalism" in Pakistan: overviewing how "Islamic" movements have done a better job of mobilizing and presenting opportunities for women in Pakistan and how the foreign-funded NGOs with bourgeois aspirations have failed to incorporate the women from the working class and middle-class backgrounds into the struggle for women's rights.
Punjab in Play: on how Punjab is not a monolith and the struggles of the poor and working class Southern Punjab, or even any non-urbanized portions of Punjab, shouldn't be erased with regards to the so-called "Punjabi dominance" narrative espoused these days.
Blood on the Path of Love, Faisalabad, Pakistan: recounting the harrowing struggles the laborers have to face from the tyranny of the police state in conjunction with the industrialists.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting take on some issues in and of the belaguered country, even though they are based on the fulcrum of Marxist theory.