open Democracy News Analysis - Pakistan and violence: memory, shame, and repression , Furhan Iqbal - Comments

hptrivedi on "Pakistan and violence: memory, shame, and repression "

hptrivedi — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:07:31 +0000

Interesting analysis - but this cannot be the main cause for violence in Pakistan. The hypothesis would seem not to fare so well when applied to India while her symmetric role would demand that it should. Yet the two neighbours have evolved politically very very differently. Barring a few exceptions (Khushwant Sing, Ravibder Kaur, Ysamin Khan) balanced accounts of the events of the partition are equally rare in India. In general, most people there also wish neither to analyse nor to remember them (apart from in a "look-at-what-they-did-to-us" way).

Pakistan and violence: memory, shame, and repression , Furhan Iqbal

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:03:42 +0000

The general election of 18 February 2008 in Pakistan takes place amid violence. The campaign has been marked by numerous assaults on authorities and civilians, and frequent suicide-bomb attacks on political rallies, which have exacted great loss of life; the nearest estimate is that in total around 150 people have been killed. The bombing of a Pakistan People's Party meeting on 16 February which killed forty-seven people and wounded 110 in Parachinar, in the Kurram district of northern Pakistan, is only the most bloody of such incidents.

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