The Pakistani Spectator

A Candid Blog

Author Archive

Times of India Interview Mohsin Hamid

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 10th, 2010 • Category: Interviews

With an Ivy League education, a quiet charm, and two acclaimed novels that expertly explore the dissonance of a global world, Mohsin Hamid is the face of a literary flowering in Pakistan. The 38-year-old writer — an alumnus of Princeton and Harvard Law School — chucked a job with consulting firm McKinsey in London to [...]



Tariq Ali:The Assault on Hijab

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 3rd, 2010 • Category: Features

Forgive an outsider and staunch atheist like myself who, on reading the recent French press comments relating to Ilhem Moussaid the hijab-wearing NPA candidate in Avignon, gets the impression that something is rotten in  French political culture. Let’s take the debate at face-value. A young  Muslim woman joins the NPA [New Anti-Capitalist Party]. She obviously [...]



Aman Ki Asha: Mohsin Hamid

By Dil Nawaz • Mar 1st, 2010 • Category: Politics

With an Ivy League education, a quiet charm, and two acclaimed novels that expertly explore the dissonance of a global world, Mohsin Hamid is the face of a literary flowering in Pakistan. The 38-year-old writer — an alumnus of Princeton and Harvard Law School — chucked a job with consulting firm McKinsey in London to [...]



Illegal Pakistanis in Greece

By Dil Nawaz • Feb 26th, 2010 • Category: Features

Most Pakistani immigrants I talked to were honest and forthright. They all admitted that they had entered Greece illegally and are struggling hard. The story of young Waqas Ahmed, who hails from a small village of Gujrat, is typical. He had paid Rs 700,000 to the agent in Gujrat to get to Unaan
Socrates used to [...]



Civil Society, Political Islam and Shariah Law in Pakistan

By Dil Nawaz • Feb 19th, 2010 • Category: Politics, Worth A Second Look

In order to understand the development of Islamic theocracy in Pakistan, we have to understand the different political forces present in pre partition North West India. It is prudent to restrict the analysis to right wing Muslim parties as, regardless of their stance on independent Pakistan; in post partition political spectrum ring wing became the [...]



“First they came…”, Terrorists of Pakistan.

By Dil Nawaz • Jan 25th, 2010 • Category: Features

“First they came …” is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. In Niemöller’s first utterance of it, in a January 6,  1946 speech before representatives of the Confessing Church in [...]



Media Wars: Geo Zardari Party

By Dil Nawaz • Jan 17th, 2010 • Category: Politics

President Zardari’s struggles against a ‘belligerent’ Geo News seems very strange,if seen in isolation. Supposedly Geo News is working for ‘freedom of expression’ previously against a dictator and now against a democratically elected president. Geo and its parent Jang group are well versed in judging the ‘trend of the time’.
Zardari is unpopular due his alleged [...]



Exclusive: Pakistan Call-Centre Odyssey

By Dil Nawaz • Jan 10th, 2010 • Category: Misc, Worth A Second Look

Mirpur city of Kashmir is often called the ‘eastern most city of United Kingdom’ due to big population of British Kashmiris (Pakistanis or just Muslims, whatever they want to be known as).Jars of Marmite(a British peculiarity which I have never tasted) and tins of tuna fish and ‘baked beans in tomato sauce’ are easily available [...]



Tariq Ali’ s “Leopard and the Fox”- The Bhutto Story

By Dil Nawaz • Jan 5th, 2010 • Category: Features

Like Agusto Pinochet and American interference in chile, CIA, Ronald Regan General Zia Ul Haq and Afghan Jehadis played a dangerous game with the destiny of Pakistan.
Tariq Ali’s Book “The Leopard and the Fox- a Pakistani Tragedy” sheds light on role of Thatcher government and BBC in extending a lifeline to Brutal Dictator General Zia [...]



Breaking News:World Scout Movement Press Statement

By Dil Nawaz • Jan 3rd, 2010 • Category: Politics

Six Rover Scouts died on the spot and over 25 other Scouts of the Pakistan Boy Scouts Association were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up during a religious gathering in Karachi, Pakistan on 28th December 2009.