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Maria Rashid’s Followers (2)
Maria Rashid
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Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army
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The Boy with Sapphire Gaze and his Dragon Friend
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AIO CBSE Economics 11th
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BLOOM CAP Commerce Olympiad Class 12
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
“These homes were affective spaces suffused with many references to the dead in objects and pictures. The presence of the dead was sometimes most marked by their absence from spaces that had earlier resonated with their presence, such as the doorway the son used to walk through when he came home on leave or the courtyard where he would sit on the charpai and eat peanuts. In one of these initial encounters, a mother kept staring at a fixed spot on the floor; she then told me her son used to put his army boots there when he came home on leave. There were no boots there today, yet as she spoke of her son, her eyes stared fixedly at that space. These spaces were also haunted in more concrete ways, because many of these houses had been renovated using compensation money received from the military, so the brick and mortar bore testament to the loss endured.”
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“The figure of the mother on the magnificent stage at the YeD ceremony offering another son as cannon fodder and the overflowing mass of people in the NoK enclosure hint at the tragedy of death in war as well as at the casualness of life, the apparent ease with which it is offered to the military. These are subjects of violence that are willing to endure violence not only to their bodies but also to the bodies of those they love. 26/378”
― Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army
― Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army
“Imran had joined the army when he was a little over seventeen and had died in operations in Swat within his first three months of active duty. The father’s drooping, sorrowful figure walking back and forth to his son’s grave and sitting by it for long periods is a common sight in the village. The social studies teacher in the government school in Palwal, a young man, reflected on the grief of Imran’s father: “I have noticed him; he has taken it to heart. He has not thought about it from the other angle [of shahadat]. If he thinks from this angle, that shahadat has its own position, reputation, then he might have got some relief. He is not thinking from this angle; he is only thinking from one angle: that his son is no more.” The schoolteacher suggests that Imran’s father finds it difficult to follow the path that will allow him to move on and come to terms with his son’s unexpected and violent death. It is a story of grief that refuses to follow script, despite instruction. This and other similar stories are expressed even as the parallel script of shahadat remains intact, flowing along unhindered and unchecked, like the tears. 195/378”
― Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army
― Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army
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