Zarish Fatima’s Reviews > Pakistan Beyond the "Crisis State" > Status Update

I liked Akbar Khan and Ayesha Jalal <3 Others were good too. But Mohsin Hamid wrote just nontechnical type article (and novel-ish style).

BTW have you read Nadeem F. Paracha? Highly recommended! :P You'll die laughing.

Akbar Ahmed(or khan?) and Mohsin Hamid I liked.Mohsin is my favourite and his optimism and positivity is what we need and his nationalism is what I believe should be.

Ayesha Jalal, I am not, so big on. Her ideas though on point just had a bit too much of snarl in them. Madeeha lodhi on other hand was very inspiring, her anger and frustration could be felt in undercurrent of all her essay.

Nadeem F Paracha of Dawn?
He is pretty good, slightly too alt-left for my taste and borders on offensive at times but he is better than most humorist writers.

Yeah sorry Akbar Ahmed, the ambassador.

Well Mohsin Hamid wrote well and was optimist but thing is when you come to practicality, things are not that simple. Eg low revenue collection and stagnant taxes are due greatly to politicians and industrialists and other rich men getting off the tax net; poor men only make a little difference in tax paying. AND just moral words don't matter at all to those 'rich men'. Vigorous forging of system and use of force will do. Those who levy taxes (parliamentarians) are so **poor** that they themselves don't pay, what do we expect from common people then? :/

Change is not poor people paying taxes but the leaders and rich men added to tax-net, to whom moralityn alone does not matter.

And regarding Ambassador Akbar, seriously so less people are left who do think that Islam does matter in politics and that secularist rule has better alternative as Islam, like minority rights you don't need a secular country to safeguard minority rights. Islam did give a system for it (army for protection, and Muslims if found culprit, punished, equal rights to religious practices, and safety for religious places). This is why the so-called untouchables (Achoots) and Sikhs of some regions of Subcontinent opted for Pakistan after separation.

More-ever Quaid's speech, "you are free to go to your temples.." was much misinterpreted even amongst Muslims themselves. He was not talking about secularism but the safeguard of minority rights; as he had said I'll constitute myself the protector-general for minority. (The pact was signed in 1950)