.

January 28th, 2008 Source: Dawn Op-Ed by Shahzad Roy When I was 10 years old, I saw on the nine o'clock news on PTV a woman with a dupatta draped round her head saying, "Pakistan tareekh kay aik naazuk mor say guzar raha hai." Then I turned 20 and again saw a woman, this time not wearing a dupatta on her head, saying with eloquence on the nine o'clock news, "Pakistan tareekh kay aik naazuk mor say guzar raha hai". Déjà vu… why? I tried to analyse the situation to find out how come Pakistan is still stuck at the naazuk mor even after the passage of many long years. I reached the conclusion that 50 per cent of our knowledge lies in asking the right question. Government functionaries, intelligentsia, armed forces, critics, human rights activists and, for that matter, all stakeholders ask questions. But they end up slinging mud at each other, for the simple reason that the questions they ask are never right in the first place. The question usually asked is:...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Every night around 8 o'clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan's most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading. Hundreds gathered Jan. 11 in Swat to watch drug dealers punished. The Taliban also have made it a crime to shave a beard. Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed "un-Islamic" activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill. "They control everything through the radio," said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. ...