2014

All years and months

Banana skins, ice showers and amnesty

A personal ramble on eating frozen fruit, avoiding food waste and taking ice showers against London winters, ending with a view that deportations are too harsh but the West should…

Brown Pundits Archive12 December 20140 comments
A Gay Kiss in Madrid and a troll in Silicon Valley

Citing Noam Chomsky, the author argues that the internet’s illusion of freedom hides narrowly bounded debate, and that galloping inequality vindicates Marx on returns to capital, as capitalism, which he…

Brown Pundits Archive10 December 20140 comments
Tariq Ali on the Afghan Resistance

A satirical ‘press release’ written for Tariq Ali after a talk on the Afghan resistance, mocking leftist rhetoric by imagining him announcing a pre-revolutionary moment in Pakistan, with Islamist militias…

Brown Pundits Archive9 December 20140 comments
The Taliban REALLY Don’t Like Music

A link to a video of Taliban fighters and children in which the poster mocks the Taliban’s hostility to music, dubbing them the Pakhtoon resistance after Tariq Ali.

Brown Pundits Archive9 December 20140 comments
Was Nigel Farage right in blaming immigrants?

The author asks whether Nigel Farage was right to blame immigrants, argues the establishment has weakened Britain and that integration is not assimilation, and describes himself as a British Pakistani…

Brown Pundits Archive9 December 20140 comments
A Strategic Corporal in Faisalabad

The author argues that a gunman’s shot at a PTI crowd in Faisalabad, a ‘strategic corporal’ moment, may energise Imran Khan’s protest and set off outcomes ranging from military intervention…

Brown Pundits Archive8 December 20140 comments
Furious Confusions

The author replies to a PTI supporter, arguing Pakistanis have every right to be furious but should also blame themselves, and that Imran Khan embodies the fury without being a…

Brown Pundits Archive24 November 20140 comments
Burnt Offering: The Martyrdom of Shama and Shahzad Masih

An account of how a Christian brick-kiln couple were killed by a mob in a Punjab village after being accused of burning Qur’anic pages, drawing on a World Watch Monitor…

Brown Pundits Archive9 November 20140 comments
Islamicate civilization: It will get worse before it gets better…

Omar Ali writes about the suicide bombing near the Wagah border ceremony, the army’s boast of resilience and India’s suspension of its parade, and offers loose thoughts on Islamicate civilisation,…

Brown Pundits Archive4 November 20140 comments
The Tragedy of Imran Khan and the Insafian Revolution

The author argues Imran Khan once offered Pakistan its best chance of becoming a modern democracy but has squandered it through alliances with obscurantist forces, weakening democratic institutions while the…

Brown Pundits Archive4 November 20140 comments