Starting the week

Where do we see the markets go from here? Well I for one think that despite the plunging price of crude oil we are seeing an ongoing recovery. It’s always puzzled me that just how quickly the world has forgotten the Credit Crunch of 07-09 and that any recovery (from what was at the time the end of the financial system) was going to be a decade long.

We are living in a new Imperial Age when the most exciting electoral prospect are Bush vs. Clinton (which Obama was only barely able to budge by 8years). At the end of the day the Central Banks are still continuing with the stimulus plans (especially in the Eurozone and GBP area where the Euro continues to weaken against the USD maybe all the way to parity?)

Other than that where do I actually see oil go? I think we may see it plunge down to $30 even before recovering to the $40-50 format. The commodity story isn’t going to go anywhere and with the plunging price of solar power.

The chart below shows the price of energy sources since the late 1940s. The extreme outlier, of course, is solar, which only recently became an expensive blip in the energy marketplace. It will soon undercut even the cheapest fossil fuels in many regions of the planet, including poorer nations where billion-dollar coal plants aren’t always practical. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-29/while-you-were-getting-worked-up-over-oil-prices-this-just-happened-to-solar.html

Source: EIA, CIA, World Bank, Bernstein analysis
As he did with oil & gas reserve once again Allah smiles on the Ummah as making it among the sunniest places on earth (of course there are elaborate geopolitical explanations on why that is the case but let’s stick with the religious one for now as Muslims needs all the manna they can get atm).

It seems that the world is going to enter a new systemic bull cycle, low oil prices are going to compete with dropping solar energy prices to industrialise the Rest of the world.

Whose fault is it?

This sentiment emerged in conversation with a fellow Pakistani where I said “it’s not the fault of Pakistan, it’s the fault of Pakistanis.”

I’ve moved on with my life and live a fairly acculturated integrated life in blighty (where I think about rocks and climbing a bit too much for my own good). Even so I’m more interested in the pink pages of the FT than the broadsheets of the Daily Telegraph. However I have to see that we are simply seeing a meltdown in the Ummah.

Does it affect me personally? Not especially since I’m ensconced in the West and the only real connections I have to Islam are my surname, my descent from Hazrat Ali & the fact that the Baha’i Faith find it’s ultimately origins in the Shakyh sect.

However I feel pity and sad that the mental shackles of the people of the Ummah blind them to the message of unity and peace that the rest of the world has already embraced (to varying degrees). It is the responsibility of Muslims in the West (who like all Diasporas eventually have outsized roles of influences) to really lead the drive to modernize tradition.

When children are being picked off in schools, when journalist offices are shot down with impunity and now the ongoing hostage crisis in Paris emerging it seems that things are only getting worse and worse. Maybe I am too idealistic, perhaps I should take off my rose-tinted glasses from time to time (but experience has taught me life has so much to do with perspective) and it is too late for the gradual ongoing cultural exercises I used to embark on a couple of years ago.

The BritPak community needs to cultivate home-grown, authentic leaders who can bridge the gulf between civilisations. I don’t know who this cadre is but someone has to issue the call and it has to be a broad-based ecumenical effort. I’m on the UKIP-Tory spectrum because I believe in Britain & British values are resilient & adaptable enough for a modern world. However I always take heed in John Major’s mangled Orwellian quote:

Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, ‘Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist’ and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read even in school.


Those who believe in the above are always welcome to join Britain and the British enterprise.

    markets today. 09.01.15

    Main news items for today being that Greek debt is set to
    rise in the wake of the expected election in late Jan. If oil breaches $40 per
    barrel than all bets are off. Also important to see the last oil crash in 07-08
    where oil dipped a $100 in 6months and then recovered over the next 2years back
    to 70% of boom levels.
    Yesterday was a broad and strong rally throughout the
    markets we have retooled our portfolio to become coupon-heavy however we have
    taken very strong African risk (adding to our position) and at the same time
    taking advantage of the turnaround ongoing at Tescos (shares rallied 15%).
    Non-farm payrolls set to emerge today would provide the tone to the US recovery
    while the EU is currently weighing active stimulus programs in the form of bond
    purchase.
    Other news is the precipitous decline in EURUSD it may even
    reach parity. EURO against other assets has really held up but the eventuality
    is that with the Eurozone considering quantitative easing & the US talking
    about the tenor of the recovery, divergence is expected. Finally of interest is
    Santander’s big announcement about slashing dividends, which is the right way
    to conserve cash even though it disclaimed any interest in Banca Montei Paschi
    (consolidation in Euro-financial sector ongoing).
    Bonus on OIL THOUGHTS:

    Are we going to see a similar type of pattern where the
    long-term structural trend is cheap energy (despite the plethora of oil
    suppliers, Saudi Arabia is home to 80% of proven oil reserves and as Oil
    Minister Naimi mentioned is more interested in keeping a sustainable market
    while weeding out unsustainable producers, conveniently those like Russo-Iran
    etc, goodbye Scottish independence?)

    Understanding the power of religion

    RUSSELL: When I look back on my own career and the history of British and American diplomacy, one of our biggest mistakes has been to underestimate religion’s huge galvanizing power. We should not try to reduce religion to politics and economics and assume that people are doing things for reasons we immediately understand. We tend to think that fundamentalists will compromise, because they want more power. But some people don’t want power: They want to go to heaven! We underestimate the sincerity of their beliefs, and for that reason we underestimate the threat they can pose to the kinds of societies we might want to see.

    Inside the Middle East’s vanishing ancient religions (http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/11/16/inside-middle-east-vanishing-ancient-religions/AGZ4PsXJ4zQStdn7mfVg5O/story.html)

    The interviewee has just had an article up in the FT (a long, harmonious history that Islamists deny), which I’m not able to link to at the moment. 
    However I’m also copying a snapshot, who knows maybe tolerance will one day flourish in the Ummah as it once did.

    Power of the Monarchy

    If Baby Prince George has a daughter then potentially we could see British history repeating itself uniquely in one single family (the Windsors)

    Victoria – longest reigning monarch (Hanoverian)
    Edward VII – her son 10yr reign
    George V – his soon 20yr reign
    George VI – 15yr
    Elizabeth II – potentially longest reign monarch
    Charles III – say around 10yrs
    William IX – 15yr
    Baby George –
    First child of Baby George (either boy or girl will ascend to the throne regardless

    A hectic holiday season

    I trust everyone had a good holiday season. December happens to be a particularly hectic month for me as the exact first half is my birthday, followed my parent’s wedding anniversary then the Iranian Christmas of Yalda and then the traditional Holiday Season.

    It’s interesting that Christmas has a remarkable effect in the UK of strengthening the national culture. It is almost mandatory catch-up with relatives time (I believe Thanksgiving has more of that role in the US). 
    Other than that my friend Rahul M has a new post up on his blog on David Beckham’s latest drink Haig:
    A whisky brought to you by David Beckham and Simon Fuller working along side Diageo present Haig Club. Although I don’t quite know how that works since David Beckham doesn’t actually drink. Well putting that to one side for the moment, Haig Club is a sweet single grain Scotch whisky that comes from Camorenbridge Distillery the oldest grain distillery in Scotland. This whisky is certainly different, not only because of its unique taste but because of its main market.

    Pakistan: Litfests and Bookfairs – Two Worlds? by Ajmal Kamal

    The following is a note from Ajmal Kamal (who edits the Urdu literary magazine Aaj, runs City Press in Karachi, and is an institution in his own right). Comments welcome. My own first thought (reflective of my current obsessions) is at the end of this note…

    If you have attended this year the two events that mark the pinnacle of Karachi’s book culture – the Karachi Literature Festival and the Karachi International Book Fair – you may have noticed that these two well-attended public events are not looking at each other at all. In fact, the situation may seem to mirror the split in our country’s social fabric that is becoming more brutally evident by the day.
    The KLF enthusiastically promotes books and authors from Pakistan that link the national literary activity with the international book trade scene, a la the pioneering Jaipur Literature Festival on the other side of the border. Both the KLF and JLF are commonly criticized for the fact that they are rather unfairly tilted towards the desi literature produced in English at the cost of the literature of ‘local’ languages. To be fair, KLF, being sensitive to the accusation of being elitist, has strived to give a gradually increasing exposure to Urdu literature, even if the languages relegated to ‘regional’ status – Sindhi, Punjabi, Saraiki, Balochi and Pushto – still get only a token representation. However, the primary concern of such events remains the English language writing.
    Similar is the case, for example, of the weekly review magazine Books and Authors, brought out by the prime national English daily Dawn. Till some time ago, it reserved two pages exclusively for reviewing local language publications (including, mainly, Urdu books); now one of the two pages has been taken away as the weekly column by Intizar Husain has been shifted from the main newspaper to the B&A.
    The Book Fair, on the other hand – despite the prefix ‘international’ with its name – may be taken to present a more realistic picture of what is actually going on in the national market of reading material. Provided, of course, someone bothers to look and ponder.  The fair is an annual event organized by the country’s publishers and booksellers, driven by their legitimate commercial interest. Anyone visiting the fair at Expo Centre on the University Road can notice one basic fact: Urdu books promoting a delusional political ideology – flaunting an unmistakably religious-sectarian colour – dominate the printed material displayed, bought and sold here. As for the ‘regional’ languages, they are conspicuous by their near absence at the fair – they seem to have little market, maybe because they have failed to become efficient vehicles for the seemingly dominant ideology mentioned above. But that is just a guess.
    We, the common consumers of reading material, have little option except to make guesses. Because our infinitely creative writers represented and privileged in the events like the literature festivals  – using English, Urdu or any other language – appear to be as clueless as their readers about this intriguing phenomenon, aptly named ‘English-Urdu Bipolarity  Syndrome in Pakistan’ by C. M. Naim, Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago. (http://cmnaim.com/2014/12/englishurdu-bipolarity-syndrome-in-pakistan/)

    Incidentally, it was Prof. Naim who wrote an enlightening piece (‘Mothers of the Lashkar’, included in his book A Killing in Ferozewala: Essays/Polemics/Reviews; 2013, Karachi, City Press) about a book called Ham Ma’en Lashkar-e Taiba ki (We, the Mothers of the Lashkar-e Taiba). The three-volume Urdu book was brought out by Dar-ul Andulus, Lahore, presumably the publications wing of the jihadi outfit; many portions of this book also appeared in the Lashkar’s journal called Mujalla Al-Da’wa. Containing accounts of the young men (narrated by their mothers) who sacrificed their lives in the Qital fi sabeelillah, several editions of the three volumes (each printing consisting of 1100 copies) came out between 1998 and 2003 and reached their enthusiastic buyers.
    How many of the established and upcoming writers – custodians of literature in Pakistan – have cared to know about this and – trust me, countless – other such publications? How many have dared to make sense of what is going on outside their ivory towers for the benefit of their readers or listeners at the well-attended festivals? Hardly anyone. I think they prefer to ignore the whole damn thing.
    Ignorance, as they say, is a choice.
    Be that as it may, the fact is that, even before the true stories of the jihadi martyrs and their proud mothers came out and were read with interest, literature with this kind of worldview has been attracting a large number of writers ever since the printing press was introduced in the northern Subcontinent. It has consistently increased and influenced its readership among the literate adults and minors in our country. What seems entirely logical is that, hand in hand with the much talked about school and college textbooks, it has managed to define and shape the way an average Pakistani Urdu reader looks at the world around him.
    One can make a list of names by visiting any big bookshop in Karachi’s Urdu Bazar, or even a roadside newspaper stand in the Saddar area. Names made prominent by the numerous editions of their books picked up by their fans. Nasim Hijazi, Tariq Ismail Saagar, Inayatullah (of the BRB Behti Rahe Gi fame), Ishfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia, Mohammad Ilyas, Umaira Ahmed – the list cannot hope to be exhaustive. What do their books say to their readers? Let me make an awkward attempt at summarizing the worldview that they sincerely believe in, inculcate and promote. Here goes.
    Muslims came to the Subcontinent (from Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Andalusia, the Balkans, wherever) to spread Islam in this infidel region and rule here. They (we) ruled Hindustan for a glorious thousand years, after which – because we had become deficient in our religious piety and jihad – we were thrown out of power by the imperialist British. When it was time for the White colonialists to return the lost thrown to us, the wicked non-Muslims (comprising more than 75 percent in the subcontinent, mind it) tried to impose democratic politics to keep us Muslims – born to dominate the world in the name of Allah – deprived of our right to rule India permanently. We defeated them by dividing India and making Pakistan – the fortress of Islam – from where we’ll carry on the jihad to rule not only the entire South Asia but also Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond. Meanwhile, the foreign enemies (others) are conspiring – with connivance of the enemies inside us (internal others such as our religious and sectarian minorities and their misguided sympathizers) – to defeat our sacred struggle. But we’ll continue to make ourselves (and our women, especially) religiously purer, stronger in faith and sensitive to the conspiracies around us. Once we overcome our enemies, after killing them in large numbers and sacrificing many of our own, we will impose the will of Allah on our land and beyond.
    Mad dream? Maybe. But this is what is reflected in our national goals and policies, not to mention our textbooks, quite matter-of-factly. And our popular literature. Take Ishtiaq Ahmed, for example. He is the celebrated author of hundreds of novels for our Urdu-reading adolescents. This may be news to some that the last page of his typical novel is reserved for creating ‘awareness’ among its young readers about the existential threat the non-Muslim citizens of our country – Christians, Hindus, Shias and Ahmadis (‘Qadianis’) – pose to our religious-nationalist cause.
    Our creative writers have as much right as we, their readers, do to be surprised at the direction our country’s politics has taken, and to mourn the fact that their sincere voice of sanity has been reduced to look like a lunatic fringe in today’s Pakistan. This is precisely what they – and their readers – look like from the opposite angle. Our writers have, collectively, failed to challenge what has now developed into our national narrative, and in turn, have been reduced to an ineffective minority voice.
    What is even worse, we find echoes of support in our literature – especially Urdu literature – for parts of this dangerous narrative. After all, this mad dream was sold, in the first place, to popular writers – and our political and military leaders – by this very elite class that prides itself at being our intelligentsia. The idea that Muslims came to India from some foreign land, purposefully promoted by our cultural leaders, created an attitude of looking with contempt at everything that was local: literary forms and critical standards, cultural norms, festivals, modes of being, and, above all, languages.
    The drift of the established literary criticism, for instance, has been to advise the creative writer to avoid the local and the ordinary, and focus on the so-called universal and international, which would get him a place in the sun. Lately, the dastan fiction has received a lot of uncritical admiration – even glorification –despite the fact that the dastan narrative typically revolves around Muslim conquests of infidel lands, massacre and forced conversion of non-Muslims, and the deft use of the converted Muslims against the infidels as killers, spies and terrorists. Let’s not mention the sickening misogyny of the dastanshere. All this campaign to glorify dastans bypasses the fact that this kind of worldview has provided meat to, for example, Nasim Hijazi’s novels that have, in turn, been a great inspiration (besides Allama Iqbal) for characters like Zaid Hamid who can be seen promoting Ghazwa-e Hind and worse on Pakistani TV channels.
    Even in the Muslim journalism and politics in the Subcontinent, imported issues were actively promoted to suppress the real issues of real people here. I’d mention just one example: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) started to publish his weekly Al-Hilal from Calcutta in 1912, using the state-of-the-art printing technology of those days, to make people aware of the wars in the Balkans and North Africa that the dying Muslim imperial power – the Ottoman Empire – was fighting and losing. Let alone Calcutta and Bengal, even the entire colonized India found no mention in the celebrated magazine except as a bastion of support for the Muslim conquerors of European and African lands! (The weeklyZamindar of Lahore followed the same line.) This ‘media campaign’ later resulted in the huge Khilafat Movement (1919-1922) just before Turkey itself decided to formally end the Ottoman Empire. However, the energy generated among Muslims by the movement was duly channelized during the next two decades in favour of the Partition of the Subcontinent and the establishment of Pakistan – which, as you know, would one day re-conquer India, fly the green flag on Delhi’s Red Fort, and, God-willing, rule the world.
    As for languages, Persian was considered the symbol of Muslim culture in the Subcontinent until the British colonialists replaced it, during 1860s, with English at higher levels of education and administration and with local vernaculars at the lower levels. The Muslim elites did not hesitate before abandoning Persian and adopting English, within a space of merely two generations. Even Urdu was ‘created’ out of its local origin – Hindi – to look like an imported language with its Perso-Arabic script, a profusion of Persian and Arabic expressions, and an active campaign to ‘exclude’ – declaring matrook – a large number of local words and expressions. Then this specially crafted Urdu was handed over to the lower classes to keep alive and teach their children in, making them less employable in the process. Meanwhile, you can come across any number of people from this elite or even nouveau riche class who would gladly inform you that their children can neither speak nor read Urdu (let alone Punjabi, Sindhi and other local languages). So, the only language they can use now is English in which, no doubt, they can talk to their ilk, but it is equally certain that they can neither talk to those common people of Pakistan who have been made hostage to the mad dream, nor understand the starry-eyed lunatic fringe that has come to dominate the mainstream of our culture and politics.
    They can, however, express their shock – mostly in English – at the proliferation of madrassas and horrendous terrorist crimes against modern schools, their teachers and students, and citizens of this country. Nobody in his right mind expects our writers to come up with a ‘counter-narrative’ – since they have not only ignored the development of the dominant narrative but have been ambivalent about – even supportive to –parts of the mad dream that has come to obsess us.
    Comment (from Omar Ali): Outstanding! 
    I think it is worth noting that this “mainstream narrative” is not (or was not) mainstream in the sense of “common current thought of the majority”. The majority of the population in Punjab, Sindh etc lives (or lived until very recently) in a very different universe. But a section of the relatively narrow Indian Muslim elite had a certain notion of themselves as the descendants of the Turko-Afghan ruling class. Within this (frequently illusory ) notion were embedded other ideas of intrinsic superiority and Islamic solidarity. These notions interacted with (or led to) events like the Khilafat movement and the rise of Allama Iqbal style delusions about the Muslim Ummah and it’s historic role and destiny on the one hand, and the rise of Hindu identity politics on the other, to create the idea of Pakistan. This in turn got enmeshed in the political twists and turns of the Muslim League and it’s supremely egotistical “great leader” and somehow we stumbled into Pakistan. 
    What that all means and where it should go is not fully settled even now, but in West Pakistan at least, the ruling elite promoted (or acquisced in) this “Delhi Sultanate as our charter state” narrative fairly early, and it is now the narrative that rules the textbooks and the official “Paknationalist” ideological current. At the same time, highly Westernized sections of this already narrow elite have also acquired new Western concepts (post-Marxist Western “Left”, Postmodernism, Postcolonial theory, etc) that are completely disconnected from this whole shebang but sit on top of it in a weird (and often surreal) dysequilibrium. It is this Eurocentric section that mostly runs the book festivals. It is the larger (but also relatively recent) Paknationalist current that dominates the textbooks and the world of popular Urdu writing, and then there is the even larger majority of ordinary western Indian (as in people of the Western parts of India) peasants and tribal people who are only now assimilating this historical and cultural framework into their daily life and in whom it may be skin deep, but (thanks to modern factory education and media) is Pakistan-wide. 
    And let us not forget another VERY tiny but previously influential section: the “traditional” Urdu literati, some of whom created or nurtured the Delhi-Sultanate narrative while others enthusiastically adopted the last Western import to become popular among newly Western educated Afro-Asian elites (i.e. “classical” Marxism); but all of whom were also based within a Persian-literate (and Arabic literate for that matter) classical Hindustani elite culture whose intellectual world may have had some role in the creation of Pakistaniat but who are so far from it’s current popular and/or military manifestations that the connection no longer evokes strong loyalty from either party. Their sad tale of decay and woe is a sub-genre all it’s own. 
    Interesting times.  


    To see what this moronic narrative looks like, here is Pakistan’s premier TV channel (GEO) , Mashallah, shameless morons 






    Once Again Invitation To Sectarian Violence In… by ak472522

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    Waiting in Bethlehem

    Turning and turning in
    the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear
    the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the
    centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed
    upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide
    is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of
    innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all
    conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate
    intensity.
                                                                       W.B. Yeats, The Second
    Coming (1919)
    Yeats wrote his great poem almost a century ago in the
    aftermath of the most calamitous war Europe had ever seen, but it could have
    been written for today’s Pakistan. The blood-dimmed tide is indeed loose, the
    best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity. But
    after the tragedy in Peshawar on December 16, there is a change in the
    atmosphere. Convictions – or at least expressions of conviction – are stronger,
    and the intensity more widespread. As if woken from a slumber of years, people
    all over the country, who had been waiting for God to change things, are
    rubbing their eyes and questioning their assumptions. It is the kind of moment
    where great changes can indeed happen. But we know that the moment will pass –
    is already passing – and the tide that needs to be taken at the flood will soon
    begin to recede. What Pakistan needs today is real leadership that can
    fundamentally alter the course of this society. Who can provide that
    leadership?
    The traditional – one could easily say “hereditary” –
    political class of the country is so devoid of vision and so complicit in the
    status quo that any expectation of radical change from it is futile. At best,
    it may offer incremental improvement if it can be induced to look up from its
    narrow interests. Realizing this, many people are now looking to the military
    to provide leadership, but it can only do so in certain areas. It is the ideal
    instrument for waging actual war on the terrorists who attack the state, and by
    all accounts, it is doing so with great energy. The current top military
    leadership – ultimately inscrutable as always – seems to be exceptionally focused,
    sensible and professional. But the real change that is needed in Pakistan is
    societal change – a change of mindset, attitudes and values – and militaries
    are incapable by their nature of leading such a change. Societies where social
    organization has been handed over to militaries have always become repressive, violent,
    misogynistic and paranoid. The culture of unquestioning obedience and
    hypervigilance that enables an army to fight successfully as a coherent force
    does not transfer to complex civilian society without squeezing out almost all that
    is valuable from it. Mercifully, the current military leadership in Pakistan
    seems to recognize its professional role, though the temptation to go beyond it
    must be great at this moment.
    Recently, a third force has arisen is Pakistan – the “New
    Pakistan” movement led by Imran Khan and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). In
    the aftermath of the Peshawar massacre, and given Imran Khan’s previous overtures
    towards the Taliban, this movement seems rather irrelevant now. Imran Khan
    implied as much when he called off his sit-in outside Parliament on December
    17. However, this did not have to be the case. Societal change requires, above
    all, changing the attitudes of the young and the educated middle classes. Those
    are exactly the segments where Imran Khan had – still has – the greatest
    following. It also requires commitment, and his followers are committed. As
    such, of all the potential leaders in Pakistan, Imran Khan was in the best
    position to actually lead the change that this moment demands. But, tragically,
    he has yet to show that he has the vision and character to do this. Everything
    he has said so far in the aftermath of the tragedy has struck even his
    followers as self-serving and weak. If social media and anecdotal evidence are
    to be believed, his movement is deflating rapidly, which is a pity – and I say
    this as a staunch opponent of the movement. For all its vices, it was – is – a real
    movement driven by commitment rather than self-interest, which is a rare thing
    in Pakistan. Its problems came mainly from the top, but the movement itself
    could be a great vehicle of social transformation if its energies were diverted
    from such petty things as shouting down politicians and harassing opponents to
    the greater cause of changing hearts and minds. I believe that the
    foot-soldiers of the movement are ready for that, but unfortunately, the
    leadership is not. Contrary to popular belief, I think that the tragedy in
    Peshawar could have been an opportunity rather than a setback for Imran Khan,
    but only if he had the character to admit his mistakes and change direction. So far, there is no evidence of that.
    A friend recently responded to some cynical comments by saying
    “It’s too early to be pessimistic.” Perhaps, but I think it is equally true to
    say that it’s too early to be optimistic. What will happen in Pakistan over the
    coming days, weeks and months is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the military will
    decide that the times are too critical for it to indulge the vacillations of
    civilian leadership, and take over. Or perhaps the current crop of politicians –
    Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan or others – will discover some hidden reserves of wisdom and resolve
    within themselves. Or – hope springing eternal – perhaps new young leaders will
    emerge from civil society to ignite the change. But perhaps none of these
    things will happen and Pakistan will continue on its current course after a time
    of mourning for all those young, heroic lives lost on December 16. If so, it
    may be a good idea to think upon the rest of Yeats’ poem:
        Surely some revelation is at hand;
        Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
        The Second Coming! Hardly are those words
    out
        When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
        Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
        A shape with lion body and the head of a
    man,
        A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
        Is moving its slow thighs, while all about
    it
        Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
        The darkness drops again but now I know
        That twenty centuries of stony sleep
        Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking
    cradle,
        And what rough beast, its hour come round
    at last,
        Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
    How ready are we for that rough beast?
    Brown Pundits