Category: Democracy

  • Fandom and Pakistani Politics

    Syed Sharfuddin Fandom is a social identity theory that relies on a set of ideas used by social psychologists and anthropologists to understand how people behave in like-minded groups. Fandom shares many features with tribalism without its harmful effects. It gives people a sense of belonging and space to share their ideas freely without the […]

  • Pakistan: Time for a Timeout

    Syed Sharfuddin Nations are like human beings. They live, breath and develop. They also have their health scorecards. Sometimes they are low on energy, high on tempers and traumatised by shocking events in their history. At the end of the Ottoman empire a weak and truncated Turkey was known as the sick man of Europe. […]

  • The Season of Dark Politics

    The Season of Dark Politics

    *Syed Sharfuddin As we enter the season of short daylight hours and long dark nights, it is not the smell of the crisp roasted nuts that is on our mind but the hot political landscape that seems to have transformed a small fireplace into a bonfire that threatens to burn our stables and homes. This […]

  • Celebrating Pakistan’s Independence Day 2022

    Syed Sharfuddin* Every year on the 14th of August Pakistanis all over the world celebrate their country’s independence with hamd e Baari Taala and riwayati josh o jazbah (thanksgiving and fanfare). This year on 14 August 2022, 225 million people will celebrate the Independence Day of Pakistan in many ways, recalling the events of the […]

  • Interpreting Article 63-A of Pakistan Constitution on the Disputed Result of the Punjab CM Election and various Supreme Court Judgements of 2022.

    Syed Sharfuddin* Guess what is the most important point of tomorrow’s session of the Supreme Court (SC) (25/7/22) in consideration of petition No 22/22 dated 22 July 2022 – case of Ch Pervez Elahi vs Deputy Speaker of Punjab Assembly. The 3-member bench of the SC will consider whether under Article 63-A of the Pakistan […]

  • A New Perspective on the System of Governance in Pakistan

    [While the debate for a presidential system of government has revived in Pakistan in 2022, the author proposes a new governance structure for the country, including the military’s representation in Parliament.] Syed Sharfuddin A discussion on replacing the current parliamentary form of government with a presidential form is doing rounds in the recent conversation of […]

  • Unity of Church and State: The Islamic Political Model

    Syed Sharfuddin As the philosophical and political discourse of the past century has been dominated by western ideas about state politics and popular culture, no one in the Islamic world is unfamiliar with the theory that the unity of a nation-state, which is itself a legacy of the west’s two world wars, can only be […]

  • Pakistan’s Limited Opportunities in Afghanistan

    Syed Sharfuddin* A lot has been written about the strategic milestones in the history of Pakistan concerning the events of 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971, 1988, 1999 and 2019 involving the disputed status of Indian occupied Kashmir and relations with the US, China, India and Afghanistan. Some say that there were many lost opportunities in these […]

  • TLP protests and the power of state

    Syed Sharfuddin The past few days in the politics of Pakistan have been reminiscent of the sunset days of the PML-N era when suddenly a small interest group best classified as a non state actor held the government on tenterhooks leaving it undecided whether to use coercive means to end the widespread public protests or […]

  • The Vaccine Debate

    Syed Sharfuddin We live in interesting times. In our youth it was just the fear of smallpox, polio, BCG, malaria, meningitis and whooping cough that reluctantly made us visit the doctor. Then came the attack from a whole family of RNA viruses comprising flavi or dengue virus, yellow fever virus, zika virus, alpha coronaviruses, beta […]

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