Category Archives: Socio-political

Articles and opinions

Lalarukh Hussain: A rare woman

Lalarukh Hussain died of brain hemorrhage on Wednesday, March 20, 2013  in Los Angeles. She was “Lali” for those close to her. No one who met her can forget the eversmiling fresh face of hers.

She joined the left-wing National Students Federation in the late 1960s and participated in the movement against Gen. Ayub Khan’s military dictatorship. She was a high quality journalist and worked for several newspapers and magazines of Pakistan. In her journalistic career she became editor of a couple of magazines. She earned her degree in journalism from the University of Karachi in 1972.

She was active member of Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) and PFUJ. During the military dictatorship of Gen. Ziaul Haq in  1978 she was  in the forefront of the  historic movement of journalists for  press freedom spearheaded by PFUJ. She joined the hunger strike.  She, in a brave manner, courted arrest with her one year old child.

She participated in the struggle of factory workers, teachers  and women for their rights. Her life will always inspire those who  fight against dictatorship and tyranny for the peoples’ rights,  justice and democracy.

Role Of Media: John Pilger

Interview with John Pilger:

On the role of the media in rapacious wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.

” ….. Up till the arrival of the corporate press at the turn of the 20th century, newspapers were often fiercely independent and saw themselves as voices of ordinary people. The media – press and broadcasting – has long since become an extension of the established order, and frequently its mouthpiece and valet. ……”

For full version of the interview:  Click Full Interview

A new documentary on Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine by J. Pilger  Web Link: The War You Don’t See

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Facts and False Realities:Sociopolitical

A worth reading article that exposes how media mixes falsehood with reality to realize its hidden agenda.

About John Pilger:

John Richard Pilger (born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist and documentary

maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US.  Noam Chomsky said of Pilger: “John Pilger’s work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration.”

In Breaking the Silence: The Television Reporting of John Pilger, his appraisal of the journalist’s documentaries, Anthony Hayward wrote, “For more than a generation, he has been an ever stronger voice for those without a voice and a thorn in the side of authority, the Establishment. His work, particularly his television documentaries, has also made him rare in being a journalist who is universally known, a champion of those for whom he fights and the scourge of politicians and others whose actions he exposes.” (Wikipeadia)

Click for the Article:   Flying The Flag

A very popular Documentary,The War On Democracy‘ by John Pilger. Also available on www.youtube.com in parts.

Link to Documentary :  The War On Democracy

Monster In The Mirror: Sociopolitical

An article on last year’s Mumbai Attacks by Arundhati Royarundhati_roy_140x140

Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives, and has worked as a film designer, actor, and screenplay writer in India. A tenth anniversary edition of her novel, The God of Small Things (Random House), for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize, will be officially published within days (Already published ). She is also the author of numerous nonfiction titles, including An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire. This piece was published by Outlook India

Introducing a few lines:

 

We’ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching “India’s 9/11.” And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we’re expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it’s all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, U.S. Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that, if it didn’t act fast to arrest the “bad guys,” he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India’s 9/11.

But November isn’t September, 2008 isn’t 2001, Pakistan isn’t Afghanistan, and India isn’t America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It’s odd how, in the last week of November, thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India’s richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara — one of Kashmir’s most ravaged districts. ………………….

For complete article click,   The Monster In The Mirror ( 32 KB )

Thanks to  www.countercurrents.org

Literature

Urdu:

A story by Saadat Hasan Manto

Two or three years after Partition, the governments of Pakistan and India decided to exchange lunatics in the same way that they had exchanged civilian prisoners. In other words, Muslim lunatics in Indian madhouses would be sent to Pakistan, while Hindu and Sikh lunatics in Pakistani madhouses would be handed over to India.

I can’t say whether this decision made sense or not. In any event, a date for the lunatic exchange was fixed after high level conferences on both sides of the border…………

A classic poem in Punjabi by Amrita Paritam on partition in mp3 format.

History and Politics: Academics

“The United States is a Leading Terrorist State”,

Hugo Chavez on Imperialism, Terrorism, Revolution

By Noam Chomsky

By John Pilger A 1979 Documentary Video About Nicaragua

By Hamza Alvi

Viet Nam War

Che Guevara  VideosChe Guevara

Che Guevara 4:15 Minutes

Che Guevara Tribute 4:50 Minutes

Nathalie Cardone – Che Guevara 4:35 Minutes

Speech Against Imperialism 1965 1:20 Minutes