Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, women warriors for peace and a viral Punjabi music video

Posted on April 7, 2019 by beenasarwar
Asma-Bushra-wall

A poetic dialogue between two neighbours separated by an insurmountable wall goes viral. Pictured here: Asma Abbas and Bushra Ansari, performing their sister Neelum Bashir’s poem.

There’s been so much going on that I haven’t shared any updates here for a while. On Tuesday 11 Feb., Bilawal Bhutto Zardari gave a talk on Pakistan and the Welfare State at Harvard that I reported on: “We can’t say we’re too poor to look after our people”, published in The News on Sunday, 17 Feb.  I was going to post it with an important paragraph that got left out of my report when I cut it down, but the Pulwama attack of 14 Feb overshadowed everything. I’ll share it at some point. Continue reading →

Filed under: Art and activism, Freedom of expression, Human rights, Music, Pakistan-India, Peace, Progressive politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Asma Jahangir: A meaningful life, an inspiring legacy

Posted on February 11, 2019 by beenasarwar

I wrote this piece for a web dossier produced by Heinrich Boell Foundation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights‘ 70th anniversary 2018 – Asma Jahangir – ein bedeutungsvolles Leben, ein inspirierendes Erbe. Sharing now, a year after Asma Jahangir has passed on. This piece doesn’t include her role for peace in the region and in the UN system that I’ve written about earlier and also detailed in a longer essay to be printed in an anthology titled Voices of Freedom from Asia and the Middle East, co-edited by Mark Dennis and Rima Abunasser, TCU, is under publication by SUNY Press. Above: Asma Jahangir at her office; still from my documentary Mukhtiar Mai: The struggle for justice (2006)

By Beena Sarwar

The field on the outskirts of Lahore was full of workers waiting to hear the woman from the city speak. They squatted on their haunches with dull hopeless eyes, the drab greys and browns of their clothes at one with the earth they fashioned into bricks to bake in bhattas — kilns that dot the rural landscape of Punjab and upper Sindh. For their back-breaking labour they were paid in kind, leading to generations of indebtedness as the traditional informal economy transitioned into a cash-based system.

Brick kiln-Shehryar Warraich:News Lens-2015

Brick kiln workers, Pakistan. Photo: Shehryar Warraich/News Lens, 2015

Continue reading →

Filed under: Freedom of expression, Gender, History, Human rights, Pakistan, Violence in the name of religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

A space of one’s own

Posted on January 17, 2019 by beenasarwar

“Your walks are such a contrast to the events in Gujranwala in response to the women’s marathon,” wrote Saneeya Hussain in response to my Personal Political column published in The News on Sunday on 3 April 2005. “I keep thinking Pakistan shd change its name to Absurdistan or some such thing”. (Remember the women’s marathon?)

Since the article is not available on the web anymore I thought I’d post it here. The photo is more recent but since I wrote this piece in 2005, what has changed and what remains the same? 

Seaview beach, early morning. Photo: Beena Sarwar, 2016

Continue reading →

Filed under: Freedom of expression, Gender, Human rights, Personal, Saneeya Hussain Trust | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Modern day slavery: Janitorial workers in Pakistan

Posted on January 12, 2019 by beenasarwar

Email from Naeem Sadiq in Karachi, with this note: Modern-day- slavery (You may like to write to CM Sindh on this issue)

January 11, 2019

Mr. Imran Khan, 

Prime Minister of Pakistan

Abolish the cruelest form of modern-day- slavery, child labour and exploitation being practiced at Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC), Karachi.

1.     I would like to bring to your notice some specific details of the cruelty, slavery, child-labour and inhuman exploitation. Continue reading →

Filed under: Human rights | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Arundhati Roy’s letter to her jailed comrade Shahidul Alam, who has now been granted bail

Posted on November 15, 2018 by beenasarwar

Arundhati-By Shahidul

Arundhati Roy with a furry friend. Photo by Shahidul Alam.

Read Arundhati Roy’s letter to Shahidul Alam as part of PEN International’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer, 15 November. Today the Dhaka High Court also finally granted bail to Shahidul Alam, been incarcerated for over 100 days. He has yet to be actually released — the government is appealing the court’s decision.

Every November 15 PEN highlights the cases of five persecuted writers and activists imprisoned, killed, persecuted or otherwise at risk for their work. This year’s campaign focuses on Dawit Isaak imprisoned in Eritrea, Miroslava Breach Velducea killed in Mexico, Oleg Sentsov imprisoned in Russia, Shahidul Alam detained in Bangladesh and Wael Abbas imprisoned in Egypt. Writers David Lagercrantz, Jennifer Clement, Tom Stoppard, Salil Tripathi and Khaled Hosseini are also participating in this year’s campaign. Continue reading →

Filed under: Human rights | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Honouring Asma Jahangir’s legacy

Posted on October 15, 2018 by beenasarwar

My piece on several memorial meetings held for the late Asma Jahangir in New York and Boston over the past couple of weeks. Published simultaneously in The News on Sunday and The Wire, 8 Oct 2018

AJ-Asia Society panel.png

Lyse Doucet moderating the panel at Asia Society. Screen grab from video.

Honouring Asma Jahangir’s legacy

Beena Sarwar

At a time when universal fundamental human rights values are under attack from fascist forces everywhere, an enduring lesson from Asma Jahangir remains: do your homework, stand your ground, and carry on. Continue reading →

Filed under: Blasphemy Laws, Human rights | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Solidarity with pro-democracy activists #India #Bangladesh #SouthAsia #FreeShahidul

Posted on August 30, 2018 by beenasarwar

“…In a coordinated operation… several well known academics, lawyers, writers, poets, priests and journalists have been arrested and their homes raided by the police”… 
(Note, 31 August 2018: added video below)
India arrests-threat

This extract from a statement titled ‘Fascism at our doorstep‘ by Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) against the ongoing raids in India against democracy and rights activists applies elsewhere too. So do the words of Prof. Badri Raina in Delhi who writes in The Wire, “the grave fault of the human rights activists who have just been arrested is that they share knowledge of the provisions of the constitution of India with Indian citizens who, despite seven decades of practicing democracy, have remained disenfranchised from the promises of constitutional democracy”.

Below, an update from friends of Shahidul Alam, the detained photojournalist languishing in prison in Dhaka about whom I’ve written before. He is still denied the legal procedures and rights that he has fought for all his life. This is not a time to be silent.

Continue reading →

Filed under: enforced disappearances, fascism, Freedom of expression, Human rights | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy among writers, artists urging Bangladesh #FreeShahidul

Posted on August 8, 2018 by beenasarwar

FreeShahidul

Academics, writers, artists and journalists around the world , including Noam Chomsky, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Patrick Farrell, celebrated writers Arundhati Roy and Bapsi Sidhwa, artist and daughter of poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz Salima Hashmi, historian Ayesha Jalal, Urvashi Butalia, and others from Harvard to UC San Diego, have urged the Bangladesh government to free the detained photojournalist Shahidul Alam, picked up on 5 August — see statement and endorsements below. See also eminent photographer Raghu Rai’s powerful open letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. and the Change.org petition urging Dhaka police to drop charges and release him.

Shahidul Alam’s detention underlines the growing crackdown on dissenting voices in Bangladesh, in a pattern that is visible elsewhere too. The court denied him bail and gave the  police a seven-day remand. This was subsequently reduced and the court ordered that Shahidul be sent to a hospital and given an immediate medical exam and treatment. However, at the time of writing (Aug 7), he is still at the Detective Branch and has not been moved to hospital. (UPDATE Aug 8: He was moved to hospital amid tight security and a few medical tests conducted. His family was allowed to visit him before he was taken back to the DB Special Branch centre).
Continue reading →

Filed under: Human rights, journalism, Southasia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Howard Zinn’s July 4th Wisdom

Posted on July 5, 2018 by beenasarwar
HowardZinn-People's History

  

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

From progressive.org, forwarded by Isa Daudpota. So relevant not just to USA and the time it was written, but today and elsewhere too.

Howard Zinn’s July 4th Wisdom

4-5 min read

Editor’s Note: The late historian and Progressive columnist Howard Zinn shared these words with us back in 2006.  His message is still just as compelling  A World War II bombardier, Zinn was the author of the best-selling book A People’s History of the United States.

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism—that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder—one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking—cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on— have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Education, fascism, History, Human rights, Violence in the name of religion | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Youth-led, social media-powered movement in Pakistan gains ground – despite media blackout

Posted on May 8, 2018 by beenasarwar

Woman at a PTM rally clutch photos of missing loved ones. Photo: courtesy Taqra Qabaili Khwenday (brave tribal sisters) via Amna Durrani

When Scroll asked me to write something on the Pashtun movement sweeping through Pakistan, I thought it would be an easy assignment because I’ve been following the issue. But writing this piece was much more difficult and took a lot longer than I expected. Here’s my piece contextualising the issue trying to explain to a non-initiated audience what this is all about, published in Scroll on May 6, 2018 under the head: FIGHTING CENSORSHIP. 

In Pakistan, a youth-led, social media-powered movement is gaining ground – despite a media blackout

The revolution will not be televised in Pakistan. Unless it has the blessings of the powers-that-be. This has been proved time and again in the past, under a system ruled directly by the military for more than half the country’s 71-year history. The current censorship may be the worst-ever. Continue reading →

Filed under: democratic political process, Human rights, Peace, Progressive politics | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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