Recent Columns.
21 Feb 2024
Why Brené Brown’s Gospel of Vulnerability Fails the World’s Most Vulnerable
Rafia Zakaria on the CEO Whisperer’s Recent Failure in Addressing the Genocide in Gaza:
“Vulnerability is not weakness, it is our greatest measure of courage.” * “Stressed is being in the weeds, overwhelmed is being blown.” * “Disappointment is unmet expectations.” *
These are the sort of catchy aphorisms you will find in the pages of self-help guru and corporate leadership trainer Brené Brown’s most recent book...
7 Feb 2024
‘Liberal’ without gender equality
EVER SINCE Israel began its offensive in Gaza, Israeli propaganda has produced social media content that shows the female soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces as models of liberated womanhood. Photos of Israeli women parading with their weapons often on tanks and other military vehicles are proliferating as Israel wants to show how they fight side by side with the men.
5 Jan 2024
Is this it for humans?
IT has been estimated that 99.9 per cent of all species on our planet died out. One of the things that Charles Darwin said about human beings or Homo sapiens is that we are very much part of the natural world. This means that like all other species on the planet, Homo sapiens will one day also die out. At some point, our population will reach its peak and from there onwards, it will begin to fall. It just so happens that all those reading this article happen to be alive at a moment when humans may be about to reach their maximum numbers.
28 Dec 2023
I Never Belonged in Indiana
I grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, but have lived in Indiana for more than 20 years. I have gotten degrees and awards here; I have given birth here; I have fallen in love here and argued cases in court here. And yet I still struggle to reconcile the inner reality of my mind with the physical reality around my body.
15 Nov 2023
The underground arena
CONCERNS have grown further with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reaching the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. According to reports from those who are inside the hospital compound, armoured personnel vehicles or tanks have surrounded the premises and armed personnel were not permitting anyone out or into the medical facility.
More Columns.
2 December 2020
Desperate in Dubai | DAWN
A FEW months ago, The Guardian ran the story of a 30-year-old Pakistani man named Hassan, one of 99 Pakistanis who have been stranded in Dubai ever since the pandemic began in a largely abandoned labour camp on the outskirts of the city. They have no money and no way to return home. Lately, they have begun begging for...
25 November 2020
Visas of the future | DAWN
WE are in the darkness before dawn. There is hope: one, two and now three vaccine candidates have been found to be efficacious against the Covid-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world. Alas, the availability of the vaccine, close as it may be, has failed to curb the spread of the disease. Numbers are rising everywhere and the threat of new restrictions locally and globally is very real.