Afrah Jamal

First Published in Daily Times / (Pakistan) / 1 June 2013 Reproduced in The Kashmir Moniter Fans who have kept up with Robert Langdon, our favorite symbologist/iconologist on quests that take him to the Vatican, Paris or Washington, will willingly join the professor jogging through the picturesque streets of Florence. Even when he claims to have a sad case of amnesia, no way of telling the time (his signature time piece lost), and a wily assassin on his tail, he is a force of nature. It is a part he was born to play. And in Dan Brown’s murky universe, it is one he reprises at the first sign of an anagram. The author uses the sorry state of mankind as a launch pad to project his ominous design, decrypt a Renaissance painting and set a controversial debate in motion. His novel provides delicious historical context as it plumbs the depths of Dante’s tortured soul and his savage interpretation of hell, helpfully illustrated by Botticelli ( and available for viewing on iPad’s Da...

First Published in Daily Times / 31 Dec 2012 (Monday) By : Afrah Jamal Thank you to the folks interested in publishing this in Urdu Hapless polio teams are in the crosshair of extremists and people have come up with their own theories to explain the presence of health workers in the montage of violence. If a polio team does not reach any home, the residents can call a number and let them know. Many houses were left wondering about the fate of the drive this year after the three-day carnage that claimed nine lives, six of them women. A maulana on the media attributes the sudden spike in polio-related violence to government. More polio means more $$, he hisses confidentially. Twitter-sphere assigns the subsequent instability to the dreaded ‘deep state’. According to them, it can sacrifice anything and anyone on the altar of national interest or in this case — the lure of more dollars. Every ‘whodunit’ begins or ends with a deep state cameo. Apparently, their interference is ...

PUBLISHED IN THE POST JAN 05, 2007 Insinuations – by politicians and media pundits, are making global rounds. About election rigging, the opposition claims that a well known political leaders’ assassination came hours before she was about to uncover a spectacular result manipulation scheme hatched by none other than the government. About the incident itself, the existence of Baitulah Mehsud – a Taliban commander who likes beheading Pakistani soldiers, or the Al-Qaeda, fond of targeting odd interior ministers in mosques or rallies and attacking children’s buses, is disregarded in favour of the notion that none of them could possibly have a hand in the recent assassination. About the post-mortem, they allege that the medical report was cooked up. About the subsequent law and order breakdown, they maintain that no party loyalist could possibly have been involved in arson or looting and the sole beneficiary of the post assassination deterioration of law and order situation was a gover...

PUBLISHED IN THE POST JULY 11, 07 Is the primary threat to a sovereign state still its enemy’s military capability? Given that the world learnt the fine art of countering, deterring and neutralizing such physical threats and also became adept at threatening each another with weapons neither one can ever use, many will concede the next big challenge for national security is the emergent threat of extremism. The exact origin of extremism within a State is perhaps difficult to pinpoint and very hard to combat for it resides in the mind of the enemy and can take form anywhere, anytime with devastating consequences. Which is the reason vigilance now needs to be exercised as much inside the border as at them - vigilance and prompt action. Extremism feeds on the ignorance and frustration of the common man and instills a cold contempt for human life and property. It is a worrying sign in any circumstance. It becomes especially disturbing when its followers threaten to destabilize not j...

Published in Muslim World Today 14 Aug 09 On 1st August 2009, the illusion of inter-faith harmony was shattered in Gojra, Pakistan when a Muslim mob wreaked havoc on a Christian neighborhood. Lives were lost; property damaged, churches torched. The pretext, as always, was (unproven charges of) blasphemy. The magnitude of this attack and the subsequent notoriety forced the State, preoccupied with fending off a different, more sophisticated version of fanaticism, to finally confront an age old phenomenon - terrorism against minorities. If the timing of this incident is bad, the implication is far worse for a nation anxious to distance itself from the extreme brand of Taliban/Al-Qaeda philosophy, deeply engaged in a bloody battle to rid itself of this malaise. While the wave of violence sweeping through Pakistan indiscriminately claims lives, radicalism and sectarian violence have tainted the land for decades, which is why statements that claim otherwise must be challenged. Conside...