Thread by @ammaradurrani

A thread on some of my past work and recollections, as I follow with keen interest the court proceedings of A. Q. Khan's appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Had the privilege to write a chapter on Khan's fall from fame in a seminal volume edited by Prof. Itty Abraham. 1/

Dr. Itty Abraham led (2005-2009) a one-of-its kind academic project, assisted by my phenomenal friend @MaliniSur . The result was publication of "South Asian Cultures of the Bomb: Atomic Publics and the State in India and Pakistan" muse.jhu.edu/book/3857 2/

From Pakistan, Dr. Zia Mian led. A most excellent coming together of social scientists from #Pakistan and #India who dared to look at our respective nukes from a political economy, sociology, political, cultural and other non-traditional security prisms. 3/

My chapter "Pride and Proliferation: Pakistan's Nuclear Psyche after A. Q. Khan" 👇 looked at the issue from a media and public opinion lens 4/

books.google.com.pk/books?id=f_wEr…

On its Wikipedia page, daily Dawn (English) has cited my study, as it was one of the 2 major Pakistani newspapers I surveyed for my study, the other being the daily Jang (Urdu): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn_(new…

Here's a critical little review of my chapter😊: bit.ly/2zIUGfP 5/

In the early 1990s & 2000s, I was privileged to be a part of this active South Asian community of scholars and practitioners who brought a wealth of alternative knowledge, perspective on our region's existentialism and its relations with our respective Bombs. 6/

@beenasarwar 's passionate critiques and activism, @GazdarAisha phenomenal documentary, Haider Nizamani's burning empirical analysis, late M. B. Naqvi and B . M. Kutty's leadership of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum... These were/are the giants and teachers I learned from 7/

How Nine Eleven, A. Q. Khan's fall (2004) and a lot more since then, impacted these alternative narratives, movements and voices is a story worth writing. 8/

As I look at how the South Asian Bomb is analyzed today, how old legal stories are being resurrected, I can't help but feel a sense of great loss. A vibrant range of scholastic work, narrative and stance is missing in action. 9/

Jawed Naqvi's brilliant "Hate the virus, love the bomb" dawn.com/news/1556503/h… this past week stirred both memory & ideological roots in me. #COVID19 is such a stark, new parallel for us peaceniks of yore. 10/

This is a time for real-time reckoning. What kind of future do we want for our kids? I don't have any of my own, but I care deeply for all the children of the world. Are they destined to live under the Bomb's black shadow their whole lives like me and my Gen X has lived?

11/11