Sabahat Zakariya Profile picture
@Feminustani @gaanekikahani | ex-Deputy Ed @thenewsonsunday | ex-Features Ed @TFT_ | Falak Sufi Scholar NYU 2015 | Charles Wallace Fellow KCL 2012 | Mid-brow |
May 21 4 tweets 2 min read
If you like to reflect instead of merely outrage, the difference of outcry between kids killed by BLA vs kids killed by Pak army should make you think.

If I try to ponder on it objectively one reason for the KP outrage being muted in comparison could also be because the drone strikes can be excused as a ‘mistake’ (their intended target were not children) whereas in Balochistan the target was directly a school bus.

But I think the explanation is more simple, condemning BLA is easier/more possible, condemning the party that ended up killing the kids in KP, however, is not. Yes, the army is criticized massively on other fronts, but when it comes to ‘patriotism’ and fighting the TTP or BLA they are given a pass. If innocent people have to be killed in order to secure the country, too bad, but it has to be done. Those whose own relatives are not dying can afford to look the other way.
Nov 23, 2024 6 tweets 2 min read
If atheist Muslims talk about the impact of Islamic supremacism on their lives they are discredited through labels like native informant, but if Indian Muslims speak up against Hindutva, they are considered righteous activists. Is this double standard based on Muslims’ greater international clout because of higher numbers in the west? How is Hindutva talked about as much as it is (although India is at least nominally secular & definitely democratic) but Pakistan given a freer pass just because it drove
Sep 7, 2024 6 tweets 2 min read
It's massive cope by PPP and Ayub-loving liberals to palm off all Islamist supremacist ideals baked into the Pakistan project on to just one military dictator. Zia was not an aberration, he was a natural consequence.
#PakistaniChristians

Full link: Someone on FB said what’s the big deal about Christian singers singing about the supremacy of Islam. Didn’t Rafi sing bhajans in India? I think it’s a fair point. The answer to that is that Rafi singing bhajans is different in two ways:
1) Bollywood is a private entity so no >
Jun 21, 2024 7 tweets 3 min read
Come at me for it or whatever but the last time anyone bothered to change Pakistan ideologically was Musharraf in his early days. It’s not that simple to get rid of those mindsets but that was the only concerted effort I have seen in my life. Sab Se Pehlay Pakistan. Enlightened Moderation et al. It had some impact in certain sections of big cities at least in terms of pushing the envelope on women’s dress, mingling between the sexes, but in Pakistan you can only speak of tolerance in pleading tones, not equal citizenship as a prerequisite of nationhood. Of no religion being better than another. Now the army is fully a business concern. Even side hustle of propaganda like this that pleads some moderation has been fully shelved. Now TLP is allowed to run amok without a single relevant person bothering to comment on it.
Jul 29, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
The only path to cultural and linguistic tethering now passes through the Shia faith, it seems to me. Deeply entrenched annual rituals, commemorative shaayari, a grand narrative. Middle class sunni children have none of that. And access to native things that don’t pass through any religion at all is down to zero for the middle class school going kid since the banning of Basant & the end of any fun literary culture for the young (mainly Ishtiaq Ahmad & Ankh Macholi).