by David Steven | Sep 18, 2007 | Off topic, South Asia
The filming of Kite Runner is causing trouble in Afghanistan…
Ahmad Jaan [father of an actor whose character is raped in the film] says his fears are two-fold – that the film will worsen relations between Hazaras and the dominant Pashtuns (both the boy rapist and the principal character Amir are Pashtun); and that his own family may be in danger when the film comes out, because of Afghan concepts of dishonour.
“Of course I’m worried about it,” he says. “My own people from my own tribe will turn against me because of the story. I am so worried they may cut my throat, they may kill me, torture me.”
His son has been quoted as saying he fears his friends will shun him because they think he really was raped.
by David Steven | Sep 18, 2007 | Conflict and security, Global system, Influence and networks, North America
Over at Foreign Policy, there’s an interesting debate about Pakistan’s army. Sameer Lalwani, a policy analyst at the New America Foundation (and a democracy promotion sceptic) kicks it off with a love letter to President Musharraf and the military:
Despite all the talk of elections and civilian rule, meaningful democracy will not emerge in Pakistan anytime soon, nor will the military abandon its grip on government. Pakistan’s military possesses much greater staying power than most U.S. analysts assume, and it will remain the most potent and important political institution in the country for the foreseeable future.
Lawlani disses Pakistan’s democratic pretenders, Nawaz Sharif (on whose abortive return from exile we blogged from Pakistan last week) and Benazir Bhutto (still manoeuvring towards a deal with Musharraf that could leave him President, her Prime Minister):
Far from building democratic institutions, their governments—bereft of competence and riddled with corruption—consistently undermined them. Bhutto was run out of the country for skimming millions off the top of government contracts; Sharif orchestrated the storming of the Supreme Court by street thugs as he was being tried for contempt. In an effort to efface their legacies, both former prime ministers are hoping to duck the legal charges that await them upon their return.
Lalawani’s piece has provoked an angry response from Benazir’s party – the PPP (the letter comes via their US public relations company):
True that democracy has been weak in Pakistan, largely because it has never been allowed to flourish in the country. The answer lies not in dictatorship but in more democracy. Every democratically elected official has been overthrown by the military, not out of the army’s sense of loyalty to the state, as Mr. Lalwani suggests, but because of the army’s thirst for power… The military regime has destroyed the very fabric of society for its political survival.
(more…)
