Dear Rumi

Sabahat Quadri

Peshawar

The Army Public School Responds

“I belong to a nation whose children scare the life out of you. What a terrifying force you are, fighting with children…” The children of Army Public School returned to school this week. This is their tribute to their fallen classmates. Peshawar, December 16 2014.

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Rage

There should be squares in every city reserved for the public execution of the Taliban. Let them swing. Five hundred Taliban, mostly low-level soldiers, sit on Death Row in Rawalpindi. Five hundred out of thousands released because our weak judiciary was intimidated, or because our corrupt politicians consider them allies. Five years ago, when the […]

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The Peshawar Cliché

Over coffee with a friend, I mentioned that I spent a week of my vacation in the city of Peshawar, and the reaction, though expected, jarred me. His eyebrows climbed up his forehead and he asked with pure disbelief, “Why?”

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Tea at the Frontier

At the northwest edge of Peshawar is the Khyber gate and Jamrud Fort that marks the beginning of what we in Pakistan know as Ilaqa Ghair, or ‘ungoverned/lawless territory’. This is Khyber agency, one of several agencies that comprise FATA, or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

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