“Making Sense of Pakistan” – an attempt by Dr. Farzana Shaikh of Chatham House.

Dr. Farzana Shaikh of the Pakistan Study Group, Asia Programme, Chatham House, London, argues that “Vacuum Rules Pakistan.” She released now a book titled “Making Sense of Pakistan.”

In a recent op-ed in The Independent she wrote:  “there is now an almost fateful inevitability that a major terrorist attack in the UK will carry a Pakistani imprint.”
 http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/dir…

 http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Pakis…

She argues that Pakistan’s transformation from a country once projected as a model of Muslim enlightenment to a state faced with a lethal Islamist challenge has dominated headlines in recent years;  while the failure of governance and the damage wrought by external powers have hastened this decline.

Pakistan’s problems are rooted primarily in its uncertain foundations as a nation, and its ambiguous relation to Islam. Both have heightened the contestation over the meaning of Pakistan and the significance of ‘being Pakistani’. This enduring ideological confusion has also thwarted a stable constitutional settlement, undermined the country’s economic future and encouraged a new and dangerous symbiosis between the armed forces and militant groups. Together they have left Pakistan prey to the forces of extremism that today threaten international stability.

Our website has long argued that the creation of Pakistan was a Muslim mistake and its present situation is a world problem – this rather then the Afghanistan issue – that the world must fear most.

Whatever – see her book for further insights.