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Qalandar Bux Memon

11 articles published

To Contend With The Heart In Winter (For Sushi Anarkali)

It is strange to contend with the heart in winter to carry blood so visible to each passer-by, To bleed with memories of colour, To carry to friends choked tears verses, moments and now sumptuous pain To coil reprieves and apologies, To consider eulogy but to write laments, In winter it is hard to contend…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

To Contend With The Heart In Winter (For Sushi Anarkali)

It is strange to contend with the heart in winter to carry blood so visible to each passer-by, To bleed with memories of colour, To carry to friends choked tears verses, moments and now sumptuous pain To coil reprieves and apologies, To consider eulogy but to write laments, In winter it is hard to contend…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Zahid Mayo: The Painter of the Subaltern.

REVIEW OF ZAHID MAYO EXHIBITION AT SANAT GALLERY, KARACHI. (to view images: click here) I see Zahid Mayo as an artist of the subaltern. He is not their spokesperson but he senses them and is able to register that sense on canvas. This is his, almost unique, success among contemporary artists. I recall in my first visit to Zahid's studio about four…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Ode to SOAS Occupation

The Space On the 6th of October at around 7 pm sixty students entered and occupied the Brunei Suite, which is on the ground floor of the Brunei gallery of SOAS, and thus began the SOAS occupation. The Suite is a rectangle space about 18 meters by 11 with a total area of around 170 square…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Class Struggle

That for many – billions – life isn’t Either easy, a bed, a house furnished, or food in the stomach, it isn’t a laugh an orgasm or smiles its hard, like ground constantly, over centuries, pounded. its sick – like bills that pile up and up and up and up. It smells of unemployment and…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Teachers Assistants Striking Against Neo-Liberalism in Education: An Interview with Ayyaz Mallick

Qalandar Bux Memon: Can you tell us what role Teaching Assistants play in the University of Toronto and York University? Ayyaz Mallick: Teaching Assistants (TAs) at both universities are the main point of contact between undergraduate students and the faculty. TAs perform a number of duties, such as running tutorials, marking papers and assignments, invigilating…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Notes on working class liberation and the Pakistani Left

In this brief note I want to argue that the organised left needs to incorporate and support the indigenous working class movement and leaders. Further that the leaders of the orgnaised left must, in large part, be drawn from the working class movements, rather than, from the bourgeois. By the working class I mean those who…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

A New Humanism

What motivates the desire for Third World solidarity is the shared history of oppression by a common oppressor.In 2009, a few academics, supported by long standing left-wing activists, founded Pakistanis for Palestine, a Lahore based group that aimed to support Palestinians in their struggle for statehood. Critics—which include Pakistanis—of course, wonder why, given Pakistan’s own…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Those Struggling for a Different Pakistan

I. Prologue Pakistan is in a state of crisis. The history of Pakistan, looked at from a human perspective, has been a perpetual crisis since its birth. The ruling elite have operated -- from the very beginning -- on cronyism, nepotism, and legal and illegal corruption. They have always been inefficient and indifferent to the…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 7, 20240Comments

Bad Sufi

The Bad Sufi A look at the practise of Contemporary Sufism in Pakistan. It is often assumed that Sufism stands opposed to Wahhabism. Wrong. Sufism and Wahhabism, in fact, share a fatal characteristic – they are religions of the status quo. In Pakistan, Sufism legitimises barbarities of inequality and starvation – ‘do nothing, it’s god’s…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 7, 20240Comments