I confess. The Mobeen Ansari who appeals to me he still has not met. He lives within his artist’s soul and is preserved as a good bottle of wine (I know we are in Pakistan, but I’m Italian …). The Mobeen Ansari who appeals to me – the artist that since yesterday he exhibits at Satrang Gallery in Islamabad, please run out to see it – has not the face of national celebrities he likes to portray, and which are part of its first portfolio Dharkan (portraits of faces known and unknown, dedicated to minorities in his country, in preparation… read more →
There is no doubt that a part of the West is Islamophobic. At the same time part of the Islamic world against the Western world nourishes the same phobia is not only beyond doubt, but at the same time a short investigated phenomenon. The distinctions are always due. Always us to say that Muslims worlds are many and varied (and as the more religious and wise say that there are many Muslims, but only one Islam), we are many to debate long on female identity represented from wearing the veil or slavery imposed on those who are forced to wear… read more →
Easter Sunday mixed dangerously two events that took place in Pakistan, few time with the recent dramatic terrorist attacks in Brussels. A suicide bombers blew himself up in Lahore in the public gardens of Gulshan Iqbal, killing 63 people and wounding more than a hundred. On the same day about two thousand people poured into the main street of Islamabad, for a sit-in protest in front of parliament. The origin of it was the death sentence, executed in late February, of Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the former Punjab Governor Taseer Salmaam, “guilty” of wanting to undo the crime… read more →
This article has been published on the last number of the magazine Leggendaria (www.leggendaria.it) The question is simple, the answer is not at all. Why the Kurdish fighters are so successful? Obvious the first observations that come to mind: because they are fighting for independence of their homeland, they are community leaders, they did not hesitate to take up arms to fight. They have become in no time an icon of contemporary, brave in battle as in social media. The world loves them, no harm. At the same time the iconography of this present time shows many other images of armed women:… read more →
Two days ago the Interior Minister of Pakistan Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, on the sidelines of a meeting with the German ambassador Ina Lepel, said they had all good intentions of cooperating with the countries of the European Union to ensure the return of illegal immigrants and bring them to justice. The issue was not as simple as it sounds reading the newspapers. After the terrorist attack in Paris there have been many controversies and criticism of Islamophobia by the West, which have as a direct consequence of the increased control over the citizens of Islamic origin and the restrictions… read more →
Under the drone sky reactions to the terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Bamako have been different. The first is always the distancing, the differentiation between good and bad Muslims, even though commentators, journalists and even private citizens are as confused as we are too, and many of them feel responsible for the West to reject religion and Islamic culture and see terrorism as inevitable results. Numerous those worried that their ability to have a visa for Europe is greatly reduced. Nobody, but nobody, thought to have stereotypes and prejudices against the West. Under the drone sky for three days… read more →
Be husband and wife in Pakistan. I confess I did not understand well yet what the deeper meaning and what in fact it is in everyday life. After more than two years of living in the country, I enjoyed both in big cities than in rural areas have seen numerous engagements, weddings, family relationships and conflicts. I could say anything different from what I see in my home or in Europe, but no: not taking anything away from our relational crisis (we are talking only of women and men because gay and lesbian couples certainly do not see in and… read more →
The Italian-American Joe Bastianich is often said that the world is divided into two categories: Italians and those who dream of it. A statement would sound so arrogant if Bastianich was not one of the entrepreneurs of the business of food among the most famous in the world. And no doubt, like China, that Italy is synonymous with food everywhere you go. Nothing new here, except for the fact that (for once let us write in favour of expats) in some countries (such as Pakistan, in this case) some Chinese cookers are, while those Italians far fewer. In Pakistan, I… read more →
It all started one night at dinner in the restaurant of a hotel: the people ordered more food than we could eat, the offer was richer than there was really need. And so that Sayyeda Zoone Abbas and hes family began to think of the enormous waste of food that plagues Pakistan as the rest of the world, and the consequent inequality in the distribution of the same. At Sayyeda parents have asked to finish studies before to help her give birth Tha-li (www.thali.org.pk ), the organization that since 2007 works in Islamabad and Rawalpindi to collect surplus food and… read more →
Other that sexist propaganda in our regional elections. The women candidates of which I speak have decided not to show their face during the campaign: in place of those husbands, fathers, brothers, who have called on voters to support wives, daughters, sisters. Yet they are candidates and ran a big risk. This is not a joke, this is the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, beauty, alias KP, the most “mangy” province of Pakistan, politically won in 2013 by the former cricketer Imran Khan, who with his party PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) is creating problems the central government. A liberal man, or at least he… read more →
