Wednesday 8 December, Haripur to Karachi
The last day here goes fine. The small NGO who’ve organised everything, SAHARA, show me some quite good documentaries they’ve made about their work (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR2Q79iT96g). There is only one woman working for them and she wears a niqab, but in places like Haripur it is going to be tricky getting men and women working together. They promise that they will be organising courses for women.
It is gone ten when I got back to PILER, plane late plus roadside security checks, to find I’m invited to supper with Karamat. There, as seems to happen often with Karamat, were a couple of interesting new faces. Both are Baloch, around my age, from families of tribal leaders, one an ex senator, the other a current senator (as in the US, the Pakistani senate has 100 senators). The current senator argues that religious people were always reactionary and I found myself with Karamat putting a Marxist response – the heart of a heartless world, the sigh of the oppressed.
Thursday 9 December, Karachi
A quiet morning and then the lecture on ‘The international labour movement and the crisis of neo-liberalism’. It goes fine with lots of people asking questions a good sign, especially with those less confident in English. Trying to argue that we are all part of a global battle comes up against the general disbelief here that people in the “West” or “Global North” are suffering. I use Laura’s example of the homeless in New York keeping warm in the railway stations with their suitcases and I think it made some impact. At the same time people here are watching what’s happening abroad e.g. the students in Britain.
Shujauddin, a senior PILER colleague, uploads photos.
http://picasaweb.google.com/piler.pakistan/GeoffBrown?feat=directlink
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