Muharram

Today is the 9th day of Muharram, sacred for the Shias. A public holiday today and tomorrow, the 10th and final day. Both see huge processions of Shias and there is enormous tension because a year ago a bomb attack on a march killed 25. There are 20,000 police on duty, there are black flags everywhere.

A day for staying in PILER, catching up with emails, reading more of Karachiwala and writing up this diary.

Friday 17 December
10th day of Muharram. After breakfast, a walk. It’s like Christmas Day with sunshine: the roads are clear, people are slowly surfacing, boys are beginning to play cricket. I speak to Shahid Husain, experienced Karachi journalist, to apologise I’ve leaving before we’ve been able to meet and he immediately arranges to come over after lunch. He tells me of a travelogue he’s written after a recent visit to the US, a conference of 4,000 US Pakistani doctors in Dallas, the older ones all accusing each other of what they did and didn’t do forty years ago and the shocking poverty, more and more people queuing for food. This, he says, has direct parallels here in Karachi.

I report my meeting with Faiz Ghangro whom he knows. He accepts the argument that Chief Justice Choudery represents that section in the ruling class that see the urgent need to put limits on the corruption but points out that the CJ has a blind spot when it comes to the media. The journalists have a long running case of a national wage award which has been denied them. He could sort this out but won’t for fear of upsetting the media moguls. Sounds familiar.

We talk about Obama’s speech on slow progress in Afghanistan and whether the people advising him are stupid or dishonest - we agree on the latter. And the criticisms of Pakistan for not doing enough to root out the Taliban just don’t get how Pakistan’s army, the people who really run the country, have seen India as the enemy ever since they were children. That means that Afghanistan must be an ally and, given any possibility the Taliban could in future be Afghanistan’s government, it follows that no matter how much military aid the US gives to Pakistan – over $1bn a year currently – links with the Taliban have to be maintained.

Shahid has written an article on climate change and Pakistan . I invite him to come and do a meeting about it in Manchester if he manages to fulfill his plan to come to England.

A real red sunset at 5.30, the first I’ve seen. Now back to finish off the diary before a couple of hours sleep and then to the airport.