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Nadeem F. Paracha

Nadeem F. Paracha

Naya Daur

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SMOKERS’ CORNER: HARD STATE, SOFT STATE

SMOKERS’ CORNER: HARD STATE, SOFT STATE

For decades, nations plagued by terrorism and political instability, such as Pakistan, have tried to project a ‘soft image’ to the world.

30.03.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE BLA RECKONING

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE BLA RECKONING

The banned Balochistan Liberation Army’s journey from radical student activism to a well-equipped militant force mirrors the

23.03.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: YEAR ZERO IDEOLOGY

SMOKERS’ CORNER: YEAR ZERO IDEOLOGY

In an age where historical narratives are increasingly weaponised and distorted to serve contemporary agendas, are we

16.03.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

Cricket’s greatest captains have always harboured the ability to galvanise their teams when the odds seemed to be against them.

09.03.2025 30

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: REPEATABLE TRANSGRESSION

History has shown that transgressions by and against the state, when left unpunished, tend to resurface with greater

02.03.2025 70

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: FAITH IN FALSEHOODS

Despite the progress of science and reason, myths and conspiracy theories continue to thrive — even among educated people.

23.02.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE END OF HISTORY?

Fukuyama’s famous thesis was meant to signal liberal democracy’s ultimate victory over all other political ideologies. But

16.02.2025 90

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: BIG TECH'S BIG RUSH

Technological advancements come with the notion that they are liberating people from the old, soulless forms of capitalism. But

09.02.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: ROMANTIC NATIONALISM AND FAKE HISTORY

Pseudo-archaeology has played a big role in constructing mythical histories that feed into imagined pasts that ultimately only aid the political aims...

02.02.2025 30

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: ROMANTIC NATIONALISM ANDFAKE HISTORY

Pseudo-archaeology has played a big role in constructing mythical histories that feed into imagined pasts that ultimately only

02.02.2025 60

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: WESTERN BLIND SPOTS

As the far-right gains momentum across the West, Western academics long fixated on ‘fragile democracies’ in the Global

26.01.2025 20

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: POPULARISING POPULISM

Populism thrives as a political style rather than a concrete ideology, merging theatrics and emotional appeal to captivate the

19.01.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE POLITICS OF BOYCOTTS AND BUYCOTTS

As youth-driven activism links consumption with ethics, many local alternatives are thriving by aligning themselves with

12.01.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE CURSE OF 'COLLAPSOLOGY'

For over a decade now, several books have claimed that one country or the other is on the verge of ‘collapse’. Most of these books are about China....

05.01.2025 40

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE SELF-COUP

There’s an interesting term in political science called ‘self-coup.’ A self-coup is when an elected president or prime minister tries to retain or...

29.12.2024 30

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE SEIF-COUP

There’s an interesting term in political science called ‘self-coup.’ A self-coup is when an elected president or prime minister tries to retain or...

29.12.2024 5

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE MYTH OF 'WESTERNISATION'

In the April 1968 edition of a now defunct English daily, Business Post, one Yaqoob Sultan wrote an article in which he described a conversation he...

22.12.2024 10

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE ILLUSION oF AUTHENTICITY

'Authentic’ has become quite the buzzword — especially in the world of consumer brands, and even in politics. Apparently, Gen-Z is all about...

15.12.2024 10

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE EVOLUTION OF PARTIES

A party hoping to establish itself in the mainstream may evolve from the left or from the right. But the evolution is almost always towards finding...

08.12.2024 9

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS

'Donald Trump and the Rise of Christian Nationalists’ was the title of an essay published in August this year on the academic website The...

01.12.2024 7

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: READING INTO POLITICS

Last week, the veteran political analyst Najam Sethi claimed that the jailed Pakistani politician Imran Khan was utilising contents from the...

24.11.2024 10

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: IDEALS AND IDEOLOGIES

From the day Pakistan came into being, ideas formulated by ‘modernist’ scholars such as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Allama Muhammad Iqbal have been...

17.11.2024 10

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE NEW MANICHAEANS

Just days before this year’s US presidential election, when I was wrapping up my interviews with a cross-section of voters in some US states for a...

10.11.2024 5

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE POLITICS OF ‘ANTI-POLITICS’

After his ouster from power in 2022, Imran Khan decided to roar back to power by operating from outside the country’s mainstream political...

03.11.2024 4

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: MISGUIDED OUTRAGE

On many occasions, it just takes a single incident to trigger riots. The incident can be actual, or overly exaggerated and, in some cases, entirely...

27.10.2024 4

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: MANAGING CIVIL UNREST

Studies show that incidents of civil unrest have been increasing across the world. Yet, there are also those who are of the view that the police...

20.10.2024 2

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE DANGEROUS LEADER DISORDER

The military-establishment (ME) and the government have decided to call Imran Khan a ‘fitna’ [conspiratorial, divisive, violent]. To most other...

13.10.2024 8

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: SAFEGUARDING SINDH

Last week, protests erupted in Umerkot, a city located at the edge of the Thar Desert in Sindh. The protests were held to condemn the extrajudicial...

06.10.2024 4

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE PARADOX OF TOLERANCE

In his 1945 book, Open Society and its Enemies, the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper described a paradox, which he called the “paradox of...

29.09.2024 7

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

The British historian John Dalberg-Acton described stupidity as “a corruption of knowledge.” This may mean information or knowledge that has been...

22.09.2024 4

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE DRAMA TRIANGLE

Most storylines in myths, films, TV series and novels largely revolve around three characters: the hero, the villain and the victim. In 1968, the...

15.09.2024 6

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE WRITERS OF HISTORY

History is written by victors’ is a phrase often used by people. But most historians detest it. They see it as an impulsive outcome of anti-...

08.09.2024 10

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE OUTrAGE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The ‘angry young man’ (AYM) was a character-type first introduced by some British writers in the 1950s. In fact, it was the British media that...

01.09.2024 4

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: NARRATIVES OF DECLINE

Ever since 2014, politics in Pakistan has largely been about a battle of narratives. This is nothing new or something peculiar to Pakistan. But...

25.08.2024 60

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: FEAR AND LOATHING IN BRITAIN

From July 30, deadly riots erupted in Britain when three young girls were stabbed to death in a quiet seaside town of the country. Britain’s...

18.08.2024 3

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE MIRROR ARGUMENT

In his autobiography Mein Kampf [My Struggle], published nine years before he came to power, the German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler concluded that...

11.08.2024 5

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: COURTING CONSITUTIONAl CHAOS

According to the German professor of law Ulrich K. Preuss, there are four ‘ideal types’ of constitutions. Preuss’ study focuses on what nature of...

04.08.2024 10

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE PLAGUE OF POLARISATION

Societies in multiple countries are suffering from one of the most serious illnesses that can badly damage democracy. That illness is polarisation....

28.07.2024 4

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: PAKISTAN'S 'USEFUL IDIOTS'

Numerous books have been written on Islam in Pakistan. So, two years ago, I set out to write a book on the history of liberalism in Pakistan. It is...

21.07.2024 3

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: BRANDING THE BRANDS

In 2017, Pepsi aired a commercial in which the American model Kendall Jenner breaks away from a fashion shoot to join a protest rally. She is then...

14.07.2024 20

Dawn (Magazines)

Nadeem F. Paracha