Blog Archives

I had a chance to be part of this excellent, inspirational and thoughtful conference organized by Pakistani scholars and activists in Toronto. An upcoming issue of Tanqeed.org will cover several of the papers at the conference.

Moderator: Vasuki Nesiah

NYU, Kevorkian Center, 50 Washington Square South. Details here.

What does it mean to be haunted by loss? Since the drone attacks began in 2004, the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been the subject of heated discussion by journalists and pundits. Yet, the people who actually live there and survive the aftermath of American policies are rarely heard from.

Wounds of Waziristan, a short documentary by filmmaker Madiha Tahir, tells the haunting stories of those directly impacted by US drone attacks in Pakistan. Wounds gets beyond the legal debate to focus on drone survivors, ordinary people who persist in extraordinary conditions. In their own words, the drone affectees narrate what it is to live with loss and among the rubble left in the wake of a drone attack. Wounds injects the voices of those who have been labeled as “militants” or dismissed as “collateral damage” into the public debate on the US ‘war on terror.’

Madiha Tahir is an independent journalist and a doctoral candidate at Columbia University working on liberalism, media narratives and war in the context of US drone attacks on Pakistan. Her journalistic work has appeared in several media outlets including PRI/BBC’s “The World”, Foreign Affairs, VICE, Democracy Now!, The New Inquiry, Guernica, The Wall Street Journal, Caravan, The National(UAE), Global Post, Left Turn, and The Columbia Journalism Review, among others. She has also co-edited a volume of essays Dispatches from Pakistan with Vijay Prashad and Qalandar Bux Memon and is one of the founding editors for Tanqeed.org.

Co-Sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and New York University

NYU Co-Sponsors: The Gallatin School of Individualized Study; Department of Media, Culture and Communication; Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies; Center for Media, Culture and History; Asian/Pacific American Institute

Re-presenting Pakistan: Journalism, Justice and the “War on Terror”

Pakistan has been called a failing state and the most dangerous country on earth. Yet, stories about the Pakistani victims of the “war on terror” remain scant even though thousands of Pakistanis have been bombed, disappeared, detained and displaced. This panel will examine the relationship between representation, media and war in the context of Pakistan. It will discuss alternative models to pursue and publish ethical journalism.

PLACE: Columbia University | Journalism School |  3rd Flr, Lecture Hall
TIME: 7pm – 8:30pm

MODERATED by: Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars and dean of Columbia Journalism School

Madiha Tahir is an independent journalist who recently produced a short documentary, Wounds of Waziristan, about survivors of drone attacks in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. She is co-editor of a collection of essays, Dispatches from Pakistan and a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University.

Asim Rafiqui is a photojournalist who has been investigating human rights issues in Pakistan. His most recent project covers the lives and stories of Pakistani prisoners in the US prison at Bagram. Rafiqui is also a fellow at the Open Society Foundation

Sarah Belal is a prominent Pakistani human rights lawyer who has been working to get Bagram prisoners released. Her organization Justice Project Pakistan has been litigating on behalf of families of prisoners. Belal is also a fellow with the UK based human rights organization, Reprieve.

Saadia Toor is the author of State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan. She is an associate professor of sociology at CUNY and works on populist movements and feminism and religion, in Pakistan.

Presented by The Sevellon Brown Fund, Columbia Journalism School Photojournalism Dept., & Center for International History

Columbia University | 6 – 8pm | Lerner Hall – Roone Arledge Cinema. It’s free, but PLEASE RESERVE HERE. Details about the event here. 

Check back for screening dates this Spring!

BROADCAST PREMIERE | Nov 04, 2013 – Democracy Now!

ONLINE PREMIERE | Oct 25, 2013 – VICE Motherboard for one week; extended interview also on VICE.

Mar 8, 2014 – MIT – 77 Mass Ave – Room 4-231 | 2pm | Cambridge. MA

Mar 7 2013 – Mt. Holyoke | Massachusetts

On Nov 08.2013, Steve Cannane interviewed me about Wounds of Waziristan on Australia’s national primetime show:

Nov 16, 2013 – Code Pink Drone Summit | 1:10 PM | Washington DC

Nov 14, 2013 – Johns Hopkins University | Respondent: Veena Das and Bernadette Wegenstein