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27 February 2009, Friday

Iran-Pakistan

I asked a Shiite in Peshawar if they still have problems with the Sunnis, and he said - "We don't kill each other anymore because now there is a dialog between us," but perhaps by a habit part of the dialogue is still conducted with bombs. As an outsider it seemed to me that there is at least a small civil war smouldering on a slow fire, but now I wonder if this is not just a normal way of life for Pakistanis. After another week I saw all the mausoleums in Multan and Lahore - perhaps the most beautiful city in the Indian subcontinent, and at the end I inevitably call to mind once again the mind-boggling beauty of Karakorum - where each (mountain) dream came true raised to the tenth power, so it seemed sinister and monstrous, as a symbol of this wild and beautiful country called Pakistan.

Published at 12:26
19 February 2009, Thu

Lahore

Today I arrived in Lahore – it’s almost on the Indian border, where I was 3 ago on my trip west of Indonesia. The border there is a daily ceremony for uniting the two countries (India and Pakistan), and the crowds are converging like crazed football fans, separated by a solid wire fences, shouting "Death to India" / "Death to Pakistan" ... and if they could they would pour the entire nuclear arsenal on the head of the opposer.

Pakistan - photo by Juri Waroschanov

Published at 12:11 | 1 Comments
4 February 2009, Wednesday

Multan

Crisis in Pakistan seems to be going deeper. In addition to the country facing bankruptcy and the rupee falling every day, there is electricity regime - 12 h in the cities and only 4-5 h in rural areas. So people get another chance to exercise their democratic right to protest which as usual is expressed chanting - Death to someone / something. Parties are strongly dynastic structures, often bearing the initials of the leaders in their names. Corruption and cronyism are in a scale that make our Bulgarian politics seem to suffer total lack of imagination. The rest is chaos, chaos, chaos...

Pakistan - photo by Juri Waroschanov

Published at 12:09 | 0 Comments