PAKISTANIAAT A Journal of Pakistan Studies Volume 1, Number 1, 2009 ISSN 1946-5343 http://pakistaniaat.org Sponsored by the Department of English, Kent State University Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies ISSN 1946-5343 Pakistaniaat is a refereed, multidisciplinary, open-access academic journal, published semiannually in June and December, that offers a forum for a serious academic and cre- ative engagement with various aspects of Pakistani history, culture, literature, and politics. Editorial Team Proof Readers Andrew Smith, Florida State University. Editor Elizabeth Tussey, Kent State University. Masood Raja, Kent State University, United Benjamin Gundy, Kent State University. States. Editorial Board Section Editors Tahera Aftab, University of Karachi. Masood Raja, Kent State University. Tariq Rahman, Quaid-e-Azam University, Deborah Hall, Valdosta State University, Pakistan. United States. Babacar M’Baye, Kent State University David Waterman, Université de La Ro- Hafeez Malik, Villanova University. chelle, France. Mojtaba Mahdavi, University of Alberta, Yousaf Alamgiriam, Writer and Independent Edmonton. Scholar, Pakistan Pervez Hoodbhoy, Quaid-e-Azam Univer- sity, Pakistan. Layout Editor Robin Goodman, Florida State Universi- Jason W. Ellis, Kent State University. ty. Katherine Ewing, Duke University. Copy Editors Muhammad Umar Memon, University of Jenny Caneen, Kent State University. Wisconsin, Madison. Swaralipi Nandi, Kent State University. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Montclair State Univ- Kolter Kiess, Kent State University. eristy. Abid Masood, University of Sussex, United Kamran Asdar Ali, University of Texas, Kingdom. Austin. Robin L. Bellinson, Kent State University. Amit Rai, Florida State University. Access Pakistaniaat online at http://pakistaniaat.org. You may contact the journal by mail at: Pakistaniaat, Department of English, Kent State Univeristy, Kent, OH 44242, United States, or email the editor at: [email protected]. The views presented in Pakistaniaat are those of the respective authors and should not be construed as the official views of anyone associated with the journal. All works published in Pakistaniaat are covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No De- rivative Works 3.0 United States License. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies Volume 1, Number 1, June 2009 Contributors Dr. Muhammad Umar Memon is a Professor of Urdu, Persian and Islamic Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and editor of the Annual of Urdu Studies. Akbar Zolfaghari currently is a PhD’s student in Community Development in Fac- ulty of Human Ecology at University of Putra Malaysia. Dr. Mohammad Shatar Sabran is an associate professor in Leadership and Com- munity Development at the Faculty of Human Ecology and the Director for Cocu- riculum Center, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Ali Zolfaghari currently is a PhD’s student in Politics and Government in Faculty of Human Ecology at University of Putra Malaysia. Dr. Muhammad Atif Khan is a Research Scholar at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Grenoble, France. David Waterman is Maître de conférences in English at the Université de La Ro- chelle, France. Deirdre Manion-Fischer is a student at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. Hananah Zaheer was born and raised in Pakistan and moved to the US at seventeen, much to the delight of her muse who takes sadistic pleasure in her identity crises. She has an MFA from the University of Maryland and is an associate editor for the Potomac Review. Currently, she is working on a novel, and lives in Dubai with her husband and sons. Shaila Abdullah is an award-winning author and designer based in Austin, Texas. Her novel Saffron Dreams, released in February of 2009, explores the tragedy of 9/11 from the perspective of a Muslim widow. Her debut book, Beyond the Cay- enne Wall is a collection of stories about Pakistani women. More information is available at www.shailaabdullah.com. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 (2009) Mehnaz Turner was born in Pakistan and raised in southern California. She is a 2009 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow in Poetry. Her poem”Apa’s Painting” is an autiobiographical poem about how an image can both be a refuge from conflict and a reminder of conflict. This poem is part of my collection of poems in progress titled, Tongue-Tied: A Memoir in Poems. Aneesa Hussain was born and raised in New York to parents from Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently a student in the M.A. in English program at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author, novelist and translator. His internationally ac- claimed translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza was published by the Modern Library (2007). Mahwash Shoaib holds a PhD in English from the Graduate Center of CUNY, NY. Dr. Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal is an Associate Professor of English at Feroze Gandhi College, Rae Bareli, India. Dr. Masood A. Raja is an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature and Theory at Kent State University. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 (2009) Table of Contents Welcome to Pakistaniaat--Chishm-e-ma Roshan Dil-e-ma Shaad Masood Ashraf Raja ................................................................................................. i Articles Introducing the Urdu Short Story in Translation Muhammad Umar Memon .......................................................................................1 Community Learning Center Programs and Community Literacy Development in Asian and the Pacific Countries: Bangladesh, Iran, Vietnam and Pakistan as Case Studies Akbar Zolfaghari, Mohammad Shatar Sabran, and Ali Zolfaghari .......................10 The Mediatization of Politics in Pakistan: A Structural Analysis Muhammad Atif Khan ...........................................................................................30 Book Reviews Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos David Waterman ....................................................................................................48 Reading River of Fire as a North-American Student Deirdre Manion-Fischer .........................................................................................51 Poetry and Prose Freedom Hananah Zaheer .....................................................................................................54 An Excerpt from Saffron Dreams: A Novel Shaila Abdullah ......................................................................................................61 Apa’s Painting Mehnaz Turner .......................................................................................................63 A Hospital Visit Aneesa Hussain ......................................................................................................65 Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 (2009) Translations HOSHRUBA: The Land and the Tilism Musharraf Ali Farooqi ............................................................................................68 Selections from the Poetry of Kishwar Naheed Mahwash Shoaib ....................................................................................................82 Interviews Shattering the Stereotypes: An Interview with Fawzia Afzal-Khan Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal ......................................................................................97 Painting God’s Words: An Interview With Amar Raza, Founder of the Quran Art Foundation and Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan Masood Ashraf Raja .............................................................................................105 Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 (2009) Editorial Welcome to Pakistaniaat—Chishm-e-ma Roshan Dil-e-ma Shaad Even as these lines are written, Pakistan is involved in a struggle for its very survival against fanatics who claim to understand the mind of God and who have sullied Islam’s traditional image of love and compassion by replacing it with hatred, violence, and torture. Meanwhile, in Washington, Pakistan is valued only within the context of its possible instrumentalization for US foreign policy. Opinions about Pakistan rely heavily on crude stereotypes and are often declarative rather than being reflective. Just a few weeks ago, for example, congressman Gary Ackerman declared: “Paki- stan’s pants are on fire!” Unfortunately, when it comes to Pakistan, ignorance isn’t just the hallmark of the Pakistani Taliban; it also permeates US politics and media. Why start a journal about Pakistan? Perhaps because, in the spirit of Fanon, we feel that there are too many inane things being said about Pakistan, things pos- ited as naturally axiomatic and normative when they are neither. We say in Urdu, mullah ki dor masjid tak (a mullah runs only as far as the mosque), and as aca- demics our remedy to this normalized ignorance is to do something academic that enables and encourages a more nuanced and scholarly engagement with Pakistan. Pakistaniaat, thus, is an outcome of this attempt at giving voice to otherwise si- lenced voices. Pakistaniaat is to be a free on-line journal, openly available to its readers. Furthermore, it offers more than academic articles and book reviews. The journal is inspired by the model set forth by Postcolonial Text, an esteemed and established open-access journal in the field of postcolonial studies. We were aware, at the outset of Pakistaniaat’s inception, that online jour- nals are still somehow considered less academic and authentic as compared to their print counterparts. We think that, with the quality of