Adil Najam

Three months after being destroyed by dastardly suicide bombers who also murdered 60 people, mostly Paksitanis, the Islamabad Marriott Hotel reopened today in a visible sign of resilience and defiance by the hotel’s owner Sadruddin Hashwani.

The first picture above is of the hotel as it opened today. The second as it was before the bombing. The third and fourth are photographs of the bombing, and the remaining pictures are from the opening today (from AP).

Adil Najam and Owais Mughal

(Also see our second Year in Review Poll on “Predictions for 2009.” Image from Flickr by Mirjee.)

We had ended the year 2007 at ATP by calling it the “Year of Angst and Anger.” We had begun the year 2008 with a wishlist of seven prayers: Prayers for Human Dignity, for Living Livelihoods and Wellbeing, for Peace, for Tolerance, for Justice, for Democracy and for Jurat-i-Tehkik.

The year 2008 has been as angry and as angst-ridden as its predecesssor. Our prayers for 2009 remain the same, even more so. There is little one can add there.

Since past is prologue to the present, we wish to look beyond both past and present, into the future. Just as the demons of 2007 continued to haunt us in 2008, the events of 2008 will define Pakistan’s 2009 – for good or for bad. But which of the many – too many – momentous events of 2008 will have the greatest impact on defining what happens in Pakistan in 2009? That is the question for this ATP Poll, the first of two New Year’s Polls (the second one will follow soon).

Adil Najam

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated one year ago today, December 27.

I remember being in utter shock when I first heard that news. In some ways I am still in shock. Indeed, as our wall of newspaper covers showed, the whole world was in shock. That shock, I believe, is also still alive.

And, yet, so much – so very much – has changed. An elected government holds power. Benazir Bhutto’s arch-nemesis Gen. Pervez Musharraf is no longer President of Pakistan. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is. We still do not know who was behind her death, but speculation remains rife. The economy remains in nosedive. An energy crisis is upon us. One Chief Justice still awaits reinstatement. Another is embroiled in scandal. War talk with India on the East is the rage. Drones pound us on the West. And Pakistan continues to lose both territory and citizens to the extremists who continue to wage a war within Pakistan and on Pakistan. Most of all, anger and angst still define the social disposition.