Dollars for Muslim lives
From the archive (2001): on aid offered to Pakistan at the start of the Afghan war — the permanent question of what assistance costs, and the case for economic self-reliance.
Editor’s note (2026): A 2001 polemic on aid offered to Pakistan as the Afghan war began. Its register belongs to its moment; the issue underneath is permanent — what a state concedes in exchange for assistance. Economic self-reliance is the only durable answer, which is where QeRN’s work now sits. See About the QeRN Archive and Innovation and Self-Reliance.
The US and the likes have promised millions of dollars to Pakistan for ‘cooperating’ with the killing of poor and innocent children and adults in Afghanistan. What do the people of Pakistan feel about this blood money? I hope the nation, including the ‘moderate pakistanis’, still remember Allama Iqbal who said ‘…. aus risq se moot achi jis risq se aati ho purwaz mein kotahi’ or perhaps Iqbal too is considered as a ‘fundamentalist’ and hence discredited!!