OPEN SV Forum 2017

Photos from the OPEN Forum 2017

OPEN Annual Forum 2017

Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs

Telling blacks where they belong

Kellyanne Conway's sitting posture in this instance was NOT unintentional at all. She sat like that to give a couple of messages to the blacks surrounding DT: 1) This is the kind of respect you blacks deserve from the whites, 2) Look at me, and look at you; you are so uptight here in the White House because you don't belong to this place, or any place of authority—Obama was lucky he made it here;  being in the White House, around high offices, around power, around money is a routine and casual business for us whites—don’t forget we brought you to this land as slaves!

Thanks to Brendan Smial Owski (Getty Images) for taking this very telling photo.

Introducing Farzana G Butt, the writer

I have known Farzana G Butt for quite some time.  I don’t remember where I met her the first time but I would guess it was at one of the ‘Halqa e Arbab e Adab’ programs arranged by Annie Akhter—around 1999. The Internet revolution was unfolding and new possibilities had emerged.  We opened an online bookstore, Clickville—it is still functional (http://clickville_bookstore.tripod.com/Bookstore/). Farzana volunteered to help. She answered any queries sent to the bookstore’s email address (booksrourlove at Y).  Farzana Butt did not find running the bookstore a monetarily rewarding enterprise and slowly parted ways.  When Farrukh Shah Khan (of WBT-TV) and I started producing the ‘Aik Fikr, Aik Behes’ TV shows, she helped us in promoting the productions.  Not sure when she left California, but through Facebook found out she was living in Oregon.  We kept in touch with each other via FB.

That Farzana who promoted other people is gone; now there is a new Farzana.  The one has found her passion in writing short stories, on women, especially South Asian women, and especially on their sexual exploitation.  She has sent me a couple of stories she recently wrote and I must admit I am bamboozled!  She has taken the work of South Asian feminist writing from where Ismat Chughtai left it several decades ago. But Farzana is no mere disciple of Chughtai.  In her stories, Farzana is using language Ismat Chughtai could not even imagine to use, in her wildest dreams.  Farzana says she is justified to use this language because this is exactly how South Asian men talk, when they speak about women.

With this kind of ‘controversial’ material Farzana Butt does not have much chance of getting published in India or Pakistan.  How is Farzana planning to reach to her audience?  I do not know.  But reach she should, as this woman has a lot to say, and whatever she is saying is very pertinent.

COLAP, Tokyo 2017 first day highlights

COLAP, Tokyo 2017 first day highlights
The majority of the delegates had arrived a day earlier, on Friday, January 6.
Confederation of Lawyers of Asia and the Pacific (COLAP) Tokyo's first day morning session took place at the Aoyama Aoyama Gakuin University, on the 10th floor of Building number 14.
There was one delegate from Bangladesh (Hasan Tarique Chowdhury), one delegate from Pakistan (Abrar Hasan), three delegates from Philippines (Grace Saguinsin, Edwin Dela Cruz, and Ed Carmona)
two delegates from Vietnam (Le Thin Kim Thanh and Nguyen Van Quyen), and four members from the Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association (Jun Sasamato, Aisa Kiyosue, and two others).
International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) was represented by Jeanne Mirer (USA) and Roland Weyl (France).
The morning session proceedings started with the introduction of members.

After the lunch break the delegates took a train to Otsuka.
Delegates met other members of the Japanese civil society in an event hall in Otsuka. Several delegates gave presentations before
the dinner.  A sumptuous Japanese dinner was followed by songs and dances that continued till late at night.