Lecture on imperialism, meeting Shahid and the Anti Imperialist Front

The morning starts at the Federal Urdu University, in the middle of the city, a poor area. Many of the students are from poor backgrounds and the university itself looks neglected. Young Asghar, ISP comrade, who invited me to speak here three years ago when he was a student, is now on the staff and has invited me again. Same topic: imperialism, and a similar sized audience, about 80 - 100 students and staff. After almost endless introductions by senior staff and students and two sung recitations from the Koran, rather well done I thought, I get to speak for about half an hour, trying to speak clearly but not to compress the argument too much. Hard to tell how it goes down, everyone here is so very polite, but there follows a flood of questions, about Afghanistan, Palestine, etc, mostly very good questions delivered in clear English. So the session as a whole has a certain buzz. At the end I’m presented with ‘The Etiquettes of Life in Islam’ by the right wing, sexist, anti-American, Jamaat-e-Islami student group. Then off to the Directors office for tea and cakes and chat with staff. I’m given another book and flowers.
Now to meet Shahid Hussein at the Press Club. a left wing journalist who was tortured by the army when he was a student activist in the 70s but now, like many on the left who see the Taliban as the main enemy, has supported the army attacks on Swat earlier this year and currently South Waziristan because they see it as impossible to leave people under the Taliban whatever the price. In Swat, the army offensive, though it did break the Taliban, also caused many deaths, destroyed a lot of property and created 2 million refugees. Shahid does a short interview for his paper http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=211140
At five Shahid walks me round the corner to a nearby hotel. A meeting of the Anti Imperialist Front, eventually twenty people, discussing the follow up to a successful seminar they organised recently with a hundred people http://www.ustream.tv/channel/anti-imperialist-front-nov-06-seminar The meeting has a positive feel, much better than I expected.