Lion of the Punjab
[ by Charles Cameron, cross-posted from SmartMobs ]
I found this story strangely moving. The governor of the province of the Punjab in Pakistan, Salmaan Taseer, was killed by one of his own guards — according to this NY Times Lede blog story, because he was speaking out in favor of amending Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
So here’s my DoubleQuote twitter-requiem for a courageous man:
.
January 5th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
It *is* moving. And fascinating to follow on Twitter, realizing that Taseer was using it to intervene in Pakistani politics.
January 6th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
Yes. From my POV, based on a very quick look, Taseer’s use of Twitter seems to be more profound than most of the other commonly cited examples of impact — perhaps because it’s a single individual (I’m not a huge crowd-sourcing fan), and no doubt in part because of the tragic ending.
January 7th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
I wonder how many Pakistanis read this guy, and what proportion did so via phones rather than computers.Interesting mix of content: local politics and national, humor, sports.