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Tariq Ali

May and June are the worst months to visit Pakistan: temperatures in Lahore can go up to 120°F, and I still remember the melting tar on the road, which virtually doubled the time it took to bike home from school. I had been invited, however, to give the Eqbal Ahmed Memorial Lectures in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. Ahmed – whose dream of setting up a serious postgraduate university in Pakistan remains unfulfilled – died in May 1999.

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Tariq Ali’s new book, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, will be published by Simon and Schuster in September.

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