[thingist] intro

[yasir ~يا سر]

hello everyone

ran into thingist online around 98-99 and joined sometime around 2000-01

Our latest thing is the Mauj Collective which wants to grow into a
cultural centre. We do art that is socially engaged. yes art tech
culture, last most useful to think in. Mauj is also setting up
networks of architects doing envirionmentally sensitive architecture
as well as helping out in a sufi shrine (dargah) project. The list  of
things we are doing is long, We've also just started working on a
social networking site which will also work as a mapping thing for
artists and works and institutions, besides promoting interaction ..
we love to link people and orgs...and are always looking for
collaborative ideas, projects

I am primarily a theorist as surprised as other people that i still
defy categories. so its not uncommon for me to be digging south asian
intellectual streams which have gathered over time a very thin
covering of western ideas, trying to find the missing areas of why
currently dwelled theory / concepts are awkward, and what democracy
and theory meant in the old streams of muslim, indian, hindu, indus
valley, persian, arab thought which make their presence felt extremely
strongly in their absence from current life.

I have lived in New York, Bangkok, Islamabad and Karachi, where i
think i have spent most time. The Pakistani environment is difficult
and rich. one is tempted to leave and one stays. i dont remember New
York being any different. I also do things with traditional media (tv,
journalists, reporters). This could be an interactionist or research
mode or, in my activist mode especially, for the citizen org, the
People's Resistance, which as a pressure group with disparate elements
across society was in a small way instrumental in bringing Musharraf
out of his uniform and finally down. we currently oppose not just the
taliban but the army action as well, relates to blunt and blunting US
policy (no revelation here).

I also take jokes seriously just like james allan.

so where are murph, the francophones and St blackhawk

greetings from Karachi

yasir