By Mohammed Amer – During my recent visit I saw rapid changes in Rawalpindi – a garrison city and headquarters of Pakistan’s military, which both revealed an expansion of the military’s influence and its increased vulnerability, affecting the collective psyche of the people.
In Rawalpindi I was staying in a lower working class neighborhood near Saddar, or Cantonment, which sits alongside an important road that links the city centre with the airport. That same road leads to the adjoining city Islamabad and it is therefore frequently used by military generals, politicians and visiting officials to Pakistan. In the last five to six years the road has been totally transformed and now hosts flyovers, overhead bridges and service roads. These transformations are related to and a consequence of the so-called ‘war against terror’ and impacts upon the daily life of the people living in its surroundings in specific ways.
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