A Pakistani soldier on patrol in Waziristan | AFP
Maria Rashid’s Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army is a fascinating insight into the phenomenon of militarism in Pakistan. Examining the relations of affect (the observable manifestations of an experienced emotion) between soldiers and their families at one end, and the military as an institution at the other, the book analyses the broader structural dynamics of military life in modern societies in general, and Pakistan in particular.
What makes this study unique is the author’s own military background, as she describes her father as a third-generation army officer. Thus, military life, with its accompanying rigours and emotions, is nothing new for Rashid. With this background, she is able to provide a critical account of the manufacturing of soldiers, the rituals and performance of martyrdom and the unique challenges that the Pakistan Army faced in fighting the ‘war against te