But the West is not amused

Someone who knows that I am difficult to please when it comes to reading books seemed to find the right book for me. 

" You will like this book," he assured me. 

" What kind of book is it? I asked. 

" Just read it. You will like it."

A week later I got hold of the book. Eqbal Ahmad was written across the front cover. The title in small print was: Confronting Empire.

My friend had told me that it was an interview. Who is this Eqbal Ahmad? According to the Introduction he was born in Bihar, India in 1933. He migrated to Pakistan after the partition. And then he went to universities in America and Europe to earn his PhD and to lecture. 

One of his friends, Edward Said, has this to say about him: " Ahmad was that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority… Perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist of Asia and Africa." Another friend remembers him as "…..one of the most powerful activist intellectuals of our time."

What did this man do to deserve such praises? And why is it that he is not very much known as an author or activist? 

Ahmad died in 1999 of heart failure following surgery. But his ideas and words will live to cause heart attacks in the West. That could be one of the reasons why he seems to be an obscure figure. If you are against the West, it is an uphill journey towards recognition. Martin Luther King is more known to the world than is Malcom X. The enfants terribles of Africa and Asia have no place in this world. The West prefers to listen to the sound of a crow that croaks praises than to a dove that sings criticism. 

On the back cover of the book, I expected to see praises and admiration by renowned magazines such as Newsweek, Time or Economist. They were not interested. They like to shower praises on books that leave the West alone. People like Ahmad who tell it like it is are unwelcome guests even when they are gone.

I said to my friend: Why are such books not advertised properly for everyone to read? Junk books are making the headlines and hitting the book market. They become subjects for TV talk shows or literary magazines.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about the Soviet labor camps, got the Nobel Prize in literature because it was in the interest of the West at the time to disparage Communist Russia. So, when you write a book or a fiction, make sure that it serves the capitalist West. When in doubt, write about sex or violence. Or write about goblins and elves and wait. The odds are that one fine morning some nut will discover you and you will climb the podium of celebrity. 

Salman Rushdie wrote a book. He gave it a provoking title. It says nothing and says it splendidly. It became a bestseller. What the hell do you learn from such books? I sometimes regret the times I spent reading garbage when I should have played with my children and my dog.

If Hitler weren't a Nazi, Mein Kampf would have been nominated for the Stockholm book awards, because that madman was anti-commie. 

Franz Fanon wrote a book about racism. The French did not like it. The Americans were not impressed. The colonized people liked it. They read it from cover to cover. But, with Western media having the last word, the book gradually faded out. So many interesting books of the sixties died before they were born because they were revolutionary.

If Muhammad Ali were to write a book (by the way he is a good poet and a consummate man of letters) about racial discrimination in America in the same way that Solzhenitsyn wrote about Russia, do you think he would have obtained the Nobel Prize? Certainly not.

Activists like Eqbal Ahmad might have been forgotten if it were not for David Basamian, the man who interviewed him before he died. Howard Zinn, a friend said about the interview, "A dazzling intellectual encounter: thoughtful questions by a superb interviewer, David Basamian - and brilliant responses by the extraordinary Eqbal Ahmad."

What happens to people who stand against social injustice and point accusing fingers at the West? The West retorts: Are you talking to me? Yes.

It is simply insolent of its detractors that the West who looks after the downtrodden with concern and goes to war to make the world safe for democracy should be vilified as an unscrupulous imperialist. What is the world coming to!?

Eqbal Ahmad has seen enough to point to the cupboard where the skeletons are hidden. Maybe he knew too much and talked too loud. They wanted him to go. But he stayed long enough to set the record straight. And thanks to this new book, we are the wiser for it.

But Ahmad is not loved by some Third World countries either. In fact, the establishment is averse to his ideas. Most third-world governments are made in the image of the West. If they are not, then they better remain loyal. 

Ahmad is for the truth, nothing but the truth. He is not a respecter of persons or governments. If the wrong is in the East, he never minces words to criticize it. He doesn't hesitate to give the West a dressing down if that is what it deserves. He is against fanaticism, bigotry, tyranny, injustice, unbridled nationalism, racism and imperialism in all its forms.

Koffi Anan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, pays his respects: "He had an encyclopedic knowledge of states past and present, and he knew that states had a rightful role to play…. he had little to do with governments, except as thorn in their side. … His example and his memory will inspire many to carry on his work."

What has Ahmad to say about the world, its leaders and the general malaise that beset its stable existence?

Let's listen to him as he makes his lucid and brilliant responses (mostly paraphrased by me for convenience) to some of the most urgent questions of our time.

On Taliban: 
The US concern is not who is fundamentalist and who is progressive, who treats women nicely and who treats them badly. The issue is who is more likely to ensure the safety of the oil resources that the United States or its corporations could control.

On Marxism: 
The biggest achievement of Marxism is to offer a methodology of analyzing social and historical affairs. No one had yet come up with a substitute for historical materialism and explanation for the process of history. The failure however occurred in the manner in which Lenin envisioned the dictatorship of the proletariat, the notion of democratic-centralism, which was inherently anti-democratic. 

On Capitalism: 
It is a powerful system based on two important premises: that human beings are greedy, and that to organize for production is the epitome of human endeavor. 

On Russia today: 
Russia is struggling haphazardly to become a capitalist society. With the collapse of communism it plunged into the culture of greed but without the managerial organizational discipline and productive capabilities that makes capitalism work. The result is that Russia looks now like a second-rate third-world country. 

On the Terrorism: 
Another characteristics of terrorism is helping fascists regimes in third-world countries particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. All these were fully supported by the superpowers. They have committed unspeakable terrorist violence the source of which is the state. There has been very little focus on this by governments, the media and even by the academics. 

On the Demonization of Islam:
It started in the tenth century when Islam as an expanding civilization was considered a threat and menace in the eyes of Europeans. Later the demonization became more organized because of mass communication. Modern imperialism needed a legitimizing instrument to socialize people into its ethos. To do that it needed two things: a ghost and a mission. After the black, yellow and the red peril, they have turned to Islam as a menace.

Society and Culture No. 7

The US concern is not who is fundamentalist and who is progressive, who treats women nicely and who treats them badly. The issue is who is more likely to ensure the safety of the oil resources that the United States or its corporations could control.