Pervez Hoodbhoy--The Mind of Pakistan (and Earth)

"These are difficult times to make such an argument. The White House is celebrating victory over Al Quaeda. But terrorism does not have a military solution. Soon there may be still stronger, more dramatic proof. In the modern age, technological possibilities to wreak enormous destruction are limitless, and nuclear means are one awful possibility. Anger, when intense enough, makes small stateless groups, and even individuals, extremely dangerous.

American triumphalism must therefore give way to a more rational, long term defense of US interests and security. These ultimately lie in ameliorating conflicts and rationally dealing with complaints against its international behavior. It is time for the US to re-engage with the people of the world, especially with those it grievously harms. As a great country, possessing an admirable constitution that protects the life and liberty of its citizens, it must now extend its definition of human rights to cover all peoples of the world."

Source: Pervez Hoodbhoy's article, "Dealing with Nukes and Terror: The View from Pakistan."  Viewpoint, APS (American Physical Society) Physics, 11:2, February 2002: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200202/viewpoint2.cfm

The world sees the class but does not know it well. 

In the United States, we read the nation's great newspapers "of note"--The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and so on.  We have state-based coverage of global events in abundance--as does every other industrialized, modernized, and maturing culture.

Be we have missed, and this for perhaps having read closely and in our own interest, for having been confined by the distribution of paper, literally, the growth of an enormous class of international leadership personalities.

Speaking as an American, we know our homespun: Offhand, jet hopping folk like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton (if he's in the mood).

We know our glamorous globe-trotting writers and photographers--from the Bourke-White, Lee Miller, and Hemingway era to, right this minute and still Out There, war photographers like James Nachtwey and economist-humanitarian social-issues photographers like Sebastião Salgado.

And we certainly know the names of the host of national academic and political figures who have strutted their many hours on the world's stage--but I believe we have never known, perceived, and much less examined the world's other most cosmopolitan and culturally and politically influential personalities.

Whatever the criticisms launched, whatever the good they have done or are doing, such as Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf (throw in America's Henry Kissinger for luck), we have a lot of people now living and working everywhere in the world that money, organizations, social networks, and transportation may afford, and they would seem to be trying to set the course for those they may represent immediately as well as for everyone else besides.

Pakistan's Pervez Hoodbhoy, whom I would be as likely to meet in College Park, Maryland, where he is a guest of the University of Maryland from time to time, as elsewhere (as easy to look up in Cambridge, Massachusetts as Islamabad), is, I think, one of those personalities larger than any state.

I've assembled just a few of the Googleable, lol, references having to do with him on the web, and such are listed at the end of this note (click on a URL and introduce yourself).

Among the many things the Internet does well, it shows up one's ignorance and naivette.  One knows the UN has been around for a while and the generations turn out political science and international development majors by the score, but never, I think, has the full diplomatic corps of academics, business leaders, politicians, and writers ever been so broadly perceived and, incredibly, intellectually accessible.

# # #

Bowman, Curtis.  "Pervez Hoodbhoy on the Pakistani Army."  December 22, 2004: http://bowman.typepad.com/cubowman/2004/12/pervez_hoodbhoy.html

Department of Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University: http://www.qau.edu.pk/physics.htm

Fulbright Scholar Program.  "Pervez Hoodbhoy."  Fullbright New Century Scholars Program: http://www.cies.org/NCS/2007_2008/ncs_phoodbhoy.htm

Ghani, Asma.  "'Army should only ensure writ of govt'".  The Nation, September 16, 2008: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Regional/Islamabad/16-Sep-2008/Army-should-only-ensure-writ-of-govt

Hoodbhoy, Pervez.  "After Lal Masjid: What does the Lal Masjid mosque siege tell us about the growth of extremism in Pakistan?"  Prospect, July 2007: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9700

Hoodbhoy, Pervez.  "Can Pakistan Work? A Country in Search of Itself."  Review of The Idea of Pakistan by Stephen Philip Cohen, Washington: Brookings Institute Press, 2004.  Foreign Affairs, November/December 2004: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20041101fareviewessay83611/pervez-hoodbhoy/can-pakistan-work-a-country-in-search-of-itself.html

Hoodbhoy, Pervez.  "Dealing with Nukes and Terror: The View from Pakistan."  Viewpoint, APS (American Physical Society) Physics, 11:2, February 2002: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200202/viewpoint2.cfm

Hoodbhoy, Pervez.  "Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Pervez Hoodbhoy."  Transcript from unbroadcast video, November 27, 2001: http://www.robert-fisk.com/chomsky_interview_27nov_2001.htm

Hoodbhoy, Pervez.  "Pakistan's Westward Drift."  Pervez Hoodbhoy's ZSpace, September 9, 2008: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18765

Mashal Books, Pakistan (progressive publisher of books translated to Urdu under the guidance of Pervez Hoodbhoy): http://www.mashalbooks.com/index1.html

Maurizi, Stefania.  "Pakistan After the Assassination: Interview with Pervez Hoodbhoy."  Chowk, January 6, 2008: http://www.chowk.com/articles/13375

Wikipedia.  "Pervez Hoodbhoy."  Last visited: September 25, 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Hoodbhoy

Comments

[James]

What do you know--Orson Welles _War of the Worlds_ has come up quite different than anything we may have expected: not an invasion of aliens but as a noticeable per capita variance in global outlook.

Perhaps without knowing it, we may find ourselves caught between the leadership of a global oligarchy racing just a few steps ahead of the millions clawing at the robes of power, dragging everything and everyone backwards and down deep into the old, too familiar ooze.

[tammy swofford]

James,
This post put a smile on my face. I have been a consistent reader of articles written by Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy for several years and find his analytical skills to be exceptional. In fact, one of his articles is on my dining room table right now, adrift in a pile of archived material I am reading to readjust my own lens prior to writing for a distinct audience.

Tammy