Description of Eqbal Ahmad.
In 1997, at a remarkable weekend-long tribute to Eqbal Ahmad,
Edward W. Said urged Ahmad not to "leave your words scattered to the winds,
or even recorded on tape, but collected and published in several volumes for
everyone to read…. Then those who don’t have the privilege of knowing
you will know what a truly remarkable, gifted man you are."
Ahmad died suddenly in the spring of 1999 before Said’s dream
came to fruition. For the first time ever, Ahmad’s most provocative ideas
are available in book form. In these intimate and wide-ranging conversations,
Ahmad discusses nationalism, ethnic conflict, the nuclear standoff between India
and Pakistan, the politics of memory, imperialism, and liberation struggles
around the world.
Eqbal Ahmad was a peace activist and scholar born in India. In
1947, he left with his brothers for the newly created state of Pakistan. He
was active in the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement in
the United States. Ahmad passed away in the spring of 1999.
Table of Contents
"Dawn of Freedom" by
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Map of South Asia
Biographical Sketch of Eqbal Ahmad
Introduction by David Barsamian
Foreword by Edward W. Said
1 Think Critically and Take Risks
2 Distorted Histories
3 Do Not Accept the Safe Haven
Selected Bibliography of Eqbal Ahmad's
Writing
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Excerpt
Barsamian: Moving to Afghanistan and the evolving situation
there. The Taliban movement, you suggest in an article, has connections with
not just Pakistan but also with the United States.
Ahmad: Afghanistan has suffered criminal neglect at the hands of the
United States and its media. In 1979 and 1980, when the Afghan people started
resisting Soviet intervention, the whole of America and Europe mobilized on
their side. For the media, it was such a big story that CBS paid money to stage
a battle that it could broadcast as an exclusive. Afghanistan was in the news
every day. It disappeared from the news the day the Soviets withdrew. Then,
Afghanistan was abandoned by the media, by the American government, by American
academics, and as a result by the American people. These people who fought the
West's battle with the West's money and with the West's arms, and in the process
distorted themselves, distorted Pakistan, and contributed to the demise of the
Soviet Union, found themselves totally abandoned after the Cold War. The Taliban's
rise takes place in that vacuum.
...
We happen to be talking at a time when Osama bin Laden is a central figure
of the news and discourse in America. To date, no one has examined what has
produced Osama bin Laden. There have been hints that he worked with the CIA,
that he first engaged in violence because he was brought in to fight the Soviet
Uni...
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Excerpt #2
A Tribute to Eqbal Ahmad, by Edward W. Said
Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, October 4, 1997
Over the
years, Eqbal and I have developed a kind of routine, which I want to share with
you before getting into the more serious business of describing him and paying
tribute to him. That is, we go through a whole series of Orientalist formulas
of what the abject wog, or native, might say to a white man. We take turns being
the native and the white man. So I will say to him, Oh, maulana, you are a great
one. And he will say, No, I am just a particle of dust under your feet. And
I will say…well, we go on like this for a long time. The good thing about
today is that he can't answer back. He just has to sit and listen to praise
heaped upon him.
Despite
the many hours of praise and celebration deservedly heaped on our dear friend
and comrade Eqbal Ahmad, there's still a great deal more to be said about him.
I flatter myself that I can at least try to say more. One of the most remarkable
things about him is that even though he has crossed more borders and traversed
more boundaries than most people, Eqbal is reassuringly himself in each new
place, new situation, new context. This is not at all a matter of ethnic or
religious identity, nor does it have much to do with the habitual stability
we associate with solid citizens. It's rather that Eqbal's special blend of
intellectual brilliance and...
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Praise
"Inevitably, reading Eqbal Ahmad's words evokes the presence of the person
— treasured friend, trusted comrade, counsellor and teacher. The
unforgettable voice, beautifully captured in these interviews, is rich with
learning, understanding, and compassion."
—Noam Chomsky
"Eqbal
Ahmad, perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia
and Africa…[was] a man of enormous charisma and incorruptible ideals….
He had an almost instinctive attraction to movements of the oppressed and the
persecuted…[and] a formidable knowledge of history. Arabs, for example,
learned more from him about the failures of Arab nationalism than from anyone
else.… Ahmad was that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power
or authority."
—Edward W. Said, author of Culture and Imperialism,
eulogizing Ahmad in The Nation and The Guardian
"[Eqbal
Ahmad] was a shining example of what a true internationalist should be.…
Eqbal was at home in the history of all the world’s great civilizations.
He had an encyclopedic knowledge of states past and present, and he knew that
states had a rightful role to play. But he also knew that states existed to
serve people—not the other way around—and he had little to do with governments,
except as a thorn in their side. To friends, colleagues, and students, however,
he gave unstintingly...
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