Sunday Posts

From: David Pope

Today can be anything: Start of a prolonged war of civilizations or the end of it. Let us hope it is the end, as it appears to be. The most important figurehead of Islamic extremism is gone. This may not weaken the Al Queda units across the world in real terms, because of their decentralized nature, but this should rob them of their most recognizable icon and the most effective recruitment tool. This should lead to a thaw in Afghanistan, give Americans the breathing space they need. This should allow other Muslim leaders to emerge in the limelight, hopefully with more moderate voices. On America's side, this may mean a boost for Obama, which should be good for America and the world. Obama isn't unduly combative, not a war president like his predecessor. He is measured and cerebral - he took great pains to emphasize that America is not at war with Muslims - and he understands the dangers of stoking the flames more than anyone else. While the dancing crowds outside white house an...

The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to President Obama, was a distraction. The world's attention was focused on whether this is a just reward, given that the President, who assumed office on the 20 th of January, had just 12 days work to show for it [when the nominations closed on the 1st of February]. The stated reason from the Nobel committee pointed to various initiatives and policy pronouncements by the President, including a clear commitment to nuclear disarmament and an intent to engage in Arab-Israeli conflict. The President himself was far more practical in his reaction and said that he was 'humbled' by the Prize and views this as a 'call to action'. It indeed seemed that President Obama had got the prize just for the act of winning the Presidency itself, which marked the pinnacle of achievement of Afro-American rights movement, which intensified in the last 40 years and became the Civil Rights movement in general. So, this prize is somewhat for the Barack Obama...

Nations are ideas. We try to fashion them as territories. But how can a river, a mountain ridge or sometimes an imaginary line in the middle of a field can explain the wide division in the lives, thoughts and futures of the people who live on different sides? Nations are not the people too. Indeed, people build nations and become its body. But the soul of the nation is an idea: People come together on an idea to build a nation. While that's what a modern nation is - an idea - and that way exceptionalism is not an American exception, very few nations are as completely defined by an idea as Pakistan. There was hardly any political, geographic or military rationale of Pakistan other than the idea of an Islamic homeland in South Asia. [In that way, the ideological brother of Pakistan in the family of nations is Israel] This, abated by the short term political calculations of some backroom colonialists, created a modern state which must be solely sustained on that singular idea. Religi...

Nations, the modern currency of our identity, were not there forever. That's an obvious fact, but how often we forget this in our political discourse? Like many other things, governments, printed money, passports and visas, we take nations for granted too. As if they were always there, and by extension, always will be there. However, truth is - nations are a fairly modern invention, and there is absolutely no guarantee that they will even last our lifetime. The usual British apologists of imperial rule in India argue that there was no India prior to British rule. They reason the British rulers have conceptualized India as a nation, given it its modern geographic shape and unity. Indian nationalists, of course, take strong exception of this view and point towards the historical entity of Bharat , in its expansive geographic form. They cite the great Indian kings of Ashoka and Akbar who united the country and ruled it for a number of years. The argument goes on. Pointless argument, ...

I am back in Northern Ireland for a visit to our Head Office. This is something that I do quite often, in fact whenever I am back in the UK for a few days. I must admit I love the place. The empty roads and the beautiful countryside, all green and elegant, I have never seen a more beautiful place than this. I remember coming here with a colleague fresh from India, who was literally scared because we did not see a soul as we drove for miles. Even as we passed through town centres, there was no one to be seen, even on a workday afternoon. That was scary for him, the contrast with Hyderabad could not be more obvious. Conversely, when someone travelling from NI asked me what India would be like, I had to tell her that they may see a lot many more people, all the time. The population of the whole of Northern Ireland is just 1.5 million, and contrast that with Hyderabad’s almost 6 million, and my conclusions seem obvious. However, this time, I am coming here at a very ...