Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire

Eqbal Ahmad is a rare example of a man who struggled to live by his principles and has shown others the way by the sheer humanity and clarity of his thought. He was a true and worthy inheritor of the sufi tradition.

This book is very well written and an easy read (not tedious at all). Barsamian does a great job in his interviews as always (I have his interviews with Chomsky & Zinn). The first interview in this book, done in 1996, accurately predicts Islamic fundamentalism & terrorism working their way across the Middle East and their ability to topple fragile ME gov'ts and fight against the US. Eqbal also pointed out the dangers of the US (Reagan/Bush) helping out the Afghan "freedom fighters" in '81-'88 and the support of the Clinton gov't for the Taliban in order to get a safe oil pipeline. Eqbal claims that the notion of a Middle East "jihad" was reinvented by the CIA for the Afghani/Russian war to help promote Islam fundamentalists into good little holy warriors against Communism. He claims that the term "jihad" hadn't been used much since 10th C Islam but was revived for that purpose and subsequently handed down after America abruptly pulled out of supporting Afghan & Pakistan after the Cold War. And of course now we have what is called "CIA blowback" with the WTC/Pentagon jet bombings. While I haven't fully investigated his claim on the CIA bringing up the "jihad" to fire up the "holy warriors," a search on the web shows that there are quite a lot of articles on "jihads" post-Afghan war than before (say 1980).It's a shame that people like Eqbal Ahmad were ignored by Pakistani leaders and Palestinian leaders as well as western leaders. Eqbal was like Cassandra crying out the truth and accurately predicting the future -- but nobody listened.

"Might is right", or a version in my native language "whoever owns the stick, owns the cow". At the dawn of the 21st century, the world is the same as it was centuries ago. The greed to be powerful is as vicious as ever. Civilization can be so uncivil! Imperialism is as alive as it ever was. Only the mechanics have changed. Eqbal fights back with the weapon of today, powerful argument.Eqbal Ahmad speaks so factually and clearly that it is hard to defy his argument. In this book, he talks about the imperial designs of those who own the stick. One of the most profound books i've ever read.A must read for anyone from (or interested in) the Asian Subcontinent as well as the middle east.

The late,lamented Eqbal Ahmad was one of the more original thinkres of our time. Friend of the oppressed,opponent of oppresors anywhere left or right, Mr. Ahmad was a clear voice of conscious and sanity in an ever increasingly insane time. The writings,taken from radio interviews on aletrnative radio,are wide ranging{from the Indian subcontinent, to Vietnam, Israel, Bin Ladin, the Cia, Gandhi, sufism.poetry,terrorism,nuclear testing etc.} Mr. Ahmad is so eriudite,so clear in his perceptions devoid of rantings of right or left, that he is, was a cool stream in this desert of factionalism. His perceptions on Jinnah are very interesting, and on Gandhi,well, you have to read them. Or better yet,these tapes are available,and then you get to hear the man speak in his beautiful,lyrical voice. A nice tribute to a seminal thinker of our age.

It is the work of Eqbal Ahmad as a remarkable public intellectual that has earned him a pedestal among the dissidents of our generation. This is the first book-length treatment on the ideas of Eqbal Ahmad as compiled in these masterful interviews by David Barsamian. The subject matters range from a radical analysis of middle east politics, south asian history, Western non-intervention in Bosnia, American complicity in the emergence of the Taliban-disorder, a poignant description of how he met his life-long friend Edward Said, the ideas of Fanon (whom he worked for) to a fascinating historical analysis on the syncretic tradition of Urdu poetics. This book captures Eqbal Ahmad's genius, his charisma, his urbane cosmopolitan wit - in short the "sweetness and light" of Eqbal Ahmad. Highly, highly recommended.