Page 65 - June2018

theStack PAKISTAN’S RELATIONS

WITH EXTREMISM
Felt: the Man Who Brought DoWn the White house The book highlights Pakistanis’ own views on
By Mark Felt & John O’Connor terrorist groups, jihad, religious minorities and
non-Muslims, America, and their place in the world
It was the biggest mystery of American history. A shadowy source
deep within Washington had leaked crucial information to two jour- Much of the current work on extremism in
nalists, helping them uncover the historical Watergate Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the
Scandal of 1972. But who was this elusive source and country from a detached position-a top-down
what were his motivations? Thirty-three years later, security perspective that renders a one-dimen-
the FBI’s Mark Felt would finally identify himself as sional picture of what is at its heart a complex,
Deep Throat, the Watergate Whistleblower. This is richly textured country of 200 million people.
his story. Mark Felt learnt spy craft tracking Nazi and In the book Pakistan under Siege: Extremism,
Soviet spies, tackled mobsters in Kansas City and took Society, and the State, using rigorous analysis
down the FBI’s most wanted list, rising through the of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools
ranks under J Edgar Hoover to one of the FBI’s top and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative
positions. A life spent watching pivotal moments of reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of
history unfold, Mark Felt was the eyes and ears of the the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of
intelligence service. Pakistan’s relationship with extremism.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views-on
terrorist groups, jihad, religious minorities and
happy DreaMs non-Muslims, America, and
By Jia Pingwa; AmazonCrossing their place in the world.
The views are not radical at
From one of China’s foremost authors, Jia Pingwa’s Happy Dreams first glance, but are riddled
is a powerful depiction of life in industrializing contemporary China, with conspiracy theories.
in all its humor and pathos, as seen through the eyes of Happy Liu, Afzal explains how the
a charming and clever rural laborer who leaves his home for the two pillars that define the
gritty, harsh streets of Xi’an in search of better life. After a disastrous Pakistani state — Islam
end to a relationship, Hawa “Happy” Liu embarks on a and a paranoia about India
quest to find the recipient of his donated kidney and — have led to a regres-
a life that lives up to his self-given moniker. Traveling sive form of Islamization
from his rural home in Freshwind to the city of Xi’an, in Pakistan’s narratives,
Happy brings only an eternally positive attitude, his laws, and curricula. These,
devoted best friend Wufu, and a pair of high-heeled in turn, have shaped its
women’s shoes he hopes to fill with the love of his life. citizens’ attitudes.
In Xi’an, Happy and Wufu find jobs as trash pickers Afzal traces this outlook
sorting through the city’s filth, but Happy refuses to to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She ex-
be deterred by inauspicious beginnings. amines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of
---------------------------------------------------------- three actors in Pakistani politics-the military, the
civilian governments, and the Islamist parties-
Day anD Dastan and their relationships with militant groups. She
By Intizar Husain; Niyogi Books shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in
the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to
Intizar Husain is the finest writer of Urdu prose and the most bril- vigilante and mob violence.
liant story-teller of the post-partition generation. The two novel- The author also explains that the educational
las, Day and Dastan (Din Aur Dastan), his favourite texts, show his regime has become a vital element in shaping
versatility and fictional inventiveness. Day, a realistic story, is a citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends
meditation on the cruellest of events to have scarred our times – school, whether the school is public, private, or
migrations. When people are forced to move to new homes or new a madrassa, and what curricula are followed, all
geographies, they only recall a mix of uncanny facts, affect Pakistanis’ attitudes toward terrorism and
streets lost in sad nostalgias, fantasies of lovers, the rest of the world.
parables of simple things, or an unending romance In the end, Afzal suggests how this belea-
about a possible life and a world. When physical ge- guered nation-one with seemingly insurmount-
ographies are redrawn, moral landscapes become so able problems in governance and education-can
bewildering as to leave one emotionally paralysed. As change course.
in Intizar Husain’s other work, India’s partition haunts Madiha Afzal is a non-resident fellow at the
the tale like an inexplicable shadow. In contrast, Brookings Institution. She is also an adjunct
Dastan is a traditional tale of wonder. Its language is assistant professor of global policy at Johns Hop-
lyrical and exaggerated; its narrative, obsessed with kins SAIS and was previously an assistant profes-
action, weaves dreams and adventure and heroism. sor of public policy at the University of Maryland.

Tehelka / 15 june 2018 65 www.Tehelka.com

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