From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
Subject: Re: The Buddha of Suburbia..
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 16:57:49 GMT

ali@mcclb0.med.nyu.edu writes:
: In article <1992Jul25.173102.30402@davidsys.com>, khan@davidsys.com writes:
: >   Hanif Qureshi and others who reside in the west
: > with blackened hearts in their chests are NOT
: > representative in any way, personally or
: > with whatever they create thru their 'talents'
: > [films, novels, etc.] of the culture of
: > Pakistan. They, like Rushdie, are unsuccessful
: > tools in the hands of those who hate
: > the street-smart nation of Pakistan for
: > the balls that we have as compared to other
: > third world nations, and even the so-called
: > 'advanced & superior' nations. 
: >   'My Beautiful Laundrette', 'Samie & Rosie'
: > and 'Buddha of Suburbia' are all unsuccessful
: > attempts at defaming and mocking us, but
: > Pakistanis do not care.
: 
: "Blackened hearts in their chests"?? Why do you think that anyone who
: represents anything Pakistani in a negative light is attacking
: Pakistan, attacking muslims, etc., and therefore must have a blackened
: heart.  I think Hanif Qureshi's writing is very much tied to his own
: experiences.  He is openly gay and the fact that he chooses to write
: about it is probably not because he is trying to defame Pakistan but
: more likely to understand himself.  As for Rushdie, he does manage to
: capture a certain political ambience of Pakistani culture with Shame.
: At least I thought so... and I dont think many people thought the
: worst of Pakistanis after reading Shame, after all having corrupt
: government, illegitimate babies, and screwed up families is quite a
: universal phenomenon.   
: Actually you dont have to go far to find people who do defame Pakistan and
: mock its existence since there seem to be a bunch of them on SCP who 
: constantly argue about topics such as Nat'l language, ethnic
: loyalties etc.,.  Did you say blackened hearts in their chests ...??
: jahanara


The point is that Pakistan came into existence on the basis of Islam --
(the fact that it is far from the Islamic ideal, or even from the basics
of Islam, is an other matter that may be the subject of an other discussion.)

This means that Pakistanis who practice or believe in principles that are
clearly non-Islamic will, almost by definition, not agree with the concept
of Pakistan per se. For example, secularists, gays and athesists (e.g.
Rushdie, Quereshi etc.) are not in favour of Pakistan, at laest not in its
current ideologoical basis. Thus, when these people write about Pakistan, then
they automatically challenge the precepts of the existence of Pakistan and
Pakistani society. This may be seen as defaming Pakistan/Islam, although they
may simply be expressing their views. I think that each writer has to be
taken case by case.


In the case of Rusdie, I have bludgeoned my way through half his Satanic
Verses, and I have also heard him speak at Cambridge at a talk he gave 
just after he had published The Tiger Smile (I think?). I will give my 
(for all it is worth) breif assessment of him as writer and person;

(1) clearly a brilliant, but boring writer; wields and twists phrases
powerfully -- too much at times;

(2) He is NOT an intellectual. A common mistake by people is to take good
writers for intellectuals. A careful reading of Rushdie reveals that he
does not actually have any new ideas on contemporary society to offer. He
is an out-and-out socialist, and that seems to define him completely. 
IMHO, he simply expresses socialist ideas elegantly -- but there is no
input from himself in these ideas.

(3) As a person, what strikes me most from his writing, is his total
abondonment of Asian culture -- the author of his books may as well have been
"Joe Smith", and there would be no diffrence. So consumed is he in his
socialist-secularist-democractic (i.e. Western) ideology, that he has
lost all touch with the India sub-continent. The fact that he writes
about India etc. doesn't change anything; many westerners write about it
too. He is, in short, and honorary European.

(4) He clearly dis-likes Islam and religion in general -- this is part of
his socialism. Although it was natural for him show his disliking for
religion in general, it is clear that he has a special disliking for 
Islam and that in this sense his writings can be seen as a defaming Islam.


NAadeem Malik
nadeem@p.igp.ethz.ch
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan