May 11, 2003 Welcome to a generous selection of articles from DAWN's Weekly Books & Authors. This page is updated every Sunday. For current issue Click here Intriguing nexus THE politics of religion in Pakistan has gained international attention because of the change in US-Pakistan relations after September 11, 2001. General Musharraf’s about-turn on Pakistan’s Afghan policy resulted in a backlash by pro-Taliban Islamic parties.... Excerpts: A journey through time DURING the recent troubles in Spain, when Granada was in the hands of the French, the Alhambra was garrisoned by their troops, and the palace was occasionally inhabited by the French commander. With that enlightened taste which has ever distinguished the... Articles: The exile in Mexico TO the south of Mexico City, now its suburb, there is an unpretentious house, where the man who organized the seizure of power in Petrograd in 1917, once lived. There Lev... Author: Influencing lives THE influences that shape our thinking and our lives are numerous of course, families, traditions, schools, teachers and books being the obvious ones. Very rarely, however, one meets and gets to... Author: Insights that made sense WE have missed Eqbal Ahmad sorely since his passing, and many events of the last year and a half — the 9/11 attacks, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — have made his wisdom seem more prescient than ever. “You are creating a monster here,” he used to tell his American friends, speaking of CIA support for the... Author: Continuing to resonate I WAS visiting with students and media activists in Delhi last November when Eqbal Ahmad’s name was mentioned. Almost to a person they all said what an impact Eqbal made on them when he visited Delhi not long before his death. At a time when communal politics is riding high in India, these mostly young people were... Author: Cultivating peace THE necessary, patient, arduous practice of cultivating peace between India and Pakistan had a special importance for Eqbal Ahmad. Born in India, he died in Pakistan, and fought for freedom for the people of both countries from deep poverty, the indifference of their elites, and the growth of Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism.... Author: Why Eqbal remains current “NEVER before had been so tragic the links between wealth and weakness, material resources and moral bankruptcy. Never before in the history of Islamic peoples had there been so total a... Author: Opposing realities DURING the US-bombing of Iraq in 1998, the late Dr Eqbal Ahmad wrote one of his many chillingly prophetic articles. In “After the winter bombs” (Dawn, Dec 20, 1998) he declared: “Dictators rarely leave behind them an alternative.... Syndicated Reviews: Her baleful legacy THE personality of Margaret Thatcher is one of the best-known artefacts in the whole of recent British political history. It’s years since there was any mystery about either her formation or... Syndicated Reviews: Tinseltown without glitter LOS Angeles is slippery, murky and alluring, a city of strange riches. When A.M. Homes was offered a contract to write a book about anywhere on earth, she chose LA. Homes... Review: Never forget the past “...NO STUDY can be more entrancing than the exploration of our Punjab history, and that our province affords a fine arena for historical dispute and a rich mine of historical research”.... Review: Murderous honour IF SOME day the practice euphemistically known as ‘honour killing’ is brought to the bar of the International Criminal Court, Jordanian Norma Khouri’s poignant tale will undoubtedly be one of the... Review: Missed opportunities FREDERIC Grare’s book is a well-researched study on the Afghan conflict — a bleeding wound in South Asia and a war without an end. Its six chapters describe and analyze retrospectively the crisis as it developed in 1985-2001. Afghanistan was a state whose society was based on traditional values.... Review: Lasting imprint COFFEE-table books have a generally deserved reputation for superficiality; designed to be picked up casually, they are put aside after a few idle minutes. But although this book on the Mughals... Review: Rebel with a cause THIS book has been very appropriately named, because it deals with that chapter of the history of the Indian freedom movement which, without doubt, was the turning point in the struggle...

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