Many of us have heard of the name Edward Said, but how many pakistani’s know anything about his Pakistani contemporary and friend Eqbal Ahmed? He was a passionate defender of Pakistan and one of those old style intellectuals in the mould of Edward Said.
Sadly rarely ever acknowledged in Pakistan, he often took a stand on issues that were the exact opposite of mainstream opinion. he for example opposed the testing of Nuclear Weapons by Pakistan. Anyway here is a nice link to some of his articles:
That’s a great link. In one of ES’s writings he talks about meeting Faiz in a Beirut cafe, introduced to him by Eqbal Ahmed. Eqbal was a gifted writer, as self-critical about domestic policies as he was about foreign policies. He was an amazingly eloquent and articulate writer. First time i read he was Pakistani, i was so proud.