EQBAL AHMAD
Edward W. Said, the noted Palestinian political scientist, called Eqbal Ahmad "perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia and Africa". "Activict scholar" is how David Barsamian, an American journalist and auther described him, in a cover-story interview for the South Asian Himal magazine (March 1999). Ahmad, who studied at Princeton in the 1950s, began his crusade against injustice and tyranny early. He went to Algeria where he was active in the revolt against the French; he was a prominent civil rights and anti-Vietman war campaigner. In the 1960s he was academically ostracised while teaching at Cornell University, for championing the Palestinian cause. After leaving Cornell, he freelanced, and helped found the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, afiliated with the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington DC. From 1982 to 1997, he taught International Relations and Middle Eastern studies at Hampshire College, Massachusette. He was made professor emeritus in 19998, and his
retirement ceremony in 1997, 'Celebrating Eqbal Ahmad', was momentous; speakers included Amad's friends Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Edward Said. The First Eqbal Ahmad Lecture was delivered by the UN Secretary General kofi Annan in Sept 1998, as part of the Eqbal Ahmad Distinguished Lecture Programme announced at the event. Ahmad was frequently consulted by journalist, politicians and bureaucrats. But in Pakistan, his 'friends' in high places were unwilling to support him in public, or to help him realise his dream, Khaldunia University, an alternative centre of learning. None of them dared even attend his funeral when he unexpectedly passed away in May 1999. His friends and admirers-- the extended 'Eqbal Ahmad family'-- were the dissident demanding an end to nuclear weapons and hostilities with India, a settlement of the Kashmir issue with the participation of the Kashmiris, equality for women, religious minorities and the dispossesed, and a new discourse in politics.
FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ
Faiz Ahmad Faiz shot to fame as a promissing poet to in the 1930s. The Progressive Writers Association had given a new direction to the arts in the subcontinent and Faiz was soon to became its most prominent exponent. He was able to merge the stylish lyricism of our mainstream ghazal tradition with a declamatory style usually associated with rebellion. He was made the Chief Editor of The Pakistan Times, the newspaper representing progressive ideas and was arrested in 1951 for allegedly taking part in a conspiracy to overthrow the government. He was acquitted but was arrested again after three years. He wrote some of his best poetry in jail while he was being tried for treason. After headed Alhamra Lahore, a college in Karachi and finally was instrumental in setting up the Pakistan National Council of the Arts. In the last years, he lived in exile, editing the magazine Lotus from Beirut. He ws awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963 for giving a poeric expression to the wowntrodden and wretched of the earth
without being too declamatory.
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