Think about a small country, less than one-sixth of Karachi's population. Also, it is relatively poor and has a Muslim majority. What should this country possess to somehow stand out in the world, something that would allow its citizens to hold their heads high?
Well, I am talking about Albania and its great writer of fiction, Ismail Kadare. Early this week, Ismail Kadare died in Tirana, the country’s capital. He was 88. He is being mourned across the world as Albania’s “greatest cultural monument”. One measure of his literary stature is that he was tipped for the Nobel Prize for Literature a number of times.
Before I say more about the writer and his novels, I want to explain why I have chosen to write about Kadare at a time when momentous changes are taking place in the political and social affairs of so many important countries. On Thursday, a political earthquake shook Britain, with the Labour Party winning the elections by a landslide. The second round of parliamentary elections is being held today in France, a divided country that is being assailed by the dark passions of the far right.
There was this detailed piece in The New York Times on how political unrest worldwide is fueled by high prices and huge debts. Economic turmoil is spreading across the globe and the response has been protests, attempted coups and elections of far-right politicians. In Pakistan itself, there is an entire range of issues that separately demand attention. One subject that seemed interesting was the storming of........