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Mowahid Hussain Shah Will & Skill ISBN 13: 9789699739026

Will & Skill - Hardcover

 
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Synopsis

The post-9/11 world has inflamed Western-Muslim relations. Ten years later, the epic unfolding of an 'Arab awakening' energized grassroots activism around the world. The uprising is basically a fight for core human dignity values.

The book delves into issues that define and divide the West and the Muslim world, explores the gulf of understanding between them, and discusses the imbalance fueling frustration and fury. Also highlighted is the disproportionate role in the West of narrowly focused interests, which abuse the democratic process and have lowered the West's standing in the Muslim world.

The author argues the need for Muslims to rise to the challenge and engage in the battle of ideas, offering original views and a doable solution-oriented approach.

The book also identifies core governance obstacles at home, which lay unattended because of lack of ability and integrity, and a facade of democracy that operates 'to preserve the monopoly of means and genes.' The author presents an honest diagnosis of the underlying self-inflicted ills and warns against a defeatist mind-set, in an attempt to show a path forward.

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About the Author

The journey in the author's life has taken him to distant lands and differing situations, exposing him to a wide variety of challenging experiences including student leader, campaign strategist, attorney-at-law, and editor of a Washington-based newspaper.

An advisor to leading personalities in Pakistan, Mowahid Hussain Shah's political activism and hands on experience with practical politics and policy making at the highest level inform his insights. He has been able to straddle both the Muslim and Western cultures, with an uncanny foresight in reading between the lines and predicting what loomed ahead.

Review

Will & Skill is an erudite, very readable, and a most informative collection of essays, which express the concerns and hopes of a caring human being and an intellectual for Muslims and Pakistan -- Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed

Mowahid Shah's is a passionate voice raised from Washington DC imploring justice and fair play for Muslims, wherever he thinks they are oppressed and given a bad deal. Shah makes such pleas as a man of the modern world, fully commensurate with universal humanist values and standards. He is therefore by no stretch of the imagination an apologist for the abuse of power, fundamentalism, and the perversions of corruption that pervade the corridors of power in Muslim societies, especially his beloved Pakistan. Many of the essays are a scathing critique of Muslim societies and their ruling classes.

Living in the United States and opposing the invasion of Iraq or taking up cudgels on behalf of the Palestinians is not the best investment career-wise, but some men and women will always defy self-promotion and speak the truth as they see it. Shah argues that the end of the Cold War between the two superpowers has been replaced by a Cold War against Islam. Thus, for example, the hyphenated construction Judeo-Christian civilisation suggests misleadingly a shared religious and cultural legacy that is harmonious. Such a construction, arbitrarily excludes Islam from that shared legacy of the Abrahamic faiths, he emphasises. He asserts that the historical record and evidence is to the contrary. He makes a very cogent argument: When Jews and Christians can live with each other after a 2,000-year history of persecution, pogroms, and the Holocaust, surely it is not entirely quixotic to envision the Christian West and the Muslim East finding their common humanity in the quest for a better tomorrow.

The author echoes the thinking of many fair-minded Muslims and intellectuals who accept Israel's right not only to exist, but also to become an integral part of the Middle East, on the basis of mutual benefit through interaction with the vast Arab humanity around it. Such a relationship is possible only if the suffering of the Palestinians groaning under years of inhuman occupation comes to an end. A two-state solution is the most desirable, but the Palestinian state has to be a viable entity and not a patchwork of Bantu lands. He calls for justice in Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

Shah's review of the life conditions of the people of Pakistan is very emotional indeed and suffused with sincere best wishes for their progress and consolidation as a modern nation.

His strongest lament is for the worship of Mammon in Pakistan. Money and connections matter and that is all. He considers such decadence a betrayal of the Pakistan that many middle class Muslims believed would come into being. The spineless and corrupt Pakistani ruling class has never failed to fail Pakistan, he remarks most aptly.

Amid such patently political writings, we catch glimpses of Mowahid Hussain Shah's refined tastes and sensibilities as well. It is his love for music, films, and nostalgia for the golden era of Pakistani cricket. When in the 1950s, Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Fazal Mahmood, Imtiaz Ahmed, Muhammad Hanif and many other great players created a sensation on the green turfs all over the world, his articles on them are a real treat and bonus in this book. Will & Skill is an erudite, very readable, and a most informative collection of essays, which express the concerns and hopes of a caring human being and an intellectual for Muslims and Pakistan.

The reviewer has a PhD from Stockholm University. He is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South AsianStudies, National University of Singapore.
--Daily Times (Pakistan), June 10, 2012

Review 2:The book made me think. It summarises all the ills that constrain our nation's progress and forces one to think of a solution -- Syed Mahboob Husain

A view to cure
I was one of the fortunate persons to be invited for the book launch ceremony of Will & Skill by Mowahid Hussain Shah. This was a hugely attended event at the Nazriya-i-Pakistan Trust on the Mall at Lahore, and was presided over by Mr Majid Nizami, marking in 2012 his 50th year as Editor-in-Chief of Nawa-i-Waqt Publications.

After reading the book, I felt impelled to comment. The book made me think. It summarises all the ills that constrain our nation's progress and forces one to think of a solution, which comes to mind automatically without the author stating it.

There is no arrogance in presenting the solution. Yet, Mowahid puts it in a way that the solution that one comes up with is what he actually wants. It takes skill and a huge lack of ego to take such a path.

Will & Skillhas a surprising impact on the reader. At first impression, it is an assemblage of articles written over a period of time. Later, it draws one in.

I know the exact moment when I told myself that I should read this book seriously. At the book launch ceremony, speaker after speaker was called to speak about the book and the author. Most succeeded quite easily to exceed their allotted time slot and had to be reminded by the Chairman to wind up. Finally, the author was called to the rostrum. I looked at my watch. He came and said a few sentences about the values inculcated in him by his parents, his indebtedness to his wife, his family, and friends, plus the support of his publisher's team. He thanked the audience and sat down.

Later, when I read his articleThe Urge to Sermonise, I smiled and said to myself: He is a man who practices what he preaches!

After reading through a few pages, I realised that the book not only presents issues in a crisp, simple manner, but the presentation forces one to think of a solution which another author may well have included to show his complete knowledge.

It takes a lot of information processing and wisdom to identify and critique succinctly within a few paragraphs the errors, omissions, faults, and good points of a given topic. Mowahid does so implicitly.

Every article has a centre of gravity, a pivot, and a message all delivered with exactness and precision. Each article is written with such ingenuity that the reader draws the same conclusion that the writer tacitly suggests. Underlying the writer's analysis undoubtedly is his perceptive take on issues.

The ills that beset our beloved nation are many. The cure is simple, the cost minimal, and the result: a first-class nation.

Yet, the cure based on Unity, Faith, and Discipline requires one indispensible virtue - honesty. It requires no super science, no new managerial application. Honest leadership follows honesty.

Mowahid understands and writes about the seeds of religious bigotry, monetary greed, and sycophancy that have been sowed in our fertile land. We are harvesting a crop of poison. He notes it well and we have been warned.

The book could well become an authoritative documentary evidence, a raison d'etre of why Pakistan is floundering. By pointing to the remedial process as the author has done, the book can also become the raison d'etre of our nation s success.

Syed Mahmoob Husain is a senior banking CEO, author, and former Technology Head of Habib Bank.
--The Nation (Pakistan), July 20, 2012

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  • PublisherJumhoori Publications
  • Publication date2012
  • ISBN 10 9699739029
  • ISBN 13 9789699739026
  • BindingHardcover
  • LanguageEnglish
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages696

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