Columbia University Faculty

"Instead of describing the personal appearance of the general and statesman, , in his biography of that worthy, Plutarch referred his readers to a bronze statue of him at Rome opposite the . But to-day the statue has disappeared, and the same is true of most of the manners and customs of the distant past, which were once too familiar for historians to think it worth while to mention them to their readers."

"Many accept the date, July 19, 4241, for the origin of the . The s had a day of twenty-four hours, a month of thirty days, and a year of three hundred and sixty-five days made up of twelve months and five extra days which were regarded as unlucky. The division of the month into three ten-day periods seems traceable to the . Their year began on what for us would be July 19, when the star or first appeared on the eastern horizon simultaneously with the rising sun. This was furthermore about the time of the which meant so much to the prosperity of the land."

"My world is compressed. Warris Road, lined with rain gutters, lies between Queens Road and Jail Road: both wide, clean, orderly, streets at the affluent fringes of Lahore."

"There is no more familiar, and possibly no more important, figure in the history of Latin learning during the twelfth century that Peter Abelard who flourished at its beginning. His career, as set forth in his own words, illustrated educational conditions in at that time. His brilliant success as a lecturer on logic and theology at Paris reveals the in embryo. His pioneer work, ', set the fashion for the standard method of presentation employed in ."

"When I was a child I saw the sea burn. How often I have thought that sentence but with no page to set it on, no place to make it mine. As I sit and write, my words fly off the page. I think of geese lumbering into the wind. Or paper kites men have held in their hands, stretched taut over wind, over water, lit by the half darkness. But the darkness turns into barbed wire. In reaching for the past I am forced to crawl through it."

"s throve at the s of kings, and sometimes their advice was taken even by him whose very act was held to be under special divine direction. It would be a great mistake to think that the astrologer was maintained for the amusement of king and court, like the . His utterances were taken most seriously, and the principles of his art were so generally accepted as to become the commonplaces of the thought and the conversation of daily life. In 1305, for instance, who certain s urged to return to Rome, they reminded him that every planet was most powerful in its own house."

"It seems to me that in its rhythms the poem, the artwork, can incorporate scansion of the actual, the broken steps, the pauses, the blunt silences, the brutal explosions. So that what is pieced together is a work that exists as an object in the world but also, in its fearful consonance, its shimmering stretch, allows the world entry. I think of it as a recasting that permits our lives to be given back to us, fragile, precarious."

"Migrancy, a central theme for many of us in this shifting world, forces a recasting of how the body is grasped, how language works. Then, too, at the heart of what happens in these sometimes jagged reflections of mine, is the question of postcolonial memory. ("Overture: Another Voice")"

"As the condition of migration and cultural displacement comes to be seen as a metaphor of our times, Meena Alexander's poignant and perceptive book is a welcome addition. Here, the postcolonial condition is addressed in its variety and its particularity: as fiction, criticism, personal reflection. This is a compelling, subtly crafted performance."

"The act of writing, it seems to me, makes up a shelter, allows space to what would otherwise be hidden, crossed out, mutilated. Sometimes writing can work toward a reparation, making a sheltering space for the mind. Yet it feeds off ruptures, tears in what might otherwise seem a seamless, oppressive fabric. more?? (from "Piecemeal Shelters")"

"At once violent, erotic, and somber, Manhattan Music is infused with the power of myth and poetry and the inner life, the electric intersection of characters who illuminate for the reader both the Old World and the New."

"There is no comparison between what Partition was to what today is. Partition was a time of too much chaos. I am the only old woman in this room who remembers that time. I was seven or eight. And I remember the roar of the mob from a distance. I couldn’t make out the words. But later, I was able to decipher the “Hare Hare Maha Dev”, the “Allahu Akbar” and the “Sat Siriye Kaal”. Even back then, I could understand that they are killing each other. I knew it was evil. And there was no comparison to what’s happening today."

"One of the great comic novels of the 20th century"

"Globalization has its advantages. To be translated and read in several countries is immensely satisfying; after all a writer - this writer at least - is driven by the impulse to communicate. Conversely, globalization exposes one to wonderful writers from diverse cultures."

"One of the finest responses made to the horror of the division of the subcontinent."

"A ground-breaking writer, whose works have lost none of their freshness, humour or heart"

"Bapsi Sidhwa's voice - comic, serious, subtle, always sprightly, is an important one to hear."

"Basically where you come from in your writing is what you have experienced yourself, have internally absorbed as part of your adventure of life and I think that’s the best you can do… is writing about things that you know intimately."

"In concrete imagery and intellectual passion, Alexander is full of surprises. These are haunting texts of hybrid America."

"Bapsi Sidhwa has blossomed into Pakistan's best writer of fiction in English...Cracking India deserves to be ranked as amongst the most authentic and best on the partition of India.""

"[about the Partition of India] The roar of the mobs appeared to be a constant in my life; even as a 7 year old I knew it was an evil that threatened our lives. I couldn’t make out the words although I vaguely realized they were shouting religious slogans as they set fire to houses and harmed people. The memory of smoke and fire and fear and the sudden appearance of hoards of bedraggled refugees in my neighborhood are still vivid."

"What is happening with the Talibanization is really frightening [in the FATA and NWFP] – it’s scary because the brunt seems to fall on the women. When people talk of religion they often think in terms of “a woman shouldn’t do this or shouldn’t do that.” It’s not only Islam or in Islamic countries – in America the issue becomes the “woman doesn’t have right over her body,” etc. And in Pakistan, we go through a cycle of hope and despair. Right now we are in a place where we don’t know where we are headed…"

"Writer’s narratives are woven into the fabric of life and history – it makes people aware of where they stand in relation to each other and the rest of the world. The word, as we understand it, may mutate, but it will always count."

"Meena Alexander's acute poetic sensibility makes this memoir a joy to read. At the same time, the writing is grounded enough to evoke the earthier loam of violence and reality."

"Of the 3rd millennium BC , Marc van de Mieroop confessed ‘the chronology is confused owing to the Sumerian king list’s practice of listing contemporaneous dynasties as successive.’"

"…all sorts of things that don’t even look political got mixed up with the 1970s and the new politics. So, that was how, when I came here, how I viewed Mr. Manley and Woodside. Anything that was out of the current order then was now possible. As if Mr. Manley had shattered some sort of glass globe and people could go inside and take what ideas they felt like having. It was really quite revolutionary, if unstructured."

"the man...was a great guy, a formidable person!...As a matter of fact, I think that in law, Manley is much more interesting than in politics. Because as you know he was a great lawyer and a man of really brilliant mind."

"In a macabre way, debt, drugs and development all have a bearing upon each other. All three are incapable of being defeated in the case of drugs; of solution in the case of debt; or of progress in the case of development, if pursued in a purely national context."

"time is not on the side of a country like Jamaica. The world economy is evolving in both technical and structural terms at an incredible pace. Our ability to maintain and if possible increase our position within that framework will be largely determined by our success in education. The commitment has been made to treat education as the central social priority of the 1990s. The old sterile debate about whether education is a right or a privilege has long since been overtaken by a new reality. The training of the young is the critical investment in a nation's future and its capacity to provide a better life for its people. The attempt is now being made to persuade an entire nation to understand this fact and to commit the resources necessary to do the job."

"[asked about similarities between a character in The Star-Apple Kingdom and Michael Manley] DW: I think what I was concerned about was that Michael does have a profound love of his country, Jamaica, and he's a fighter, and I wanted to catch the poise of anguish that comes from wishing for a kind of order that can only perhaps be imposed by a kind of discipline, 'heavy manners' if you want."

"If people are to acquire self-confidence and rediscover the cultural continuity to which they are heirs, the mask of obscurity and shame must be ripped from the face of our African heritage. Once again, this will disturb the establishment, but it is a pre-condition of national maturity. Cultural exchanges between the Caribbean and Africa and the introduction of a stream of basic teaching about African history must take their place alongside the flow of European artists who are understandably encouraged by the British Council and similar metropolitan bodies. If we are to know ourselves, we should know at least as much about the Ashanti wars as about the Wars of the Roses. If we do not know ourselves, we cannot hope to acquire the self-confidence upon which the spirit of self-reliance must rest. (4: Education)"

"Class divisions and social justice are incompatible. Hence, if the latter is to be achieved the former must yield. However, as with all human behaviour patterns, class attitudes are deeply entrenched. The difficulty of the task leads many political leaders of idealistic commitment to shrink from the remedies that are required because these are drastic. It is clear that the process of transformation from a stratified to a classless society must begin with the educational process. (4: Education)"

"If the moral purpose of this mission is to remain intact, it must be approached in humility and supported by prayer. Hegel once remarked that 'history is the march of God in the world'. Ours, then, is the task to see that the road tends ever towards justice. (6: First Directions)"

"At the international level, colonialism is an extension of the slave-master relationship as between classes within a society to the larger scale of the relationships between entire peoples and nations. I suggest, therefore, that the consequences of the relationship as between nations locked in the colonial equation is markedly similar to those that arise amongst people locked in the slave equation. Here, of course, one has used slavery as an example only. It must be remembered that the master-servant, superior-inferior relationship has taken many forms in history. European feudalism, czarist despotism, Latin American military dictatorships operating at the behest of an oligarchy, South African apartheid and Dixiecrat racism are all variants of a common theme. Similarly, colonialism in the sense of the rule of one people by another is an extreme form of a generalized historical phenomenon in which societies, for one reason or another, are externally dominated. Thus, one must make distinctions within a common category to understand history. (4: Self-Reliance and the Problem of Attitudes)"

"your first duty is to challenge the chain that ties tomorrow's possibilities to yesterday's conclusions. The task is to break the chain even at the price of shocking the society. Indeed, it is desirable that one should shock the society, because only by the act of shocking are you likely to generate a form of collective introspection through which people will begin to re-examine the basic workings of their own unconscious assumptions. (from Introduction)"

"when we talk of an open foreign policy we are seeking to establish the fact that the entire world is the stage upon which a country, however small, pursues this perception of self-interest. Nor does one have to conclude that self-interest is either an immoral or an amoral phenomenon. National self-interest for example, leads no wise man into war. War has often been the resort of fools like Mussolini or knaves like Hitler. They shared a common fate. And even successful wars of aggression set in train forces that undo the temporary advantage that they may confer. The only wars that are morally justified in history are those dedicated to national liberation where it is clear that no other method can succeed. Therefore a policy of enlightened self-interest will commend to any intelligently-led nation the conclusion that peace is in every man's interest in the end. Hence every country, and Third World countries even more so, has a tremendous investment in the success of the United Nations. But even as a supporter of the United Nations, it is also important that our foreign policy reflect a clear adherence to principle and the expression of those principles in the councils of the United Nations...The commitment must be to principle but tempered with a cautious recognition that many of the issues of international politics bristle with difficulty. In fact, it is the very complexity of these problems and the tensions that they create in the world that makes it so imperative that the United Nations itself survive and increase in influence and strength in the world. Hence a foreign policy must include a concern for everything that affects peace in the world which in turn implies a constant vigilance about international relations generally. (3: Foreign Policy)"

"Missing from the book was an analysis of imperialism, capitalism, socialism and tribalism within the Jamaican political system. Each of these represent an important element in the understanding of both international and national politics. The extent to which they were incompletely recognised or understood was to have a significant bearing on events between 1973 and 1980."

"The more that I have thought about the morality of politics, the more there has emerged for me a single touchstone of right and wrong; and the touchstone is to be found in the notion of equality...The more I have thought, therefore, about social organization, the more I have concluded that here is only one supreme, moral imperative that cannot be affected by time, by circumstance, by the seasons, by man's moods or intellectual distractions, by the injunctions of philosophers or the sermons of pastors; and it is the notion that social organization exists to serve everybody or it has no moral foundation. (Introduction)"

"In the early post-colonial phase of a developing country, only political movements devoted to the politics of change have relevance. An analysis of the legacies of colonialism suggests a degree of social debilitation together with economic and social malformations so grave as to make the politics of tinkering within the status quo, irrelevant to our condition. (1: The Setting for Change)"

"As Hegel divined philosophically, and as every physicist since Newton knows as a matter of course, history is the story of action and reaction. (4: Self-Reliance and the Problem of Attitudes)"

"The globalisation of the world economy has not led to a more equitable distribution of wealth but is facilitating its further concentration."

"Government today must not only reflect the politics which have been described as the art of the possible. It must reflect also the pursuit of the ‘impossible’, so that our own capacity may be confirmed to ourselves and self-doubt banished. (4: Self-Reliance and the Problem of Attitudes)"

"Any realistic vision of change must be based on the notion of empowerment of people."

"All organized societies depend on a power system; and politics is the business of power, its acquisition and its use. Observation of history suggests that there have been three approaches to politics and, therefore, three approaches to the use of power. There are men, perhaps the majority, who see power as something to be acquired for its own sake. Then there are those who see power as something to be used for purposes of minor adjustments in the society. Finally, there are the idealists who seek to arrange fundamental change. (from Introduction)"

"Just as surely history is the product of those forces which seek to dominate in the name of glory or profit, equally is history the product of the forces of those who rebel.”"

"In a plural world, it is the right to self-determination, and not its outcome, which is the inalienable right of every man. And it is wherever the absolute right to self-determination is denied that peace is most at risk."

"If we look about us we see the lengthening shadows of a thousand small corruptions creeping across the landscape of our nation. This is monstrous, for it is not the evening of our history; it is the morning and the shadows should be forming the other way."

"Where political sovereignty has been conceded but economic power remains untouched, equality remains a myth, social justice proves unattainable and even freedom becomes an ambiguous phenomenon."

"Art is the mirror through which a society perceives itself; and it is a mirror that must be held up to young societies constantly if they are to achieve a sense of their separate identity in the world. Clearly, therefore, the development of the latent artistic talent of a society is important to its growth and critical to the process of psychological transformation with which we are concerned. (4: Education)"

"Democracy should be as much a system of participation as a method of representation."