Author Archives: Razi Azmi

National identities aren’t permanent.  A citizen of Bangladesh born before 1947 would have started his life as an Indian but identified himself as a Pakistani for nearly a quarter century of his life, before becoming a Bangladeshi.  It is quite probable … Continue reading →

The tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 heralded the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet empire.  The toppling of Saddam’s statue on Baghdad’s Firdous Square in 2003 sealed the overthrow of a dreadful Arab dictatorship.  Both were events of … Continue reading →

Often, less is more, and more is less.  For example, the death of Princess Diana in a road accident in Paris generated thousands of hours of television coverage worldwide, but carnage in Congo, Sudan or Indonesia resulting in thousands, even … Continue reading →

“What is mine is mine, what is yours is mine too”.  Nowhere does this seem more true than in the case of international borders.  The list of countries with territorial claims on a neighbouring state is long.  Often, border disputes … Continue reading →

Happiness is not the product of the sum-total of one’s wealth or power.  Happiness, after all, comes from the simple pursuit of that which brings a smile to one’s face and joy to one’s heart.

Many people mourn the loss of the old world.  But I doubt if all past generations had even been privileged to mourn in like manner, for so little changed from one generation to the next.  Similarly, given the rapidity of  … Continue reading →

 Nothing is safe from the predatory instincts of man, neither animals, nor women, nor man himself. Creatures and fellow human beings are tortured, mutilated and variously put to death for food, for pleasure, to appease the gods, for service in … Continue reading →

Many learned treatises and dissertations, not to mention articles, have been written and are being written on every subject under the sky, attempting structural, sociological, political and historical analyses of contemporary issues.  So many, indeed, that were I to do … Continue reading →

One will search in vain for any two countries of the Ummah, sharing common borders, which do not harbour overt or barely-concealed hostility towards each other. … It is not just non-Muslim minorities which get the short shrift in Islamic … Continue reading →