Children of Gebelawi

It seems Egyptian author and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz got stabbed in the neck for writing this book.

What was so offensive about "Children of Gebelawi"?

When I picked this book, I was hoping to come across the kind of stuff that riles up the zealots and fanatics. Instead of this, it seemed no more offensive than a stretched out narrative of a family patriarch who has a looming presence (just like the cover!) across five generations. It is about 'chiefs' who lord over their respective quarters, rebellious youngsters and murderous siblings.

It seems many folks in the Middle East were offended by the allegorical portrayal of God.

From what I could make out God and religion are not even marginal to the story-line.

So is it a case like "PK" in India where self-appointed guardians of religion went berserk, and seemed quite delighted to find an opportunity to get offended?

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Borgias, Chaos, Creativity & Decentralization

In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.   - Harry Lime in the Third Man (1949)

This perceptive and amusing movie dialog came to my mind while reading Amish's piece in the Hindustan Times titled, "The Centre Doesn't Hold". Amish's argument was that a decentralized  messy and politically divided land is actually good for innovation.

Amish points out that America's lead in innovation can be traced back to the fact that US constitution has focused on states' rights, keeping the federal government relatively weak. In pre-colonial India too "our political divisions allowed our innovators and free thinkers to have options. If the Palas didn't like your ideas, you could go to the Cholas. If the Tuluvas of Vijaynagar didn't like your thoughts, you could go to the Bahmani Sultans. Since we were culturally one country, travel was easy. Decentralisation helped innovation and kept us rich".

Post independence, we adopted to a Constitution that was designed to keep power & control firmly in the hands of a Viceroy, and, in the bureaucracy, simply exchanging white sahib's for brown sahib's. We paid the price for this  centralized 'iron framework' through stifling economic policies from the 1950s to 1991. Perhaps this was just as well because, because, in the bargain, our institutions have become strong enough to manage political disagreements with less chaos and violence.

Since we are unlikely to be like Switzerland in the foreseeable future, will the next round of coalition governments in India lead us into an era of chaos, innovation and creativity?

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LINKS

* 2013 (HT): THE CENTRE DOESN'T HOLD -- http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/The-centre-doesn-t-hold/Article1-1059653.aspx

* IMDB - The Third Man (1949) - Quotes - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041959/quotes