Adil Najam
Former Congressman Charlie Wilson died, at 76, earlier today in his native Texas.
Long-time readers of ATP are familiar with my fascination of Charlie Wilson (here, here and here). In many ways Charlie Wilson was as much an architect of today’s Pakistan as General Zia-ul-Haq. Only a lot more colorful, and maybe a little more well-meaning; even if equally misguided.
Ever since I first read Charlie Wilson’s War I have been fascinated by the man – and also by Joanne Herring. I am, therefore, saddened by his death. And yet, fascinating as he was, I cannot say I ever liked the man, or approved of his actions. But those actions and the events he helped shape, especially as articulated in Charlie Wilson’s War, personify the nuance and complexity of events which were history setting in their own time and have become even more so since then.
Back in 2006, in one of the earliest posts on this blog, I described the book about his role in the Afghanistan War against the Soviets (Charlie Wilson’s War) as “worth a read by anyone interested in politics or in a good thriller .” Later in December 2007 when the movie under the same title was released (with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts) I wrote a longer review the gist of which was: “I enjoyed the movie… Do go and see the movie and ask your friends to do so too. But, please read the book. Consider the movie to be no more than a trailer for the book.”
Today, I heard that Charlie Wilson, who had served as Democratic Congressman from Texas from 1973 to 1996, died at a hospital in Lufkin, Texas, of cardiopulmonary arrest. The news reminded me, once again, of just how important that period of the 1980s was to constructing the surreal reality of not just Pakistan, but the world today. And just how little we actually talk about it.
It is quite clear that he did not intend or expect things to turn out quite the way they did. But they did. I do not really know what he felt – at the end of his days – about what he did, what he should or could have done, and about all that happened because of what he did. I wish we knew. We probably never will. But here, in what must have been amongst his last political statements, is a glimpse:
Todays problems are also a direct result of the lack of intellectual discourse that challenges the radical interpretations of Islam. We have ceded too much mental space to the mullahs and they have wrecked havoc through their uneducated and unsubstantiated views.