Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation?

by Christophe Jaffrelot
Review by: Lucian W. Pye
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2002), pp. 203-204
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20033408 .
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 Recent Books
TheMyth of theHoly Cow. BY D. N. JHA. right the case that the United States
New York: Verso, 2002, 183 pp. $22.00. should be gentle with Japan because of
Jha, a distinguished historian at the the latter'scurrenteconomicproblems.
UniversityofDelhi, receiveddeath threats Instead, he sees this approach as just the
when he tried to publish this book in most recent Japanese ploy for bamboo
India. The first Indian publisher backed zlingAmericans intobelieving that
off after ominous warnings, and the some there will be disaster if Japan is forced
what braver second publisher had to give to abandon itsmercantilist policies. He
inwhen a group of Hindu fanatics declared argues that Japanese officials have skill
and succeeded
thebook "blasphemous" filly intimidated
U.S. policymakersby
in getting a court order to constrain its holding up the threatof anti-Americanism,
circulation.What Jha has done is to from both the left and the right in Japan.
document in great detail the fact that in Accordingly,becauseofmistakenviews
ancient times Hindus and Buddhists of Japanese cultural and political prac
ate beef. Indeed, the oldest Indian texts tices, Americans lack the nerve to call
theVedas and their auxiliaries dating the Japanese bluff. And the Japanese
from 1500 BC to 600 BC-establish that money that has poured into American
the eating of flesh, including beef, was universities has made American scholars
common in India.Hindus have argued that intellectuallytimidaboutexposingthe
itwas only with theMuslim conquest Japanese game. The author's case is
that cows were first slaughtered in India, overdrawn, but he has opened the door
but in truth itwas only in the eighteenth to rethinkingthedangersof suppressing
and nineteenth centuries that the cow tough-mindedanalysesfor fearof
became the sacred animal of Hinduism. offending the sensitivitiesof others,
Western scholars of ancient India have which aremagnified by the American
no trouble with Jha's thesis, which is addiction to culturalrelativism.
backed by copious footnotes and a bib
liography in several languages. How Pakistan: Nationalism Without aNation?
ever, such scholarship only makes the EDITED BY CHRISTOPHE
Hindu fanatics more passionate than JAFFRELOT.
New York:Zed Books,
ever, especially now that the ruling 2002, 352 PP. $75.oo (paper, $29.95).
Bharatiya Janata Party has given a degree These are thoughtful essays on the prob
of legitimacyto theviolent expression lems that Pakistan has had in achieving a
of Hindu nationalism. coherentnationalidentityandbecoming
a stable nation. The initial rationale for
Bamboozled!HowAmerica Loses the separating Pakistan from India was the
IntellectualGame WithJapan andIts presumed need to provide a homeland
ImplicationsforOur Future inAsia. BY for theotherwiseminorityMuslims in
IVANP.HALL. Armonk:M. E. Sharpe, anoverwhelmingly Hindu India.But
2002,324pp. $68.95(paper,$26.95). Muslim identitywas neversufficientto
Anotherbookdestinedtoarousepassions make Pakistaninto awell-functioning
in thiscase,amongJapanesenationalists nation; Islam is central to far too many
andAmerican liberals.Hall rejectsout other countries to be the exclusive basis

F O R E IG N AF FA I R S November/December2002 [ 203]

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Recent Books
of Pakistan's sense of national identity. Proudly We Can BeAfricans: Black
Over time, hostility toward India also Americans andAfrica, 193S-1961.BY
proved inadequate as a unifying force.The JAMES H. MERIWETHER. Chapel Hill:
inescapable fact is that Pakistanis are di University of North Carolina Press,
vided not only by different variations of 2002, 347 pp. $49.95 (paper, $19 95).
Islam but also by a host of other ethnic, The authorof thiscarefidlyresearched
linguistic,cultural,and socialdifferences. study looks at six episodes-Italy's invasion
of Ethiopia, the startof theCold War, pas
sive resistance in South Africa in 1952, the
Ghanaianindepen
MauMau rebellion,
Africa dence, andmass decolonization and the
GAIL M. GERHART
Congo crisis in1960-to trace the evolving
views of leadingAfrican Americans on the
Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United relevanceof contemporary Africa toAmer
Nations andRwanda. BYMICHAEL N. ican race struggles. Influenced by negative
BARNETT. Ithaca: Cornell University stereotypes of Africa and slow to challenge
Press, 2002, 208 pp. $25.00. theanticommunism U.S. foreign
shaping
Barnett, an academic, was attached to the policies, most black Americans were late
U.S. Mission to theUnited Nations in the to appreciate how much successfulAfrican
theRwandangenocide nationalismcouldlendmomentumto their
months surrounding
inApril 1994. Using an organizational cause at home. But no sooner had the in
ethics framework, he assesses the UN'S spirationalvalue ofAfrican independence
moral responsibility for the ensuing holo become widely apparent in the late 1950S
caust. He first sketches theworld body's than the complex Congo crisis of 1960-61
shifting role following the Cold War and clivided radicals from conservatives and re
then dissectswho said and did what about inforced blackAmericans' perennial hesita
Rwanda in 1993-94, pointing out the sins of tion to disaggregateAfrica into itsmyriad
commissionandomissionby theSecurity nations, factions, and personalities. An
Council, the Secretariat, itsDepartment of absorbing history of links between domes
Peacekeeping Operations, and the latter's tic and international politics.
field force, the UNAssistance Mission for
Rwanda. His theme is themoral universe Blood Diamonds: Tracing theDeadly Path
of the UN and the particularways its bu of theWorld'sMost Precious Stones. BY
andpoliticalculturesconstruct
reaucratic Boulder:Westview
GREGCAMPBELL.
reality.At every level except that of the field Press, 2002, 256 pp. $26.oo.
operation, he finds a pattern of"willfil ig Campbell, a freelance writer, setsout to
noranceand indifference" toward Rwanda rub the nosesof diamond-lovers in the
and a prioritizing of institutional interests goreof SierraLeone'sbrutalcivilwar
over the obligations set forth in the 1948 (1991-2001),inwhich a rebelarmyof
Genocide Convention. These are not new thievesseizedthecountry's diamondfields
findings, but Barnett develops them in a and specializedin amputatingthe limbs
rigorous if rather repetitiousway, drawing of villagersto forcetheircooperationin
on interviewswith key participants. theplunder. Arrivingon the scenein2001,

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