12/03/2018 HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it

is time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk,

I'm Stephen Sackur.

Globalisation is a trend

based on movement -

of money, goods, ideas

and people, across continents

and national borders.

In a world of glaring inequality,

it has stirred a powerful backlash,

manifested in the rise of

nationalism and identity politics.

And this clash of human impulses

is fertile territory

for my guest today, the Pakistani

novelist Mohsin Hamid.

In his novels, he has

explored cultural,

economic and religious tensions

between East and West,

rich and poor.

His latest book

focuses on migration.

Why does it frighten so many of us?

Mohsin Hamid, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you.

I want to start with this

interesting idea of yours, that you,

you say, are a mongrel through and

through. What do you mean by being a

mongrel?

When I was born in

Pakistan, a move to California when

I was three, back to Pakistan at

nine, America 18, London 30, and

back to Pakistan about nine years

ago. And along the way I have become

a mixture of things. So I can't

think of myself as just Pakistani or

just British or just American. I am

a mixed up kind of creature, a

hybrid. And that is what I mean by

mongrel. It's a term that we tend to

think of as kind of negative.

Yes, I

mean, do you wear that badge with

pride?

I do, I think that is

something we should all wear with

pride, because everyone is a

mongrel, actually. We are descended

from all sorts of people, and we

have travelled and we have mixed

throughout ancestry, but also in our

own lives.

But it is such an

interesting statement, everybody is

a mongrel. Because of course, most

people don't want to think of

themselves as mongrel. Indeed, the

notion of longing, having a clear

identity, having a group, a tribe

that is yours, that is something

that seems today, and the 21st

century, to be extraordinarily

important to people.

I think it is

very important. I think that the

sense of belonging to a group of

people, having connection to those

people, is very important. But what

happens sometime ago was the people

we actually had a connection to, our

media, you know, family and clan,

was replaced by this idea of the

nation, the nationstate. Which is

kind of a fictitious connection. We

don't really have a personal

connection to most people of our

nation.

Well, the EU, maybe, but

maybe not the most people. I wonder,

because of your rather special

international upbringing, with a

well-to-do family who moved with you

to America and then could afford to

put you through US university, and

you got a very good job, you know,

you are a part of the sort of a

global elite, which most people in

most parts of the world are simply

not part of.

That's true,

absolutely. That said, I mean, my

childhood was spent trying to blend

in with other people. So I was like

a chameleon. You know, more

Pakistani and Pakistan, more

American in America. And as I got

older, I began to be comfortable

being a bit of a misfit, a sort of a

strange semi- foreign creature. But

as I have become comfortable with

this, what I find is how many other

people find themselves feeling

foreign. I think everybody feels

foreign, actually. So, you know, the

only gay trialed in a street family

feels foreign. The only daughter

with five brothers feels foreign. A

poet in the engineering faculty

feels a bit foreign. There is a

sense each of us has of being a bit

different, of not fitting in.

Just

one more political thought about

this notion of identity and

belonging. It is a very interesting

statement which the British Prime

Minister, Theresa May, came out with

not so long ago. She said if you

believe you are a citizen of the

world, you are in fact a citizen of

nowhere. You don't understand what

the very word citizenship means. Do

you feel yourself, you know, with

this mongrel idea of yours, to be a

citizen of the world, rather than

anywhere in particular?

I think we

can have multiple, overlapping

citizenships, so I am a citizen of

London in the centre used to live

here and pay taxes you, I feel

something to this place, a

connection to this place. I am also

a British citizen, which to Theresa

May might make me a sort of a

citizen of nowhere, because I am

also Pakistani. But it has a real

meaning to me, in terms of my sense

of connection to this country, and

my belief in abiding by the laws of

this country, etc, voting when I am

here. I don't think you become a

citizen of nowhere. I think the

question is, really, can you be a

citizen of more than one place? Can

you be a family with two parents

instead of one parent, as a child? I

think you can. You can have multiple

families that you belong to.

Your

latest novel, Exit West, it is a

sort of an epic tale with epic

elements to it about a couple that

fall in love in a city which is

never named, but let's say it sounds

a bit like Aleppo, in Syria, a city

which is pleasant but falls into the

most terrible war. These two young

people get caught up in it, and they

ultimately decide that their only

hope of a decent future is to leave.

You wrote it, as I understand it,

while living in Lahore. Did you

write it because you've got yourself

in the city, Lahore in Pakistan,

which was almost as fragile and as

vulnerable as a city like Aleppo

proved to be?

I hope that Lahore is

not that fragile, but I imagine

people in Kabul and Aleppo and the

massacres and Sarajevo also felt

that their cities were not that

fragile. What has changed for me is

the plausibility of this disaster

occurring in the place where I live

has grown. I think it has grown for

many people in many places, and so

the novel is born out of that kind

of nightmare, something I hope will

never happen.

It is a visceral,

personal fear.

Yes, I think, you

know, living in Pakistan, again, I

don't want a sort of contribute a

narrative that Pakistan is going to

decline and fall into chaos, I don't

think it is likely to do so. I think

it is likely to do the opposite. But

it is possible that it could, and

when you live in a place like that,

various background fear that can

occur, and for me does occur, and

fiction is the way it takes place.

And it is a fundamentally bleak

vision. I mean, you catalogue and so

many interesting emotional and

intimate ways the way in which

narrows down the life of all the

people captured by it in this city,

trapped in this city. And in the

end, as I say, the two young people

decide that escape is their only

alternative. But the really

interesting thing you do in this

novel, because a lot of it is quite

realistic, and evokes images from

Aleppo and muzzle and elsewhere, but

then what you do is you add this

sort of fantastical element, where

they discover a sort of magical

doorway that can transport them from

the hell of war to a new life, first

on a Greek island, and then they

make it to London. What is all this

fabulous magic doorway about?

Well,

sometimes I think we can get closer

to emotional reality by bending

other aspects that we think of as

being real. So yes, the doors that

they travel through don't exist

according to physics as we know it.

And yet we each carry around a small

black rectangle in our pockets and

our handbags which is a kind of

portal, you know, the screen of our

phones.

The smartphone.

Yes, through

which our consciousness leaps

forward from our body constantly. We

also know that if we wanted people

to move very cheaply, they could.

There is no technological reason why

people can't move around the planet,

maybe not instantaneously, but very,

very easily. And so the doors for me

are a combination of what technology

is making our world feel like, the

world we are suddenly seeing and

mentally present wherever we wish to

be, and away to compress the next

couple of centuries of human history

into a very short period of time.

And yet, I suppose, the reader

wonders whether you are devaluing

the sheer bravery, courage, and also

the risk that comes with actually

escaping war-torn city, and trying

to make a new life. Because, whether

it be Syria or whether it be sub

Saharan Africa, those who choose to

leave and try to reach the rich

world, and usually it is Europe,

they are undertaking a terribly

dangerous journey, either by sea or

across mountains and deserts, or

maybe both. And your description of

the migrant experience doesn't

include that journey at all.

Yes,

absolutely. I think that is... It is

not my intention to minimise or to

say that it is not horrific, the way

in which refugees and migrants are

often forced to travel. It is

horrific, and very frequently

deadly. But what has happened is, by

focusing so much on the journey of

these people, we have created a

different category of human being.

Those who have crossed the

Mediterranean on a small rubber

dinghy or crawled underneath the

barbed wire on the US Mexican border

are different from us. We have made

into another category of person, and

then there's other category can be

dealt with, I think, inhumanely.

When you take away that part that

makes them different, they are

simply people who are in place, and

then left the place for another

place, which everyone of us has

done, even if it is just leaving a

Paris houses to move out on our own.

And so my intent was not to devalue,

de- emphasise that part of the

story, but to establish a kind of

similarity between migrant

communities and every else.

To make

them seem less different.

Yes,

because at the end of the day, what

I think we are encountering is not

so much that there is a conflict

between two are the kinds of

feeling, the feeling of those who

are fleeing dangerous geographies

and the feeling of those who are

resisting the arrival of those

geographies. I think actually the

feelings are very similar. The idea

of losing the place where you grew

up Kennecott both because you change

geographies, and it can occur

because you are starting to feel

foreign in a place where you

yourself have grown up. And so if we

can recognise that the sorrow of

these two experiences is similar, we

can get beyond the kind of fruitless

notion of inevitable conflict

between these two divisions.

There

is a phrase in the book where you

describe the passage they make from

their war-torn home to a new life

which ends up being for a long time

in London, but then they actually

make another move to California. The

passage, you say, was both like

dying and like the board. Now, I am

interested in the just edition of

the two -- like being born. It says

something about your own life as

well when you lived in those

different places, that yes, huge

amount of opportunity came your way,

but there was also, always, a sense

of sorrow and loss as well.

There

is, I mean, there is an emotional

violence to moving that we often

don't give enough consideration. And

the echoes of that emotional

violence can go... Proceed through

our lifetime and across generations.

When, for example, if I were to

leave Pakistan again, my children

everyday play with their

grandparents. Let's say we were to

move somewhere far away and they

were to see them once a week... Once

a year for a week. That relationship

would, in a sense, end. And there is

an enormous sorrow to that ending. I

think people do experience

incredible senses of loss when they

leave the place, and it is important

to recognise that. When we say what

has this person done, what have they

given up to be here, the answer is,

when you say that of the refugee,

the migrant, they have given up

everything. And the emotional

consequences of that are huge.

And

one interesting... It is only one,

but one interesting element of how

they tried to maintain and memory of

where they came from, is actually

the use of religion as a vehicle and

prayer as a way of reconnecting. And

I'm particularly interested, because

you of course are also the author of

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which

looked at the relationship to in the

West and the Muslim world through

the eyes of a young man meeting an

American, a young Pakistani man. And

in this book, you have another young

man, Saeed, who turns to prayer. And

is your message that sometimes

religion, in this case the Muslim

religion, can be a means of trying

to maintain an identity?

Well,

certainly it can be. I think that

what has happened is that many...

Was it for you, by the way?

Religion

as a way of maintaining my identity?

I would say that, in a sense, I have

been made conscious of muslins as a

group because of how I am treated by

other people. So when I arrived on

the Eurostar from Paris in London

recently, everybody walked off the

train, we had already been through

immigration, I have a UK passport,

but I was stopped by some of it and

asked a whole bunch of questions,

and I think it is to do with

belonging to this group. So yes, to

a certain extent.

And did that make

you feel resentful, angry? Didn't

actually reinforce this feeling of

being the other?

Yes, it did those

things. It made me sad more than

those are the feelings, because I

think that the UK has been better

than many countries at not having

this sort of sense of constant

surveillance.

Is that why

Is that why you left the United

States after 9/11? Because you felt

like you are being regarded as a

potential threat?

It wasn't the

reason. I was living in London a

couple of months before it happened.

It was perhaps the reason I didn't

go back after I initially had

planned to do. It was at the George

Bush, the second George Bush

administration and a lot of wars

were starting and London felt very

conducive as this kind of

international hub of thinking,

writing, people protesting the Iraq

war. I felt culturally, politically,

in a sense, more at home in London

in those days.

And yet, in the end

it brings us back to where we began

this conversation, questions of

identity and belonging. He went back

to Pakistan. Despite everything you

have said about the universality of

the human experience and values, you

in the end did what so many people

did, you went home.

I am not

somebody who is a rootless mongrel

wandering the earth. Although that

is no worse or better than any other

kind of person. I am living in the

same place I lived as a child. After

having wandered in all these places.

In Athens, the reverse migration

from the one is the overbearing in

so much of the world. From the poor

world to the rich world. -- in a

sense. You made it in the rich

world, you became a consultant,

Golden egg job and then you decided

to be a writer and had written best

sellers. You were a success in New

York, in London and yet, you decided

you wanted to make it your life in

Pakistan and eight S8 many of your

friends said you are crazy. Yellow

that people thought it was a strange

decision. -- many people thought it

was a strange decision. -- and in a

sense.

Migration has always been

away for human beings to find what

they are looking for. Homo sapiens

are not involved on the British

Isles. People came here over

thousands of years and they keep

coming. They don't necessarily stay.

People whose ancestors have moved on

to America, some might come back

this way. I think we can migrate and

return.

This is where I struggle to

keep up with you because it seems to

me, when you talk about the

migration of the future in which you

say, and I am going to quote you've,

" I imagine when people are finally

free to move as they please around

our planet, they will look back at

our moment now and wonder just as we

wonder about those who kept slaves,

how people who seemed so modern

could do such cool things to their

fellow human beings like caging them

up as animals"

fellow human beings like caging them

up as animals". Your implication

being, we will reach this sort of

heavenly moment where migration is

just completely normal, acceptable,

easy and accessible to everybody on

this planet. I put it to you that

flies in the face of everything

about the human condition and human

history.

Well, I think human history

and a human condition is a march

towards greater equality. Until

recently, the idea that black people

would be slaves in a part of America

in a certain part of history was

common. The idea that women were

inferior to men or that gay people

should have the same rights as

straight people will stop all these

things have changed. -- is straight

people. All these things have

changed.

What hasn't changed are

these strains of nationalism and

populism and building borders.

Today, we can say that there is

something about all of human history

that yes, there are constant

movement -- movements, which have

involved epic amount of killing and

bloodshed.

I don't think they have.

Look at the history of north

America, South America, Central

Asia. Almost any geographical part

of the world is full of such

stories.

Yes, there have been

violence associated with migration

but it's not necessarily the case.

In North America, there was a

genocide. The free Colombian

population was wiped out, as

effectively. I have brown skin

because tens of thousands of years,

lighter skinned people have come

into the darker skinned places that

they didn't actually massacre each

other and result in lighter skinned

people surviving. They stuck around

and into next. Most of human history

is I think like that. It is not

genocide after genocide. Frequently,

I think, most often, we don't engage

in genocide.

I alluded to this

earlier, where you would acknowledge

that you are -- your rather

optimistic view on migration and the

intermingling of peoples, whether it

is reflective of having a gilded

life.

I think probably it is. In

that said, I think there are two

strong reasons to believe it is

going to happen. One reason is the

pressure of migration is going to

become enormous. If we are truly

going to resist it, we will no

longer be able to simply outsource

to Libya and Turkey, we will have

two actively kill people who want to

come. Direct barriers stop catch

those who get through. Catch those

who try to help those get through.

We will begin to...

You are saying

there is no middle ground? There is

no control that is possible in a

humanitarian way?

There never has

been. When have people stopped

moving? We have always moved, it is

the nature of humanity. We have

never been confined to geographies

in this way. The population of

Africa was a small fraction of

Europe 50 years ago. It will be

multiples 50 years hence. When

climate changes, people will move.

One would hope we won't have the

stomach, I hope, to inflict the

atrocities and create the

totalitarian societies that will

resist it. We actually need to think

about ourselves as humans and less

divided to solve the most pressing

problems we face. Climate change

cannot be solved by country thinking

of national self interest. The issue

of migration I don't think will be

addressed if -- in this way. The

most important issue is how we will

regulate and manage technology. We

are on the verge of giving birth to

intelligent machines that can think.

How are we going to regulate this?

How will we share the benefits? They

could potentially create great

surpluses but if they accrue to just

one dozen trillion as in California

is and the rest of us lose our jobs,

it is not a very pleasant planet.

All of this requires a more human

thinking.

And they use it in

Pakistan. I want to end by coming

back to your current life in

Pakistan. You have left California

where you just said, so many of

these developments in TEC have come

from and you are now looking in at

population of 200 million that is

mainly poverty. These are

disheartening times. -- tech. You

feel more disheartened about the

direction of your company because

the question has become about who is

Muslim enough and the answer appears

to be nobody 's is Muslim enough.

After all of your optimism about

what humanity can achieve and the

values that we idea lies, actually,

your own home, you seem to think, is

in very profound trouble.

It is in

trouble but I think it can get out.

That is important for us to begin to

articulate optimistic visions of

politics, the future, culture. What

we are facing right now is that

dominant of the spellcheck

pessimistic visions. If you are

pessimistic about having a more

equal world, you tend to think it is

a good idea to make America great

again.

Thanks for putting that

phrasing. I just noted Donald

Trump's first tweet at 2018,

directed at Pakistan. "They Have

given us nothing but lies and deceit

giving safe haven to the terrorists

we are hunting for in Afghanistan. "

It seems to me that right now you

are living in a part of the world

that giving the messages being sent

by Donald Trump and the current

American administration is going to

be a cockpit of tension and trouble.

Yes, but, what we are seeing is an

older generation that has migrated

to becoming older, it is in power

right now. Disproportionately, they

want these barriers for the younger

Americans disproportionately did not

vote for Donald Trump and younger

British did not vote for Brexit.

Younger people are more comfortable

with this openness. This is how

civilisation evolves. We don't

suddenly become enlightened. The

older generation, people like us who

have more closed minded views,

eventually die. We each achieve the

great Brexit in the sky. And then

the younger people who are left who

are still here will take us into

domains with can't imagine including

people moving around the world in

the way that today we think about as

very strange.

You are one of the

most optimistic people I have ever

met.

Well, I am a father. It is my

job to the optimistic was not

pessimism is feeding a medical

reactionary thinking. -- political

reactionary thinking.

We have to

went there. Thank you for being on

HARDtalk. -- we have to end there.