Stephen Sackur talks to Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid about his latest book which focuses on migration.
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Now on BBC News, it
is time for HARDtalk. | 0:00:01 | 0:00:08 | |
Welcome to HARDtalk,
I'm Stephen Sackur. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:12 | |
Globalisation is a trend
based on movement - | 0:00:12 | 0:00:18 | |
of money, goods, ideas
and people, across continents | 0:00:18 | 0:00:19 | |
and national borders. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
In a world of glaring inequality,
it has stirred a powerful backlash, | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
manifested in the rise of
nationalism and identity politics. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
And this clash of human impulses
is fertile territory | 0:00:33 | 0:00:43 | |
for my guest today, the Pakistani
novelist Mohsin Hamid. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
In his novels, he has
explored cultural, | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
economic and religious tensions
between East and West, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:53 | |
rich and poor. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:54 | |
His latest book
focuses on migration. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:55 | |
Why does it frighten so many of us? | 0:00:55 | 0:01:01 | |
Mohsin Hamid, welcome to HARDtalk. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
Thank you. I want to start with this
interesting idea of yours, that you, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:29 | |
you say, are a mongrel through and
through. What do you mean by being a | 0:01:29 | 0:01:34 | |
mongrel? When I was born in
Pakistan, a move to California when | 0:01:34 | 0:01:39 | |
I was three, back to Pakistan at
nine, America 18, London 30, and | 0:01:39 | 0:01:44 | |
back to Pakistan about nine years
ago. And along the way I have become | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
a mixture of things. So I can't
think of myself as just Pakistani or | 0:01:48 | 0:01:53 | |
just British or just American. I am
a mixed up kind of creature, a | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
hybrid. And that is what I mean by
mongrel. It's a term that we tend to | 0:01:57 | 0:02:01 | |
think of as kind of negative. Yes, I
mean, do you wear that badge with | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
pride? I do, I think that is
something we should all wear with | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
pride, because everyone is a
mongrel, actually. We are descended | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
from all sorts of people, and we
have travelled and we have mixed | 0:02:12 | 0:02:17 | |
throughout ancestry, but also in our
own lives. But it is such an | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
interesting statement, everybody is
a mongrel. Because of course, most | 0:02:20 | 0:02:24 | |
people don't want to think of
themselves as mongrel. Indeed, the | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
notion of longing, having a clear
identity, having a group, a tribe | 0:02:26 | 0:02:31 | |
that is yours, that is something
that seems today, and the 21st | 0:02:31 | 0:02:36 | |
century, to be extraordinarily
important to people. I think it is | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
very important. I think that the
sense of belonging to a group of | 0:02:39 | 0:02:43 | |
people, having connection to those
people, is very important. But what | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
happens sometime ago was the people
we actually had a connection to, our | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
media, you know, family and clan,
was replaced by this idea of the | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
nation, the nationstate. Which is
kind of a fictitious connection. We | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
don't really have a personal
connection to most people of our | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
nation. Well, the EU, maybe, but
maybe not the most people. I wonder, | 0:03:02 | 0:03:07 | |
because of your rather special
international upbringing, with a | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
well-to-do family who moved with you
to America and then could afford to | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
put you through US university, and
you got a very good job, you know, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:18 | |
you are a part of the sort of a
global elite, which most people in | 0:03:18 | 0:03:23 | |
most parts of the world are simply
not part of. That's true, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
absolutely. That said, I mean, my
childhood was spent trying to blend | 0:03:26 | 0:03:32 | |
in with other people. So I was like
a chameleon. You know, more | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
Pakistani and Pakistan, more
American in America. And as I got | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
older, I began to be comfortable
being a bit of a misfit, a sort of a | 0:03:39 | 0:03:45 | |
strange semi- foreign creature. But
as I have become comfortable with | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
this, what I find is how many other
people find themselves feeling | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
foreign. I think everybody feels
foreign, actually. So, you know, the | 0:03:52 | 0:03:58 | |
only gay trialed in a street family
feels foreign. The only daughter | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
with five brothers feels foreign. A
poet in the engineering faculty | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
feels a bit foreign. There is a
sense each of us has of being a bit | 0:04:05 | 0:04:10 | |
different, of not fitting in. Just
one more political thought about | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
this notion of identity and
belonging. It is a very interesting | 0:04:13 | 0:04:18 | |
statement which the British Prime
Minister, Theresa May, came out with | 0:04:18 | 0:04:23 | |
not so long ago. She said if you
believe you are a citizen of the | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
world, you are in fact a citizen of
nowhere. You don't understand what | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
the very word citizenship means. Do
you feel yourself, you know, with | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
this mongrel idea of yours, to be a
citizen of the world, rather than | 0:04:35 | 0:04:41 | |
anywhere in particular? I think we
can have multiple, overlapping | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
citizenships, so I am a citizen of
London in the centre used to live | 0:04:44 | 0:04:48 | |
here and pay taxes you, I feel
something to this place, a | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
connection to this place. I am also
a British citizen, which to Theresa | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
May might make me a sort of a
citizen of nowhere, because I am | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
also Pakistani. But it has a real
meaning to me, in terms of my sense | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
of connection to this country, and
my belief in abiding by the laws of | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
this country, etc, voting when I am
here. I don't think you become a | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
citizen of nowhere. I think the
question is, really, can you be a | 0:05:10 | 0:05:14 | |
citizen of more than one place? Can
you be a family with two parents | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
instead of one parent, as a child? I
think you can. You can have multiple | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
families that you belong to. Your
latest novel, Exit West, it is a | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
sort of an epic tale with epic
elements to it about a couple that | 0:05:25 | 0:05:32 | |
fall in love in a city which is
never named, but let's say it sounds | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
a bit like Aleppo, in Syria, a city
which is pleasant but falls into the | 0:05:36 | 0:05:41 | |
most terrible war. These two young
people get caught up in it, and they | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
ultimately decide that their only
hope of a decent future is to leave. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
You wrote it, as I understand it,
while living in Lahore. Did you | 0:05:48 | 0:05:55 | |
write it because you've got yourself
in the city, Lahore in Pakistan, | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
which was almost as fragile and as
vulnerable as a city like Aleppo | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
proved to be? I hope that Lahore is
not that fragile, but I imagine | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
people in Kabul and Aleppo and the
massacres and Sarajevo also felt | 0:06:07 | 0:06:12 | |
that their cities were not that
fragile. What has changed for me is | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
the plausibility of this disaster
occurring in the place where I live | 0:06:15 | 0:06:21 | |
has grown. I think it has grown for
many people in many places, and so | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
the novel is born out of that kind
of nightmare, something I hope will | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
never happen. It is a visceral,
personal fear. Yes, I think, you | 0:06:29 | 0:06:35 | |
know, living in Pakistan, again, I
don't want a sort of contribute a | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
narrative that Pakistan is going to
decline and fall into chaos, I don't | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
think it is likely to do so. I think
it is likely to do the opposite. But | 0:06:42 | 0:06:46 | |
it is possible that it could, and
when you live in a place like that, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
various background fear that can
occur, and for me does occur, and | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
fiction is the way it takes place.
And it is a fundamentally bleak | 0:06:53 | 0:06:58 | |
vision. I mean, you catalogue and so
many interesting emotional and | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
intimate ways the way in which
narrows down the life of all the | 0:07:01 | 0:07:05 | |
people captured by it in this city,
trapped in this city. And in the | 0:07:05 | 0:07:11 | |
end, as I say, the two young people
decide that escape is their only | 0:07:11 | 0:07:16 | |
alternative. But the really
interesting thing you do in this | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
novel, because a lot of it is quite
realistic, and evokes images from | 0:07:19 | 0:07:23 | |
Aleppo and muzzle and elsewhere, but
then what you do is you add this | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
sort of fantastical element, where
they discover a sort of magical | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
doorway that can transport them from
the hell of war to a new life, first | 0:07:30 | 0:07:34 | |
on a Greek island, and then they
make it to London. What is all this | 0:07:34 | 0:07:39 | |
fabulous magic doorway about? Well,
sometimes I think we can get closer | 0:07:39 | 0:07:44 | |
to emotional reality by bending
other aspects that we think of as | 0:07:44 | 0:07:49 | |
being real. So yes, the doors that
they travel through don't exist | 0:07:49 | 0:07:54 | |
according to physics as we know it.
And yet we each carry around a small | 0:07:54 | 0:07:58 | |
black rectangle in our pockets and
our handbags which is a kind of | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
portal, you know, the screen of our
phones. The smartphone. Yes, through | 0:08:02 | 0:08:08 | |
which our consciousness leaps
forward from our body constantly. We | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
also know that if we wanted people
to move very cheaply, they could. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:16 | |
There is no technological reason why
people can't move around the planet, | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
maybe not instantaneously, but very,
very easily. And so the doors for me | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
are a combination of what technology
is making our world feel like, the | 0:08:25 | 0:08:32 | |
world we are suddenly seeing and
mentally present wherever we wish to | 0:08:32 | 0:08:35 | |
be, and away to compress the next
couple of centuries of human history | 0:08:35 | 0:08:39 | |
into a very short period of time.
And yet, I suppose, the reader | 0:08:39 | 0:08:43 | |
wonders whether you are devaluing
the sheer bravery, courage, and also | 0:08:43 | 0:08:47 | |
the risk that comes with actually
escaping war-torn city, and trying | 0:08:47 | 0:08:53 | |
to make a new life. Because, whether
it be Syria or whether it be sub | 0:08:53 | 0:08:57 | |
Saharan Africa, those who choose to
leave and try to reach the rich | 0:08:57 | 0:09:04 | |
world, and usually it is Europe,
they are undertaking a terribly | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
dangerous journey, either by sea or
across mountains and deserts, or | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
maybe both. And your description of
the migrant experience doesn't | 0:09:11 | 0:09:18 | |
include that journey at all. Yes,
absolutely. I think that is... It is | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
not my intention to minimise or to
say that it is not horrific, the way | 0:09:22 | 0:09:31 | |
in which refugees and migrants are
often forced to travel. It is | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
horrific, and very frequently
deadly. But what has happened is, by | 0:09:34 | 0:09:39 | |
focusing so much on the journey of
these people, we have created a | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
different category of human being.
Those who have crossed the | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
Mediterranean on a small rubber
dinghy or crawled underneath the | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
barbed wire on the US Mexican border
are different from us. We have made | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
into another category of person, and
then there's other category can be | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
dealt with, I think, inhumanely.
When you take away that part that | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
makes them different, they are
simply people who are in place, and | 0:10:00 | 0:10:04 | |
then left the place for another
place, which everyone of us has | 0:10:04 | 0:10:07 | |
done, even if it is just leaving a
Paris houses to move out on our own. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:11 | |
And so my intent was not to devalue,
de- emphasise that part of the | 0:10:11 | 0:10:16 | |
story, but to establish a kind of
similarity between migrant | 0:10:16 | 0:10:22 | |
communities and every else. To make
them seem less different. Yes, | 0:10:22 | 0:10:27 | |
because at the end of the day, what
I think we are encountering is not | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
so much that there is a conflict
between two are the kinds of | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
feeling, the feeling of those who
are fleeing dangerous geographies | 0:10:35 | 0:10:37 | |
and the feeling of those who are
resisting the arrival of those | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
geographies. I think actually the
feelings are very similar. The idea | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
of losing the place where you grew
up Kennecott both because you change | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
geographies, and it can occur
because you are starting to feel | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
foreign in a place where you
yourself have grown up. And so if we | 0:10:53 | 0:10:57 | |
can recognise that the sorrow of
these two experiences is similar, we | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
can get beyond the kind of fruitless
notion of inevitable conflict | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
between these two divisions. There
is a phrase in the book where you | 0:11:03 | 0:11:08 | |
describe the passage they make from
their war-torn home to a new life | 0:11:08 | 0:11:12 | |
which ends up being for a long time
in London, but then they actually | 0:11:12 | 0:11:17 | |
make another move to California. The
passage, you say, was both like | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
dying and like the board. Now, I am
interested in the just edition of | 0:11:21 | 0:11:28 | |
the two -- like being born. It says
something about your own life as | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
well when you lived in those
different places, that yes, huge | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
amount of opportunity came your way,
but there was also, always, a sense | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
of sorrow and loss as well. There
is, I mean, there is an emotional | 0:11:37 | 0:11:42 | |
violence to moving that we often
don't give enough consideration. And | 0:11:42 | 0:11:47 | |
the echoes of that emotional
violence can go... Proceed through | 0:11:47 | 0:11:52 | |
our lifetime and across generations.
When, for example, if I were to | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
leave Pakistan again, my children
everyday play with their | 0:11:55 | 0:12:01 | |
grandparents. Let's say we were to
move somewhere far away and they | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
were to see them once a week... Once
a year for a week. That relationship | 0:12:04 | 0:12:09 | |
would, in a sense, end. And there is
an enormous sorrow to that ending. I | 0:12:09 | 0:12:15 | |
think people do experience
incredible senses of loss when they | 0:12:15 | 0:12:19 | |
leave the place, and it is important
to recognise that. When we say what | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
has this person done, what have they
given up to be here, the answer is, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:27 | |
when you say that of the refugee,
the migrant, they have given up | 0:12:27 | 0:12:32 | |
everything. And the emotional
consequences of that are huge. And | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
one interesting... It is only one,
but one interesting element of how | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
they tried to maintain and memory of
where they came from, is actually | 0:12:38 | 0:12:43 | |
the use of religion as a vehicle and
prayer as a way of reconnecting. And | 0:12:43 | 0:12:48 | |
I'm particularly interested, because
you of course are also the author of | 0:12:48 | 0:12:53 | |
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which
looked at the relationship to in the | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
West and the Muslim world through
the eyes of a young man meeting an | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
American, a young Pakistani man. And
in this book, you have another young | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
man, Saeed, who turns to prayer. And
is your message that sometimes | 0:13:04 | 0:13:10 | |
religion, in this case the Muslim
religion, can be a means of trying | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
to maintain an identity? Well,
certainly it can be. I think that | 0:13:14 | 0:13:19 | |
what has happened is that many...
Was it for you, by the way? Religion | 0:13:19 | 0:13:27 | |
as a way of maintaining my identity?
I would say that, in a sense, I have | 0:13:27 | 0:13:33 | |
been made conscious of muslins as a
group because of how I am treated by | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
other people. So when I arrived on
the Eurostar from Paris in London | 0:13:37 | 0:13:42 | |
recently, everybody walked off the
train, we had already been through | 0:13:42 | 0:13:46 | |
immigration, I have a UK passport,
but I was stopped by some of it and | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
asked a whole bunch of questions,
and I think it is to do with | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
belonging to this group. So yes, to
a certain extent. And did that make | 0:13:54 | 0:13:58 | |
you feel resentful, angry? Didn't
actually reinforce this feeling of | 0:13:58 | 0:14:01 | |
being the other? Yes, it did those
things. It made me sad more than | 0:14:01 | 0:14:05 | |
those are the feelings, because I
think that the UK has been better | 0:14:05 | 0:14:10 | |
than many countries at not having
this sort of sense of constant | 0:14:10 | 0:14:14 | |
surveillance. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:19 | |
Is that why | 0:14:19 | 0:14:20 | |
Is that why you left the United
States after 9/11? Because you felt | 0:14:20 | 0:14:24 | |
like you are being regarded as a
potential threat? It wasn't the | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
reason. I was living in London a
couple of months before it happened. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:31 | |
It was perhaps the reason I didn't
go back after I initially had | 0:14:31 | 0:14:36 | |
planned to do. It was at the George
Bush, the second George Bush | 0:14:36 | 0:14:42 | |
administration and a lot of wars
were starting and London felt very | 0:14:42 | 0:14:46 | |
conducive as this kind of
international hub of thinking, | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
writing, people protesting the Iraq
war. I felt culturally, politically, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:55 | |
in a sense, more at home in London
in those days. And yet, in the end | 0:14:55 | 0:14:59 | |
it brings us back to where we began
this conversation, questions of | 0:14:59 | 0:15:05 | |
identity and belonging. He went back
to Pakistan. Despite everything you | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
have said about the universality of
the human experience and values, you | 0:15:09 | 0:15:14 | |
in the end did what so many people
did, you went home. I am not | 0:15:14 | 0:15:22 | |
somebody who is a rootless mongrel
wandering the earth. Although that | 0:15:22 | 0:15:31 | |
is no worse or better than any other
kind of person. I am living in the | 0:15:31 | 0:15:36 | |
same place I lived as a child. After
having wandered in all these places. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:42 | |
In Athens, the reverse migration
from the one is the overbearing in | 0:15:42 | 0:15:48 | |
so much of the world. From the poor
world to the rich world. -- in a | 0:15:48 | 0:15:53 | |
sense. You made it in the rich
world, you became a consultant, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
Golden egg job and then you decided
to be a writer and had written best | 0:15:58 | 0:16:03 | |
sellers. You were a success in New
York, in London and yet, you decided | 0:16:03 | 0:16:08 | |
you wanted to make it your life in
Pakistan and eight S8 many of your | 0:16:08 | 0:16:13 | |
friends said you are crazy. Yellow
that people thought it was a strange | 0:16:13 | 0:16:19 | |
decision. -- many people thought it
was a strange decision. -- and in a | 0:16:19 | 0:16:26 | |
sense. Migration has always been
away for human beings to find what | 0:16:26 | 0:16:31 | |
they are looking for. Homo sapiens
are not involved on the British | 0:16:31 | 0:16:36 | |
Isles. People came here over
thousands of years and they keep | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
coming. They don't necessarily stay.
People whose ancestors have moved on | 0:16:40 | 0:16:46 | |
to America, some might come back
this way. I think we can migrate and | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
return. This is where I struggle to
keep up with you because it seems to | 0:16:50 | 0:16:58 | |
me, when you talk about the
migration of the future in which you | 0:16:58 | 0:17:03 | |
say, and I am going to quote you've,
" I imagine when people are finally | 0:17:03 | 0:17:09 | |
free to move as they please around
our planet, they will look back at | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
our moment now and wonder just as we
wonder about those who kept slaves, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:17 | |
how people who seemed so modern
could do such cool things to their | 0:17:17 | 0:17:21 | |
fellow human beings like caging them
up as animals" | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
fellow human beings like caging them
up as animals". Your implication | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
being, we will reach this sort of
heavenly moment where migration is | 0:17:27 | 0:17:33 | |
just completely normal, acceptable,
easy and accessible to everybody on | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
this planet. I put it to you that
flies in the face of everything | 0:17:36 | 0:17:41 | |
about the human condition and human
history. Well, I think human history | 0:17:41 | 0:17:48 | |
and a human condition is a march
towards greater equality. Until | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
recently, the idea that black people
would be slaves in a part of America | 0:17:51 | 0:17:56 | |
in a certain part of history was
common. The idea that women were | 0:17:56 | 0:18:01 | |
inferior to men or that gay people
should have the same rights as | 0:18:01 | 0:18:05 | |
straight people will stop all these
things have changed. -- is straight | 0:18:05 | 0:18:11 | |
people. All these things have
changed. What hasn't changed are | 0:18:11 | 0:18:16 | |
these strains of nationalism and
populism and building borders. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
Today, we can say that there is
something about all of human history | 0:18:19 | 0:18:24 | |
that yes, there are constant
movement -- movements, which have | 0:18:24 | 0:18:32 | |
involved epic amount of killing and
bloodshed. I don't think they have. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:37 | |
Look at the history of north
America, South America, Central | 0:18:37 | 0:18:42 | |
Asia. Almost any geographical part
of the world is full of such | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
stories. Yes, there have been
violence associated with migration | 0:18:45 | 0:18:50 | |
but it's not necessarily the case.
In North America, there was a | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
genocide. The free Colombian
population was wiped out, as | 0:18:54 | 0:18:58 | |
effectively. I have brown skin
because tens of thousands of years, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
lighter skinned people have come
into the darker skinned places that | 0:19:02 | 0:19:07 | |
they didn't actually massacre each
other and result in lighter skinned | 0:19:07 | 0:19:11 | |
people surviving. They stuck around
and into next. Most of human history | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
is I think like that. It is not
genocide after genocide. Frequently, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:20 | |
I think, most often, we don't engage
in genocide. I alluded to this | 0:19:20 | 0:19:26 | |
earlier, where you would acknowledge
that you are -- your rather | 0:19:26 | 0:19:35 | |
optimistic view on migration and the
intermingling of peoples, whether it | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
is reflective of having a gilded
life. I think probably it is. In | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
that said, I think there are two
strong reasons to believe it is | 0:19:45 | 0:19:53 | |
going to happen. One reason is the
pressure of migration is going to | 0:19:53 | 0:19:58 | |
become enormous. If we are truly
going to resist it, we will no | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
longer be able to simply outsource
to Libya and Turkey, we will have | 0:20:01 | 0:20:07 | |
two actively kill people who want to
come. Direct barriers stop catch | 0:20:07 | 0:20:14 | |
those who get through. Catch those
who try to help those get through. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
We will begin to... You are saying
there is no middle ground? There is | 0:20:17 | 0:20:23 | |
no control that is possible in a
humanitarian way? There never has | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
been. When have people stopped
moving? We have always moved, it is | 0:20:27 | 0:20:32 | |
the nature of humanity. We have
never been confined to geographies | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
in this way. The population of
Africa was a small fraction of | 0:20:36 | 0:20:40 | |
Europe 50 years ago. It will be
multiples 50 years hence. When | 0:20:40 | 0:20:45 | |
climate changes, people will move.
One would hope we won't have the | 0:20:45 | 0:20:50 | |
stomach, I hope, to inflict the
atrocities and create the | 0:20:50 | 0:20:54 | |
totalitarian societies that will
resist it. We actually need to think | 0:20:54 | 0:20:58 | |
about ourselves as humans and less
divided to solve the most pressing | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
problems we face. Climate change
cannot be solved by country thinking | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
of national self interest. The issue
of migration I don't think will be | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
addressed if -- in this way. The
most important issue is how we will | 0:21:12 | 0:21:17 | |
regulate and manage technology. We
are on the verge of giving birth to | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
intelligent machines that can think.
How are we going to regulate this? | 0:21:20 | 0:21:24 | |
How will we share the benefits? They
could potentially create great | 0:21:24 | 0:21:29 | |
surpluses but if they accrue to just
one dozen trillion as in California | 0:21:29 | 0:21:33 | |
is and the rest of us lose our jobs,
it is not a very pleasant planet. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:37 | |
All of this requires a more human
thinking. And they use it in | 0:21:37 | 0:21:42 | |
Pakistan. I want to end by coming
back to your current life in | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
Pakistan. You have left California
where you just said, so many of | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
these developments in TEC have come
from and you are now looking in at | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
population of 200 million that is
mainly poverty. These are | 0:21:53 | 0:22:00 | |
disheartening times. -- tech. You
feel more disheartened about the | 0:22:00 | 0:22:05 | |
direction of your company because
the question has become about who is | 0:22:05 | 0:22:08 | |
Muslim enough and the answer appears
to be nobody 's is Muslim enough. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:14 | |
After all of your optimism about
what humanity can achieve and the | 0:22:14 | 0:22:18 | |
values that we idea lies, actually,
your own home, you seem to think, is | 0:22:18 | 0:22:26 | |
in very profound trouble. It is in
trouble but I think it can get out. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
That is important for us to begin to
articulate optimistic visions of | 0:22:30 | 0:22:33 | |
politics, the future, culture. What
we are facing right now is that | 0:22:33 | 0:22:39 | |
dominant of the spellcheck
pessimistic visions. If you are | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
pessimistic about having a more
equal world, you tend to think it is | 0:22:41 | 0:22:45 | |
a good idea to make America great
again. Thanks for putting that | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
phrasing. I just noted Donald
Trump's first tweet at 2018, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:55 | |
directed at Pakistan. "They Have
given us nothing but lies and deceit | 0:22:55 | 0:23:02 | |
giving safe haven to the terrorists
we are hunting for in Afghanistan. " | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
It seems to me that right now you
are living in a part of the world | 0:23:06 | 0:23:11 | |
that giving the messages being sent
by Donald Trump and the current | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
American administration is going to
be a cockpit of tension and trouble. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
Yes, but, what we are seeing is an
older generation that has migrated | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
to becoming older, it is in power
right now. Disproportionately, they | 0:23:23 | 0:23:28 | |
want these barriers for the younger
Americans disproportionately did not | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
vote for Donald Trump and younger
British did not vote for Brexit. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:38 | |
Younger people are more comfortable
with this openness. This is how | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
civilisation evolves. We don't
suddenly become enlightened. The | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
older generation, people like us who
have more closed minded views, | 0:23:46 | 0:23:50 | |
eventually die. We each achieve the
great Brexit in the sky. And then | 0:23:50 | 0:23:55 | |
the younger people who are left who
are still here will take us into | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
domains with can't imagine including
people moving around the world in | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
the way that today we think about as
very strange. You are one of the | 0:24:02 | 0:24:06 | |
most optimistic people I have ever
met. Well, I am a father. It is my | 0:24:06 | 0:24:11 | |
job to the optimistic was not
pessimism is feeding a medical | 0:24:11 | 0:24:15 | |
reactionary thinking. -- political
reactionary thinking. We have to | 0:24:15 | 0:24:21 | |
went there. Thank you for being on
HARDtalk. -- we have to end there. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:27 |
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. This clash of human impulses is fertile territory for 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?