Tony Blair greeted by hatred and curiosity

Maswood Alam Khan
Satisfying curiosity is a natural human desire and people — leaders or philosophers, priests or magicians, actors or writers — who can persuade their disciples, fans or readers to follow along the desired path with curiosity, have a powerful motivational tool. However great a writer one could be, his or her books will not attract the publishers or readers if the writer does not apply this basic motivational magic of curiosity.

Salman Rushdie is a great writer if we consider his élan and style in writing and his superb command of English language. But that was not sufficient to make him a great author. Many of his books, including his first novel ‘Grimus’, were ignored by the public and literary critics. But books like “Midnight’s Children”, “Shame” and “The Satanic Verses” catapulted him to notoriety, popularity, fame and fortune. Even the most devout Muslims, who hate even to think about Rushdie, know about many of his works. The secret is Salman Rushdie’s ingenious choices of titles and contents of his books which could evoke curiosity among people.

Last Saturday I was appalled like many viewers as I was hearing on BBC TV news that Physicist Stephen Hawking spoke against the idea that God could have created the universe! His new pronouncement was more awful because it was the same Stephen Hawking who previously argued that belief in a creator could be compatible with modern scientific theories. In “A Brief History of Time”, Prof Hawking’s most recognized work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world. He wrote in the 1988 book: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — or then we should know the mind of God.”

“God not needed for creation” is an idea Stephen Hawking has put in his new book, The Grand Design, which is scheduled for release on September 09. He says in the book, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing” concluding that the Big Bang was the inevitable consequence of the laws of physics and nothing more. Stephen Hawking perhaps forgot that “Science is about explanations of what humans can view with limited human knowledge whereas religion is about interpretations of the unfathomable creations most of which are still beyond human sight and knowledge”.

Come September 09, I am pretty sure Stephen Hawking’s new book “The Grand Design” will sell like hot cakes all over the world breaking many records of sales of books by many popular authors like Salman Rushdie from the United Kingdom or Taslima Nasrin from Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, eggs, bottles and shoes were thrown at the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as he attended a book-signing ceremony in Dublin on Saturday morning. However, none of the missiles of eggs and shoes did hit Blair. On one side of the O’Connell Street in Dublin about 200 protesters gathered to express their voices of hatred at Blair’s role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the other side of the street more than 300 people gathered to get a copy of his book signed.

It was Mr. Blair’s first book-signing since the publication of his autobiography titled “A Journey” that has already become the fastest-selling autobiography in Waterstone’s, a leading British bookshop chain, and shot to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list. “A Journey” has become the fastest-selling biography, outperforming even footballer David Beckham’s account of his life.

Among the details of his accounts of life in Downing Street, the Iraq War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America and Princess Diana’s death are specially mentioned about radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today. Avoiding the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting foreign occupations he insisted on confronting radical Islamists because in his language they were “regressive, wicked and backward-looking”.

Nowadays it seems writers are bent on making money by dealing with Islam, in most cases by demonizing Muslims.

But ironically, Islam is currently enjoying something of a renaissance. After 9/11 attack people who were ignorant about Islam have become curious about this religion and started buying books on Islam in great numbers. Interest in Islam is on rise all over the world.

Researches undertaken to determine the roots of terrorism have opened windows letting people learn that Islam is not a religion of the terrorists. Islam is rather a peaceful faith that enjoins tolerance, justice, equality, mercy, and love. According to a survey, 34,000 Americans voluntarily converted to Islam as a result of curiosity about Islam after 9/11.

E-mail : maswood@hotmail.com

thefinancialexpress

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