Interview with Pankaj Mishra - The World After Gaza
Literatuur
Pankaj Mishra is one of the most influential authors of fiction and non-fiction of our time. Following the publication of his latest book, The World After Gaza, Writers Unlimited invited him to give a keynote speech in this programme, followed by an interview with Nadia Moussaid.
About The World After Gaza
The memory of the Holocaust has shaped political and moral thinking in the West in the post-war period. But for most people around the world, the most important historical memory consists of the traumatic experiences of slavery and colonialism, and the most important event of the twentieth century is decolonisation – the liberation of the world from the white man. The World After Gaza by British-Indian author and essayist Pankaj Mishra takes the war in the Middle East and the polarised reactions to it inside and outside the West as a starting point for a broad reassessment of two competing narratives about the last century: the triumphant narrative of the West about the victory over Nazism and communist totalitarianism and the spread of liberal capitalism, versus the often thwarted vision of the global majority on racial equality.
At a time when global power relations are shifting and a long-dominant Western minority no longer has the same authority and credibility, it is crucial to take note of the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world's population.
As old standards and points of reference crumble, only a new history with a radically different emphasis can reorient us to the world and the worldviews that are now emerging. In his powerful and incisive treatise The World After Gaza, Mishra addresses the fundamental questions raised by our current crisis – whether some lives matter more than others, why identity politics around memories of suffering are being embraced on a large scale, and why racial divisions are increasing amid a rise of the far right in the West, which threatens to become a global flashpoint.
