Vijay Prashad: Difference between revisions

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He was the George and Martha Kellner Chair in [[South Asian History]] and a professor of international studies at [[Trinity College (Connecticut)|Trinity College]] in [[Hartford, Connecticut]], [[United States]] from 1996 to 2017. In 2013–2014, he was the [[Edward Said]] Chair at the [[American University of Beirut]] and has been a Senior Fellow of the [[Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs]] in Beirut.

==Early life and background==

==Views==

In an article for ''[[The Nation]]'', Prashad lays out his vision for a struggle towards [[socialism]]. He argues that progressive forces typically have very good ideas, but no power. He asserts that without power, good ideas have little consequences and claims that socialists must not simply theorise, but also organise.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/dragons-their-dragoons/|title=The Dragons, Their Dragoons|first=Vijay|last=Prashad|date=17 March 2009|journal=The Nation|access-date=19 December 2020}}</ref> As a panellist at the 2004 Life After Capitalism conference, he explained his views on the state of leftist strategy in the United States. He argues that leftists in the United States are not as effective as they could be in situations where they win influence through community organising, such as in local governments, because they often do not appreciate ideas originating from other parts of the world. Examples he provides include experiments in [[Participatory budgeting#Porto Alegre|participatory budgeting]] in [[Porto Alegre]], [[People's Planning in Kerala|people's planning]] in [[Kerala]], and new taxes for industries that cannot relocate. He also calls on leftists to have a long-term view of social struggle rather than focusing on short-term results. Prashad argues that this short-term focus often results from an economic system where companies are incentivised to demonstrate quarterly profits.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://kpfa.org/episode/11722/|title=Against the Grain – October 18, 2004|date=18 October 2004|work=KPFA|access-date=28 November 2018|format=Podcast}}</ref>

The historian Paul Buhle writes, "Vijay Prashad is a literary phenomenon."<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://monthlyreview.org/2014/01/01/prashad-large/|title=Prashad at Large|last=Buhle|first=Paul|date=1 January 2014|journal=Monthly Review|access-date=19 December 2020}}</ref> The writer Amitava Kumar notes, "Prashad is our own Frantz Fanon. His writing of protest is always tinged with the beauty of hope."<ref>{{Cite web|last= Rana|first=Aziz|url=https://aaww.org/break-the-silence-vijay-prashad/|title=Break the Silence: An Interview with Vijay Prashad|date=18 March 2014|website=Asian American Writers' Workshop|access-date=16 July 2019}}</ref>

===Criticism of US foreign policy===

===Arab Revolt of 2011===

<blockquote>The [[Mexican Revolution]] opened up in 1911, but didn't settle into the [[Institutional Revolutionary Party|PRI regime]] till the writing of the [[Constitution of Mexico|1917 constitution]] and the elevation of [[Venustiano Carranza|Carranza]] to the presidency in 1920 or perhaps [[Lázaro Cárdenas|Cárdenas]] in 1934. I find many parallels between Mexico and Egypt. In both, the Left was not sufficiently developed. Perils of the Right always lingered. If the [[Pharonic]] state withers, as Porfirio Díaz's state did, the peasants and the working class might move beyond spontaneity and come forward with some more structure. Spontaneity is fine, but if power is not seized effectively, counter-revolution will rise forth effectively and securely.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://radicalnotes.com/content/view/153/39/ |website=Radical Notes|title='If power is not seized, counter-revolution will rise': Vijay Prashad on the Arab revolt (Part I)| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110218042805/http://radicalnotes.com/content/view/153/39/|archive-date=18 February 2011|date=31 January 2011|access-date=19 December 2020 }}</ref></blockquote>

===Critique of Mother Teresa and Western charity===

Prashad offered his analysis of [[Mother Teresa]]'s missionary work in [[Calcutta]], designating her as a representative of the collective '[[bourgeois]] guilt' of [[Western nation]]s.<ref>''White Women in Racialized Spaces: Imaginative Transformation and Ethical Action in Literature'', Samina Najmi, Rajini Srikanth, ''Mother Teresa as the Mirror of Bourgeois Guilt'' - Chapter 4, pp 67, Published by [[SUNY Press]], 2002, {{ISBN|0-7914-5477-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-7914-5477-0}}</ref> He argued how people like Mother Teresa obscure the tragedies of capitalism. For instance, "During the night of December 2–3, 1984, the [[Bhopal disaster]] poisoned thousands of people". He contends that the Bhopal disaster by [[Union Carbide]] was but the most flagrant example of a transnational corporation's disregard for human life at the expense of its own profit. In 1983, Union Carbide's sales came to US$9 billion and its assets totalled US$10bn. Part of this profit came from a tendency to shirk any responsibility towards safety standards, not just in India, but also in their West Virginia plant. After the disaster, Mother Teresa flew into Bhopal and, escorted in two government cars, she offered Bhopal's victims small [[aluminium]] medals of [[St. Mary]]. "This could have been an accident," she told the survivors, "it's like a fire (that) could break out anywhere. That is why it is important to forgive. Forgiveness offers us a clean heart and people will be a hundred times better after it." [[Pope John Paul II]] joined Mother Teresa with his analysis that Bhopal was a "sad event" which resulted from "man's efforts to make progress."

===Bolivia===

==Controversies==