The privilege of being a Trinity student is that you get to hear lectures by global leaders in person, free of cost at Trinity's own Laurie Auditorium, that has a capacity to accommodate about 2500 people. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, former US President Bill Clinton, former Pakistani strongman and President Pervez Musharraf, French PM Dominique de Villepin and Nobel Laureates like Joseph Stiglitz have all paid a visit to Trinity University and enriched experience and understanding of Trinity students.
I had the honor of attending a lecture by Jared Diamond as part of DeCoursey Lecture Series. His book, Guns, Germs and Steel, has won the Pulitzer prize. His most recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed has won rave reviews. He is a man who commands knowledge of multi-disciplines, a modern Aristotle, so to speak. I had listened to one of his lectures on Ted.com where he gave examples of societies on the verge of collapse. He mentioned Nepal as one of examples which shocked me and came as an alarm since I am from Nepal and take considerable interest in development of my nation.
I had made up my mind that I would ask, "why he thought Nepal was on the verge of collapse", when he came to speak at Trinity ever since I listened to that lecture (few months ago). I was anxiously waiting for this day. After Jared Diamond's lecture in Laurie Auditorium on February 1, I stepped down to Q/A session to ask this question. I was mentally rehearsing, rephrasing this question and coming up with the best way to put it.
Since there were many other eager people to ask questions, I stood in a line. Just as my turn came nearer, he said he could only take a few more questions. Don't cut on me, please, I prayed. Sadly, the person right before me turned out to the last person to ask question. I thought of insisting, he could take one more question and I really needed to ask him since the question had been bugging me and depriving me of mental peace. But I decided against it since I thought such insistence might appear disrespectful.
The Q/A session ended and I exited Laurie with a heavy heart, confident that Jared Diamond had chosen to collapse my dreams, just as he had chosen to quote Nepal as a society on the verge of collapse.
The reaaders of this blog are hopefully aware that people like de Villepin, Blair and Musharraf get paid very generous fees (in the end, oil money) to spend an evening at a University they probably never heard of before in order to heap praise on themselves, not because they genuinely care about students' opinions.
ReplyDeletePuru, you write well but this post has left me disappointed.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, you should have insisted and asked because I am sure the question meant a lot to you and the answer means a lot to us Nepalese, and I am sure your question would have been more meaningful than that of many more.
Secondly, I hope you have read his book, and the praise heaped on him (modern day Aristotle and the like) seems to be a bit too much. Read his book and you will find the answers and see how he used flawed and skewed logic to come to such conclusions.
Third, most such claims are made by experts who have no first hand knowledge of any society.From my own example, I have realised that South Indian society is a lot different than what I had read and expected, despite the geographical and cultural closeness. I am sure Jared's understanding of Nepali society is close to nil, in terms of real substance.
Overall, continue writing and giving us an insight to your life at Trinity.
PS: why would Villepin come to Trinity?