52 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compelling account about a critical area in the world, May 19, 2009
This review is from: To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan (Hardcover)
Schmidle grabs your attention from the beginning and in just a few pages introduces you to the real Pakistan and the way it works. The police come to his apartment at night and tell him he must leave the country immediately. Schmidle's wife Rikki, who knows influential people in government, suggests calling a senior "patron," who takes the phone and intercedes with the police to leave them alone. The Schmidles have been in Pakistan for two years, Nicholas on a writing fellowship learning all he can about Pakistan and its people.
The next morning they call their patron again. Schmidle notes that knowing the right people in Pakistan is critical, but it's far more important not to know the wrong people, who can get you in more trouble than the right people can get you out of. Schmidle's patron tells him the matter is "way above his head" in government and they should leave Pakistan immediately. Schmidle had published an article in the New York Times Magazine exposing the new generation of Taliban leaders.
The book begins with a quotation suggesting no one can truly understand another person. Nonetheless, you believe when you have concluded this book that you truly understand the people and the situation in Pakistan better.
As I write this (May 2009), Pakistan may well become, in the next year, the most important place in the world in terms of the security of the United States and Europe. This book will give you insight into this country and these people that will be critical in understanding the news coverage.
Nicholas became fluent in Urdu, wore local mufti, and personally met with all of the key players in Pakistan, as well as many of the common people. Pakistan is not so much a country as a confederation of competing ethnic and ideological groups, each of whom seek complete hegemony.
I was first introduced to this book through an interview heard on NPR and was captivated by Schmidle and his insights. The major networks, with 30-60 second news stories, will never be capable of communicating what is really happening in Pakistan. This book is a must-read for understanding Pakistan today -- and it is compellingly interesting to read.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
52 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Missed Opportunity, June 24, 2009
This review is from: To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan (Hardcover)
Journalists who cover Pakistan have a certain bravado to their demeanor that is understandable at one level. Covering the tribal areas of the country is dangerous for foreigners and they certainly have to be credited for undertaking such assignments despite all the travel warnings. However, when the assignment to cover the story is somewhat undermined with a reporter's impulse to "become the story," then the reporting becomes problematic. While Mr. Schmidle's book has some good insights about the Taliban's roots in Pakistan, there is a persistent self-indulgence in the narrative. This tendency can be seen right at the start of the book which recounts the author's expulsion from Pakistan - an episode that he portrays as a mysterious plot by the intelligence services against him. With the help of the Pakistani ambassador he is able to return in 2008 to cover a more benign story on Sufi dervishes for the Smithsonian. Again he claims to be shadowed by the intelligence services and leaves the country under security provided by the US consulate in Karachi. He seems very self-absorbed about his own importance in the narrative which I found troubling and it detracts from the seriousness of the topic being covered. Mr. Schmidle makes his interaction with Pakistan "personal" but in a more self-centered and negative way. At once he says that he pities poor Pakistanis who can't leave the country like he did under US escort while he also envies other foreign reporters who were able to continue to work there. It would have been useful if Mr. Schmidle had also included some self-reflection about why he may have been singled out? One of the reasons may be that his reporting style is caustic and condescending (as exemplified by his little piece for Foreign Policy titled "An Idiot's Guide to Pakistan), and his prose is provocative without persuasion. He also has a tendency to amplify rebellion and dissent to magnify chaos that meets his story line.
The epigraph at the start of the book from Graham Greene's "The Quiet American," is also a bit enigmatic. The statement offers a critique of religious nationalism on the one hand but in correspondence with me via email Mr. Schmidle indicated that he intended the quote to show how reporters need to be embedded in the field rather than being quietly on their desks (which underscores my earlier point about bravado).
While the issue of Pakistan's complex identity should be challenged by scholars and reporters, it needs to be done with nuance, and an appreciation of how the complex identity of this country has still endured against many odds over a period of more than sixty years. In these troubled times reporters have a duty to go beyond writing entertaining stories about their travels but rather to unravel the causes of conflict with care rather than comic relief at the expense of a stressed community.
One could give the book a pass as a travelogue of an itinerant adventurer but the author's base as a researcher at a Washington think tank indicates that his aim with this book was to establish himself as a policy analyst. This book clearly does not meet those standards and media outlets should recognize the distinction between anecdotal travel writing, peppered with self-selected interviews versus carefully fact-checked research.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A foreign journalist who gets Pakistan, July 21, 2009
This review is from: To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan (Hardcover)
There are a number of excellent journalists from outside Pakistan who understand the country and the people in a more than superficial way. One of these is Nicholas Schmidle, a freelance journalist who has written extensively on Pakistan for almost three years now for various publications.
In fact, Schmidle would rank very high on my admittedly short list of favorite foreign correspondents who have written on Pakistan and South Asia. Owen Bennett-Jones would be ranked first. Schmidle would be second. Carlotta Gall would be third, and Steve Coll would be fourth. David Sanger would be last -- if Pakistan-based journalism was football, Sanger would be Papua New Guinea.
Schmidle practices journalism of the best kind, and this is evident in his fascinating and arresting portrayal of Pakistan in his recently released book, To Live Or To Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. Schmidle does not rely on hearsay or rumors. If he hears something, he tries to corroborate by going to the source, even if doing so represents real physical danger. Schmidle does not rely on a handful of sources in air-conditioned drawing rooms or foreign embassies or alarmist think tanks or compromised intelligence agencies. He meets anyone and everyone willing to talk, including terrorist mullahs and naswar vendors. Schmidle is not a drive-by expert, whose interest and study of Pakistan is a passing fad -- he speaks Urdu, conducted almost all his interviews in the national language, and wore shalwar kurtas whenever the situation demanded it. He is basically an anthropologist masquerading as a journalist.
Once you pick the book up, you will not be able to put it down. It's written very lucidly and features in-depth interviews and stories featuring anyone and everyone you've ever heard of. In a way, being in Pakistan as a journalist is easy -- as long as you ignore the threats to your physical safety and life. Why? Because Pakistanis like to talk. Have you ever met a Pakistani who could keep a secret? Me neither. No one is shy, and if there's one thing that stands out in Schmidle's book, it's the sheer number of people who chose to go on the record, despite some highly sensitive information being proferred.
Schmidle's book is exactly what the title suggests: an account of his time in Pakistan, perhaps the most tumultuous two year period in the country's history other than 1970-1972. Just count the game-changing events and processes that we witnessed from mid-2006 to mid-2008: Chief Justice controversies (dismissed in March '07, reinstated in July '07, dismissed again in November '07); assassinations and assassination attempts (BB, Sherpao, Fazlur Rehman); the Presidency changing hands (Mush to Zardari); the Army changing hands (Mush to Kayani); the lawyers' movement; the Taliban violence (2007 had a suicide bombing once a week on average, and claimed more than 1000 lives); the May 12 violence; ethnic tensions rising between the MQM and ANP in Karachi...the list goes on and on. In fact, reading this book gave me a sense of just how crucial the year 2007 really was. It's the type of year that historians will be talking about for a long, long time. Sometimes while we're in the middle of it, we sometimes lose perspective. But you gain it right back when you read Schmidle's work.
But forget the history for a second -- if there's a reason to read this book, it's the stories. Oh, the stories. You want conversations with the infamous Ghazi Abdul Rasheed of Lal Masjid? Schmidle basically became his best friend (I exaggerate, but only a little). You want an insight into Taliban- and militant Islamist violence? Schmidle talks to Maulana Fazlullah and an assortment of radical elements, traveling to places where, forget journalists, the Pakistani military doesn't have the guts to go. You want to know more about Shia-Sunni tensions in the big cities? Schmidle goes to a 10th of Muharram procession, and even gets invited to Shia Islam by an adolescent. You want to know how many buttons Asif Zardari unbuttons to play with his chest hair? Schmidle will tell you. What about the Balochi low-level insurgency? Schmidle spends days in Gwadar and Quetta, talks to Balochi politicians and locals, and gives you his impressions. What does Farooq Sattar eat as he is driven from Karachi to Hyderabad, and what happens to his mood as they go through Sohrab Goth? Schmidle will tell you. I can't emphasize this enough: Schmidle talks to everyone. E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. In this respect, it really is a top-notch book, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
This does not mean I don't have criticisms. I do. Two are primary. First, there is no overarching theme in the book. Schmidle jumps from crisis to crisis, issue to issue, and doesn't really give us any insight on a central thesis he may have. One doesn't know if this was intentional or not, but it doesn't matter, because the reader is often left feeling like (s)he is on a roller-coaster. In many ways, Pakistani society and politics does mirror a roller-coaster ride. But it should be up the author to ground the individual issue areas into a grander narrative, and Schmidle fails to provide us one. In the end, only readers already somewhat familiar with Pakistan will be able to keep pace as Schmidle jumps from Balochistan to FATA to Islamabad to Dhaka in the blink of an eye (the chapters are only about 20-25 pages long on average).
The second criticism centers on the acute pessimism reflected in Schmidle's book. I am in two minds whether this constitutes a valid criticism or not. On the one hand, there is an awful lot wrong with Pakistan, and none of what Schmidle says or reflects is untrue. On the other hand, I think if one were to land on earth from outer space and read Schmidle's book, one would have expected Pakistan to collapse a long, long time ago. To reiterate, none of what Schmidle says is untrue. But in a book -- as opposed to a journalistic article or report, where writers are often constrained by editorial requirements and word limits -- Schmidle should have told us a little bit about how, despite the many challenges Pakistan faces, it continues to trudge along, just barely. In social scientific terms, Schmidle's account overpredicts state collapse.
That said, Pakistanis and followers of Pakistan could do worse than pick up Schmidle's book. Considerably worse. He weaves history into his excellent work as a journalist, and I for one am thankful to him for writing this book. I am also thankful for the following sentence, which to my mind summarizes Pakistani society better than most articles or books:
Connections were a double-edged sword, and knowing the wrong people could land you in more trouble than knowing the right people could get you out of.
Reading To Live Or To Perish Forever, you realize that Schmidle speaks from experience, a quality that underlines the entire book.
Now, if only we could get him to organize a workshop, and have David Sanger attend.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
