Word: aziz
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Harbor is set in a Boston barely recognizable to most American eyes. It is the Boston of illegal Arab immigrants, the claustrophobic demimonde of the recently arrived. Harbor follows the fortunes of Aziz, a 24-year-old Algerian who has just survived 52 days in the hold of a freighter. Speaking no English, Aziz is trapped in a shadowy half-life of dilapidated shared apartments and humiliating service-level jobs. He trusts nobody, and nobody trusts him. "It had been months," he thinks at one point, "since he had told a single human being a completely truthful sentence." His dislocation...
Americans who look at Aziz and his companions see only Arab solidarity, if not a terrorist cell, but the reality is far more complex and scary. Some of Aziz's friends are honest men looking for a better life, but some are con men (insurance grifters, identity thieves), and some are worse (drug dealers, terrorists). Some don't know what they are. With its international scope, its wandering point of view, its constant play of literary ambiguity and genre suspense, Harbor feels more contemporary than almost anything else out there. Sure, in an earlier era there might have been some...
...Partly to make such a peace possible and partly because of wider international pressure, but mostly because they terrorize us far more than they do our so-called enemies, Aziz must bring to heel the religious militants who claim to kill in our name and in the name of our religion, Islam. In the past, the army has worked hard to create these militants?it will be Aziz's challenge to see that it works equally hard to disband them...
...Aziz must also act firmly to restore law and order to Pakistan, ideally starting with the country's largest city and main economic driver, Karachi. This cannot be done merely by deploying troops and paramilitary forces whenever the killing gets out of hand. It will require substantial, long-overdue investment in our courts and police. Otherwise, Pakistan will remain a country that drives its own middle class into exile, and one where officials, elected or not, habitually abuse their powers...
...These are daunting challenges, particularly for a Prime Minister with uncertain freedom of action and no previous experience of elected office. We must hope that Musharraf has the vision to allow the birth of a Pakistan that is never again ruled by a general, and that Aziz is given the chance to supervise the delivery...