The event began with the organisers bringing out this year’s big guns for the first session, with acclaimed writer and scholar Reza Aslan joining Booker prize-winning author Ben Okri accompanied by the European Council on Foreign Relations Director Mark Leonard in a talk moderated by Ahmed Rashid.
The session entitled “Light at the End of Trumpian Disruption” was curious in that it offered very little light at the end of the tunnel. Reza Aslan kicked things off by promptly telling the crowd that “things are far far worse than you imagine.”
Speaking with a certain comic pessimism, Reza addressed the problem of America’s “Racist in Chief.”
Mark Leonard corroborated Reza’s remarks, mentioning the ever-increasing relevance of identity politics, and how “Trump is much more a symptom than he is a cause, and it really goes down to the heart of who people are.”
However, Leonard’s insistence that dialogue was the answer resulted in some lively debate between him and Okri, who argued that the afterglow of colonialism and oriental outlooks should not be an excuse and that there was no room for being apologetic.
Reza proved to be the crowd’s darling as he settled the matter in favour of Okri, and answered a question by asserting that the problem goes beyond Trump and had more to do with the American policy.
“Obama has murdered thousands and thousands of Pakistanis,” he said to the thundering applause of the audience. However, the talk ended on a pessimistic note, and when asked where the light at the end of the tunnel was, Reza laughingly responded, “well I hear death isn’t too bad.”
