Never the twain shall meet
When Pankaj Mishra picked holes in historian Niall Ferguson's ode to imperialism, the Indian author kicked off a feud that has seen both antagonists call Hong Kong to the witness stand. Joanna Chiu steps into the fray
Pankaj Mishra, Indian author and essayist, poses reluctantly for the photographer in a restored prison cell. Here, in Hullett House, on Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, pirates and vagrants were detained in British colonial times. Now, the former marine police headquarters houses a boutique hotel and serves as the base of a gleaming office tower, surrounded by stores selling luxury brands.
Mishra was in the city to discuss his book From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in October. The Economist named the book one of the best of 2012 - describing Mishra as "the heir to Edward Said" and having a "surprising new perspective".
From the Ruins of Empire tells the stories of Asian intellectuals - including Chinese revolutionaries - who were humiliated by Western imperialism at the turn of the 20th century and struggled to find ways to break their societies free from the "white plague". Despite differences in approach, they created ideas that lie behind some of the most powerful Asian nations today, Mishra argues, in the process contradicting to some degree the views of another historian who has visited our city in recent months: Niall Ferguson.
Focusing on Chinese reformist Liang Qichao and Muslim activist and pan-Islamist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Mishra makes the case that Asian intellectuals paved the way for the development of institutions such as the Chinese Communist Party and the Muslim Brotherhood - although he does not celebrate many of these consequences as triumphs.
"Many of them adapted ideas from the West, such as Marxism, but some Western ideas proved entirely unsuitable for Asian societies, leading to disastrous outcomes," says Mishra, who also considers unchecked capitalism as an example of a destructive Western import as it has led to environmental destruction and widening wealth gaps.
Over dinner at a restaurant in Causeway Bay - an erstwhile fishing village now with the most expensive rents in the world - Mishra says that when he was growing up he idealised the West, even though he was surrounded by relatives praising the glory of the Indian independence movement.
"I used to be obsessed with Western philosophers, such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, when I went through a lot of anxiety as a young adult," he says. "I think it happens to everyone - that you reject your own culture at first.