This paper critically analyses how Mohsin Hamid in ‘Discontent and Its Civilizations’
delineates the rupture lines prompted by a decade and a half of tectonic change, from the ‘war
on terror’ to the struggles of individuals to maintain humanity in the inflexible physiognomy
of repressive ideology, or the apathetic face of globalization. Whether he is discussing ritual
love affairs or pop culture, drones or the pattern of day-to-day life in an extended family, he
carries us beyond the doomsayer headlines of a perturbed West and a turbulent East and helps
to bring a dazzling manifold world within spiritual and intellectual reach. The classifications
under which the essays are congregated: Life, Art, and Politics may be considered universal,
as the themes of these segments are wide-ranging. Hamid’s nonfiction pieces of writings are
deep-rooted in the shifting nature of his homeland. He talks about the way in which Pakistan
“plays a recurring role as villain in the horror sub-industry within the news business” (Hamid,
2014). He believes that in Pakistan, Islam has been as a binding force for developing unity
for strengthening nationhood. Although Pakistan; “a test bed for pluralism on a globalising
planet” (Hamid, 2014), is still struggling for “more pluralism” (Hamid, 2014). American
drone attacks have had a deeply detrimental effect by refusing the sovereignty of Pakistan
and Pakistani society, and by demanding ‘do more’ to accost the problem of extremists who
tyrannize Pakistanis/Muslims or non-Pakistanis/ non-Muslims in the same way. Such social
misrepresentations, for some selfish self-interests, neither only shatter the image of a nation
in the world, but also play a vital role in transformation of the nation alike with the help of
such vague reflections. Pakistan and Islam both need to be reviewed without any “makeup
and plastic fangs” (Hamid, 2014) or else future generations will look back at our era and
think of us with the same perplexity that we think of those who lived in societies that legalized
slavery