I don't want to be a Michael Moore-style artist, which is not to disparage Michael Moore. But he seems rather unsuccessful at winning people over who don't already agree with him.
Mohsin HamidArtists are in the imagining/ prototyping business. Society needs people to be out there thinking of what might be. That cannot be something we just delegate to politicians or technologists.
Mohsin HamidMy aunt used to say, "It's between me and my god; it's got nothing to do with you." It was a good enough answer for me as a snot-nosed college kid angling for a religious debate, and I still think it's a good way of putting it.
Mohsin HamidAmericans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active role in ensuring that what the United States does abroad is not merely in keeping with a foreign policy elite's sense of realpolitik but also with the American public's own sense of American values.
Mohsin Hamid