home > by publication type > must reads > Newsweek: The Price of Instability
Email
| Author: | Parag Khanna |
|---|
March 3, 2009
There is still no better theory of human motivation than Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of human needs." Maslow, an American psychologist writing in the 1940s and '50s, argued that man's primary or basic needs are physiological: food, water, sleep, shelter. Only with these needs satisfied could one move up the pyramid toward security and employment, friendship and family, toward self-actualization and morality. No matter what your religion, you are human first and faithful second.
Muslims, like any other people, are searching for order more than they are searching for Islamic order. Governments are supposed to provide the basic needs of justice, welfare and security. But when they don't--as in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and Swat Valley, or across the third world and much of the Muslim world--commanding loyalty and morality becomes anybody's game. Islamist groups like the Taliban, Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or Hizbullah quickly move into the fray to provide stability, services and justice. Are the young boys from NWFP who are paid 1,000 rupees a day to leave their families and march with guns and sticks into Swat really radical Muslims, or just kids who need jobs?
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.