Minorities and religious communities who do not see themselves as part of a secular nation are marginalised from the seats of power. Halliday places the origins of the “age of colonialism” in the 1870s, with the beginning of the scramble for Africa. A deeper appreciation of colonialism, tracing it back to 1492, would have enabled him to see that the state itself has turned out to be largely a creation and function of colonialism. The discontent in the Muslim world may be propelled by the fact that colonialism is alive and well.In his discussion on globalisation, Halliday takes great care to be balanced. Yet nowhere does he question the role of capital, or analyse the fact that under globalisation, the function of colonialism is taken over by transnational corporations, largely of American That would have been an explanation too far.

In America, international relations is in fact a euphemism for studying US foreign policy from a US perspective. That is why Halliday has little to say about America – except that we should not denounce the US and must appreciate its post-Cold War policy.It is only when he steps out of the international relations framework that Halliday reveals his true calibre. His analysis of “anti-Muslimism”, even though deprived of the broader context of Orientalism, is full of brilliant insights, as is his dissection of Islamophobia. Which leads one to wonder why he is so hampered with the mediocre tools of his academic trade.Ziauddin Sardar’s ‘The A to Z of Postmodern Life’ will be published by Vision Paperbacks next spring. When the UN released figures on HIV infection prior to World Aids Day, there was much dismay.

The level had soared, not only in Africa but also in the former Soviet republics and Latin America. It is well known that HIV has devastated many African countries, but this trend is all the more alarming in the context of the general deterioration in global health. Between 1990 and 1999, infant mortality rose in nine countries, while life expectancy for Russian men fell by eight years between 1965 and the mid-1990s.Yet although the need for doctors is greater than ever, there is a growing shortage. Those who read The Dressing Station, Jonathan Kaplan’s memoir of his life as a surgeon, may not find themselves leaping into the fray. With its mixture of reportage from war-torn countries as diverse as Eritrea and Burma, and painstaking descriptions of operations in England and the US, Kaplan’s book dismantles all the illusions with which he began his medical career in Cape Town.
Operating in war zones, Kaplan is adept at taking risks. In Iraq, weeks after the end of the Gulf War, he crosses high mountain passes to set up an operations tent on the front line between Kurdish resistance fighters and Saddam Hussein’s army. In Mozambique, only the quick thinking of his driver allows him to escape death in a minefield.However, it is not such escapades that give his book its resonance, but how he travelled to these war zones in the first place.

For this is essentially the account of a person who attempts to reconcile himself to his moral agency in an atmosphere where obeying the economics of the bottom line is the overriding imperative.Kaplan’s escape from convention begins when his oldest medical friend in South Africa, Stefan, has to murder an Angolan resistance fighter rather than see him tortured. Unwilling to work in these conditions, Kaplan moves to London, just in time to witness the NHS being “eviscerated by opportunistic politicians”. When cuts lead to his funding application for an important research project being denied, his professor suggests that he leave for the US.Here Kaplan mercilessly lampoons the profit-driven system, most memorably when a Dow Jones crash brings tears to the eyes of a surgeon, delaying an operation. His research leads to a possible breakthrough, but when the sponsoring company sells up and the buyers decide not to develop the research, it is time to move.