The rise of new regions of power in recent decades has provoked much discussion of understanding the post-colonial state. While the global influence of the U.S. and the European Union appears to have diminished in past years, the significance of some post-colonial states, such as India and Pakistan, has consistently increased. The challenge for progressive thinkers is to formulate a theoretical model that can coherently explain the specific and general trajectories of these countries.

Were he alive today, Faiz Ahmad Faiz would have, all at once, been thrilled and alarmed by the fast-changing world order and the shaking hegemony of Western imperialism and its local linchpins.

How indeed can a lover of Faiz's poetry, even a very imperfect one as myself, witness the so-called Arab Spring and the toppling of dictators like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali without thinking of his famous poem Hum Dekhenge (We Will See)?