‘Stealing Harvard’ and Fareed Zakaria
ON Sept. 13, 2002 a crime comedy movie titled Stealing Harvard was released. The movie was very funny, but we all know that stealing Harvard or anything from Harvard is not funny… Fareed Zakaria attended Harvard, he should have known it and should have known that people not only read what Fareed Zakaria writes, but also what Professor Jill Lepore writes.
Jill Lepore is not only a professor. She is a professor of history at Harvard and chair of History and Literature program. She is a walking encyclopedia Americana. So, what made someone like Fareed Zakaria fail to credit a New Yorker article by Professor Jill Lepore about gun control? Was it an honest mistake or was this a tip of the iceberg for the many works which are thought to be done by Fareed Zakaria?
On Jan. 3, 2012, I wrote an article in Arab News about the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian threat. Just one day later, I received an e-mail from a media company in the Netherlands telling me that there is a similar article titled “Iran won’t close the Strait of Hormuz,” published in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 4, 2012 written by Navy Capt. Bradley Russel who is a visiting fellow at the council at the Foreign Relations and was the chief of staff to US Navy Central Command/Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and by Max Boot who is a senior fellow in national security studies at the council.
When I read the article which was discussing the same points as mine, I asked myself one question… what if my article was published a couple of days after the Wall Street Journal’s one. I was glad that my article was published first, just one day before. But the point is people do read, compare and analyze. Fareed Zakaria knows this very well.
And speaking of Harvard… I have written an article in Arab News titled “What if the Arabs had recognized the state of Israel in 1948?” After the article was published, I received an e-mail from someone outside the Kingdom who apparently read my article letting me know that there was a lecture at Harvard by Ruth R. Wisse who is a professor of comparative literature at Harvard. And in the lecture, Ruth Wisse mentioned Arab News, my article and my name. Again… it is clear that there are people all over the world who read, analyze and compare… But, did Fareed Zakaria know this?
I am not trying to dispute Fareed Zakaria’s talents. But I have always thought he was overrated and overexposed to the world. I have read some of his articles in the past and I stopped reading them long time ago, because some of them were very controversial and he changes his opinions according to events. To me, he was like a sports commentator who at the end of the game when the score is known, would say, I had a feeling team X would win and team X is my team. He doesn’t say it before the game. He only says it after the end of the game.
Fareed Zakaria doesn’t like to credit other people. Journalists Jeffery Goldberg and Clyde Prestowitz indicated that he didn’t credit them with interviews they conducted. And what is more embarrassing is that he gave similar commencements for two different universities. He gave nearly identical words to graduating classes at Harvard and Duke. We all know that public speakers would repeat some of their sentences or their jokes, but, we are talking about a speech to graduating class from Harvard and Duke Universities. So, who overrated and overexposed Fareed Zakaria? The answer is simple. Many media companies and universities in the US, not to mention the White House and American presidents. He got more compliments from the White House, even some people who worked in the White House for years never got.
Fareed Zakaria’s resume includes many breathtaking names… Yale, Harvard, CNN, ABC, Newsweek, TIME, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate.
And not to mention honorary degrees from University of Miami, Oberlin College, Bates College, Brown University, John Hopkins and many awards from India and the US. Fareed Zakaria wore too many hats. So, at the end, he either didn’t have time to catch up or he had people write things for him. I think too many American politicians, economic advisers, media giants and think-tanks put their eggs in one basket. This basket turned into a movie called Stealing Harvard (part II) by Fareed Zakaria.
Fareed Zakaria became a think-tanker, a journalist, an economist and worse than that, he was a war advocate. In a book titled State of Denial, journalist Bob Woodward wrote about a meeting which was held after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the meeting was held on Nov. 29, 2001.
The meeting supposedly was for Middle East analysts and the meeting was headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Fareed Zakaria was in the meeting and there was a report sent to President George W. Bush. It supported of the invasion of Iraq. To this day, I still wonder why an American president would consult a journalist about invading another country which wasn’t a threat to the United States. I am sure, no one from the Middle East was present at this meeting. This is the first time a decision to invade a country would involve the opinion of a journalist. Later on Fareed Zakaria had changed his views about the invasion of Iraq so many times, you would question his motives.
There will be a lot of people and organizations who will read Fareed Zakaria’s article again and again, but this time they will do it just to see if they have seen his lines before. It is said that Fareed Zakaria commends a speaking fee of $ 75,000 per appearance. Now, tell me if he is not overrated.
— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
