A More Radical John Wayne

"I hate to call it armed combat," Tariq Banuri says, smiling slightly, "because no one was hurt. But a lot of bullets were fired. "Banuri plays down his role in capturing outlaws in the tribal district of Pakistan because he says he doesn't want to be known for that. On one occasion, Banuri, as magistrate of the Malakand area, gathered a group of seven men and went posse-style after a local "gangster." The gangster had his own armed band but Banuri recalls, "We were more lucky than anything else. We went into a ravine and outflanked him."

The soft-spoken, bearded 31-year-old now leads a more sedate life, teaching a radical section of Social Analysis 10 as he prepares to write his doctoral thesis on labor migration from developing countries. "In view of my experience I find it hard to sit and write--I would much rather be doing something."

Banuri began "doing something" when, after college, he entered the Pakistani civil service to begin training to become a district magistrate. It was as magistrate of a district subdivision that Banuri sometimes played the role of frontier-town sheriff, taking the law into his own hands. But his duties were more diverse and demanding than simple law enforcement, for he was "the only representative of the government" in outlying tribal areas.

"If I thought something was wrong, I was the only one able to do anything about it. If I didn't, no one did. I was 23 or 24 at the time, and it was my first official position, so I tried to do a lot." People in the outlying provinces often do not understand the government, Banuri says, "[they] don't have great trust in legal procedure--they often take matters into their own hands."

Stationed in the Malakand subdistrict, Banuri found the lifestyle similar to what he had seen in westerns as a child. He recalls that he once mistook a film of the American west for the Pakistani frontier. The people have similar attitudes about survival, and they rely mainly on themselves--"We have a very individual culture. When you grow up you are told you must safeguard your own rights."

After spending two years in the magistracy, he transferred to the planning division of the government of the province of the North-western Frontier because "power is seductive. It warps your personality. You become paternalistic and high-handed."

Banuri laments that that power-fed attitude is common in the Pakistani government and may be one result of the colonial legacy.

"My experience made me conscious of how little we know about what can be done. I was there for two years and believed I was part of this great effort to improve the life of people. But nothing seemed to be happening."

So when Banuri was accepted to a program at Williams College that teaches the economics of development to members of Third World governments, he came to America. The program whetted his appetite but left him eager to learn more. Accepted on scholarship to become a graduate student of economics at Harvard, Banuri began to round out his knowledge of the subject. "I always wanted to know where this all comes from. I didn't understand all of society. There was no overall view."

Teaching "Ec 10" has been Banuri's way of filling the gaps in his knowledge. "I think I wanted to teach Ec 10 because I wanted to use it as a learning experience for myself. I started learning economics at the graduate level and that is very disjoined. I wanted to put it all together. I have learned a lot, and have had some excellent students. "Banuri teaches the radical section because he feels it truly looks into the background of economics, not just the methodology. "My basic question is how does society operate," he says.

In answering that question, Banuri says, "The radical view is quite coherent and consistent." That radical view, however, does not necessarily equate with Marxism. "I would think of myself as a Marxist only as I would think of myself as a Newtonian or for that matter as a Smithian. I think Marx tried to present a scientific view of society. So have the Neoclassicals. What they have tried to do is abstract from society and find the most important relationships that define how society operates. These people are looking at different relationships and that is why they often come up with opposite conclusions."

Banuri's preference for the radical view began even before he learned any formal economics. As a student body president at the university in Pakistan, where students have a real influence over national politics, he began to feel that the radical answer was more appropriate for developing nations. Yet Banuri is not doctrinaire about radical economics, and he questions any conclusions that do not agree with his own moral sense. "The only thing I want to discover is something that appeals to my own sense of justice. "Banuri doesn't apply this standard only to himself, but he feels that everyone must come to his own conclusions about the world. "When people form beliefs, their world view, it comes from many sources. I don't think there is any reason they should form their world view based only on what they learn in the Department of Economics."

Banuri sums up his own feelings best when he says, "One of the things I believe in is people. Much analysis does not have enough confidence in people. If you don't have confidence in people, then nothing is worth it."