Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Pakistan growth creates wealth gap

Rising wealth inquality in Pakistan, accompanied by economic growth.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Stupid 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Pen & Teller take 9/11 conspiracy theorists head-on!

WARNING: The video contains lot of cusswords. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. :)

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Non-creative Creationism


Islamic creationism! Alas it is more or less just a plagiarism of its Christian counterpart. Yet another indicator of creative bankruptcy in the lands of Islam.


Scientists say pious Muslims in the government, which has its roots in political Islam, are trying to push Turkish education away from its traditionally secular approach


Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Abdus Salam - The UnSung Hero

Abdus Salam - The UnSung Hero

Dr. Abdus Salam rightly falls under the category of men about whom Bertrand Russell had said:

"Worldly success seldom comes to such men, but they inspire love and admiration, in those who know them, surpassing what is given to those who are less pure of heart".

Ten years ago, on this very day, that great mind of Pakistan breathed his last. The extracts from today's editorial of Daily Times are worth pondering:

Pakistan needs to feel guilty about what it has done to the greatest scientist it ever produced in comparison to the lionisation of Dr AQ Khan who has brought ignominy and the label of ‘rogue state’ to Pakistan by selling the country’s nuclear technology for personal gain. Can we redeem ourselves by doing something in Dr Salam’s memory on this 10th anniversary of his passing that would please his soul and cleanse ours?


Below is an article that appeared in The Friday Times, two years ago.


Umar

==============================================



The mystic scientist
By Zainab Mahmood

The story of the peasant from Jhang who became one of the finest scientists the world has known

In 1925, a peasant from Jhang had a prophetic dream: in response to his prayers, an infant was put in his lap; he inquired after his name and was told it was Abdus Salam. On Friday, January 29, 1926, a son was born to him and he duly named him Abdus Salam. A few years later, in another dream he saw Salam rapidly climbing a tall tree.When he cautioned him, Salam replied, "Father don't worry I know what I'm doing," and continued to climb until he was lost from sight. These visions were perhaps an indication of the extraordinary life that the child was destined to lead.

Salam's powers of comprehension astonished his parents. As a toddler when his mother narrated bed time stories, he retained every word and whenever she repeated a story he interrupted by saying "I alreadyknow it". At six he was admitted straight into class four. At just12 he sat for his matriculation exam and stood first in Punjab University, breaking all previous records.

Salam pursued a bachelor's degree at Government College, Lahore,where he became editor of Ravi the college magazine, and presidentof the student's union and debating society. In his fourth year during a lecture on Srinivas Ramanujan's mathematical equations, Salam worked out simpler and shorter solutions, which had defiedmany professors. He went on to set new records in BA and MA inPunjab University, some of which still stand. Salam applied for anundergraduate programme in the mathematics Tripos at Cambridge. His father was unable to finance his studies abroad. Fortunately Sir Chotoo Ram (the revenue minister of the Punjab), himself the son of a peasant, arranged that funds collected for the war effort be used to provide scholarships for bright sons of peasants.

At Cambridge, Salam realised that his view of the world was fairly limited; referring to Rumi's poem, he called himself "the frog from the well". There he read voraciously about Islamic mysticism andphilosophy, political and religious history, social sciences and the achievements of Muslim scholars, Sufis and scientists. This knowledge not only helped him achieve success in his chosen field, but also made him a well-rounded human being with a strong sense of history and spirituality. After completing his mathematics tripos degree early (with a double first, earning him the prestigious titleof "wrangler"), he completed a three year physics degree in one year. Due to the exceptional standard of his theoretical papers, the examiners did not even ask for his practical results, and simply awarded him a first class degree. One of his professors, Sir FredHail, said about him: "I found it less of a strain to tackle hard problems with Salam than to be asked easier things by other chaps. With them you had to roll two stones up the hill, one was the problem, the second making them understand, with Salam there was one stone, and he would be doing a fair amount of the pushing."

Salam completed his PhD in theoretical physics at Cambridge in 1952. Despite being offered a fellowship he returned to Pakistan to teach at Government College. Professor Kemmer, his research supervisor from Cambridge, eventually persuaded him to return to lecture at Cambridge: "I know very well that his strong sense of duty to his country is making it hard for him to decide to accept the post offered. If he does I feel in a few years he will become one of those from whom advanced students from all over the world would learn and he would be capable of establishing his own school of theoretical physics." This proved prophetic.

In 1957 Salam became Imperial College London's youngest professor ever. Here Salam, who had started out as a simple peasant, not even seeing an electric light bulb until he was sixteen, interacted with some of the greatest minds of his generation such as Bertrand Russell, Einstein, Openheimer, and Wolfgang Pauli. During one discussion Russell stated how he was vehemently opposed to God's existence; Salam responded by saying: "without belief in God man is prone to many basic defects and history shows that those who do believe in God are able to sacrifice more and do better for themankind in comparison to non-believers." In his first meeting with Einstein, they discussed religion, and Dr Salam explained the Islamic concept of tauheed . They ultimately developed a close friendship.

Dr Salam's spirituality and interest in Sufism distinguished him from most other great scientists. He began his first ever lecture at Imperial College by reciting a Quranic verse. His student Professor Duff recalls that his lectures were mesmerising: "there was always an element of eastern mysticism in his ideas that left you wondering how to fathom his genius." Dr Salam would explain his scientific endeavours were inspired by the concepts of Ptolemy, Bruno and Galileo who dared to question and discover the mechanisms of the universe. He pointed out that a scientist has many facets, such as that of a Sufi, an artist and explorer, and he relies on such traditions to advance his scientific knowledge.

As advisor to General Ayub Khan, Dr Salam was instrumental in the formation of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Dr Ishfaq(President, PAEC 1998) recalls, "Dr Salam was responsible for sending about 500 physicists, mathematicians and scientists fromPakistan, for PhDs to the best institutions in UK and USA". He worked tirelessly towards establishing a scientific platform inPakistan. He spoke on problems afflicting Pakistan and suggestedpractical guidelines on how to tackle poverty and illiteracy in thethird world at the All Pakistan Science Conference in Dhaka (1961). He urged citizens and the government to pay more attention to the scientific sector. He said poverty could be eradicated in one generation in Pakistan if the entire country made a firm commitment and he quoted from the Quran for inspiration: "God does not change the condition of a nation until it does not make an effort to change itself."

He was a force behind the establishment of PINSTECH, a centre fornuclear research, near Islamabad and SUPARCO in Karachi. He worked hard to find a solution for water-logging and salinity, which was a big problem for Pakistan's agriculture. He wrote several papers on this subject, which were presented in the US House of Representatives. On his request, the American president John F Kennedy sent a team of experts to Pakistani who were able to save millions of acres of land.

Dr Salam worked day and night towards the establishment of an institute for physics. Yet, as is now well-known, Pakistan was uninterested: the then finance minister, Mohammed Shoaib, advised Ayub Khan that "Dr Salam wants to build a 5-star hotel for scientists". Defeated, Abdus Salam approached several European countries instead. Finally the centre, the International Centre forTheoretical Physics (ICTP) was established in Italy in 1964. He served as director there for 30 years, and so a bridge of science was created between the developed and third world countries. As the science writer Robert Walgate said about Dr Salam, "he is one man without time, strung across two worlds and two problems; it is aloss to the world that he cannot have two lives."

In 1979, Dr Salam won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on the grand unification theory. This theory was inspired by his spiritual belief that all forces emanate from a single source. The hours he spent conducting scientific research at his home, would be against the backdrop of recorded naats and talawat recitation of theQuran. At the award-ceremony he arrived wearing his national dress –sherwani, khussa and pagri – and began his acceptance speech with a recitation from the Quran: "No incongruity will you see in the creation of God. Then look again, do you see any flaw? Look again and again and your sight will return confused and fatigued having seen no incongruity."

After winning the Nobel Prize, Salam visited his homeland. On one occasion he was en route with Dr Usmani and requested they drive toGovernment College. Dr Usmani told him that as it was during thevacation no one would be around. Dr Salam replied, "The person Iwant to meet will certainly be there." As the car approached a group of workers in the college, Dr Salam got out, shook hands and embraced one of them. Surprised, Dr Usmani asked him about the identity of this man, to which Dr Salam replied, "This gentleman is Saida, a mess servant at New Hostel, who used to lock my hostel room from outside during the exams, and gave me food and supplies through the window."

Dr Salam never forgot all those people who had, in some way, aided him throughout his life. When he was lecturer at Cambridge, heregularly sent money to his retired and impoverished teachers inJhang. He held all his teachers in the highest of esteem and when hemade an official visit to India, he insisted that all his Hindu and Sikh teachers who had migrated to India should be invited to all functions arranged in his honour. Dr Salam won 274 awards, degrees and prizes during his life, most of which carried substantial cashrewards. He used all his prize money to create a scholarship fundfor deserving students as well as to aid impoverished people.While visiting India he was treated as a hero. Indira Gandhi was so in awe of him that she refused to sit at the same level as Dr Salam, instead sitting beside him on the floor. When students in India asked what changes the Nobel had brought his life, he replied: "the biggest change is that now I can meet all those people that I wantedto and with their help and God's kindness I am able to help many aspiring scientists from the third world. The Nobel prize does not mean anything more to me."

Once a journalist asked him how he felt that because of his extraordinary achievements, his small village Jhang, previouslyfamous for the Heer folk tale, was now known as the home of one ofthe greatest scientific minds of this century. Salam answered withextreme humility and wit, saying, "there are over 325 Nobellaureates in the world, but there is only one Heer."

In 1988 he was invited to speak at the Faiz Memorial Lecture inLahore. The contents of his speech elucidate the extent of his humility and diffidence. He confessed that he felt he was far a farlesser man than the gifted poet Faiz, who had lived in a world oflove and beauty which enriched all around him, while he (Salam) wasan inhabitant of the dry and colourless world of atoms. He remarkedthat one-eighth of the Quran summons all believers to think, to question and to harness the forces of nature for the benefit of mankind. He felt Faiz was an extraordinary man who took on this challenge, as should all believers. He showed how spiritual poetryand science were routes to the same destination and how the quest tounfold God's mysteries, fuelled both the scientist and the poet. Sadly, he said, another similarity which drew him and Faiz together was that they were considered persona non grata by their own country.

In the latter part of his life, which he mostly spent in England,when he was asked why he was hesitant to come to Pakistan, he gave an honest response by saying that it was Pakistan that was hesitant to receive him. Dr Salam was offered citizenship from severalcountries, including Jordan and Kuwait, which even offered to nominate him as director-general of UNESCO. Jawaharlal Nehru wroteto him and said "come on your terms and we will accept". Even when the British government informed him that the Queen wished to granthim a knighthood he politely declined as the title of KBE can onlybe granted to British nationals. Dr Salam remained a citizen of Pakistan and selflessly fought many battles for his country.

Munir Ahmed Khan, formerly chairman of the PAEC, aptly eulogised DrSalam in November 1997, saying: "we Pakistanis may chose to ignore Dr Salam but the world at large will always remember him." In 1979,Jamiluddin Aali, a renowned journalist, wrote a newspaper articleonce titled "Two failed heroes of the east are celebrateduniversally", referring to Mother Teresa and Dr Salam. Mother Teresa is now on the fast track to sainthood. While memories of Dr Abdus Salam are honoured by many around the world, in his own country they are even today buried under prejudice and disregard, erased from textbooks and mainstream publications. The loss is surely ours.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Rape Law Reforms in Pakistan

Finally on Wednesday, after years of dilly-dallying and foot-dragging, the "honorable" legislators of mamlikat-e-khudadad Pakistan decided to relieve the raped women of the burden of producing 4 pious Muslim male witnesses or face incarceration under adultery charges. "Moral" brigade still managed to include fornication as a penal offense. For the record, I don't share the euphoria of Daily Times editor about this marvelous achievement of "His Enlightened Moderation" who, for years, has been adulterating the constitution of Pakistan at his will but dithering to take the bull by the horn. A BBC's report on this issue.

Razi Azmi produced a splendid rebuttal to the "moralists" who gloat over the "moral superiority" of Pakistani society by comparing its ("reported") rape rate with that of US. I wrote a metaphorical fable to highlight this contoversy. Dedicated to all "pious" Pakistanis and Muslims who are very "concerned" about the plight of raped women in US.

Once upon a time, in a not-so-distant land, a person went out for journey with his son. They were riding a donkey. When they reached the bank of the river, they saw a drowning woman crying for help. The son was about to get off the donkey to rescue the woman but his father forbade him to do so. The son said that the woman was in trouble. The father replied that the evidence of a single woman was not enough to substantiate that she was in trouble at all. She might be just "acting" to get their "attention". Women were nothing but a source of "fitna". The son said that we are all creatures of God and saving the life of a single creature of God is equal to saving lives of all creatures of God. The father replied that approaching a "non-mahram" woman was a highly "sinful" act and no amount of virtues could compensate this sin. He further said that the actual place of a woman was her home and she should not come in public unless accompanied by a male chaperone. That woman being alone and drowning in the river was the indication that she had run away from her house against the will of her male guardians and now she was tasting the fruit of "divine justice". The father told his son about a nearby town situated at the bank of another river. That nearby town was very famous for producing state of the art "life jackets". The town also had a well-trained teams of "life-guards". Girls and boys were taught swimming from the early school days. Yet in spite of all these factors, the rate of drowning women was far higher in that town compared to that in their native town. The son wondered what could be the reason. The father replied that only those who have the passionf or swimming face the risk of drowning. Those who never set foot in water have zero chance of drowning. In their town, they simply didn't allow women to come out of homes, therefore, for the women of their town, jumping into water, learning swimming and getting drowned was out of question. The son said that it was not the right time to indulge in these discussions. The life of a human being was at risk and she needed their urgent help. He further said that the woman might had been abducted by some powerful men who brought her out of her house against her consent and threw her into river to drown. The father replied, "Let her drown, God will sort her out."

The father and the son kept sitting on the donkey, playing with their theological puzzles and the drowning woman kept crying for help. The rest is history.

Friday, November 17, 2006

(In)security Doctrine

A reasonable suggestion! The only problem is that it flies in the face of the "(in)security doctrine" of the "guardians" of "the land of the pure". sigh!


In the longer term, it may be a much better idea for the security establishment to protect Pakistan by building enduring peace with democratic India in the east rather than to concede to the unpredictable, fundamentalist Taliban in the west and risk a fundamentalist encroachment inside Pakistan.

Umar
==========================================

Pakistan’s Afghanistan strategy
by Najam Sethi

Pakistan’s foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri has said that NATO cannot beat or subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has gone further and advised the Bush administration to consider withdrawing NATO troops from Afghanistan. His suggestion is based on the logic that the war in Afghanistan is not faring any better for the Americans than the war in Iraq.

Both statements are surprising. For one, how can President Pervez Musharraf continue to insist that Pakistan’s lead role in the war against terror and Talibanism will remain undiminished even as his government is asking the Americans to withdraw from Afghanistan in the face of the same threat? Second, while the American public backlash against the war in Iraq is manifest, it doesn’t apply to the war against terrorism in Afghanistan. Indeed, there is a consensus in Congress and the Bush Administration that a greater military presence in Afghanistan is needed to combat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda since that particular combination of forces will remain the dominant threat in the next decade for them.

The Pakistani security establishment’s mindset may be gauged from the enthusiasm shown by President Musharraf for the North Waziristan “deal”. At first it was flogged as an agreement with “repentant” Taliban and Al-Qaeda supporters, including foreigners who had settled in the area. But in essence it amounted to buying peace for the Pakistan army in exchange for permitting the tribesmen to enforce their own writ on Waziristan. However, when the Americans asked whether the ground rules of the agreement applied to bin Laden and his colleagues too, the military spokesman’s response was ambiguous. This provoked outrage in Washington and compelled the Pakistanis to backtrack. Meanwhile, Islamabad tried to persuade the British contingent in southern Afghanistan to strike a similar deal with the Taliban in which territory could be ceded in exchange for an end to fighting. At the same time, President Musharraf floated the idea of a grand jirga of pro and anti-Karzai tribal heads (who are mainly Pashtun Taliban) to give some respite to the beleaguered regime in Kabul. This was another way of flogging the same thought: a deal with the Taliban in which territory and autonomy/power was to be exchanged for peace and cessation of hostilities.

America’s negative response to this proposed strategy has been swift and decisive. Only days before a similar deal was to be signed with “locals” and the Pakistani military in Bajaur, American intelligence insisted that a madrassah of would-be suicide bombers in the area should be “taken out”. In the event, 82 Taliban were killed and a counter-attack left 42 Pakistan Army soldiers dead. This has wrecked the “deal-strategy”, for the time being at least.

At the heart of this strategy and the reasoning behind the apparently remarkable statements from Messrs Aziz and Kasuri lies one enduring Pakistani security concern: Afghanistan must not be allowed to fall into the hands of anti-Pakistan elements, especially India; indeed, any regime in Kabul must be overtly and manifestly pro-Pakistan so that Pakistan’s western flank is not threatened like its eastern one with India. There is one other pressing consideration: since the Durand Line is still unacceptable to Afghanistan as the legitimate border with Pakistan, Islamabad remains concerned about irredentist claims by Kabul on Pakistani territory east of the Durand line which is occupied by Pashtuns who share an ethnic nationalist sentiment with their compatriots in Afghanistan. In recent times, Pakistan’s security concerns have been heightened by reports of an “Indian hand” which is allegedly stoking the separatist insurgency in Balochistan from “bases” (consulates) in Afghanistan, provoking President Musharraf to unveil an iron fist.

So, it is clear why Pakistan seeks an understanding with the Pashtun Taliban in which Pakistani national security interests are safeguarded in exchange for conceding territory and power in Afghanistan. This strategy was followed from 1996 to 2001 and abandoned only when the Taliban refused to de-link themselves from Al-Qaeda after 9/11. Islamabad’s renewed hope is that with the Al-Qaeda threat now visibly diminished in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US and Hamid Karzai should be encouraged to do a power-sharing deal with the Taliban in the same way that Pakistan is urging the Taliban to abandon Al-Qaeda and do a peace deal with Islamabad.

The prospects of this strategy are not bright. First, Pakistan’s religious parties support the Taliban and hate President Musharraf. They want to overthrow him, partly by street agitation and partly by egging on Talibanised Pakistani Pashtuns to resist the military. Two, the Americans are more likely to beef up forces in Afghanistan than to reduce them in the future. Three, the forthcoming elections in Pakistan may throw up unexpected political equations which might derail this strategy. In the longer term, it may be a much better idea for the security establishment to protect Pakistan by building enduring peace with democratic India in the east rather than to concede to the unpredictable, fundamentalist Taliban in the west and risk a fundamentalist encroachment inside Pakistan.

Monday, November 13, 2006

SuperHero Quiz

Just took this quiz. My results are:

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others


Superman 65%
Spider-Man 60%
Green Lantern 60%
Supergirl 55%
Hulk 55%
Batman 50%
The Flash 50%
Robin 42%
Wonder Woman 35%
Catwoman 35%
Iron Man 30%
Iranian Paris Hilton stirs the pot

"East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet", said good old Rudyard Kipling decades ago.

What can be a "career booster" in West can prove to be a career-and-life-ruiner in East.

A "home-made video" of an Iranian actress has caused outrage among her compatriots.

She has been dubbed Iran's Paris Hilton after appearing in a sex video on the internet.

But while Paris's exploits propelled her to worldwide stardom, Zahra Amir Ebrahimi faces ruin, a public lashing and even a jail term.


Ebrahimi is one of the best-known actresses in the strict Islamic country and made the 20-minute sex tape privately with her boyfriend on a camcorder at the flat they shared two years ago.

Unbeknown to her, it was posted on the internet and widely released as a DVD - angering millions in Iran.

Her boyfriend, who has not been named by the authorities in Tehran, is suspected of
distributing the material illegally.

He has fled to Dubai and if caught and returned, faces three years in jail and a £6,000 fine for offending public morality.


Anent such acts of "mischievous" nature, George Bernard Shaw had remarked:

"They are the amusements of boys and girls. They are pardonable up to the age of 50 or 60: After that they are ridiculous."

But Iranian authorities have no sense of humor to appreciate the seriousness of Shaw's suggestion.

Here is the video link for that.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Muslims in USA



Ironic as it may sound, among all Western countries, it none other than the much hated USA that has so far done the best job of integrating its Muslim population.

================================


http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/07/news/muslims.php

Unlike European Muslims, many of whom are stuck in poor neighborhoodswith chronic unemployment, U.S. Muslims are both wealthier and moreeducated than many Americans, research has shown. They graduate from college at more than twice the average national rate, with halfearning an annual household income of at least $50,000, a survey byGeorgetown University showed in 2004 - about $3,000 more than the median household income nationwide suggested by the 2004 U.S. Census. They are also more ethnically diverse than Muslims in Europe.

More important, perhaps, this country's estimated six million Muslims blend into the religious and ethnic landscape more easily than their 15 million European counterparts, and not just because there are fewer of them."Being an immigrant and organizing around faith is part of theAmerican experience - it's part of our national identity," Rehab said. "It's much harder to fit into a more homogeneous and secular bloc, like Europe."

European concerns - about mass immigration and national identity,about the colonial past, about secular values - are focused on Muslims. While America has similar concerns, they are spread out over various groups: Mexicans are associated with illegal immigration,blacks with the struggle against slavery. Religious conservatism poses little problem in a country that is itself deeply religious;the debate in Europe over the Muslim head scarf, for example, has not crossed the Atlantic."The unease with Islam is fundamentally different in the United States and Europe," said Olivier Roy, a French expert on Islam. "In the U.S., it's essentially a security issue. In Europe, it's deeper:There is the idea that Islam itself represents a threat to Europe'sidentity."

The United States does not share Europe's long history of clashes with Islam, beginning with the Crusades. Instead, it has a form of indigenous Islam that is unique in the West: African- American Muslims who trace their line of belief back to the arrival of the first West African slaves in the 16th century.Increasing numbers of white converts also help bridge the gap with non- Muslim Americans. Abd-Allah grew up a Protestant in Nebraska.The Islamic Society of North America recently chose Ingrid Mattson,43, a former Catholic from Canada, as its head.









Friday, November 10, 2006

God vs. Science

This week's cover story of Time contains some excerpts from an interesting discussion between Richard Dawkins and Frances Collins!

From his talk, I failed to catch if Dr. Collins considers it the exclusive domain of Christian God to cause miracles and enact "absoulte" moral codes, or non-Christian gods and godesses are equally entitled to this "benefit of faith". Equal opportunity divinity, so to say :). Anyway, I still wish if more and more "believers" could think (believe?) like Collins rather than parroting the un-intelligently designed arguments of fundamentalists.

The full text of the article is accessible to Times subscribers only, so, I am pasting it here for the interest of others. Inquiring minds are welcome to explore!!


==============================================

Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006
God vs. Science
We revere faith and scientific progress, hunger for miracles and for MRIs. But are the worldviews compatible? TIME convenes a debate

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

There are two great debates under the broad heading of Science vs. God. The more familiar over the past few years is the narrower of the two: Can Darwinian evolution withstand the criticisms of Christians who believe that it contradicts the creation account in the Book of Genesis? In recent years, creationism took on new currency as the spiritual progenitor of "intelligent design" (I.D.), a scientifically worded attempt to show that blanks in the evolutionary narrative are more meaningful than its very convincing totality. I.D. lost some of its journalistic heat last December when a federal judge dismissed it as pseudoscience unsuitable for teaching in Pennsylvania schools.
But in fact creationism and I.D. are intimately related to a larger unresolved question, in which the aggressor's role is reversed: Can religion stand up to the progress of science? This debate long predates Darwin, but the antireligion position is being promoted with increasing insistence by scientists angered by intelligent design and excited, perhaps intoxicated, by their disciplines' increasing ability to map, quantify and change the nature of human experience. Brain imaging illustrates--in color!--the physical seat of the will and the passions, challenging the religious concept of a soul independent of glands and gristle. Brain chemists track imbalances that could account for the ecstatic states of visionary saints or, some suggest, of Jesus. Like Freudianism before it, the field of evolutionary psychology generates theories of altruism and even of religion that do not include God. Something called the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology speculates that ours may be but one in a cascade of universes, suddenly bettering the odds that life could have cropped up here accidentally, without divine intervention. (If the probabilities were 1 in a billion, and you've got 300 billion universes, why not?)
Roman Catholicism's Christoph Cardinal Schönborn has dubbed the most fervent of faith-challenging scientists followers of "scientism" or "evolutionism," since they hope science, beyond being a measure, can replace religion as a worldview and a touchstone. It is not an epithet that fits everyone wielding a test tube. But a growing proportion of the profession is experiencing what one major researcher calls "unprecedented outrage" at perceived insults to research and rationality, ranging from the alleged influence of the Christian right on Bush Administration science policy to the fanatic faith of the 9/11 terrorists to intelligent design's ongoing claims. Some are radicalized enough to publicly pick an ancient scab: the idea that science and religion, far from being complementary responses to the unknown, are at utter odds--or, as Yale psychologist Paul Bloom has written bluntly, "Religion and science will always clash." The market seems flooded with books by scientists describing a caged death match between science and God--with science winning, or at least chipping away at faith's underlying verities.
Finding a spokesman for this side of the question was not hard, since Richard Dawkins, perhaps its foremost polemicist, has just come out with The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin), the rare volume whose position is so clear it forgoes a subtitle. The five-week New York Times best seller (now at No. 8) attacks faith philosophically and historically as well as scientifically, but leans heavily on Darwinian theory, which was Dawkins' expertise as a young scientist and more recently as an explicator of evolutionary psychology so lucid that he occupies the Charles Simonyi professorship for the public understanding of science at Oxford University.
Dawkins is riding the crest of an atheist literary wave. In 2004, The End of Faith, a multipronged indictment by neuroscience grad student Sam Harris, was published (over 400,000 copies in print). Harris has written a 96-page follow-up, Letter to a Christian Nation, which is now No. 14 on the Times list. Last February, Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett produced Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, which has sold fewer copies but has helped usher the discussion into the public arena.
If Dennett and Harris are almost-scientists (Dennett runs a multidisciplinary scientific-philosophic program), the authors of half a dozen aggressively secular volumes are card carriers: In Moral Minds, Harvard biologist Marc Hauser explores the--nondivine--origins of our sense of right and wrong (September); in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (due in January) by self-described "atheist-reductionist-materialist" biologist Lewis Wolpert, religion is one of those impossible things; Victor Stenger, a physicist-astronomer, has a book coming out titled God: The Failed Hypothesis. Meanwhile, Ann Druyan, widow of archskeptical astrophysicist Carl Sagan, has edited Sagan's unpublished lectures on God and his absence into a book, The Varieties of Scientific Experience, out this month.
Dawkins and his army have a swarm of articulate theological opponents, of course. But the most ardent of these don't really care very much about science, and an argument in which one party stands immovable on Scripture and the other immobile on the periodic table doesn't get anyone very far. Most Americans occupy the middle ground: we want it all. We want to cheer on science's strides and still humble ourselves on the Sabbath. We want access to both MRIs and miracles. We want debates about issues like stem cells without conceding that the positions are so intrinsically inimical as to make discussion fruitless. And to balance formidable standard bearers like Dawkins, we seek those who possess religious conviction but also scientific achievements to credibly argue the widespread hope that science and God are in harmony--that, indeed, science is of God.
Informed conciliators have recently become more vocal. Stanford University biologist Joan Roughgarden has just come out with Evolution and Christian Faith, which provides what she calls a "strong Christian defense" of evolutionary biology, illustrating the discipline's major concepts with biblical passages. Entomologist Edward O. Wilson, a famous skeptic of standard faith, has written The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, urging believers and non-believers to unite over conservation. But foremost of those arguing for common ground is Francis Collins.
Collins' devotion to genetics is, if possible, greater than Dawkins'. Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute since 1993, he headed a multinational 2,400-scientist team that co-mapped the 3 billion biochemical letters of our genetic blueprint, a milestone that then President Bill Clinton honored in a 2000 White House ceremony, comparing the genome chart to Meriwether Lewis' map of his fateful continental exploration. Collins continues to lead his institute in studying the genome and mining it for medical breakthroughs.
He is also a forthright Christian who converted from atheism at age 27 and now finds time to advise young evangelical scientists on how to declare their faith in science's largely agnostic upper reaches. His summer best seller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press), laid out some of the arguments he brought to bear in the 90-minute debate TIME arranged between Dawkins and Collins in our offices at the Time & Life Building in New York City on Sept. 30. Some excerpts from their spirited exchange:
TIME: Professor Dawkins, if one truly understands science, is God then a delusion, as your book title suggests?
DAWKINS: The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no.
TIME: Dr. Collins, you believe that science is compatible with Christian faith.
COLLINS: Yes. God's existence is either true or not. But calling it a scientific question implies that the tools of science can provide the answer. From my perspective, God cannot be completely contained within nature, and therefore God's existence is outside of science's ability to really weigh in.
TIME: Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard paleontologist, famously argued that religion and science can coexist, because they occupy separate, airtight boxes. You both seem to disagree.
COLLINS: Gould sets up an artificial wall between the two worldviews that doesn't exist in my life. Because I do believe in God's creative power in having brought it all into being in the first place, I find that studying the natural world is an opportunity to observe the majesty, the elegance, the intricacy of God's creation.
DAWKINS: I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.
TIME: Professor Dawkins, you think Darwin's theory of evolution does more than simply contradict the Genesis story.
DAWKINS: Yes. For centuries the most powerful argument for God's existence from the physical world was the so-called argument from design: Living things are so beautiful and elegant and so apparently purposeful, they could only have been made by an intelligent designer. But Darwin provided a simpler explanation. His way is a gradual, incremental improvement starting from very simple beginnings and working up step by tiny incremental step to more complexity, more elegance, more adaptive perfection. Each step is not too improbable for us to countenance, but when you add them up cumulatively over millions of years, you get these monsters of improbability, like the human brain and the rain forest. It should warn us against ever again assuming that because something is complicated, God must have done it.
COLLINS: I don't see that Professor Dawkins' basic account of evolution is incompatible with God's having designed it.
TIME: When would this have occurred?
COLLINS: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.
DAWKINS: I think that's a tremendous cop-out. If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.
COLLINS: Who are we to say that that was an odd way to do it? I don't think that it is God's purpose to make his intention absolutely obvious to us. If it suits him to be a deity that we must seek without being forced to, would it not have been sensible for him to use the mechanism of evolution without posting obvious road signs to reveal his role in creation?
TIME: Both your books suggest that if the universal constants, the six or more characteristics of our universe, had varied at all, it would have made life impossible. Dr. Collins, can you provide an example?
COLLINS: The gravitational constant, if it were off by one part in a hundred million million, then the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang would not have occurred in the fashion that was necessary for life to occur. When you look at that evidence, it is very difficult to adopt the view that this was just chance. But if you are willing to consider the possibility of a designer, this becomes a rather plausible explanation for what is otherwise an exceedingly improbable event--namely, our existence.
DAWKINS: People who believe in God conclude there must have been a divine knob twiddler who twiddled the knobs of these half-dozen constants to get them exactly right. The problem is that this says, because something is vastly improbable, we need a God to explain it. But that God himself would be even more improbable. Physicists have come up with other explanations. One is to say that these six constants are not free to vary. Some unified theory will eventually show that they are as locked in as the circumference and the diameter of a circle. That reduces the odds of them all independently just happening to fit the bill. The other way is the multiverse way. That says that maybe the universe we are in is one of a very large number of universes. The vast majority will not contain life because they have the wrong gravitational constant or the wrong this constant or that constant. But as the number of universes climbs, the odds mount that a tiny minority of universes will have the right fine-tuning.
COLLINS: This is an interesting choice. Barring a theoretical resolution, which I think is unlikely, you either have to say there are zillions of parallel universes out there that we can't observe at present or you have to say there was a plan. I actually find the argument of the existence of a God who did the planning more compelling than the bubbling of all these multiverses. So Occam's razor--Occam says you should choose the explanation that is most simple and straightforward--leads me more to believe in God than in the multiverse, which seems quite a stretch of the imagination.
DAWKINS: I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine. What I can't understand is why you invoke improbability and yet you will not admit that you're shooting yourself in the foot by postulating something just as improbable, magicking into existence the word God.
COLLINS: My God is not improbable to me. He has no need of a creation story for himself or to be fine-tuned by something else. God is the answer to all of those "How must it have come to be" questions.
DAWKINS: I think that's the mother and father of all cop-outs. It's an honest scientific quest to discover where this apparent improbability comes from. Now Dr. Collins says, "Well, God did it. And God needs no explanation because God is outside all this." Well, what an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain. Scientists don't do that. Scientists say, "We're working on it. We're struggling to understand."
COLLINS: Certainly science should continue to see whether we can find evidence for multiverses that might explain why our own universe seems to be so finely tuned. But I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That's an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as "Why am I here?", "What happens after we die?", "Is there a God?" If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn't convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.
DAWKINS: To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God--it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.
TIME: Could the answer be God?
DAWKINS: There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.
COLLINS: That's God.
DAWKINS: Yes. But it could be any of a billion Gods. It could be God of the Martians or of the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri. The chance of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishingly small--at the least, the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that's the case.
TIME: The Book of Genesis has led many conservative Protestants to oppose evolution and some to insist that the earth is only 6,000 years old.
COLLINS: There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe's age or of how living organisms are related to each other. St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.
DAWKINS: Physicists are working on the Big Bang, and one day they may or may not solve it. However, what Dr. Collins has just been--may I call you Francis?
COLLINS: Oh, please, Richard, do so.
DAWKINS: What Francis was just saying about Genesis was, of course, a little private quarrel between him and his Fundamentalist colleagues ...
COLLINS: It's not so private. It's rather public. [Laughs.]
DAWKINS: ... It would be unseemly for me to enter in except to suggest that he'd save himself an awful lot of trouble if he just simply ceased to give them the time of day. Why bother with these clowns?
COLLINS: Richard, I think we don't do a service to dialogue between science and faith to characterize sincere people by calling them names. That inspires an even more dug-in position. Atheists sometimes come across as a bit arrogant in this regard, and characterizing faith as something only an idiot would attach themselves to is not likely to help your case.
TIME: Dr. Collins, the Resurrection is an essential argument of Christian faith, but doesn't it, along with the virgin birth and lesser miracles, fatally undermine the scientific method, which depends on the constancy of natural laws?
COLLINS: If you're willing to answer yes to a God outside of nature, then there's nothing inconsistent with God on rare occasions choosing to invade the natural world in a way that appears miraculous. If God made the natural laws, why could he not violate them when it was a particularly significant moment for him to do so? And if you accept the idea that Christ was also divine, which I do, then his Resurrection is not in itself a great logical leap.
TIME: Doesn't the very notion of miracles throw off science?
COLLINS: Not at all. If you are in the camp I am, one place where science and faith could touch each other is in the investigation of supposedly miraculous events.
DAWKINS: If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle. All kinds of things may happen which we by the lights of today's science would classify as a miracle just as medieval science might a Boeing 747. Francis keeps saying things like "From the perspective of a believer." Once you buy into the position of faith, then suddenly you find yourself losing all of your natural skepticism and your scientific--really scientific--credibility. I'm sorry to be so blunt.
COLLINS: Richard, I actually agree with the first part of what you said. But I would challenge the statement that my scientific instincts are any less rigorous than yours. The difference is that my presumption of the possibility of God and therefore the supernatural is not zero, and yours is.
TIME: Dr. Collins, you have described humanity's moral sense not only as a gift from God but as a signpost that he exists.
COLLINS: There is a whole field of inquiry that has come up in the last 30 or 40 years--some call it sociobiology or evolutionary psychology--relating to where we get our moral sense and why we value the idea of altruism, and locating both answers in behavioral adaptations for the preservation of our genes. But if you believe, and Richard has been articulate in this, that natural selection operates on the individual, not on a group, then why would the individual risk his own DNA doing something selfless to help somebody in a way that might diminish his chance of reproducing? Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes. We see less dramatic versions every day. Many of us think these qualities may come from God--especially since justice and morality are two of the attributes we most readily identify with God.
DAWKINS: Can I begin with an analogy? Most people understand that sexual lust has to do with propagating genes. Copulation in nature tends to lead to reproduction and so to more genetic copies. But in modern society, most copulations involve contraception, designed precisely to avoid reproduction. Altruism probably has origins like those of lust. In our prehistoric past, we would have lived in extended families, surrounded by kin whose interests we might have wanted to promote because they shared our genes. Now we live in big cities. We are not among kin nor people who will ever reciprocate our good deeds. It doesn't matter. Just as people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being motivated by a drive to have babies, it doesn't cross our mind that the reason for do-gooding is based in the fact that our primitive ancestors lived in small groups. But that seems to me to be a highly plausible account for where the desire for morality, the desire for goodness, comes from.
COLLINS: For you to argue that our noblest acts are a misfiring of Darwinian behavior does not do justice to the sense we all have about the absolutes that are involved here of good and evil. Evolution may explain some features of the moral law, but it can't explain why it should have any real significance. If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil. But for me, it is much more than that. The moral law is a reason to think of God as plausible--not just a God who sets the universe in motion but a God who cares about human beings, because we seem uniquely amongst creatures on the planet to have this far-developed sense of morality. What you've said implies that outside of the human mind, tuned by evolutionary processes, good and evil have no meaning. Do you agree with that?
DAWKINS: Even the question you're asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil--I don't believe that there is hanging out there, anywhere, something called good and something called evil. I think that there are good things that happen and bad things that happen.
COLLINS: I think that is a fundamental difference between us. I'm glad we identified it.
TIME: Dr. Collins, I know you favor the opening of new stem-cell lines for experimentation. But doesn't the fact that faith has caused some people to rule this out risk creating a perception that religion is preventing science from saving lives?
COLLINS: Let me first say as a disclaimer that I speak as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Executive Branch of the United States government. The impression that people of faith are uniformly opposed to stem-cell research is not documented by surveys. In fact, many people of strong religious conviction think this can be a morally supportable approach.
TIME: But to the extent that a person argues on the basis of faith or Scripture rather than reason, how can scientists respond?
COLLINS: Faith is not the opposite of reason. Faith rests squarely upon reason, but with the added component of revelation. So such discussions between scientists and believers happen quite readily. But neither scientists nor believers always embody the principles precisely. Scientists can have their judgment clouded by their professional aspirations. And the pure truth of faith, which you can think of as this clear spiritual water, is poured into rusty vessels called human beings, and so sometimes the benevolent principles of faith can get distorted as positions are hardened.
DAWKINS: For me, moral questions such as stem-cell research turn upon whether suffering is caused. In this case, clearly none is. The embryos have no nervous system. But that's not an issue discussed publicly. The issue is, Are they human? If you are an absolutist moralist, you say, "These cells are human, and therefore they deserve some kind of special moral treatment." Absolutist morality doesn't have to come from religion but usually does.
We slaughter nonhuman animals in factory farms, and they do have nervous systems and do suffer. People of faith are not very interested in their suffering.
COLLINS: Do humans have a different moral significance than cows in general?
DAWKINS: Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.
TIME: Do the two of you have any concluding thoughts?
COLLINS: I just would like to say that over more than a quarter-century as a scientist and a believer, I find absolutely nothing in conflict between agreeing with Richard in practically all of his conclusions about the natural world, and also saying that I am still able to accept and embrace the possibility that there are answers that science isn't able to provide about the natural world--the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I'm interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist.
DAWKINS: My mind is not closed, as you have occasionally suggested, Francis. My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot even dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up. When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

With reporting by With reporting by David Bjerklie, Alice Park/New York, Dan Cray/Los Angeles, Jeff Israely/Rome

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Madam Speaker arrives at the scene..

At last, American voters gve their verdict in favor of throwing the incumbent bums out - and replacing them with alternatvive bunch of bums.. Let's hope the new bums don't turn be as yum as the outgoing ones. :)

First time in American history, a female speaker. Although, US is champion of feminist ideals but has never had a women in senior public positions. In India, Maghlaya region is feminist paradise.

Masculinism Voila!!!!! Someone plz help these "oppressed males" calling for "masculinist" movement. :) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3015838.stm
Imagination and Knowledge

Having lived my whole life to date in Asia, I can fairly testify to Thomas Friedman's remarks.

Asia is very strong in teaching its young people math and science. But they are not very innovative. When was something as new, big and earth-shaking as Google invented in Asia or Europe? Our best young people may be less prepared in math and science, but they are encouraged to think in creative, innovative ways. A lot of that has to do with whether or not you have a culture that encourages questioning of authority.


Einstein rightly remarked, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." In fact, the freedom of imagination is what marks the border of authoritarianism and democracy.

People confuse the persmissive culture of West with decadence and that it will make it shallow. moral deca of decadent West. But they confuse the symptoms and the cause. At the becrock of the permissivism lies the culture of individulaism, and defiance to authority - therein lies the real strength of West.

Iqbal, Theologian, not Philosopher



One of my professors used to get pissed off whenever someone described Iqbal as a "great philosopher". "Do you know what was Iqbal's total contribution to philosophy? Just a PhD thesis", he used to remark.

His poetic genius notwithstanding, I think it would be unfair to call Iqbal a philosopher. His line of thought was more in tune with scholasticsm than "pure" philosophy. He made lot of intellectual summer saults to in his "pious" attempts to reconcile Islamic beliefs with modern Western philosophy. He appears to be an equal opportunity supporter of democracy as well as fascism, Sufism as well as Marxism, nationalism as well as pan-Islamism. These contradictions abound in his works.

Moreover, he leaves lot of thing open to the intrepreation of readers. The way his son, Dr. Javed Iqbal, interprets"spiritual democracy" comes quite close to the "notorious" ideal of secularism. And the way Dr. Israr Ahmed interprets Iqbal's"spiritual democracy", it will take a great leap of faith to call it either "spiritual" or "democracy".

However, considering the suffocating dogmatism prevalent in Muslim society at that time (and even now), his works are still a breath of fresh air. He was undoubtedly an intellectual giant, compared to the trash curned out by Ummah in these times. Some of his ideas were very shocking for "holier than thou" crowd. For the record, his book,"Reconstruction of Religious Thoughts in Islam" is BANNED in Saudi Arabia. There's defintely something"dangerous" in his thoughts.

To sum up, he would have done much better if he had circumscribed himself to the only 'p' (poetry) he was good at and not meddled with other p's (politics and philosophy).


Just some random thoughts on Iqbal day!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Divorce in Israel: Men get the final word

Finally, some common ground between Muslims and Jews. :)

Judaism, in spirit and letter, is indeed closest to Islam. I sometimes refer Islam as "missionary Judaism".

Anyway, that's not something to be amused of.


It's been nearly three years since Ariela Dadon began trying to divorce her abusive husband. But she can't gain her freedom or the right to remarry because her estranged husband has refused to grant her a get, a Jewish divorce writ that can only be given by a man to his wife - never the other way around.

In Spain, dismay at Muslim converts holding sway



Muslim converts in Spain are being suspected of "wolves in sheeps' clothing." Unless they renounce Shairah publicly and in unequivocal terms, it is diffcult to allay the fears of skeptics.


In her book, "Spain Converted to Islam," Magda accuses some converts of inconsistency in their support for feminism because they also embrace polygamy.
Moreover, she sees converts as the "Trojan horse" through which Islamist ideas about "reclaiming al-Andalus" could take hold in Spain.


"Perhaps this friendly face of Islam is more dangerous than the fundamentalist affirmations of certain imams," she writes. "At least with the latter we know who the enemy is; they're not wolves in sheeps' clothing."


Junta members reject such characterizations, however.


"For neo-cons like Arístegui," says Mr. Escudero, "we converts don't fit within the mold of the [Islamist] enemy they've tailor-made. So we make them uncomfortable."


The Junta may also be falling out of favor with other Muslims as well. Early in 2006, the Islamic Commission unexpectedly replaced the moderate Escudero with a new secretary-general.


Felix Herrero is a convert himself, though his mosque was investigated for terrorism, and some believe he is sympathetic to - even controlled by - powerful Saudi donors.


Escudero's ouster may have been caused by his democratic endeavors.


"They criticized the fatwa against bin Laden, saying no one has the right to eject a Muslim from Islam," says Prado, who is now the director of the Junta Islámica's Catalonia branch."It was a clear rejection of the Junta Islámica's agenda."
Plotter's book lays bare the mind of a jihadist

Dhiren Barot, born as Hindu, converted to Islam and jihadism, unveils his innovative plans to bring the enemy down. He has been senteneced to life imprisonment by a British court.

===============================================

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/07/nbarot507.xml

Plotter's book lays bare the mind of a jihadist
Last Updated: 2:27am GMT 08/11/2006
Read Dhiren Barot's book: The Army of Madinah in Kashmir (pdf)

Planning barbaric acts of terrorism was not Dhiren Barot's only preoccupation. Still available on the internet is a book he wrote in 1999 about the struggle in Kashmir on the disputed border between Pakistan and India.

It is dedicated to his sister, who had not converted to Islam, with the words: "My sister, this should explain much. X [cross] the line."

His writings give an insight into the mind of a man who left London to fight in Kashmir, only to find the real battles were being fought at top-level diplomatic meetings in which deals were carved out between the great nations.

The Army of Madinah in Kashmir charts Barot's journey from the foothills of Pakistan, across the mountainous line of control and into the valley of Indian-occupied Kashmir. He was following in the snow-filled footsteps of young men keen to fight for their faith, but his conclusion was a stark one.

Having drawn jihadis in with a romantic description of his experiences in Kashmir, Barot concluded that they should be attacking economic targets at home.

He was a member of a "rag tag force" which faced a "harrowing" crossing, carrying supplies and dressed only in the "flowing shirt and trousers of the shalwar kameez" and living in forests.
For a young man from London the outdoor life was a shock. "Kashmir is also a land with wildlife, wildcats, bears, jackals and snakes," he wrote. "A great burden for the Muslim fighters living out in the open is the blood sucking swarms of mosquitoes that constantly torment them."
He described lice in his hair and clothes and "festering" sores caused by infected cuts and scratches, made worse by wading through rivers. There was a risk of frostbite and amputations as the fighters dug themselves winter hides.

He described leaving delayed explosives, setting up mortars and firing rocket propelled grenades and machineguns as well as laying ambushes and road blocks. But there is no first-hand description of confrontations with the Indian army, suggesting Barot may have felt he was wasting his time.

He described Kashmir as "semi-farcical" and a "secondary rate jihad" in which "thousands upon thousands of guest mujahideen [holy warriors] are being slaughtered at a phenomenal pace".
He said Pakistan and its secret service the ISI was using "sincere but unsuspecting young men" as "pawns in the game that adequately serve as cannon fodder, performing the country's dirty work".

Barot told his readers: "Jihad has many great spheres and it would be a misconception to confine it simply to the mountain-tops of foreign countries, as we are so prone to do. Instead we are forced to ask the question, do we put the fear of Allah into the enemies of al Islam?
"The indigenous believers that reside in these meddling countries, however, can only do this. For it is they, the locals, and not the foreigners who understand the language, culture, area and common practices of the enemy whom they coexist amongst."


Writing two years before the World Trade Centre was attacked on September 11, Barot concluded: "To attempt to bring any one of these interfering nations to its knees is a major task which undoubtedly takes a great deal of carefully coerced interaction."

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Hawks having Second Thoughts


Some former "advisors" of hawkish "orientation" are now having second thoughts about the "advice" they bestowed on their maximum leader.

Here comes the Prince of Darkness aka Richard Perle,

"The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly," Mr Perle told Vanity Fair, according to early excerpts of the article. "At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible."

Followed by Kenneth Adelman:

Kenneth Adelman, another Reagan era hawk who sat on the Defence Policy Board until last year, drew attention with a 2002 commentary in the Washington Post predicting that liberating Iraq would be a "cakewalk".

He now says he hugely overestimated the abilities of the Bush team. "I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent," Mr Adelman said.

"They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."


Indeed everyone in the team was incompetent, except of course, the good old Mr. Adelman. :)

Not to be left behind, Mr. Frum.....


Mr Frum, who as a White House speechwriter helped coin the phrase "axis of evil" in 2002, said failure in Iraq might be inescapable, because "the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them". The blame, Mr Frum said, lies with "failure at the centre", beginning with the president.

So now, blame it all on The Boss! Nice way to save your own skin. Offense is the best defense, as they say. Or as the Urdu saying goes, "jab kashti doobnay lagti hey to boj utara kartey hein..." (leave the drowning boat alone)

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Islamism's failure, Islamists' future



Roy has rightly pointed out that while "moderate" Islamists seem willing to embrace some norms of modernity, one issue on which they show no sign of compromise is Islamic family law. (Most of us are already aware of Indian Muslims' opposition to Uniform Civil Code.)

Owing to the overtly patriarchal bias of Islamic family law, one can safely (and sadly) assume that Muslim women are going to be the last beneficiary of any forseeable "Reformation in Islam".



http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/islamism_4043.jsp
Islamists have not given up all of their religious ideology. One thing remains: sharia, with family law at its core. This is an issue of identity. From Morocco to Pakistan, including Iran, the key debate is about family law and, by definition, the status of women.

Some of its leading figures may, like Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, accept democracy; others, such as the Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, agree that it is the least-bad system, not to be opposed, but insist on sharia. Family law is not negotiable for figures such as al-Qaradawi; penal measures or legal punishments may be, but not this.

A big problem arises. If democratisation means more nationalism and more sharia, this is far from what the western promoters of democratisation envisaged. But this problem must be faced head on by saying: there is no way not to engage the Islamists. There is no alternative. We in the west have to make a choice between Erdoğan and the Taliban. And if we don't choose Erdoğan, we'll get the Taliban.



Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Political Compass Questionnaire

Read the writing on your political compass here:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/questionnaire


The questionnaire is quite interesting but I think, it falls short on two counts:

1. It primarily deals with the issues faced by Americans. This, in my opinion, limits its universal applicability to an extent. Non-Americans may get a feeling of "home-sickness" while answering the questions. :)

2. It does not provide any "third option" in the answers. I wanted to answer some questions as "Not sure" or "Don't care" but all I could do was disagree or agree to the statement - and regulate the intensity of my dis/agreement. That's definitely an improvement on "either with us or against us" option :) but I'd prefer to have bit more flexibilty in choices.

Anyway, I've been charge-sheeted as "Libertarian Leftist" with the following score:

Economic Left/Right: -5.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.67

Among my fellow inmates are guys like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama. :)