Incredible Credulity

The ignorance of the masses is actually a failure of the privileged educated elite of a society in performing their duty: to educate the masses. The relationship between the privileged classes and the underprivileged masses in the developing countries can best be understood by drawing an analogy to the relationship between the factory-owners and the factory-workers. The factory-owners and their minions: the managers, assistants and financial advisers occupy a higher position on the social ladder; as a class, they are educated, well-dressed and posh; while the factory-workers are ill... more »

The fear of terrorism is partly a fact and partly a hype to militarily intervene in the oil-rich Middle East and North Africa region. Obviously, any incident of terrorism is a big human tragedy in which many innocent human lives are lost; and governments all over the world, try to avert such an incident from happening. But the actions of the governments, and their proportionality, needs to be carefully examined to judge their real intentions. Can it be said about the Zia regime that it felt a genuine love and affection towards their brothers-in-faith; and that’s why they chose to gi... more »

Introduction: The Pakistani military establishment is rightfully blamed for creating the Taliban; but the phenomena of religious extremism and terrorism is not limited to Pakistan; this conflagration has engulfed the whole of Islamic world from Iraq and Syriato Algeria and Indonesia and even the Muslim minorities in China, Thailandand Philippines. Pakistani establishment does not has access to all these regions, thus, aside from local actors, some regional and global actors are also responsible for creating the menace of Islamic extremism and terrorism. A more holistic understanding... more »

The trouble with Pakistani liberals is that they don’t understand what do they want? PPP and ANP opposed the Afghan Jihad; and the resultant extremism and terrorism in Pakistan in the aftermath of Afghan Jihad is in a way a vindication of their rightful stance. But mere vindication is not enough, we need to find solutions for the pressing problem. And what is their solution? Military-bashing, right-wing-bashing and a false victimhood syndrome. Actually there is more to extremism and terrorism than meets the eye. It is only partly an issue of human rights and minority rights; more th... more »

Some of us tend to take a binary approach towards most issues; like either you are with us or against us. But there are always many reasonable options in between. For instance: a complete surrender of the writ of the state in the tribal areas of Pakistan or its full restoration. Restoration, by the way, implies re-establishment of the writ; which we never had in the first place; we used the tribals to achieve our strategic objectives in Kashmir and Afghanistan; and we abused them by militarizing and weaponizing them. Anyway, instead of taking a binary approach of complete restoration... more »

Syrian Conflict: A War on Hezbollah. Let me admit at the outset that Assad is an illegitimate tyrant who must abdicate his hereditary throne to the will of the people when the opportune moment arrives. But at the moment our primary concern shouldn’t be bringing democracy to Syria; at the moment our first and foremost priority should be reducing the level of violence in Syria. There are two parties to this conflict: the regime and the rebels. It is not possible for the regime to get off the back of the tiger because the tiger will eat it alive. The regime is fighting a war of defense... more »

This write-up is a rejoinder to Omar Ali’s well argued post: Drone and anti-drone. Omar Ali’s arguments are premised on a sub-conscious assumption that the Western powers honestly wants to rid the world from the scourge of religious extremism and terrorism; a deeply held belief of the intrinsic goodness of the Western Empire (North America and Western Europe) which overlooks a simple fact that the Empire created these Mujaideen/terrorists during the Cold War with the help of Pakistani military establishment and the Saudi and Gulf sponsors. The paradigm of international politics chang... more »

In the book of most neoliberals, violence is the worst sin in today’s world. I am also pacifist by nature but I see a contradiction in the neoliberals’ pacifism: they want us to meet violence with violence; to fight crime with crime; to wage a war against a war; but an eye for an eye will make the world go blind. It is an issue of emotions, loyalties and value-based subjective narratives which is presented to us in a veneer of rational argumentations and an appeal to logic. To understand this we need to look at the history of the Cold War and the genesis of the petro-terrorism. Ther... more »

This blogpost is an assortment of some of my earlier comments at different forums on the subject of petro-terrorism. There is no denying the fact that terrorism is a real threat. But at the same time we cannot overlook the fact that 9/11 provided an opportunity to the Big Oil in the West to intervene in the Middle East region to secure its vast natural resources from the competing powers. Hence the name, True Lies of Petro-terrorism. In his article titled “True Lies” Nadeem F. Paracha (NFP) of Dawn News asks an interesting question. NFP: If US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas... more »

Reuters reports: U.S. to surpass Saudi as top oilproducer by 2016 – says the International Energy Agency. The United States will stride past Saudi Arabia and Russiato become the world's top oil producer by 2016, the West's energy agency said, bringing Washingtoncloser to energy self-sufficiency and reducing the need for OPEC supply. And the Bloomberg goes a step further: The U.S. will surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil producer by 2015, and be close to energy self-sufficiency in the next two decades, amid booming output from shale formations, the IEA said. By re... more »

We expect from the individuals and the business enterprises to act in their self-interest. But then why do we expect from the government to work in the larger public interest; from the legislature to make laws and devise policy for the benefit of an entire nation; and from the judiciary, bureaucracy and the law enforcement to enforce law and justice throughout the country? Will it be morally right if they take advantage of their position and promote their own self-interest at the cost of larger public interest? No, because the government, legislature, judiciary and bureaucracy are g... more »

Aside from external actors there are certain local actors who are trying to sabotage the peace process initiated by the PML-N and PTI. It is generally thought that PPP is an anti-establishment party while the Muslim League has been a historical ally of the military establishment. But such an essentialist approach is fallacious because it tends to overlook the dynamic and ever-changing nature of alliances and institutions. Unlike democratic institutions, the military establishment is a different kind of institution. It is based on the unity of command and blind obedience. The head do... more »

Karachi’s worst problem is law and order. And the solution to this problem is a complete deweaponization of the city. Global players, these days, are very concerned about the militant ideologies but scant attention is being paid to the proliferation of guns, firearms and all kinds of weapons. Military strategists always measure the enemy’s strength by his capability, not by his intentions; because intentions can change any time. If we apply the same logic to religious extremism vs. weaponization issue, the latter is a much bigger threat; and no actions are being taken to reduce the ... more »

In order for us to be self-critical, we must accurately define ourselves first. Labels and ‘isms’ are always fallacious and lead us astray. Take Islam for instance; if I believe that I am a Muslim, can I represent the whole of Muslim ummah? It’s a fact that Muslims all over the world do share certain similarities pertaining to beliefs, rituals and values; but what does a Pakistani Muslim has in common with a British or American Muslim? The latter have more in common with the Western culture and only a few beliefs in common with the Eastern Muslims. As I said earlier: individuals are... more »

Before helio-centricism, geo-centricism was in vogue: earth was reckoned as the center of the universe. It was impossible for the ancients to envision a world in which earth was not the center of the universe. Similarly, Euclidean geometry was based on a three-dimensional model; it was difficult for the classical physicists to imagine a four-dimensional space-time. It is always the failure of imagination which stops us from thinking outside the box. We naively accept the working paradigms, no matter how ridiculous and unjust they may be. Unfettered capitalism and the prevalent neo-c... more »

JS Mill’s critique of majoritarianism or the will of the majority makes sense; but only in its universal application. Mill, on the other hand, makes a subjective and artificial distinction between the backward societies and the advanced societies; and posits that majoritarianism somehow works in the “liberal democracies” but not in the so-called “backward societies.” One wonders, did the backward societies fought the World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War; and did the backward societies invaded Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya? I don’t blame the citizens of the developed world ... more »

The recent Turkish Halkbank scandal in which the Turkish ministers were given bribes by an Iranian businessman, Riza Sarraf originally named Reza Zarrab, to illegally transfer money/gold to Iran reeling under the pressure of US sanctions on its nuclear program should be viewed in the context of Erdogan’s decision to buy Chinese missile defense system to which NATO strongly objects. Al-monitor reports on the corruption/bribery scandal: The [Turkish] government is looking for US and Israeli hands in the operation because of the use of Halkbank to circumvent the sanctions imposed on I... more »

We need to give credit to Imran Khan and the PTI (PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf) phenomena that it has successfully managed to politically mobilize the most impassive segments of the society: the students, women and the urban middle class. These segments are generally only interested in cricket, scandals and gossip. And it isn’t their fault; the environment of our baradari-based (kinship-based) politics and the stereotype local politicians like Shaikh Rasheed and Lalu Prasad Yadav are such that the refined people tend to stay miles away from such political melee. But now due to the charism... more »

Social conditioning plays the same role in cognitive science which natural selection plays in biological sciences. Most attitudes and behaviors can be explained by understanding how society influences and conditions the mindsets of the individuals. But this ‘conditioning’ also rules out the possibility of an objective reality and an independent mindset. As Jacques Derrida beautifully articulates his concept of originary complexity: “Must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?” Now i... more »

I recently noticed that women can be very jealous and hostile towards other women. Now, I can conveniently blame women for their jealousy and Muslims for their bigotry. In other words, I can blame the actors for their actions. But since I am not a neoliberal so I’ll choose to avoid taking this reductive and unfair approach. From a post-modern perspective instead of blaming the actors for their actions, we look at the forces which structure the mindsets of the actors. Thus it isn’t women’s fault that they are at times jealous and superficial; it is the fault of male-dominated patriar... more »

In a world where resources are limited, competition and conflicts are bound to take place; it is the job of law enforcement and judiciary to curb crime and amicably resolve the conflicts on the basis of just moral and legal principles. But what if the police and judiciary becomes corrupt and starts protecting its own self-interest over and above the common interests of humanity? In such a case we don’t blame the violent human nature; or the petty thieves, robbers, murderers and other social perverts; we blame the state and its weak institutions, which not only failed to protect the ... more »

The urbanites commit a very big fallacy when they assume that the land belongs to the central power in a state. This notion is somewhat like infantile psychological projection: where the child believes that the rest of the world thinks exactly like him. The city-dwellers live an individualist life in the post-industrial milieu and they project their ethos and values on a completely different rural-tribal setting. The urban-rural divide in the underdeveloped countries is very sharp because the impoverished state fails to provide all the amenities and facilities of cities to the rura... more »

We commit a big fallacy when we presume that our educational achievements are our individual achievements. We like to believe that we were born with a certain innate talent which made us intellectually superior to all the rest. But the fact of the matter is: our innate talents aren’t all that different. Some people are born with genes which make them grow to being 6 feet tall, while others are only 5.10 or 5.8, minor difference nevertheless. Same goes with IQs. (I am only talking about ordinary mortals here, intellectual giants are beyond the purview of this modest analytical exerci... more »

Most people think of democracy as means to an end, not an end in itself. The goal is always to establish one’s value-system after gaining power through a democratic process. The value-system is based on our mindset and worldview: liberal or conservative. Nobody, whether liberal or conservative, really cares about the democratic process; so much so that the Muslim Brotherhood vying to restore democracy in Egypt never even mentions the word “democracy” in its statements; they call it the movement for the restoration of “legitimacy.” Perhaps, this antagonism towards democracy has somet... more »

Reverse-prejudice is a very powerful emotion; one must guard oneself against it as scrupulously as one guards oneself against prejudice because after all reverse-prejudice is also a form of ‘prejudice.’ For instance: a prejudice is when a Pakistani who is brought up as a Pakistani hates India. And a reverse-prejudice is when a Pakistani overcomes the India-hating phase, after getting new insights and information, and begins hating Pakistan. But why would someone hate one’s own country? There could be many reasons; but one important factor is to avenge an insult to one’s intelligence... more »

Global Jihad was a corollary of the Cold War. Back then, Pakistansupported the Mujahideen; US supported the Mujahideen; and the whole of Western and West-oriented world supported the Afghan Mujahideen. But the whole geo-political framework changed after the untimely and sudden demise of Soviet Union. Now, the US opposes the terrorists; the whole of Western and West-oriented world opposes the terrorists; and even the Pakistani establishment wants to curb this menace. With a sacrifice of 40,000 human lives and a displacement and suffering of millions, after Afghanistan, Iraqand Syria,... more »

Calling someone a conspiracy theorist, these days, is like issuing a fatwa of Kufr on him. Of late, many people have labeled me as a conspiracy theorist; and in a way it is true; because I am a nonbeliever in the mainstream dogma. But it really gets difficult to fight back as an individual with the Fourth Estate, the king-makers in the contemporary PR-based world. To understand how credible the corporate media is, we need to study its structure. All the mainstream media outlets are controlled by the corporate interests. The journalists write the stories, the editors make the editor... more »

The distinction between genders: masculine and feminine, is more of a social construct than it is an immutable physical division. A tigress is as good a hunter as a tiger. But the complexity of human existence is very different from all other species. We, as social beings, have developed advanced institutions and culture. The distinction between males and females is based less on the bodily traits and more on their respective mindsets. And these mindsets in turn are an outcome of social expectations of behavior in a socio-cultural milieu. It is expected from the male members of a cu... more »

Ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious differences are always there between groups of people inhabiting a state; be it Hindu/Muslim, Mohajir/Sindhi or Shia/Sunni differences. But it isn’t as much about differences as it is about other factors. If the people belonging to different ethnic or religious groups don’t love each other; that does not necessarily implies that they are at each other’s throats. It is more about politics, economics and a preferential access to resources in a limited geographical space then it is about the differences per se. The role of the leadership becomes imp... more »

The freedom of an individual in a modern society is such a myth; there is an invisible cobweb of power all around us; our lives are managed like the traffic on the road. Mass ideologies are an outcome of the mass literacy programs and the mass media. We are led to believe that we are free; when in fact the only freedom we possess is the freedom to choose between the corporate brands: Samsung or Nokia, HP or Dell, Nikon or Canon? This emphasis on the elusive freedoms and liberties in a corporate setting suits the interests of the powers that be. The only concrete outcome of the vague... more »

The market fundamentalism of our finance minister: Ishaq Dar knows no bounds. He still believes in the 20th century mantra of privatization as a cure for all evils. But the 21st century has witnessed a new paradigm: the state capitalism of a $8 trillion economic miracle in China (on the basis of PPP $12 trillion comparable to $15 trillion economy of USA.) While I agree that the private enterprises are more competitive and the customer service is a lot better compared to the state-owned enterprise; but I wonder why can’t the state-owned enterprise perform as efficiently as the privat... more »

In relation to the impact of new technology on culture, the printing press of Johannes Gutenberg in 1450 single-handedly brought about the Renaissance, a quantum leap of a cultural change that was a precursor to all the marvels of physical sciences that we see around us today. Imagine an intellectual life without a printing press, where every copy of a book was hand-written. It’s like I taking upon myself the task of writing Wikipedia, an impossible task even in ten lifetimes. The printing press made knowledge accessible to the entire population of Europe. Before that it was only a ... more »

In my previous post: Is democracy consistent with Islam? I made a distinction between politics and culture and said that a democratic system of governance falls in the category of politics while liberalism as a value-system falls in the category of culture. When we say that Islam and democracy are incompatible, we make a category mistake as serious as the Islamists’ misperception that democracy is un-Islamic. They too mix up democracy with liberalism. In my arguments I conceded that there is some friction between liberalism as a culture and Islam as a religion. But democracy isn’t a... more »

Some people are under the impression that democracy and Islam are incompatible. But I don’t see any contradiction between democracy and Islam. Though I admit, there is some friction between Islam and liberalism. When we say that there is a contradiction between Islam and democracy, we make a category mistake which is a very serious logical fallacy. We must be precise about the definitions of the terms that we employ. Democracy is simply a representative political system that ensures representation, accountability, the right of the electorate to vote governments in and vote governmen... more »

At the moment China’s GDP is 11.3 trillion USD (PPP) compared to USA’s 15 trillion. But according to BNP Paribas China’s GDP will exceed USA’s by 2020. Neo-imperial economists are caught in a dilemma. If they formulate protective trade policies against China, they will lose the moral high-ground and they won’t be able to criticize and coerce all the other developing countries who will follow suit and restrict imports not only from Chinabut the whole North Atlantic corporate world and also Japan and South Korea. And if the North keeps following the free trade mantra, their relativel... more »

It is understandable for a Pakistani liberal to support the Pakistan People’s Party. They follow a value-system which is different from the one followed by the urban middle class Pakistanis. I am a firm believer in cultural relativism because the human minds are structured by their respective cultures and environments and certain values are deeply ingrained in the human psyche. Culturally I too classify myself as a liberal. But there is a limit to cultural relativism. Certain moral values are universal to all cultures and if you violate such norms you will be loathed across the boa... more »

Had we preached structuralism in the manner that we preach secularism, most of our tolerance and social harmony related problems will get solved instantly. What do you think is the rationale behind secularism and multiculturalism? Moderns advocate these creeds partly for intellectual and social progress but mostly for tolerance and social harmony. The precise term for secularism for the sake of intellectual and social progress is intellectual autonomy. To promote tolerance and social harmony, secularism itself has a tendency of getting ossified and intolerant towards diverse belief-... more »