Big Crimes in Little Kremlin

A few years ago the US attacked a certain city of Iraq. It was a part of their bigger operation in that country. The truth is that such operations had become quite commonplace in the last decade. The US and NATO were busy in liberating people either in Iraq or in Afghanistan. I would not be any exaggeration to assert that many people around the planet were either oblivious of the fine details of the events happening there or they did not have enough time to follow up the news. I was one of them. So as I heard about the attack, it was a surprise for me. Due to the astonishment of the event I rushed to a close friend of mine and told him about the incident. My friend is a Roman Catholic. I cannot disclose his complete identity due to the purpose of confidentiality. All I can say is that he is a Hungarian Romanian with Shaman roots. He is a very nice man and a very dear friend. He helped me in various critical phases of my life in which if he had not helped me, I would definitely have had very tough times.

As I broke the news of the incident to my friend. He accommodated me by absorbing the information. In order to emphasize the severity of the news I had to reiterate about the event to him twice. At last he assuaged my concerns by telling that it was after all not a very bad deal in relative terms. He further instigated me to consider a scenario in which Russia or China had invaded Iraq (or any other country for that matter). In the case of China he literally said that they might not even spare animals from getting into the oven when they decided to march. And while saying this the blue eyes of my friend were as bleak as the cold war itself.

My friend has an extremely cool personality. Everyone loved to hang around with him for a while when we were together. Muslims specially loved him. Moreover, we always used to love to suspect that he would convert to Islam one day. My friend has many qualities a good friend should have. One of them is that he can make you feel good about your present circumstances no matter how bad they are. He has a knack of showing that all the thinkable alternatives are worse than the current plight. Consider this incident for example. One day I told him that sometimes I wished that I had been born in the times of Alexander the great or some other similar dignitary from ancient past. My wish did not ensue from the misery of my lifestyle. Rather, I had a comfortable life. I wished to live in that era simply because I could have witnessed with my own eyes the glories of great empires as we see them in movies. However, my friend was very quick in discouraging me for nurturing such a desire. As soon as I told him about the wish he very quickly discouraged me by saying that it was a very bad desire since we could most probably have been slaves had we been born and living in any of those eras. This made quite a lot of sense to me for the first time in my life.

Consider seriously what would Chinese have done to a country if they invaded it. I have another friend who is from China. When we were together we used to tease him for having connections with Bruce Lee. He used to feel very proud about that. He even knew quite a bit of Kung Fu and related arts. Upon wheedling a lot, we could even persuade him to make those peculiar Bruce Lee sounds from his mouth, that he used to make while breaking wood or bones. 

One of our friends somehow knew that China has some sort of a problem with Tibet. I do not know what the problem really is. All I know is that there is some geopolitical problem between the two countries that has not been resolved since long. My friend used to ask him that how would he propose to solve the problem. Our Chinese friend used to say all the time that that was not a problem and all that he needed was a few tanks and a few men to take care of Tibet. This was his typical answer that he used to give us with his smiling face and we used to laugh. However, I am sure that he used to propose this solution not due to the viability of this sort of a solution, but to make up for his very limited ability of speaking in English. I believe that it was a much easier verbal short cut for him to speak like this.

But what would Chinese do if they ever invaded a country. Pakistan has always had very good terms with China and we really like them for so many things. Indeed, our relationship has always been cozy and we hope it to become cozier. But we also have an impression that on the day the Chinese decided to march out of their country to the rest of the world, they would even put every single green leaf in the broth. What we know about chinese is that they make soup out of even frogs and rattlers. Indeed, if this is true, then a war would just be a picnic trip for them. Let's hope that they learn and adopt better ways of dealing with world's problems.

Let's consider Russia now. Russians have developed a bit of a reputation for being at war for many decades. Every now and then we read about the cold war and geographical necessities of the Russians to expand their borders westward (and possibly also eastward). It has become a personality thing for them to project themselves like this. With Vladimir Putin as its facade the Russia looks all the more scary too. 

Let's try to recall Alexander Letvinienko for a while. He was an ex-KGB defector who had absconded to the UK. He was a critic of Kremlin and a particularly harsh critic of Mr. Putin. In the days when he was dying the news of his terminal illness were all over the media. I wonder if I read about him through Stratfor. If my memory is not betraying me, then I can assuredly say that Stratfor covered each and every aspect of that episode. 

The crux of the story is that he was given radioactive poisoning. One of the reasons why he was given radioactive poisoning was to give him a slow death in which he could see himself dying very slowly and helplessly. I even remember that I read something like that if he would die like this he would know who killed him. And that he would die slowly like this in front of his own eyes and wonder, and eventually know, that who killed him and that why he was killed. It took him around twenty days to die. And all of this happened in front of his very own eyes. It all happened as it was planned. Indeed, this is an extremely pathetic way of killing someone.

There is no safe mechanism of internal criticism in Russia as well. At the time of Alexander Letvinienko's death there was a discussion of assassination of another lady journalist whose name was probably Anna (Something). She was found dead in her apartment. Her crime was that she was a critic of Mr. Putin.

One of the crimes of Alexander Letvinienko was that he criticized the unspeakable atrocities committed by Kremlin in Chechnya. Indeed, what the Russians have been doing to Chechens is also extremely heinous. Or is it a lot more than that?

These days Mr. Putin is trying his luck in Ukraine. Are the eastern Ukrainians really happy that Russia has finally come for their redemption? What about their oligarchs? Perhaps they cherish the idea to live under the constant and perpetual bad influence of Russia that it actually is. We shall know about all of this from Crimea in due course.

On the other hand, it would have been much nicer of Russia and its people to model their polity on some sort of a democracy. But when did the people of Russia win an opportunity to have any influence in shaping a better government for their country? The truth is that no matter how much we detest the US or other such states for their hegemony and domineering tendencies, such polities at least have certain soft power mechanisms that make them appear as acceptable leaders on the world's political canvass. Whether they are their think tanks, better institutions, outreach mechanisms, higher education, research institutes, general liberty, economic aids and incentives, egalitarian societies or generally humane philosophies etc., in one way or the other many western states have these and many other appealing qualities that not only make them amenable as global leaders but also suitable for inhabitation by foreigners.

The truth is that Russia has no such mechanism by which it can project itself as a humane entity that it may wish to pretend to be. With Mr. Vladimir Putin as its facade, it appears to be a lot more fearsome and grotesque.

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  by  josef.stuefer 

Bonjour

Time passes very quickly. Most of the times we spend our present moment in trying to anticipate or plan about the future or to reconcile with the past and the time does not tend to pass. However, there is a lot of time of our lives that we have left behind when we look towards the hindsight.

A few years a go I had a privilege to work in France for one year. I was based in France telecom's R&D headquarters in Lannion as a researcher. Lannion is a nice little town in the South West of France in its province of Brittany. Like the rest of France, and most of Europe, Lannion is also extremely beautiful. And not only that the people are mostly also very friendly and extremely nice. The year lived in Lannion was very memorable. We were a few Pakistanis in the town who had befriended numerous French, Romanian and people from other nationalities. Together we had loads of fun. I wanted to write a bit more detailed article about my stay in Lannion, but I would save that for another time. I am writing this article for another purpose and a different experience.

I was lodged very close to France Telecom R&D. I could walk to work from home in around 15-20 minutes. This is not much. In order to walk conveniently and to enjoy the experience, I had found a combination of streets that were rather solitary and that were also full of typical Celtic flora and European houses. As I write this, I deeply yearn from inside to go and live there again. Walking to work and back used to be a healthy process that I really enjoyed. Sometimes it rained and I had to take a bus. But normally I preferred to walk. Walking also allowed me to develop new perspectives about my work, as it allowed me ample time to reflect and think about work. 

On a few occasions I passed by a small boy in one of the streets. And this is one of the reasons why I am writing this article. I will talk about the other reason latter below. The boy was around 6--8 years old. He'd be going school. He'd be well-dressed, well combed, neat and tidy, with a schoolbag hanging on his back. Whenever he'd pass by me, while robotically walking to the school, he'd say "Bonjour" to me loudly while his eyes were almost always lowered. The only things I clearly remember about him now are that he had blond hair, he'd be wearing large glasses with a brown frame, and that he had blue eyes.

I cannot forget this experience. And I have always wondered that definitely his mother may have taught him to behave nicely to strangers. Of course, such children can also be at a risk of being abused in some way due to their innocence. But the fact that he was being groomed and nurtured very elegantly should not be overlooked. Irrespective of his family background, and our cultural remoteness, I still think about that boy at times. And I think that he deserves enormous praise. I could never muster the courage to ask him his name and related things. All I'd say in return was Bonjour. I was wary that if I reacted in any way more or less than that, the pigeon will fly away, and I would never be able to see him again.

Let me digress a little bit to another topic for a while. This seemingly does not have any relevance with the context of this article. However, this is the second reason why I wanted to write this post. In as much as the two incidents are disconnected, the truth is that they come to my mind simultaneously. So, let us digress to Innocence of the Muslims for a short while. Recently I read somewhere that google has promised, in front of one of the relevant US courts of Law, to remove the movie from YouTube. This is a commendable effort indeed. This would not only allow Government of Pakistan to remove a ban from YouTube, it would also help in subsiding unnecessary rifts between various cultures and civilizations. 

When the movie was first released I had a chance to look at the movie a little bit. This is to say that I had a chance to look at the boy and the girl who starred in the movie. The truth is that I had a strong feeling that the people had been duped into playing those roles. This is quite embarrassing for those children as well.

I have a feeling that movies like these are not made without a purpose. One of the purpose they serve is obviously to uproot people. In this case they were Muslims. And in case of the Muslims, the other reason is to gauge the emotional temperature of the Muslim society. People react badly and they are termed as barbaric and terroristic. Indeed, this is a pity.

However, as I said earlier such movies create unnecessary rifts in the human society. As a general impression such movies are also self harming in a moral sense too. On the other hand we can learn so much good from the example of the boy that I quoted above. Irrespective of whether the boy came from a Christian family, or whether his parents had become atheists after loosing all hope on religion, due to its hyper institutionalization or terrorism, the truth is that they groomed him in a nice way to say hello to strangers. Such people should be remembered.

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A Great Book About Islam and Tolerance

Recently I had a chance to read a very nice book on the subject of Islam and tolerance. The book is written by Hazrat Hakeem Tariq Mehmood Majzoobi Chughtai, editor of the monthly Ubqari magazine. The book is basically a collection of almost all the episodes of the section, "Islam and Tolerance", that is published in the monthly Ubqari magazine. This means that almost all the episodes since around 2007 to 2014 have been compiled into a book. The book is in Urdu. The English version is due very shortly. 

The book covers almost all the aspects concerning human interaction in which Muslims should exhibit extreme tolerance and generosity towards non-Muslims. It begins with the Makkan period of Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) when he was confronted by the lethal hostility of his own uncles towards his religion. 

The rise of Islam coincides with the chronic hegemony of the Persian and Roman empires. The author discusses the abject plight of the christians and jews living under their rule. The Roman empire specially had a Christian disposition in running its state. The author discusses how Muslims guarded, restored and elevated the rights of the people of the book and other non-Muslim minorities. It is very interesting and enlightening to read that how strictly Muslim Caliphs used to oversee the delivery of rights to the common people by their governors. How religious freedom of the minorities was ensured enacted is also discussed in the book.

One of the important thing about the book is its presentation of the Islamic constitution of war. It is indeed quite enlightening to read that how Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) evolved an extremely humanistic war constitution as the Muslims started coming in conflict with their neighbors. For instance, it is profoundly surprising to read that Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) has forbidden Muslims to separate war prisoners from each other who are each other's relatives. It is also forbidden to torture or to kill the captives. Muslims should take good care of their food and clothing. And as soon as the enemy extends an apology, he/she should be forgiven immediately or the conflict should start to recede. This is extremely humane, specially considering the barbaric pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula where people could be decapitated for extremely trivial things.  

The book also talks about many other aspects from which one can draw conclusions on as to how to treat one's neighbors and related aspects. For instance, it is interesting to read how various people from medieval Islamic period used to treat their Jewish neighbors in the light of Prophetic Hadith of Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) and revelations of Allah.

As a whole the book addresses all sorts of people. It tells the Christians about the Islamic opinion of Jesus Christ (PBUH). It also tells that why, as a matter of principle,  one of the most veritable caliphs of Islam refused to pray in a Church in Egypt, as it was conquered. For the jews, it has a message that they perhaps owe a little bit of gratitude to the Muslim community, as their forefathers were supported by a just Islamic governance system when they had to face frequent diasporas. It reminds the love of Sufis to the Hindus. It invites the statesmen to review their public policies in its own light. It incites the modern civilizations to see if they can create peace conventions that are better than those of the religion of Islam. For the zealot, it has a message that fanaticism and terrorism are rather grotesque applications of religion. Lastly, the accounts of a few exchanges between various sufi saints and their contemporary Zoroastrian neighbors insinuate us to use reason to develop an argument. 

This book is a must read. Everyone should read it whether Muslim or non-Muslim. This is specially important to develop and refine opinions about Islam and for faith literacy. And even if you are a non-Muslim who is theoretically opposed to Islam or religion, you can at least refer it to a Muslim acquaintance. This may have collateral benefits.  

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  by  Koshyk 

The Self Illusion

Sam Harris has to vowed to publish a book on the self sometime next year. The idea is to show is that self, or a sense of self, or whatever about that, is inherently an illusion. I hope that I would be able to read it and reflect on it. In the meanwhile I have found a rather suitable image that was floating on facebook. The image has a verse from the holy Quran that literally means that "life of this world is nothing except an illusion." It is interesting to note that Sam Harris agrees with the Holy Quran in some sense. It would be interesting to read his argument and to see how he would systematically disagree with religion on this issue, on which the religion basically almost assumes the same position as that of Sam Harris.  This image is a part of my preparation to read, and hope to understand, his upcoming book.

This is the 85th verse of the third surah of the Holy Quran, named surah Al-Imran. Imran (AS) was the father of prophets Musa and Haroon (AS) (Moses and Aaron). Al-Imran means the family of Imran.

 
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Worship Places of non-Muslims, Their Rights and Our Obligations

This is the title of a new book by hakeem Tariq Mehmood Chughtai. I have not had a chance to read the book itself. However, excerpts and essays from this book are published in the monthly Ubqari magazine. The author has written this book with tremendous curious inquiry. Examples are taken from the conduct of early Muslims viz a viz non-Muslims. Some parts of the book are also inspired by the writings and findings of Ibn-e-Zeb Bhikaari, who writes a column titled Islam and Tolerance in the monthly Ubqari magazine. Overall the articles are nice and specially thought provoking. In some instance one cannot avoid getting impressed. It is also an attempt to groom Muslims all over the world. 

It is specially very nice to read a few examples. I would really like to quote a couple of them about the disposition of early Muslims regarding non-Islam. Perhaps this would help us in developing nice and better traditions for a better prospective future. Following are the examples:

1 Episode 56 – February, 2011

When Hazrat Abu Bakar (RA) sent an army on the expedition of Syria, he addressed the emir of the army: ”You will find a nation which has devoted itself for the worship of Allah (i.e. the Christians). Leave them. I make ten recommendations for you. Do not kill any woman, child, or an old person. Do not cut a fruit bearing tree. Do not ruin a place that is inhabited. Do not slaughter goat or camel without need for eating. Do not burn any oasis. Do not cheat in the property that has been confiscated due to battle. And do not become cowards.

Similarly another example is as follows:

19 Episode 77 – November, 2012

When Ameer-ul-momineen hazrat Umar (RA) went to the church of Kaneesa and the time of prayers approached there, he said to Venice Batareeq, ”I want to offer my prayers.” Batareeq replied, ”Ameer-ul-momineen, you can offer your prayers here.” You (RA) refused to do so. Batareeq went to the church of Constantinople, but you (RA) did not offer your prayers there too. You (RA) offered your prayers outside the church in front of the door. And said to Batareeque that I did not offer the prayers inside the church so that in future Muslims do not capture the church following the logic that Umar (RA) had prayed there. After that you (RA) wrote a letter and gave it to Batareeque. In which it was written, ”Any Muslim cannot pray in the church with Azaan and jamaa (as a group prayer), although he can pray alone.

I find this second example quite impressive. Even if you do not like it, you can refer this to another Muslim you know. Perhaps this might be helpful in some sense. Every little helps!

The cover of the book is quite interesting in itself. It has a mosque, a church, and possibly a synagogue in it, which is a nice symbol of interfaith harmony. The location of Ubqari institute in Lahore is also very interesting. In its neighborhood lies a huge campus of Pakistan's council of churches. The view from the top of the institute in the morning is very nice. Upon looking around one finds a number of  huge churches surrounding the institute from all around.

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Geopolitical Weekly

We live in a world that is both peaceful and turmoiled at the same time. One moment we hear about a great technological breakthrough in a part of the world and the next moment we hear about a catastrophe in the vicinity of the same area. World's political landscape changes its facade very abruptly. As soon as one tires to catch up with the details of one event, another incident happens to conceal the details of the previous one under the mist of massive information. In order to keep us up with the pace of swiftly changing geopolitical scene, members of StratFor provide us with their geopolitical weekly reports.  In what follows is a reflection of various of StratFor's geopolitical weekly articles that were published over the last decade. The primary reason to write this article is to try to understand the basis of political dynamics of our world.

Around six years ago (possibly in 2007 or 2008), StratFor published an article concerning developments in Russia, China and Iraq. Precisely at that time the US troops were busy in trying to conquer a territory in Iraq. It was possibly a part of their exit strategy. At the same time Russia was gauging up itself to see if it could halt the oil and gas supply to the central Europe (possibly through Belarus) to see if it could achieve any political leverage from such a move. It was possibly a part of Russia's never ending desire, and inherent necessity, to be an expansive hegemony. At the same time Chinese had invented a sort of a thing by which they could destroy shuttles in the outer space. This sort of a thing could be useful in space warfare and could also possibly threaten US domination of world's oceans by challenging them in the space. The article was detailed and in a way provoked a reader loyal to the US to lament its futile and aimless struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article ended in a very nice way, as it normally does, with a catchy phrase from George Friedman, the founder and CEO of StratFor. That was possibly like: In six years the US would regret that while it was fighting for a few streets in Baghdad, it must have thought about its higher stakes. We are probably living in that part of the history now.

Through StratFor we can learn many interesting things about many interesting places, events and phenomena. Through StratFor we learn that why geography necessitates some countries to be expansive and allows a few others to be conveniently adventurous. Russia is an interesting example of an expansive land that is not necessarily so due to its vanity and lust for power, but also due to its geographical constraints. In order to protect itself from foreign intruders it has to expand its borders closer to other countries so that, in time of need, it can fight wars with them in their own territories, closer to their capitals. 

Through StratFor we also learn that why the US is actually not only not an expansive country but also that it does not need to be. It is possibly detrimental for the US to be expansive. The US philosophy is to invade a country, keep it conquered for a while, disrupt its critical infrastructure, such as communications infrastructure, grab the resources and try to get the hell out of the place as soon as the things begin to look bad. Good examples of this are Vietnam and possibly Iraq. 

But these are not the only things we learn from StratFor. It offers us a lot more interesting perspectives and rationale for stimulus various nations have in doing whatever they are doing. The recent US decision to not intervene in Syria is a very good case in this regard. It is quite important to understand the US perspective in this regard. 

The traditional impression in the Muslim world has always been that the US is out to get them. This is so possibly since the early 80s when the US was in a cold war with Russia and had Pakistan and Afghanistan allied to it. The jihad was alright and the relationships were cozy. But there was an air of distrust at least on the Pakistani side. In the Muslim world the US has always been perceived as a villain who is out there to grab resources of technologically impoverished countries no matter what it costed. Incidentally many Muslim countries rich in oil and petroleum resources such as gulf and Arab countries. This explained reasons for keen US interest in those countries and also stimulus for invading Iraq. It is worth emphasizing that the invasion of Iraq was always seen as an attempt to grab Iraqi oil reserves all over the Muslim world. 

Recently the US decided to not to intervene in Syria in wake of the chemical attacks by the Assad regime. It is interesting to see what could have prohibited the US from intervening in Syria this time. 

What happened was that president Obama had announced at some point that it would not interfere directly in Syria until chemical weapons were used. In saying this what he had actually done was that he had raised the bar for its involvement in such a matter. Despite this announcement chemical weapons were allegedly used by the Assad regime. This was possibly an attempt to lure the US into the conflict. And despite some international pressure, particularly from Russia, the US managed to keep away from getting involved in Syria. 

The question is that why did it do this? The answer is provided by StratFor's geopolitical weekly article Obama's tightrope walk, and a series of related reports on Syria. In this article the binary choice that US had in either getting involved or staying away from the conflict in Syria is presented as a moral problem. Use of chemical weapons was a morally bad idea and to stay quiet on this was morally bad on part of the US so something had to be done about this. This is interesting to see as a matter of looking at the American moral landscape. This is also important to understand. The other choice, that is not to interfere in the Syrian conflict, is complicated to look at from an American perspective. However, this has also had a moral perspective. The simplest explanation of this is that the US have been very deeply involved with the Muslim world for more than over a decade. Although they have tried very hard to reform them (for good, from their vantage point) but their efforts have not borne much fruition. As a result a choice was to leave the Syrians on their own and let them evolve while they try to handle their problems themselves. In the article it is also stated very clearly that if the US had gotten involved there would definitely be at least a few deaths and atrocities, as it was inevitable, and that the US would have to bear the blame for all that in the media and elsewhere. As a conclusion, the US abandoned a position of higher morality to choose a position of weaker morality with fewer political consequences and did not get involved in the action. 

This is extremely important to understand and to analyze. Understanding this could have collateral intellectual advantages, even if there weren't any monetary rewards. Specially if the problem of this binary choice is presented to a congregation of Muslims and tell them that the US had to ponder over it for a while to decide which way to go, either no one would believe that the US looked at it from a moral perspective, or people would be disinterested. On the other hand, if you ask people on as to who is messing up Syria, Libya or Egypt, chances are that a large number of Muslims would point to the usual suspect, the US. That is why it is important to at least prolong this discourse a little bit so as to develop a better reflection for the people and also to provide them with more light to reflect upon. It could be good for you to read on irrespective of which part of the world you are from. 

Any idea that the US can act morally in handling conflicts or solving wars in nearly incomprehensible in the Muslim world at least. Moreover, Muslims believe in the superiority of the morality of war of Islam as well as they believe in the superiorities of moralities of other aspects of Islam. But a theological discussion is beyond the scope of this article. The truth is that the US has acted a lot more responsibly in dealing with the episode concerning the chemical weapon attack this time specially as compared to its all the previous interactions and interventions in the Muslim world. This must be appreciated. This precedent could also set a trend that could be better for the future of the whole world. President Barrack Obama and his cabinet must be applauded for this decision.

The question is that why does the US have to intervene and find an intervention morally binding? Good intentions, if any, always get diminished under the smog of negative criticism and the potential animosity that the US invites as a result. This has been answered more comprehensively by George Friedman that there is a moral camp in the US too that finds it imperative to intervene and deal with issues in which oppression is involved and atrocities are inflicted. Irrespective of whether this camp of humanists belongs to the civil society or elsewhere, the camp is important and interesting in its own right. That this camp of humanists is actually humane should be taken for granted on the face value. And this camp should be kept engaged for better appreciating various cultural ideas. Such camps can be useful in bringing about meaningful changes in the overall political climate of our world.

StratFor teaches us many other things too. It is a stated policy of StratFor that they are non-partisan and unbiased in preparing and presenting geopolitical intelligence. They also state that they pledge to do this despite the fact that pure non-partisanship and objectivity are impossible. Of course, if you are a Cuban then most of your loyalties will be Cuba, no matter how much you tend to favor a party that is in conflict with Cuba. This is a decent expectation as well. National pride, patriotism and loyalty are emotions worth cherishing. To this end, StratFor lives up to its stated objectives as much as possible as well. Recently StratFor republished a 2005 article that it published in 2005 concerning possible Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and its permanent dilemma. The article was reposted in light of the recent death of Ariel Sharon. It is a very detailed and indeed enlightening article. In this article George Friedman admits that jews encroached the lands of Palestinians as an aftermath of the holocaust. George also throws considerable light on aspects such as the Israeli methods of reducing Palestinian presence in Israel, Gaza and elsewhere. This is commendable in its own right. It is commendable specially given that the US has almost unanimously been believed to be a backer of Israel in almost all of the Muslim world. Any acknowledgement from a mainstream American think tank that uses words like "encroachment" to state the nature of, well, encroachment of Palestinian lands by Israelis is not only commendable but also extremely surprising. It would be additionally very nice of StratFor to find a better word for the struggle of Palestinians for this type of extreme oppression. StratFor continues to use the word terrorism to color all sorts of actions of Muslims. Or either the term terrorism should be described more broadly. I think that this comment of mine is self explanatory and does not need any further explanation apart from the fact that I am not advocating terrorism but only asking for its application to be limited to contexts in which it is actually terrorism that is being referred to. Where the oppression against a group of human beings is so extreme that they have to retaliate with unusual means to express their discomfort, the word terrorism should either not be used or it should be stated that it is being used with slightly different connotation. That no matter how minute that difference in connotations is intended would be less meaningful than the expression of the gesture itself. 

StratFor teaches us many more things than geopolitics of conflict, or merely geopolitics itself. Elections don't matter, institutions do is a very enlightening article written by Robert D. Kaplan. Apart from learning that the author knows that prevalence of widespread bribery in countries where institutions are poorly administered, it is nice to know that how the various Western institutions work. It is indeed a very liberating personal experience to have lived in the European countries and to have interacted with their bureaucrats in various offices such as police stations and passport offices. In the Western countries if the state owes you a right, it delivers it you immediately without any further mention or hint of an extraordinary favor that has been done, possibly by going out of the way. Whatever is your right is yours and the personnel feel naturally obliged to deliver it to you irrespective of whether you are affluent or destitute, an orphan or a son of an influential bureaucrat does not matter at all. This is a beauty of the organization of the Western countries and their institution that no amount of admiration can do justice to its elegance. Honesty comes for free in the European countries with a smiling face. We should hope that this remains like this forever. We also hope that it would change in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and India as well.

Another relevant article is about American Public's Indifference to Foreign Affairs. It is a pity to learn that an average American does not even know how to locate various countries on the world map. Michael Moore covered this to some extent in his Fahrenheit 9/11. This article also depicts the same. That americans are merely bothered about what is happening in the world unless it really starts to bother them. As a matter of fact it is a good thing that they do start getting bothered when it needs to be bothered. Otherwise, rest of the world would be at complete and isolated mercy of American foreign policy.

One of the very interesting things about the above mentioned article is that american foreign policy is now bent on taking a more hands-off approach to overseas conflicts. This is incredible.  

StratFor also does not shy away from writing about seemingly minor issues that apparently have no relevance with geopolitics. Have you ever considered that what is the role of a calendar, that possibly only has an aesthetic value at best in our daily life, with the grand geopolitical schemes? StratFor thinks that it does. Read geopolitics of the Gregorian calendar to find the appeal of one calendar system over the others.

In Asian status quo one learns about the nature of conflict between the Japanese and the Chinese. For many people of the world this would be an altogether new thing. They resemble a lot and it is hard to tell apart a Japanese from a Chinese. Their languages also possibly sound similar to the novice. Why then a conflict? But don't Indians and Pakistanis look alike and speak almost the same language?

If you have a decent basis in finance, then new investment platforms raise questions about China's banking system is for you. This is fun to read. At least one develops a view of how financial markets function in wake of hostile banking systems. 

I shall bounce back to where I started this discourse. In the beginning we were talking about StratFor and its prediction of Russia's resurgence as a regional hegemony. Reports Ukraine's Increasing Polarization and the Western Challenge and Ukraine and the Little Cold War talk about how Russia is playing its hand in Ukraine. It is also worth noticing that how it affects the Western European countries. It is also quite interesting to read that how the US is shaping its behavior relative to it.

George Friedman used to write very well. He still maintains his tradition. Now StraFor has a whole team of seasoned writers with it. Robert D. Kaplan's articles are very enlightening and shows a picture from different perspectives. 

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  by  Achilli Family | Journeys 

Soft Power

If you have decided to read through this article a little bit then surely you must have read the title and you may have found it eye-catching. So lets do a small thought experiment before you go any further with your reading. Just close your eyes for a few seconds and think about what ideas come to your mind regarding the term "soft power". It really depends on the mental associations you may have developed with the term over the course of your life. Let me elaborate a little bit from the point of view of my conscious mind. There are actually two ideas that come to my mind by default as I try to contemplate about the term soft power. 

One way of thinking about soft power is process of dominating a group of people with the application of force, either covertly or overtly, with the help of some useful tools of force, such as military equipment. Moreover, to make use of effective incentives in a way that they are enwrapped in appropriate diplomatic wheedling of the group that is being coerced or motivated. And to do it so effectively that the party being dominated cannot refuse the offers that are being made to them. Clearly, this method of applying force resembles that of the people like mafia and  gang leaders. One thing that is obvious about this way of coercion or motivation (or whatever) is that no matter how much the group that is being dominated may be allured about the beauty of the offers, their decision to accept the deal may still be a function of the underlying threat and its consequences if they did not accept the offer.

The other idea that comes to the mind concerning soft power lacks the use any conventional tools of force. According to this theme a person, or a group of people, is motivated in doing what you want them to do in a way that they also love to do it. This is the theme of the paper titled soft power by Joseph Nye. It is basically a theory to make people want what you want them to do. This is quite obvious and self explanatory. This also makes a lot more sense too. The previous explanation given in the paragraph above is not really of soft power, but actually of hard power made to look like soft power.

This theory of Joseph Nye and his whole paper is very important in many respects. Late Samuel-P-Huntington also made passing references to the concepts of hard and soft powers respectively in his clash of civilizations. It has become quite important to comprehend this theory in order to understand the demands of the era we live in. In his paper Nye also gives rationale for why it is important to apply soft power, as opposed to hard power, when it comes to dominating people.

According to Nye the most important question while defining power is "Power to do What?" According to Nye in our times there would be overlapping yet disparate areas that would define a periphery of their own for exertion of power. For instance, while military remains one institution, economics is another independent institution with its independent power structure and interplay not only with its counterparts across borders but also with other disciplines like military and sports etc. Nye suggests that it would be the complex interplay among all such important institutions that would define and shape the geopolitics of our world. According to Nye this would also shape the geopolitical landscape from the vantage point of hegemony. Lastly, and quite importantly, according to Nye, this need for a complex interplay across important and independent institutions would also constrain the employment of hard-power based solutions. Thus, this would give rise to the need of adopting soft power based solutions. 

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  by  Dominic's pics 

Marriage for Beginners

As soon as I got Marriage for Beginners in my hands, I wondered why I should read a book like this specially immediately after reading clash of civilizations.After all both books belong to entirely disparate disciplines. One deals with the institution of marriage and the other is about international affairs and affairs surrounding them. However, I immediately decided to read the book for two reasons in my mind. 

Even though clash of civilizations contains a set of indicators and predictions on as to how various civilizations will interact, and possibly come in conflict, with each other in the future (which is possibly the era we are living in now), it is, nonetheless, a book about civilizations too. In order to understand a civilization it is important to understand its culture and social norms. And I think that marriage is one institution that comprises of a set of rituals through which a culture, and in return, a civilization can be understood fairly easily. 

Marriage for beginners is a marvelous book written by Mary Williams as a guide for newly weds. It covers all the small and deep nitty-gritty details that prospective candidates of marriage may want to know. She has covered almost everything one can think of coming across as a married person. This includes, all the dos and donts, how to cook, how to clean, how to shop, how to window shop, how to make a budget and how to do budget shopping. It also has lost of valuable advice for people getting betrothed. Small emotional aspects like how to live with parents, how to deal with in-laws when they are bad and good, how to have due regards for them when they are being supportive. The book also has quite large tables to assist the reader in planning various things such as budgets and things like that.

It is a very nice book, even though it is quite old (it was written in 1967). It advocates on the adoption of simplicity and austerity in living one's life. To this end, the book has a very nice agenda for grooming people. It is a suitable guide and a family manual for almost any time and era and for any family. It even talks about the role of religion and religious beliefs and rituals on overall happiness in a marriage. Ms Williams has a very peculiar way of conveying her ideas. On the role of religion she says something like that every religious person believes in a heaven and that pursuit of heaven should be made easy for that person on this earth. This comment is both very funny and profound. 

The other, and main, reason why I picked up the book so quickly was that I had a strong idea that it must have been written very nicely. Moreover, and due to this, reading this could be quite useful for improving on reading comprehension and consequently on English. The book is indeed very nicely written. The author has made a very balanced use of vocabulary. The writing style is very nice. And the author also has a very nice expression indeed.

I have to mention that this book was given to me by my mother who was about to give it away in charity (or sell it off as a cheap book) but then she changed her mind just at the spur of the moment. I am happy that she did change her mind.

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  by  firemedic58 

Will of God

Thinking too much has its own benefits and drawbacks like any other thing. Long time ago I used to have really excessive thinking habits. I used to think about almost any thing. Think about it for the while that if you are thinking for a very prolonged time on things that are seemingly so petty. Just think about it for a while that you restrain your natural spontaneity of carrying out apparently trivial tasks by devoting an additional portion of your thought process to, no matter what you do, to think about additional, and apparently, useless things. For instance, if you are thinking about on as to who has the control of your hands as you type in the keyboard. Or think about something so fruitless as when you are going to blink your eye next time as you read this article. Clearly, if you are trying to acquire conscious control over the timing of your eye blinks and, moreover, also thinking about some could-be consequences of that blink, you have naturally, unnecessarily, restricted yourself and there are many practical disadvantages about that. To name but a few, you have sacrificed your focus, attention and a great deal of enjoyment that you could otherwise have availed if you were not thinking like this. 

But think about it like this that there is a person who is trying to optimize his/her life and wants to take all the steps very carefully. If you are living in a socially perilous, for instance, you may also start thinking like this. Well, of course, you may not think about the consequences of your  each and every eye blink, or even a few of them for that matter, but you would definitely be wary of some other things. For instance, consider that you are living in an area that is highly prone to undergoing a bomb explosion. You will be quite watchful about most of the moves you make. You will be watchful about your surroundings as you go outdoors. And possibly, given to the lack of predictability, you might also wonder about the will of God in your moment by moment experience of life.

One may think that this is quite true about the highly religious people, irrespective of whether which religion they come from. That a religious person would be wary about the will of God in, say, predicting the favorability, or lack thereof, of outcome of things. However, one may argue that an atheist would also wonder about will of God, albeit in other ways, and often also possibly quite critically.

For instance, an atheist or an agnostic, or a student of theology for that matter, may wonder about the will of God in connection with his/her ability to step his/her feet. How did I acquire an ability to step my feet in the first place? That who does it, apart from me? How does it happen? How did I learn to step my feet in the first place? How can I become better at this? And for how long, in the distant future, I would be able to keep on doing this? All of these questions may be considered naive at times and cogent at others. However, they can be posed to pass time in a good way over a cup of tea.  

It may sound like a very naive idea to scribble down one's thoughts like this. However, while we wonder about a topic so esoteric, and apparently pointless, as whether or not we have free will or not, it also make quite a lot of sense to wonder about will of God. After all what the folk out there believe about free will is that human beings have free will and have all the freedom to do whatever pleases them. So why wonder about free will? One of the answers possibly is to dig deep into human personality.

Around a year ago I came across an article by famous Urdu writer and philosopher, lat Sufi Ashfaq Ahmad. Sufi Ashfaq Ahmad was worth listening to always and he was very highly educated and well travelled across the world. He was also extremely well read. The article I found was in his book Zaawiyya. It is a collection of his short stories, inspired by his sensitive experience of life. The article was titled Ahkaam-e-Ilaahi. Its literal meaning in English would perhaps be commandments of God. However, after reading the whole article and appreciating its theme, I would rather call it Mansha-e-Ilaahi, or Will of God in English. The crux of the article is as follows in my own words:

We see weird things happening around us in every day of our life. For instance, we see that a crooked person keeps on climbing the ladder of success as his life progresses (and also keeps on becoming more and more crooked). On the other hand, we also see a very nice, and possibly extremely pious, man drenching further into problems and so on. Sufi Ashfaq Ahmad argued that this phenomenon has been been widely studied both in the West and in the Orient. At the end he argued that West finds alternative reasons for it (such as studying it from different perspectives), oriental people refer to it as the will of God. 

I liked the approach of the writer a lot. Although what he wrote was not universally true, but he did make a point. Allah Karim!

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  by  eviljohnius 

Consequences of the Lament

In response to Reflections on Free Will, by Daniel C. Danett, Sam Haris wrote The Marionette's Lament. In this Sam refutes with the criticism of Daniel about his book Free Will. In the beginning Sam is quite vociferously reactive of the style and tone of Daniel's criticism. In particular Sam finds the reflections of Daniel quite sneering. This may not have been the case with an ordinary reader whose native language is specially not English. In reality, an ordinary reader may have been unglued by a lot of intricacies of the subject as soon as he/she may have started reading the reflections. For instance, on one occasion Daniel describes the reflections as a museum of mistakes. An ordinary reader may not have noticed it as sarcasm or ridicule. Sam did! And responded quite vociferously to it. The fact is that a reader whose native language is not English might have found it quite difficult to appreciate this and other such comments specially because of lack of familiarity with the sense of sarcasm used in the English language or English cultures. A museum is just a museum at the end of the day. And there are so many museums around the world. So why make so much of a big deal about a museum of mistakes, which is just another museum. Isn't it? Oops! I have started to sound like Al-Capone!

After addressing Daniels reflections Sam goes on to explain his own conception of free will. This is done specially nicely when he tries to change the topic in his section "changing the topic". Otherwise, at least I would still have been baffled about the notion of free will he is trying to project. Free will is free will at the end of the day and we all have it. Some of us use our free will in one way or the other depending on how we wish to choose. (More Al-Capone!)

Sam's vantage point becomes specially clear when he distinguishes between first person and third person experiences or influences that shape the personality of a person. For instance, according to what a common person may understand about his notion of free will can be explained with the help of the following example. 

Consider a person who has chosen to become a cobbler. He chooses to become a cobbler because he thinks that it is a benign man's profession. A man can mend shoes and also be safe from many a distractions and dangers in his daily life. All he needs to do is to learn to sew and stitch the shoes well. He hones his motor skills to suit for speedy stitching. This way he gets better and better at making/mending shoes and becomes better and wealthier day by day. Doing so he also evades many chances of getting involved in unnecessary conflicts he would have been involved in otherwise. Had he been a truck driver, he might have been dead already in a road accident. Had he chosen a more sociable profession, such as that of a car mechanic, for instance, he may already have been badly injured due to a dispute with a client or burnt due to exposure to radiator overheating. As a cobbler all he needs to do is to find a solitary corner, sit there and hone his skill to stitch shoes and not his own hands. Pretty safe!

Common man, or folk, would obviously think that the cobbler made some really nice decisions in his life and became what he became, a successful cobbler. Does not the cobbler then have free will? To the common man, he really has that. He thought about a career choice at some stage of his life. Then he took a step to starting working on that. And as he started working he also learnt to have better self control and added to that, better motor skills due to which he can stitch more shoes in a given span of time that he would not have done otherwise.

Sam argues that this is really the illusion of free will the common man, or folk, suffer from. Daniel comes along to agree with the folk for their respite. According to Sam's framework of free will, however, the cobbler exactly does not have that freedom. Sam would argue that the circumstances, that shaped the cobbler to become a cobbler, have/had been governing his decisions throughout. The external environmental threats and influences forced him to become a cobbler. For instance, the cobbler may have feared at some stage of his life that taking up a more sociable profession was hazardous for him in some sense. His yearning for personal security urged him to take a professional choice he would not have taken otherwise. What if the cobbler had wanted to become a news editor instead but was too shy to have become that.

Sam would also argue that the cobbler's yearning for becoming something other (a mechanic, a driver, or a news editor) than what he actually became (a cobbler) also does not show in any way that the person had any free will. All his desires emerged from circumstances and influences that were out of his control. To this end, Sam indeed does have a point and he also takes us out of the misery of endlessly wondering about the real point of his argument.

How does then Sam's theory of free will cope up with the cobbler's acquiring better motor skills. His decision to learn to become a better stitcher can be ruled out using the same reasoning as above to show that free will is an illusion. The fact that he somehow acquired motor skills can also be ruled out same way. It is just a part of his decision to learn better shoe stitching and since he made that decision under the influence of external factors (factors emerging from events happening in systems other than his self), he simply does not have free will. However, how about his experience of dextrous stitching. The experience one can observe fast, near perfect mechanism of stitching shoes, with almost no flaws. How does one account for this fast stitching process as one observes it as what Sam calls a moment by moment experience of life? Sam would argue that this also suggests that the cobbler does not have free will. 

The robot-like skills that the cobbler has acquired through years of hard work and practice also suffers from third person influences. Actually, as any experience does, it may as well suffer from bunch of external influences. 

Grave Consequences: By suggesting that people do not have free will what Sam intend's to show is that people cannot be held responsible for their actions. Here, Sam's intention can sound both innocent and astute at the same time. Does not it make sense to say that since people are not the ultimate designers of their decisions and actions, it is irrelevant to hold them responsible for what they do.

Actually Sam has a deeper point when he suggests this. In a meaningful sense, he wants to liberate people from many things, such as a sense of guilt and sin and to free them out of prisons when they have been considered wrong and morally defunct by the society and the judiciary. This is done by saying that since people do not be held responsible for their actions it is absolutely irrelevant to hold them responsible for what they have done. In some sense this is what it means.

It is, however, not understandable at this point that how Sam actually thinks or would propose a newer judicial system to look like. A person who has murdered now is considered a murdered presently and accordingly he is sent to jail. If Sam's framework became applicable at some stage, how would that take into account this aspect and the associated repercussions at some latter stage.

A Deeper Point: I thought about Sam's work for quite a while. I have been reading him for quite a few years now and I know that he is an atheist. Indeed, as it appears from his writings, it is one of the life goals of Sam Harris to systematically argue against religion and hence existence of God. I seriously hope and pray that that would change at some stage of his life. But this is not the point I am trying to make, it is just a comment. So, as Sam is an atheist, one can wonder that how would Sam argue about an act of, let us say, terrorism (a bombing or whatever, we know of many such things) committed by someone. In particular how would Sam argue about the action of the person in light of his framework of free will? This is a very cogent question indeed. If a person does not have free will and he has committed a heinous crime such as creating a huge bombing event, how would Sam propose a justification of that or of his conception of free will. I propose, that Sam would propose, that that person, like all the other people, also did not have any free will. The person did that under the influence of things that have influenced him over his lifetime. More explicitly Sam would argue that it is not the person who should be held responsible for his action. Instead, it is the religious teachings he had had during his lifetime that should be attributed responsibility to. In short, Sam would argue against the religion instead of the person. This point would have far reaching consequences specially if his theory of free will is to be taken seriously. Allah Karim!

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  by  BrynJ 

A Reflection on Reflections

I managed to read the "Reflections on Free Will" by Daniel C. Dannett twice. This is a review of the book of Sam Harris named Free Will. I read the book twice due to the concern that I may have missed the point. Keeping in mind to not to miss the point is very essential in my point of view specially concerning this type of philosophical work. There are at least three cogent reasons for keeping in mind that the point not be missed. 1) This is a very delicate topic. On a superficial level it may sound artistic and, thus, easy to comprehend, but in reality it demands a lot of attention. 2) Sam Harris is a very elegant writer. There is no doubt about that. In as much as there might be a lot of his critics, I am sured he is admired by many due to his way of writing and the way he translates his thought process on paper (or a computer based book or blog for that matter). I also admire his writing its style and content. He poses very cogent questions at times. But there is one thing about Sam Harris's writing style that at times it appears that he swings his whole argument. He moves his discourse in a sort of a spiral and comes back to square one. One may really wonder at that instant on as to what is his point. That is why I believe that it is very important to re-read and to try to fully understand what he has really written and implied. Pun not intended! 3) Sometimes we can be shallow readers. Our not too good reading comprehensions, short attention spans, lack of focus, time varying interest, and dwindling energy can actually play a role in us missing the whole point altogether in an otherwise such an engaging and lengthy discourse. 

However, reflections has been written by Daniel C. Dennett and not by Sam Harris. And this one is actually not very confusing. In reality it really demystifies many of the conceptual caveats one may have about the subject of Free Will (while possibly creating others in the form of various esoteric thought experiments or whatever). So the point number 2 (among the 3) listed in the above paragraph might not really hold true in this case. However, since reflections on free will is actually a reflection of the work of Sam Harris, point 2 might begin to hold true to some extent for this book as well.

So what is reflections really all about. Reflections refutes the argument of Sam Harris that free will is an illusion. What Daniel argues about is that we human beings really have free will. This is the whole idea of this book. However, I was interested in understanding the subject in a bit more detail and on a deeper level. I was interested in understanding if there is something really deep about the subject of free will. And indeed there are a few really deep things about the subject of free will. I shall point out three things here that I came across in the book for the purpose of brevity. The real purpose in writing this (sort of a) summary is to create a stub about the subject so that I can revisit it latter at some stage for my own perusal, at least. In what follows, I am trying to write my concerns from memory. The reason for this is that I am already trying trying to struggle with other distractions as I am writing this.

The first thing I have noticed and I find worth commenting and contemplating about has something to do with the mention of immaterial souls. In the start of reflections, Daniel tries to defend the position of Sam Harris by somewhat suggesting that when he asserts that human do not have free will, his theory applies to our immaterial souls. And since we do not have immaterial souls (and since we are just lumps of biochemicals), the theory does not apply to us. This is what I have inferred at least. I admit that I could be wrong. My understanding could be flawed. Specially since I am writing this from memory and I do not have the draft of reflections opened in front of me. My concern is that irrespective of the fact that we have immaterial souls or not, what would be the repercussions of applying a similar scrutiny that whether we have free will or not if we actually had immaterial souls.

The second aspect about the book is the spectrum of various positions we can assume between free will and determinism. I have still not really understood the deep meanings of various positions such as combatilism, incombatilism etc. I do understand that combatilism implies that determinism and free will are compatible; both of them can exist (I wonder if exist is the right word) at the same time. Incombatilism is the converse. It means if free will can happen, determinism is false and vice versa. The problem is that it is really important to deeply understand these notions.

The third is the understanding of free will. The position Sam assumes is that free will is an illusion. That I have decided to read about free will. That I may have wondered at some stage on as to what it really means to have free will. That I eventually managed to find some thinkable reading material on it. Eventually I am writing about free will now. According to Sam's framework, I was not really free in choosing to come up to this point. According to Sam, there must have happened events in my life that were beyond my control that may have urged, motivated or influenced me to do all of this. For instance, I may have been impressed by philosophy at some stage. And at some stage prior to that I may have been told that philosophy was an enterprise worth getting impressed about. Daniel has argued that this does not imply that we do not have free will.

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  by  Tomas Sobek