Some Wireless History - Remember the NII?

In 1995, Dewayne Hendricks wrote a paper, Spread Spectrum and the Amateur Radio Service (1995), that was very forward looking. In it he reviews a good deal of early history, for example:

Since the Broscius article in 1989, there has been a lot of activity in the commercial sector regarding SS. As a result of the request and feedback of many manufacturer's of Part 15 devices, the FCC changed the rules in 1990 in order to make it possible to product devices under Part 15 which could operate at higher data rates and to close up some of the holes in the previous version of the regulation that had been issued in 1985.

In January, 1991, Apple Computer filed the now famous Data-PCS petition with the FCC which asked for the allocation of 40 MHz in the 1850-1990 MHz band for a new radio service to be used for high-speed, local area network services. Some important points of the petition include:

* be accessible to users of personal computers without imposition of licensing obligations, network connection fees, or air-time charges;

* be open to any computer manufacturer's products and any network access and usage scheme that complies with the regulatory requirements.

* be regulated in a manner that assures non-discriminatory access to assigned frequencies by compatible devices for like purposed; and

* Have flexibility built into the initial regulatory scheme to encourage innovation in and the evolution of Data-PCS technologies and services.

In 1993, the FCC allocated 20 MHz for this new service, in the 1910-1930 MHz band. In addition, ten additional MHz were allocated this year by the FCC for this service in the 2390-2400 MHz band. Lest you forget, this ten MHz of spectrum is part of the current ARS allocation which runs from 2390-2450 MHz. The ARS was made primary in this band by the FCC and the Data-PCS service now shares this band with the ARS on a secondary non-interference basis.

Finally, Apple Computer this May '95 petitioned the FCC for yet another new service called the NII Band (National Information Infrastructure). In this case, they are asking the FCC to:

* allocate for use as part of the NII Band the 5150-5300 MHz band, a shared private-government band that currently is not heavily used within the United States and has been allocated throughout most of Europe for unlicensed wireless local area networks;

* allocate for use as part of the NII Band the 5725-5875 MHz band, a shared private-government band that currently is used by unlicensed Part 15 technologies, industrial, scientific and medical ("ISM") devices, and Amateur radio operators;

Reading the whole paper today, 10 years latter, shows that the vision is there, but yet to be fully realized. Do you remember when we had an NII? It would be good to bring it back.

The Poverty Blog Project

How will we fight poverty in America? Senator Edwards is going around the country in his Opportunity Rocks college tour. He is speaking to students about the need to raise people’s awareness of poverty in America so that we can address this problem.

He speaks about how Hurricane Katrina has shown the ugly face of poverty to people who have too long believed that poverty isn’t a problem. He has speaks about the need to keep this in people’s minds, to keep the attention from shifting back to other things.

He spoke about Robert Kennedy’s visit to Appalachia and how that helped get people to focus on poverty. As he spoke about this, I thought about the Freedom Riders. I have been talking about how we need a new generation of Freedom Riders with a new generation of tools.

Some of the idea comes from the eRiders project. eRiders a bunch of geeks that go around and help non-profit groups make better use of their technology. Related to that are ideas like Blogger Corps, a project to get bloggers to help out non-profits.

Another influence is some great blogs around the country that I’ve been reading. The California Hammonds is a powerful website tracking the life of a man and his family who lost their wife in a battle against breast cancer. Candy Girl's Random Babble is the story of a military wife, as she deals with missing her husband as he serves in Iraq, her fears, her hopes and her longings. State of the Heart is the story of a new father undergoing heart surgery with related complications.

These are great blogs that make people think about the state of health care in our country and about the men and women serving our country. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any good blogs about poverty. If you’re struggling to get by, you aren’t all that likely to have great Internet access and a lot of time to blog about your experiences.

Perhaps the closest I’ve found is Gina Coggio. She is a teacher in New Haven that writes wonderfully about her work with her students; students with cerebral palsy, students who are repeating grades, students with ankle bracelets, students whose parents are fighting cancer, students whose parents are in jail.

As I read all of this, I wonder about a poverty blog project. Imagine college students fanning out around the country. Spending their summer helping the poor, writing about their experiences, helping poor people find their voice and giving Americans the reality show they deserve, a reality show that exposes the ugly face of poverty and the loving face of America as it addresses the problems of poverty: The Poverty Blog Project.

With the technology of today, it could have audio clips of people in the struggle, digital pictures, perhaps even a video or two.

Last night, I went to hear Senator Edwards talk. In my blog entry, I touched briefly on this idea, without expanding it as much as I have here. I’ve received email asking about this, so I thought I would expand on my thoughts here.

Can we make The Poverty Blog Project work? Will it generate great American writing like ‘Let us now praise famous men’? Will it turn the American response to poverty from something to be ashamed of to something to be proud of?

Who wants to help and how do we get started?

Freedom Riders of the New WPA

I did not want to go hear a warmed over former presidential candidate keeping his options alive for 2008, but I got an invitation to blog John Edwards’ visit to Yale and I thought I really should go. Fortunately, it wasn’t leftover politics that John Edwards was serving.

I am on all the mailing lists. DNC, DFA, Emily’s List, DCCC, Kerry, Edwards, Clark, Bayh, Meetup, Moveon; the list goes on and on. So generally, I glance at these requests but pay them little mind. That was my initial reaction to the Edwards message from MoveOn.

The question popped up on one mailing list I was on asking if anyone was going. I sent an email saying that I had heard Senator Edwards speak and annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner and was fairly disappointed. I told people that I wasn’t planning on going.

But then a friend sent me an email about blogging the event. I enjoy blogging political events, so I made arrangements to go.

At Yale, I ran into a few old friends from the Dean campaign. I did my same rant with each of them. If Senator Edwards does the standard leftover politics, I will be disappointed, but not surprised. I sure hope, however, that he will really talk about a new generation of Freedom Riders. One person commented that she had come, hoping to get re-invigorated.

In early September, I wrote, “It is my dream that just as Freedom Riders hopped on buses over forty years ago to help bring equality to blacks in the south we will see a new generation of people head to the Gulf Coast to help rebuild and help fight poverty.”

So, when Senator Edwards invoked the image of Robert Kennedy in Appalachia, my friend excitedly said, “That is exactly what you were talking about.” I wondered if this is what I’ve been hoping for.

Senator Edwards said all the right things, talking about a movement, led by college students to touch the national consciousness and address the growing problem of poverty.

So, will Senator Edwards manage to pull this off? Afterwards there was a brief Q&A and I asked him if he envisioned a new generation of Freedom Riders with digital cameras blogging, photoblogging, videoblogging and podcasting their experiences. Senator Edwards spoke about the importance of using technology to get the message out. I repeated the question focusing on the Freedom Rider aspect of it and he said that it is something he is hoping for. I hope so to.

So, will we see a new generation of Freedom Riders? Will they document the plight of poor in America, generating great work like the writers from the WPA? Will we see a 21st Century equivalent of ‘Let us now praise famous men’? Will this result in a drastic reduction in poverty?

Let us hope so. I will do my part, which right now, is about spreading the word through the blogosphere. Go to Opportunity Rocks. If Senator Edwards is going to be visiting a school by you, please go. If not, try to get a school near you on the list for his next tour. If you do get a chance to go, please blog about it and spread the word.

The More Open Spectrum (WiFi) Succeeds ...

The curiouser and curiouser it gets.

And the more FUD [Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt] is put forward by incumbent vested interests. Recently, at the World Internet Institute's Digital Cities Convention, the FCC's Alan Scrime suggested that WiFi, not being a "guaranteed service", was not good enough for municipalities. He warned that WiFi is not "robust" and using it might expose municipalities to "lawsuits". To this FUD we can add the usual charges that WiFi is not secure enough, suffers from unacceptable interference, doesn't scale, and so forth.

Perhaps Scrime's real problem is actually the unintended, unanticipated, and disruptive success of Part 15 less regulated spectrum. It tends to show that The FCC's pre-radar, pre-Shannon, pre-transistor, pre-solid state computer, pre-internet etc approach to spectrum management, ie a 1930s world view, is actually no longer appropriate. Its substantial inefficiencies and badly inflated value chain are counter to everything a believer in markets would value: efficiency and flat value chains with the least friction. In fact, the FCC itself has known this since the first Spread Spectrum NOI in 1981 [Gen. Docket Number: 81-413].

Could it be that the FCC is a bureaucracy fighting for its life, trying to justify a reason for its ongoing existence? Could it be that the FCC's regulated entities, with last century's spectrum licenses, are just as terrified by the success of Open Spectrum as it threatens their business models? Could it be that a bureaucracy and its clients are aligned trying to invent the future while looking longingly at the 20th century in the rear view mirror? Shouldn't they instead be looking for ways to provide every citizen everywhere with 7x24 access to the greatest capacity for bit transport at the least cost? I suggest this would contribute to making America more competitive in the 21st century.

Consider that the supply of bits is infinite: Each computer can create as many as it wants, whenever, for free. Consider that the more we communicate, the more transactions there are, and thus the larger the markets and the greater the business growth for all. Now consider that retail bit transport costs 24 cents per Mbps in Hong Kong, but 50X more, $12.00, in the US. This price differential is not something that helps make us more competitive.

If we really want to harvest the benefits of vigorous innovation and sustainable economic growth, powered by ubiquitous, always on, Big Bandwidth; if we really want to compete successfully on a global scale, then perhaps we ought to be working to reduce the barriers to business growth and innovation. A first step to take would be to move reform the FCC by implementing what the FCC itself said was feasible in 1981. An important second step would be to work to achieve stand alone bit transport at less than $1.00 per Mbps/month.

Looking back, we can see the numerous benefits we have clearly enjoyed as communications has moved from foot, to boat, to telegraph, to radio, to telephone, to internet. The history of communications clearly shows that lowering the costs and increasing access stimulates both economic and innovation activities.

Looking back, we can see that the flow of water powered the early US economy. Looking forward, we can anticipate that the flow of bits will power the US economy going forward.

What we need today is a powerful flow of bits enabling a lot more communications and creative content from a lot more people, not less from fewer.

We need a lot more Science to Survive and Thrive

In today’s world, where long histories of human errors and ignorance compound and amplify the already difficult situations created by natural events, such as hurricanes, earth quakes, mud slides and so forth, what are we to do? Part of the answer is simply that we need a great deal MORE science, not less, if we want to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Consider also that very many of us today share a yearning for a more satisfying "whole life". I suspect a majority of us are deeply dissatisfied with the empty life offered by hyper consumerism and celebrity madness required, it appears, by the processes of mass production with its dependence on mass markets. This dissatisfaction takes many forms. It also makes some of us very defensive and leads to lashing out and other regrettable behaviors, greed, looting and even terrorism of many sorts, for example.

Are our current cultural tensions an unavoidable conflict, a sharp dichotomy, between faith-based approaches or a fact-based “scientific” approach? I see this as a truly false and dangerous dichotomy. What we need is an and/both approach that is greater than the sum of the parts. The fact of mystery is ancient and undeniable. Given the ever lasting condition of all of humanity’s imperfect knowledge, mystery is also ever lasting. Science, on the other hand, is an ever more necessary and useful tool. In the face of deteriorating world conditions, we need a lot more of it, but more readily available and comprehensible to much greater numbers of all peoples. We can be confident, however, that science is no threat, and can never be, to the deeper mysteries.

Perhaps it is only by integrating science and mystery into something greater than the sum of the parts that can we rediscover the satisfactions of a richer life. Perhaps we must acknowledge and respect our intrinsic drives to both participate in mystery as well as to understand the way the world works. These are not mutually exclusive goals, any more than, as Franklin showed in his Junto, are our drives to both individual achievements and our desire to contribute to the common good of community.

In episode 10 of the 1978 TV series "Connections", for example, James Burke argued that if the principal modern agents of change are scientists and their science and technology, chiefly represented by the computer, then the man on the street, not comprehending any of the what, why or how of the process of science and technology, is essentially left out n the cold: powerless and "disenfranchised". The person on the street does not see themselves as an equal player in the process of change effecting him/her. This has to lead to increasingly deep resentments.

Earlier, in episodes 5 & 6 I believe, Burke had pointed out the issues and resentments, the loss of "meaning and sense of individuality", that we agree to accept in return for living with the "benefits" of society firmly locked to the demands of the technology driven assembly line, the wrist watch and now the "crackberry".

So in 1978 Burke pointed out two powerful engines of growing discontent with the modern world, both of which seemed to push the ideal of a whole life further and further into the past.

Twenty seven years latter this resonates deeply with current American politics. Burke probably could not fore see this. Nor does he talk about the end of oil, nor pandemics, nor man's impact on the stability of the global climate.

But consider this:

President George W. Bush, with his good ol boy, gut, anti science, "religion", and his faith-base approach to all things, talks to the alienated, discontented and resentful folks in powerful ways. He makes them feel like they matter and have power. He makes them feel as if there is more to life than being trapped in the assembly line. Together, they twice defeated the fact- based, we take science for granted, reality crowd.

The many factions of the Democratic party, and traditional moderate Republicans, have yet to figure this out. They still do not comprehend even the nature of the problems Burke saw so clearly in 1978. So their fact-based reality has become a political liability. That is, the more the moderates advance science and technology as essential for success, without promoting an and/both view of the world, the faster they drive the alienated and disenfranchised voters to the so called faith based, anti-science, view of the world.

Anti-science won in 2000 and 2004. Now the alienated and resentful have dominant political power -- or have become non-state, asymmetrical terrorists. But without facts and science, they are driving into the ditch. They, however, do not know it and appear not to want to know it. They appear to prefer to believe exclusively in dogma in the face of constant change.

The most likely solutions to the 21st century's hard challenges will come not from less knowledge, science and technology but only from a great deal more. To be successful, this more science approach must be far more readily accessible and understandable to everyone: Distributed to everyone, every where, all the time. A possible example of making technology more broadly accessible might be Hey Math.

Education that works to make science and math broadly meaningful to the majority of us will be essential for our future success. Without it we will fail. Our approach to the 21st century must, at the same time, also acknowledge and respect the mysteries of life that are beyond the comprehension of our always imperfect knowledge.

I recommend the Connections programs 1-10. The whole first series produced in 1978, and shown in 1979, is a great experience and is perhaps more relevant today than when first broadcast. They are available on the darknet and also on DVD. Burke also wrote the book Connections.

Katrina Journal, Part III

Becky, Ted, and I were to report at the Best Western in Harvey. On the way we saw a more tropical topography, and a lot of damage to trees and homes. When we arrived we were shown “the loft”–-a room at the top of a spiral staircase off the lobby–-where women were sleeping on cots. We also found out that there was a staff meeting every night at 8pm. So we settled in, ate dinner quickly, and went to the meeting. There was a general meeting and then we met with our function coordinator, Jake, to get our assignments for the next day. This was a very different experience from Baton Rouge. We were on the front lines, and we went where we were most needed–-which could be different each day. Jake talked a lot about St. Bernard, and that’s when I learned that the authorities were allowing people back into the area to see their homes. Of course, there was not much left of their homes and so the need for counselors to be there was pressing. But since I knew it was a toxic area, I did not want to go there. There was also going to be a cruise ship docked near the area which would house security people and first responders. Four mental health workers would be on the ship with them, but that didn’t seem to be any safer an option.

That first night I was the last to be assigned, and told I would be needed in the hotel for HQ support-–to help with exit interviews and assisting Janene, who would be taking over on Monday when Jake was going to go home to Brooklyn. He also talked about Hahnville and was unhappy that Margaret was sending some mental health people there instead of to Harvey. I said “Those are my teammates!” and asked if he wanted their names. He said he did so I wrote them down for him.

So the next day I spent in the hotel. I took one brief walk out to a Walgreen’s down the street, but found it was closed. The stench outside made me feel a little sick. Later I found out that there had been a restaurant next to the hotel and the smell was from the food that had turned rancid when the power went out. There were parts of the hotel that smelled really awful from that, too. But the hotel itself was a big improvement over the Hebron Baptist Church. The food was a step down, however. It was harder to get food there, and it was pretty bad and not nearly as plentiful. Sometimes food was brought in from one of the few restaurants in the area that was open, but if you weren’t there when it came in, chances are that you wouldn’t get any.

The Red Cross people there were great. If anyone was having trouble with something or looking for something, people would immediately jump in to help out. We all supported each other like that, and it was comforting to know that in such a stressful and harsh environment there was no such thing as being “on your own.” We acted as a unit.

That first morning, who should walk into the hotel but my friend from Denham Springs, Tonio! We hugged and planned a “counseling session” for later, which never materialized.

Then, during a phone call with a staff member that I was making for Janene, 3 people came in and sat down quietly around the table that served as my desk. I screamed and laughed when I saw Joan, Kathy, and Anne sitting there smiling mischievously! We were all so happy to be together again and decided it was a law of nature that we couldn’t be separated.

That evening we were told that they needed the loft space for another purpose and we would all get real hotel rooms! Becky, Leah, and I would share a room with a queen-sized bed. My room was on the second floor and had a balcony overlooking the pool and jacuzzi. In the room we had our own shower, of course, plus a refrigerator, TV, desk, and a chest of drawers and closet so we could actually unpack. It felt like the height of luxury!

I should mention the water. We were in a contaminated area, so to be safe we were told not to drink the tap water or use it to brush our teeth. We used bottled water instead. I also didn’t use the pool or jacuzzi because I didn’t want to risk illness by spending lots of time immersing myself in the water. Too bad!

Becky came back from St. Bernard with a splitting headache and feeling more than a little overwhelmed. Others had headaches, too, and reported burning in their eyes and nose. It had rained that day, and the rain turned everything to mud and intensified putrid smells. Although she felt she did some good work there, Becky decided she wasn’t going back. But the next day it didn’t rain, and those who came back from there said it wasn’t too bad... just very hard to see how shocked and saddened people were after they saw what used to be their home and neighborhood.

Monday I took the day off. At the meeting that night I was assigned to the Welcome Center in St. Charles.

Welcome Centers are supposed to be places where people are made to feel... um... welcome. Most of them had food, snacks, water, FEMA reps with computers where people could apply for help online, and reps from other helping agencies. There the Red Cross set up satellite phones so folks could connect to the 800 number they had to call for assistance more easily. The 800 number had become a joke and a disgrace, but phone lines were overwhelmed by the magnitude of this catastrophe and people simply could not get through. I heard many stories of people staying up all day and night dialing and redialing the 800 number, people waking themselves up at 2 or 4am hoping that at those hours the phone lines would be less jammed but still not being able to get through. Staff was as frustrated as clients, and it was amazing that tempers didn’t flare higher than they did. And that’s basically why we were there: to calm people, to listen to their stories, to validate their frustrations and the depth of their grief.

The WC in St. Charles was awful. It had been started by a local official who refused to give up control of its operation. The official had connections with the community, which was a good thing. But he wanted to run it his way, which was a bad thing. Instead of having people waiting on line to use the phones, he had them waiting on line to write down their contact information on a list so they could be called back at a later time-–sometimes as much as 2 weeks later–-to come back and use the phones. It made no sense and was a source of yet more frustration and confusion for clients because the process was not clearly explained and there were no written handouts saying what it was. Some, after waiting for hours in line under a canvas canopy in the hot LA sun, assumed they should go inside and wait to use the phones. I talked to people who had been sitting inside for hours, only to find out they had wasted their entire day for nothing. Most of these St. Charles people were black. Did that have anything to do with the shoddy way they were treated by local officials? I don’t know, but after experiencing another WC the following day in Plaquemines, I wondered. But talking to them was a rewarding experience. Most were exhausted, some were pissed, some depressed, but over and over I heard gratitude for all the help they had received so far, support for one another, reliance on faith, and determination to go forward even though they didn’t know where “forward” was. No one was enraged or violent or seemed to be in absolute despair-–although those who were would probably not have been there waiting.

I was tired and hot when I got back to the hotel that day, and Joan called me on my cell phone to say she wanted to change her return flight from Friday to Wednesday because Rita was coming. We were all feeling anxious about Rita, since even a few inches of rainfall could cause flooding and major damage to the fragile area we were trying so hard to fortify. We watched CNN and the Weather Channel constantly, hoping against hope that this region would be spared another storm. But at the same time, we had to take care of ourselves, and I thought that if Rita did strike here, trying to get home would be a nightmare. Luckily, I was able to change my flight, and Joan and I would be on the same flight from NOLA to Dallas to Chicago.

The next day I was assigned to the Plaquemines Welcome Center. While St. Charles had only the Red Cross and FEMA, Plaquemines had Red Cross, FEMA, SBA, unemployment, tarps, clothing, food, and toiletries that had been donated, and a home-schooling program that was being run jointly by local teachers whose schools were closed and one of the churches. Plaquemines was also largely a white parish (the LA word for county). They hadn’t suffered quite as much damage as some other areas, but I again heard stories of total losses and flooding that was 4 feet high or more. One woman showed me photos of what was her house and cried.

There was a line outside, but it was under an overhang against the school building and there were benches to sit on and fans. But it was still hot. I didn’t want to know the temperature but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been over 100. I spent most of the day outside and only went inside to cool off and then later when the line was cut off and everyone was inside. In those 2 days at Welcome Centers I must have spoken with hundreds of people. They couldn’t believe so many of us came from all over the country to help them, and we were impressed by their spirit and strength.

That night I had to out-process and do it quickly between getting back to the hotel and the 8pm meeting. The next morning at 6am I stumbled down to the kitchen in my pjs to get coffee, as I usually did, and of course Tonio was there with a camera, ready to take my picture. I’m sure he’ll want to post that on the Red Cross Katrina photo album site! Kathy was driving me, Joan, and Anne to the airport. She was going to come back to the hotel afterwards, though, because her flight wasn’t until 6pm and she didn’t want to hang around the airport all day. So we packed our stuff into our team car for the last time and headed off for New Orleans Airport, which was only about 20 minutes from the hotel. Just as we approached the exit ramp for the airport, we heard a loud bang and then we smelled something burning and pulled off on the shoulder. We got out, looked under the car and didn’t see any damage there. Then we looked at the front passenger-side wheel. The outside half of the tire was completely gone and the wheel was bent and twisted. Joan flagged down a car that turned out to have 2 people from Channel 2 in it. Finally, we thought, we would get our long-awaited interview and be on TV! But no. However, they did take us to the airport. Kathy called someone to come help her and the rest of us left for the terminal that turned out to be at most 2 minutes from where we’d broken down. We worried about Kathy, so when we got on the check-in line I called Katrina (yep, Katrina was in charge of hotel services for the Red Cross Katrina volunteers!) and told her what happened. She said, in that inimitable authoritarian voice of hers, "I'll make sure someone gets out there ASAP!" I emailed her the next day and she had gotten home safely.

All in all, it was an amazing and intense experience. And I learned something important about myself. I learned that I got the greatest satisfaction of my career as a counselor simply by being with and talking to these people. It was just as–-if not more--fulfilling to me than writing my book, giving the Sophia Fahs Lecture, or counseling individuals and helping them change. And that surprised me. I realized that I probably could not have listened or talked to them as effectively and meaningfully if I hadn’t had those prior experiences or as profound an understanding of the grief process, but I felt this was what all that had been for-–so that people in a situation of catastrophic loss could find some hope and comfort in the attentive listening and words of someone who had been there and survived, thrived, learned, and remembered. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Women in Distress: victims of a military regime?

Dr. Farooq Hassan

BA (Juris),MA,M. LiTT (OXON); DCL (Columbia),DIA(Harvard); Sen.Adv.Sup.Ct. (Pakistan), Barrister at Law (UK),Attorney at Law(US).

According to women’s rights’ NGOs at least 800 rapes and gang-rapes were recorded in 2004 by the Police in Pakistan. This figure is believed to be merely a fraction of the number of such cases actually taking place. Several recent shockingly alarming incidents of gang rape cases have, however, sadly brought into sharp focus this terrible aspect of the current societal prejudices in this country. In some notorious incidents, there is clear surrounding evidence establishing government’s complicity in these grave and horrendous misfortunes to befall Pakistani women in distress.

There exists, in addition the unbelievable reality, now internationally noted by the media, evidence that from the very top of the governmental edifice there is a dedicated campaign to “hide” the truth from reaching concerned women NGOs and the Western Governments. It is even more painful to realize that factually, in three of the most notorious contemporary cases of this nature, there is governments’ institutional involvement. The victims of the rapes were done this horrendous mischief allegedly by (1) an army officer, (2) at the behest of a tribal jury and (3) in the latest one by serving Police officers of some significance. The three victims of this brutality were Dr. Sazia Kahlid, Mukatharan Mai and one Sonia Naz. At the moment of concluding this analysis yet another gang rape case has come to light pertaining to one Sairah, a 12 year old Christian girl in Islamabad, the nation’s capitol.

The events from Friday 9th June to 16th, 2005 concerning the above named Mukhtaran Mai, should have shaken the very soul of the people of Pakistan. Whether it did, I cannot say, but the Federal Government certainly disgraced Pakistan. Because of this particular incident however, Musharraf’s regime, much pampered by US the military and badly disguised as a “democracy”, has been, however, thoroughly exposed.

In the US during his recent visit to address the UN GA, Musharraf said shockingly that it was becoming a “profession” in Pakistan for women to be gang raped in order to get funds and Canadian citizenship! This was with reference to the offer of the Ottawa Government to Mukatharan Mai when she was, by all accounts, not only detained unlawfully but actually silenced and forbidden to travel to the US by admittedly the personal orders of General Musharraf. Worldwide condemnation of these comments of Musharraf saw such headlines as the one reported in Pakistan by the AFP: “Musharraf under fire for 'shocking' rape comments.” The Canadian Premier personally showed his disapproval over such ideas of the Pakistani General while still in New York

Politicians and street protesters in New York, Islamabad and Karachi condemned Musharraf for these reckless and harsh comments to the Washington Post. It is really unbelievable that Musharraf tried to get out of this self created mess by denying that he had said anything as such in his interview to the Post on 15 September. The Post immediately put his entire tape on their website for the whole world to see and hear that that is exactly what Musharraf had said! Musharraf had told the Washington Post: “You must understand the environment in Pakistan,” He added: “This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped”. Women Action Forum in Pakistan directly demanded: “He must withdraw his remarks if he really thinks he is a liberal and a moderate.”

This author deeply regrets that a person in that lofty a position can say such things and then get caught denying them falsely as well! No wonder that after the conclusion of his New York visit the Pakistani General complained that even though the US establishment was busy in rolling out the red carpet for him the American media was not appreciative of his performance. One may well ask what is that “performance” that he speaks of which could possibly excuse him for giving such degrading comments about women?


The New York Times' (of 6/14) scathing humiliation of Pakistan and the Musharraf and his military junta speaks volumes of what in fact is occurring in Pakistan. In an Op Ed piece Nicholas Kristoff brutally, yet accurately, remarks: “No wonder the Pakistan government can't catch Osama bin Laden. It is too busy harassing, detaining - and now kidnapping - a gang-rape victim for daring to protest and for planning a visit to the United States.”

Be that as it may, Mai stood vindicated and won worldwide acclaim for her pursuit of justice in June 2005 when Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the re-arrest of 13 men linked to her case and suspended their acquittals by lower courts.


Not long before the Mai matter surfaced with such worldwide condemnations, there was the terrible case of 32-year-old doctor Shazia Khalid after she was gang raped by allegedly military security forces guarding the Sui gas pipeline in the remote areas of Pakistan in Baluchistan. She had to leave the country during her ordeal in January 2005 at, apparently, as she told AFP in an interview in London in February, “the ‘request’ had come from the top of the Musharraf government”. Once in the UK, the British Government prompted gave her asylum. She said it was necessary for her to leave as her non acceptance by the local society for this terrible stigma was very painful. The government authorities, whose task was to protect her, as is well known by now, were only interested in hiding the identity of the accused as he was a serving military officer.


Some essential facts of the Mai case may be noted briefly to realize the mindset of the Federal authorities in disallowing her to move at all in or out of Pakistan. She was invited by a Pakistani medical doctor’s NGO in the US called AANA and was supposed to be present on July 2 at Houston at the national conference of this organization. On becoming aware of this impending visit, the Pakistani Government went out to get her in a military type operation. From Thursday 7th May she was placed under house arrest and literally made incommunicado with the world as her cell phone was knocked out of functioning. After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in further jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate as the day is invariably a half day holiday in the country.

Kristoff may well be quoted again to succinctly realize the point why Musharraf did what he did: “Even if Ms. Mukhtaran were released from local detention, airports have been alerted to bar her from leaving the country. According to newspaper (reports), the government took this step, "fearing that she might malign Pakistan's image”. What is Pakistan’s “image”, one may well ask, that would be damaged by a battered woman?” He interestingly added: “Excuse me, but Ms. Mukhtaran, a symbol of courage and altruism, is the best hope for Pakistan's image. The threat to Pakistan's image comes from President Musharraf for all this thuggish behavior. But now President Musharraf has gone nuts.” The New York Times goes on to suggest to the US government: “So, Mr. Bush, how about asking Mr. Musharraf to focus on finding Osama, instead of kidnapping rape victims who speak out? And invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office - to show that Americans stand not only with generals who seize power, but also with ordinary people of extraordinary courage.”

The maneuvering to place an “ordinary” person like Mai on the dreaded Exit Control List (ECL) of the Government of Pakistan, the highest in Administration was involved. The gagging suggestion came initially from a retired military general now Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington. The Foreign Minister, who does not seemly get tired of pleasing all his de facto and de jure military bosses, quickly endorsed it! The matter was then taken up by Musharraf’s who decided to put a lid on this poor creature.

Kristoff aptly observes finally: “Then a few days later, the Pakistani government went berserk.” This comment needs some explanation! Mai was brought to Islamabad by road by government intelligence people from her home some four hundred miles away. Instead of showing up at the US Embassy along for a visa on June 15th, she showed up in a press Conference along with a woman advisor of the Government. She proclaimed she was not interested to go the US! However she reluctantly admitted to the press that she was confined by police when they were “protecting” her in her home town of Meerawala.

How did her name, as matter of law, get into the ECL? Under the law, the only persons who have this misfortune is if they are, (1) known bank defaulters, (2) known terrorists (3) known politicians who are considered threat to the regime. She was none of the above. So someone has to explain what really happened for the government to go berserk as the NY Times aptly put it! She was detained without legal authority, a damning violation of Article 9 and 10 of the Constitution, she was not allowed to move, a violation of Article 15 of the Constitution, made incommunicado and had her phone contact rendered ineffectual, a violation of Article 19 of the Constitution. Above all she was humiliated, thereby violating Article 14 of the Constitution. She was no worse than an “enemy combatant”, a term with which the Western press is by now quite familiar.

The US Government, through Christina Rocca, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, had expressed extreme disappointment at this behavior of the Government of Pakistan. Similarly the State Department Press briefing given in Washington DC on 15th of June, 2005 echoes this thought:

“The United States expects Pakistan's leaders to honor their pledge to protect the basic human rights of their citizens, including the freedom to travel… She is a courageous woman who is a victim of a horrendous crime. Ms. Mai is welcome to travel to the United States at any time. We were confronted with, what I can only say, was an outrageous situation where her attackers were ordered to be freed while she had restrictions on her travel placed on her. We conveyed our views about these restrictions to the senior levels of the Pakistani Government. … “according to the reporting, notably by Kristof of the New York Times, she was brought to Islamabad, detained and placed in custody and even though she's free to go, which I guess is a good thing, it's a rather odd thing that the Pakistani Government should have seen fit, if the reports are accurate, to have detained her and questioned her. It's not clear what crime she committed.”

What happened to Mai is happening everyday to scores of people in Pakistan. Only they are not, by circumstances, so well known by their misfortunes to have attracted world wide focus of attention. Not only in Pakistan, too often for the comfort of prudent constitutionalists, the army walks in when ever it so feels, by ousting an elected government to assume total control of the powers of the state.

Those with memory may recall that, but for 9/11, the US foreign policy towards tin pot military dictators was brilliantly summed by President Clinton when he made a four hour stop in Islamabad on 25th April 2000, after four days in India . He not only refused to see Musharraf, calling instead on the elected President Tarar, he publicly admonished the General for having committed the gravest political crime one can imagine of using the powers of the state’ s army to arbitrarily take over from an elected head of government.

Under a military regime nothing seems sacrosanct in Pakistan, least of all the liberty of the citizens and respect for Rule of Law. But the press needs to be given high praise as it ensures that thuggish behavior cannot always be kept hidden. Before concluding, I must mention the grave and ferocious injustice now done to a Christian child at the hands of a villainous culture that seems undeterred by the commission of such evil crimes. As mentioned earlier, there is the most recent case of such morbid and painful activity. On September 5th, a 12-year-old Christian female child, Sairah Tabassum, was reportedly abducted and gang raped for several days by 16 Muslim men near Islamabad. It is further reported in the press that, during such rapes, she was told to convert to being a Muslim.

This terrible case has been focused upon by foreign media. So the story of Pakistan, rapes of women and the ruthless indifference, even surreptitious connivance of the Government towards this issue goes on. The regime is only keen to “protect its image”, whatever that means. General Musharraf statements’ on this sorry topic equate Pakistan’s interests with that of the General himself. The US crutches, made available since 9/11, to a military junta and the military uniform kept by the Pakistan Army Chief, years after his legal retirement, are as much threat to democracy as to a decent living of all, particularly women. Sociologically, if the military dictatorship feels women are out to do anything for getting money and foreign visa, what can be said of the ordinary people in a conservative milieu?

Katrina Journal, Part II

And there was a family I became particularly fond of: the Nolands from St. Bernard Parish. Leeane, the mom, was only 6 years younger than me. She chain smoked as she told me stories about her sons and her parents (who were also there at the shelter). The family had created their own “home” in a corner of the shelter. They had squared off the corner with beds and a long table, and all the possessions they had left in this world were in that corner: boxes with piles of clothing and other essentials in them, 3 or 4 suitcases, some linens and kitchen items. Leeane’s mom, Suzanne, had lost her oldest daughter (and Leeane’s sister) to breast cancer a few years earlier. Her eyes were still haunted with that experience and she didn’t talk much, but I loved it when I could make her smile. Leeane and her mom and dad had survived Hurricane Betsy in 1965, but said “Betsy was a baby compared to Katrina.” Leeane had to leave 3 dogs behind. One was so old she had no hope she would survive the storm, but she did have hope for the other 2.

The Nolands had just gotten finished remodeling their house when Katrina burst in. They had put in all new floors, painted and wallpapered. Leeane loved the results and said "Now my home looks just the way I’ve always wanted it to." They were content to live there forever. St. Bernard was their only home and the only home they wanted. Really, it was their world. They were determined to go back and rebuild, no matter what it took-–even if it took years. If anyone could have held onto that hope after seeing the total destruction that Katrina wrought in St. Bernard Parish, it would be the Noland family. Leeane was strong–-hard-headed, as she put it–-and there wasn’t much that could destroy that spirit, but I was concerned that if she went back to see where her home used to be (which she would do if it were possible) when they started letting people into St. Bernard, it would be a crushing blow. The area was designated a “hot spot” meaning it was toxic and uninhabitable.

The Nolands, along with a lot of other people in the shelter, had left NOLA a day or 2 before the storm hit, packing into their cars with whatever and whoever would fit, thinking they’d be back home in 2-3 days. None of them was prepared for what happened next. Many came with their whole families and so knew that their loved ones were safe and well. Sometimes members of the same family got to the same shelter at different times. But many left loved ones behind in the city because they were stubborn and refused to leave, or because they were ill or elderly or disabled and could not leave. Most of them found out later that those loved ones had died. A few families had been split up and were at different shelter or in different states. But for those there was usually a way to connect and most were satisfied that their families were ok. I heard only one story of someone being separated from a child–-but of course even one is too many.

Most of the residents were very grateful for the support they were getting and overwhelmed by the generosity of the volunteers, relief organizations, communities, and fellow evacuees. I repeatedly heard that their priorities had changed and they realized that material things were nice but not as essential as they had thought they were before they lost them. What was missed the most were things that contained memory–-especially photographs or a family table that had marked special occasions for generations. Houses could be rebuilt, photos and heirlooms could not.

The vast majority of shelter residents in Erwinville were black (as were the vast majority of NOLA residents). There was racism (classism?)evident in some of the shelter residents–both black and white--who blamed the problems at the beginning of the disaster (looting, shooting, etc.) on blacks and even expressed the hope that NOLA would be better now that “they” had lost their run-down and dangerous neighborhoods.

There was a significant military and police presence in Baton Rouge, and they were at the shelter, too. The military there were very polite but didn’t interact much with the residents. They basically sat at a table inside the front door of the shelter and talked to each other.

The shelter residents were by no means all poor or unskilled as some might assume from looking at them and sensing their neediness. They were engineers and teachers, musicians and former military, nurses and business people, carpenters and janitors, as well some who had been unemployed–-a wide range of occupations, education levels, income, and social positions.

I did quite a bit of counseling at the staff shelter as well. Tonio did DA (Damage Assessment) in the New Orleans area and it really got to him on an emotional level. He talked to me for a long time on a couple of occasions. The children wandering around, hungry and clothed in rags or their underwear, without parental supervision in unsafe areas upset him terribly. He wished he had clothing to give them. He cried as he told me about them. He would get out of his truck (which was expressly prohibited since the air and water in the city was contaminated) and hug them. I helped him realize that he could help them but not save them. We became good friends and he told everyone I was his “personal counselor.”

One day at Erwinville, just as we were arriving, 2 women were in the parking lot looking disappointed and closing up the hatch of their car. They told us they brought clothing to the shelter but it wasn’t needed there and they didn’t know what to do with it. Most of it, they said was children’s clothing. I said “I know what to do with it” and told them about Tonio and what he’d been seeing in New Orleans. She gave me a laundry basket full of children’s clothes, along with a few adult things. Later at “home” I gave it to Tonio and he got teary.

Anne and Kathy decided they wanted to go to another shelter every other day because we’d done such a good job at Erwinville that we weren’t needed there every day. That’s when Margaret sent us to Iberville, “about 12 miles” south of Baton Rouge.

As we drove down to Iberville we got lost, as usual! The shelter was in a community center, like the one in Erwinville (we’d figured out at this point that we were only going to be sent to places that ended in “ville”). But this place was bigger. It was also organized to the point of seeming obsessively so. Clothing was laid out on the bleachers that were upstairs on one side of the large main room where cots were set up, and organized according to gender, type, and size. The area was chained off so that people needed to be admitted by one of the Dow volunteers who were in charge. There were announcements over the loudspeaker about events in the shelter (various support groups, after-school homework help, etc.). It felt regimented to us and when we met the ARC mental health worker Mike and the others in charge, we were troubled. Mike looked at us and said “You look so fresh! How long have you been here?” When we told him this was Day 6, he looked puzzled and said that it was his 6th day as well. He looked exhausted and manic. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night and was clearly not taking care of himself. And neither were the others. They talked about the shelter residents as though they belonged to them, and boundaries were blurred. They took pictures of them, which we were expressly forbidden to do, and talked about emailing them. Mike had “adopted" 2 shelter families. They were rescuers. Control was the operative word and we saw it everywhere. It was a hierarchical operation and volunteers would wait around doing nothing until told what to do by Mike or another of the 3 or 4 staff who were “in charge.”

There was a sort of revival going on. We were told it was intended to lift everyone’s spirits because the shelter was closing on Saturday and the residents would be moved again. But it felt bizarre to me, especially when the preacher looked over at me, pointed his finger, and yelled “Sing! Sing!” Of course, I didn’t, but many were singing and clapping. I thought “This is a cult” and wanted to get out of there. We did some work. I helped a large family shop in the clothing area and that gave me a good way to talk to them about how they were doing. Sally, one of the women in the family, had invited all her relatives to come to her home before Katrina hit. She ended up with 27 people living in her house because those she invited invited their friends. She was extremely stressed and tired, so I spent a lot of time talking with her. But by about 3pm we’d all had enough and decided to leave and decided to tell Margaret we didn’t want to go back.

Margaret called and said she wanted us to come to HQ between 8:30-9am the following morning, and that she was probably going to split our team in two and add newcomers to each group. We needed Don’s Bloody Marys that night.

The next morning we were miraculously on time because we didn’t get lost and the traffic was relatively light. Margaret said we were all going to New Orleans, but to 2 different sections: one team to Harvey and one to Hahnville (that “ville” again!). We were to follow the ERVs (the vehicles that volunteers made food in and distributed it on the streets and at community centers) and to talk to people at the kitchens. As it happened, as soon as we got to NOLA, the ERV assignments were dropped in favor of people going to St. Bernard, which had been devastated and was now beginning to allow people to come back and look at their homes (or former homes). I thought a lot about the Noland family while that was happening.

So, the teams became Joan, Kathy, and Anne, and me, Becky, and Ted. I was so upset I started crying. The level of my distress surprised me, but we were all upset. We were a TEA, or an EAM–-not a TEAM anymore. I took Margaret outside to have a cigarette and asked whether it wouldn’t make more sense to put 2 experienced people with each newcomer. She was friendly and nice, but said no it wouldn’t because Becky and Ted would feel more comfortable if they stayed together-–and that was that.

...To be continued

Katrina Journal, Part 1

I had more than a little anxiety when I began this adventure. I received an urgent email from NBCC (National Board for Certified Counselors) saying the American Red Cross was waiving the usual disaster training for mental health volunteers because the need was so urgent. After watching the TV coverage of Katrina and seeing people who had lost everything, I knew I had to be there. But since I had never done any disaster work before, I didn’t know how it operated or what it would require. All I knew was that I had a skill that could help. So I faxed in the forms from the NBCC website and waited for a response. It came quickly in the form of a voicemail message saying I was to call a travel agency number, give them my Disaster Relief code for Baton Rouge, and they would book my flight. I booked a round trip, nonstop flight from Chicago to Baton Rouge, leaving 9/10 and returning 9/24.

The flight was quick and easy, and I felt more relaxed when I got to Baton Rouge. I called ARC HQ and spoke to a sweet woman named Tagreet who told me to take a taxi directly to my shelter since the HQ would be closed by the time I got there. I was told the shelter was only 12 miles from the airport. Later, this became a running joke with members of my team, since every time we asked how far something was the answer was “it’s not far--about 12 miles.” The taxi driver and I had time for a long chat, since the shelter was a great deal more than 12 miles away! In fact, it was 12 miles from the airport to the city, and my shelter was in Denham Springs, which was a suburb NE of Baton Rouge. The driver told me that he had 2 other families staying at his house and his daughter had taken in 3 families. This was my first glimpse into how the people of Louisiana were pulling together to support each other. It was only the first of hundreds of stories I was to hear in the coming days.

Shelter for ARC staff was in the Hebron Baptist Church. Later I found out there were other staff shelters in local churches, with varying facilities. Our shelter had a capacity of 200. We had a big floor with cots to sleep in, scratchy wool blankets, clean towels, a women’s bathroom with 3 sinks, 3 toilets, and 2 showers (I assume it was the same on the men’s side), home cooked meals nearly every night made by the local Stepford Wives, a whole wall of boxes of MREs, our laundry taken and brought back the same day by the aforementioned Stepford Wives, sandwiches in the refrigerator to take with us for lunch, piles and rows of assorted snack foods always out on the tables in the dining area and in the kitchen, tons of bottles of water, strong and plentiful coffee in the morning, and caring shelter directors. I slept fitfully that first night–-overtired, and kept awake by constant snoring, coughing, suitcase zippers, and creaking cots. Lights out at 10pm and lights on at 6am. Not hours for a night person!

The next morning at Baton Rouge HQ was an experience. They had just commandeered an old Wal-Mart the previous week and turned it into HQ in 2 days. It was big, vast, crowded, and confusing. Lots of frustration, waiting on lines and having some difficulty figuring out how to “in-process.” Mental health orientation took 1 hour and 20 minutes. Could have been much briefer, but Ron enjoyed talking about his own experiences and perspectives. He enjoyed that a lot. He said one thing in particular that stuck with me and my teammates: “You come first, then staff, then clients.” The reason for this is that if we do not put ourselves first, we cannot help anyone. My team took that very much to heart and were always mindful of self-care... especially after we discovered the 2-for-1 Bloody Marys at Don’s Seafood Restaurant! Best Bloody Marys any of us had ever had.

So, back to orientation. Margaret, our supervisor, was dubbed “Patton” by my teammate Joan because she was stocky, had a raspy voice, and didn’t hear it when you answered “no.” She also had a good sense of humor, and is as Irish as they come-–probably in her 60s, with a bleached blonde bob, square face, and eyes that said “If you’re going to complain, I’m not interested.” I had one major complaint for her, but that came later.

Ron and Margaret split our mental health group of 7 into 2 teams. One team of 3 went to the Cajun Dome, which was quite a distance away in Lafayette and had about 5,000 residents and a none-to-favorable rep at that point, so our team was much relieved to hear we weren’t going there. The 4 of us were assigned to an evacuee shelter in Erwinville, home to about 250 men, women, and children. We were told Erwinville was “about 12 miles” west of the city. It turned out to be 35 miles from our shelter, but who’s counting. My team couldn’t have been better. There was Joan, who is a social worker in private practice who focuses on the mind-body connection, spiritual counseling, and children; Kathy, who is a college counselor and the youngest, and Anne, who is a college professor with a lot of experience working with trauma. The 4 of us were complementary and we found as time went on we just intuitively understood where we fit in terms of the team and serving the shelter residents.

We also found that we shared a profound lack of a sense of direction. Some of that could be blamed on the fact that we were given no decent maps, that the MapQuest maps and directions we were given are often confusing and/or plain wrong, and that we couldn’t find a good map at a gas station. As a result, whenever we got into our car together, we got lost. This gave us lots of time to get to know each other. It always took us 2 hours to get anywhere, and the traffic was horrendous because Baton Rouge’s population doubled with the influx of evacuees from Katrina. But through it all, we laughed till we cried when Joan’s wry sense of humor kicked into high gear (which was just about always), we learned to respect one another’s unique abilities, we developed an affection for one another’s foibles and the mistakes or forgetfulness that often presented when we were tired or stressed–-which was all the time. But we kept each other sane, focused, and relatively calm. Many volunteers were not so fortunate and not so calm. Some volunteers also came for the wrong reasons (to save the evacuees or avoid dealing with their own recent traumas).

We all disliked the Red Cross vests-–or “aprons” as we called them. They were cut too wide for slim women and were huge on all of us... not to mention hot. I thought they looked like fast-food restaurant uniforms and had the urge now and then to say “You want fries with that?”

Our team did good work at Erwinville and by the time we left a week later, most residents were stable and the atmosphere was much improved. When we got there we found some depression, a lot of confusion and disorientation, many still in shock and disbelief about their situation, a few who needed meds, and children who were being neglected by their parents and were angry and acting out. But even with all those problems, there were very few who were deeply despairing and very few adults who were acting out in ways that were harmful to the community. For the most part, they had pulled together to support each other and although none of them had much of anything left in terms of material possessions, they had reordered their priorities and put caring for each other at the top of the list. This was mirrored by the entire state of Louisiana. Donations of clothing, food, toiletries, baby needs, and equipment of every kind were flowing in like a deep unending river. Our shelter had more than we could use and it just kept coming. People were taking other people into their homes and into their hearts. Members of the community came to our shelter to bring things, take the kids for a “day out,” or to give comfort in whatever way they could. People gave when they had next to nothing themselves. One Catholic woman came in on behalf of her church to bring rosary beads just in case there were any Catholic residents who wanted them. There was no proselytizing involved, just the impulse to share. Of course, there are always those who would take advantage of the chaos and neediness of such a situation, and they were around, too. But those were isolated incidents, annoying and sometimes harmful, but not typical or pervasive.

And we heard so many stories. There was Harriet, who lost her home and had to leave her disabled sister behind. She had not been able to find out where she was and didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. There was Alice, a former schoolteacher who wore her hair in curlers all day under a hair net, had lost several members of her family in the flood, but was determined to start a new life at age 68. There was Duane, a wiry Cajun in his 50s who had escaped Katrina by putting a motor on his bicycle and heading out down the highway--reaching Baton Rouge (normally an hour’s drive from NOLA) in 8 hours on one gallon of gas. He would speed past motorists stuck in traffic on the highway and then stop under shelter when it rained and wave to those same motorists as they passed him.

... To be continued

ISLAM & EXTREMISM

Synopsis of Address presented at the Center for Society & Secularism
Professor Dr. FAROOQ HASSAN [1]
Mumbai, India, 2005

It is a privilege to address this distinguished gathering of scholars of Islam, multi-religious culture and historiography. Ideas of such intellectual leadership of both theoreticians and activists of these fields would hopefully advance our understanding of the difficult and highly delicate subject of Islam and extremism. In this analysis the doctrinal aspects of Islam’s theology as found in the basic sources and perspectives of the faith will be briefly examined. It would then be seen whether its fundamental norms are per se in character “extremist”?

The difficulties to which I refer should be properly comprehended. There is no a priori norm in Islamic theology making it “extremist” in its doctrines or approaches with respect to its core beliefs. No inherent predilection exits in the Muslim Faith as such to justify such derogatoriness in especially the Western critiques and commentaries. Such critical descriptions of Islam and Muslims aim to clearly denigrate their religious beliefs and personal characteristics. This matter of Islamic defamations has reached such a proportion that it is being put to routine ridicule by those who politically or publicly matter. It is most regrettable that Islam is being equated with a phenomenon of fear by most non-Muslim societies especially those in the Western world. Consequently every negative implication is now freely being ascribed to Muslims by many Western societies.

The root cause of this defamation is said to be “extremism” through which Muslim groups have acted purportedly with great tenacity of aggression against their targets. According to the proponents of this perspective, it is this horrendous phenomenon that has resulted in wide spread acts of terrorism against many, but, mostly, Western targets. According to the adherents of this view the “avenging” by several Muslim groups through such criminal acts is on the foundation of religious interpretation of their holy scriptures.

Given the widespread anti-Islamism unleashed particularly after 9/11, we now have an intricate conflict at hand in which often for various sets of people, Muslims are looked upon as the "enemy". From barbaric, fanatic, violent and militant to being inhuman, every negative characteristic is now freely being ascribed to Muslims by those whose own status in the field of civilized conduct has been generally considered to be a role model for others to emulate. 

This attitude, inter alia, is defiling the sanctity of the Islamic faith which inherently supports temperance and is based on justice and equality for all mankind. It was indeed such a message of equal treatment for all that initially led, and continues to provide, new entrants into Islam. In this context, two perspectives asserted by anti-Islamic defamatory rhetoric dealing with the both causation and consequences deserve mention.

In more ways than one, these two factors are the product of modern international history. First, this school of thought asserts that as a doctrinal consequence of being in the “fundamentalist” Islamic fold, Muslims are led to carry out Jihad. This term is then further interpreted to signify the launching of a "holy war" to achieve its ends and goals. The second factor is its consequence. It is stated that “terrorism” results on account of acts of extremists as it is a part of the mindset of the fundamentalists. In other words Jihad is said to be the basis of terrorism. In sum it is more or less assumed, particularly by the less articulate and not well informed, or by those whose policies dictate this to be so perceived, that Muslims generally are a people who are bent upon supporting a fanatic ideology.

Suffice it to say that the Islamic concept of “jihad” is for emphasizing human struggle for progress and betterment. Jihad is a basic Quranic concept that derives from the root-word “jahada” meaning “striving” or “making an effort”. The highest form of “jihad” in Islam (“jihad al akbar”) is against one’s own shortcomings and weaknesses. It is an ongoing struggle to make one's self better in every way. Another form of “jihad” (“jihad al-asghar”) is struggle against socials ills and injustice. [2]

The deployment of the term “fundamentalism” in this context in my view is misconceived and should be only used with appropriate exactitude. It will be later articulated with some detail that it is theoretically incorrect to use this term in any Islamic doctrinaire expose. Historically, the word “fundamentalism” comes not from the theological foundations of Islam but from the history of American evangelical Protestant Christianity of the 1920s. As pointed out by a leading compendium on Religions in the United States:

‘Fundamentalism’ is a subspecies of evangelicalism. The term originated in America in 1920 and refers to evangelicals who consider it a chief Christian duty to combat uncompromisingly ‘modernist’ theology and certain secularizing cultural trends. Organized militancy is the feature that most clearly distinguishes fundamentalists from other evangelicals. Fundamentalism is primarily an American phenomenon. [3]

We may thus like to keep in mind that in theological history the term “fundamentalism” comes from American Christian denominational evolution. It is used to refer to a person who believes in the basic and literal tenets of Christianity and the core texts and scriptures of the Christian Faith. On the other hand, as a preliminary postulate, it may be articulated that all Muslims believe in the fundamentals of Islam i.e. belief in One God and the prophets sent by God, in Prophetic books, the Day of Judgment, and duties directed toward God (“Haquq Allah”) as well as those directed toward God’s creatures (“Haquq al ‘ibad”). Muhammad is, by Islamic belief, the last of the Prophets following many others including both Jesus and Moses.

Be that as it may, this castigation of Muslims generally in this manner is now inextricably bound with the current highly charged political, strategic and social upheavals that are in evidence since the beginning of the present millennium in nearly all Muslim countries. To understand this subject with objectivity, it is necessary to draw a balance between doctrinal purity on the one hand and the felt “necessities” of time on the other. [4]

Thus pragmatism is necessarily relevant in this inquiry. Any other manner of approach based upon purely academic niceties devoid of the realties that clearly confront us would not result in a meaningful awareness of this subject. It is further to be noted that any inquiry regarding how the so called “fundamentalists” view Islam’s perceptions on issues of contemporary significance, without examining the totality of the surrounding phenomenon, which is essentially political in nature, would be incomplete, perhaps giving rise to even misleading conclusions. As such, I sincerely felicitate the organizers of this meeting as they manifestly have the vision to find answers to such contentious inquiries at the present time.

Introductory premises & perspectives

Before examining the relevant issues relating to this matter, let me briefly articulate my basic and introductory understanding of this subject. Every religion has some aspects of its core beliefs and tenets which are so fundamental that without which no particular faith can even claim to exist. In this sense, could one say that all faiths are “fundamentalist” in character? By reducing such fundamental beliefs to an irreducible minimum, the answer would be in the affirmative. In this sense, the term is used with purely theological connotations in mind and not with any political, social or psychological nuances in our purview.

But diverse problems begin to arise when such attitudes get mixed up and mingled in the complexities of contemporary international politics and the resultant attitudes of those who feel that they have to “defend” their faiths in such situations. Cultural prejudices which are evidently heavily visible in many Islamic societies also compound the emergent problems.

The concept of “fundamentalism”, in the sense it has come to lately deployed, is essentially an attitude adopted by only some of the followers of a religion, mostly out of a sense of insecurity or a feeling that “the” religion, as they see it, is in danger of losing its identity; sometimes it is just an overt course of conduct for adopting a harsh, may be even violent, attitude towards some other group or groups of the people of the same faith; it could also be directed against outsiders and foreign entities with the same motivation. It can equally emanate as a tool or modality of raw power struggle nationally or internationally.

No religion is “fundamentalist” in this sense per se since none aims to be vindictive or destructive of those who just do not share the particular beliefs; if, however, its avowed goals, as seen by such partisans is to do so, then the real problem is not with the said faith but that group which so believes; as such generally it is only a group of followers of a religion who are fundamentalists and not the religion as such. [5]

Viewed as such, “fundamentalism” is not a monopoly of adherents of Islam; there are fundamentalist Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and even Buddhists. Sometimes so-called fundamentalist movements, particularly in Christianity, have served the purpose of cleansing social practices by going back to the original teachings but such movements are more properly to be described as 'reform' movements. [6] What is objectionable in this sense in 'fundamentalism' is the unstated assumption that its adherents alone know the true meaning of their religion; they go sometimes as far as to resort to violence against all and sundry who disagree with them. Such behavior is then regrettably justified by asserting it as being permissible by religious dogmas. As often is the case, the religion which these fundamentalists profess to be protecting usually forbids such violence or single mindedness of interpretation or thought.

With these preliminary comments about the ethos of ensuing analysis let me advert initially to the place and content of the basic beliefs within the confines of Islamic doctrinal postulates. After traversing these norms we shall see the “fundamentalist” or “extremist” versions of the important issues to reveal the manner through which the puritanical message of the faith is being gradually eroded. This process is in evidence partly at the hands of the Western critiques and partly due to the misguided acts involving terrible damage of Muslim extremists.

In parenthesis, I may note that I am acutely conscious of the inherent moral dangers of my approaching this topic as such. It could be argued that such an approach is itself predicated by an apologists’ mindset. While the superficial, even apparent, weight of such semantics is certainly historically visible, let me say that I articulate such a prognosis [analysis] on the basis of my own belief and attitude about these basically perspective issues on the foundation of my own experience and religious convictions.

I am sure that Islam, like other great religious philosophies of the human heritage, has to have in its fold a nucleus that is entirely reconcilable with equal treatment of all peoples, fairness and justice for all and in harmony with progressive evolution. I believe that having withstood the vicissitudes of time and of history for fifteen hundred years, Islam’s central position of evolution in the human race has to have primacy in all of its teachings. Not only thematically the central emphasis of such focus of Islam must keep abreast of different cultures and times, it has to be broad enough to accommodate in its fold the indispensability of meeting the needs of all mankind for all times. [7] God calls human beings as “Ashraf ul Mukhlukat”, or “the greatest of all his creations”. This concept should entail, a fortiori, highly responsible attitudes and humane outlook towards life itself.

This concept invariably also must incorporate those evolutionary changes in societal behavior which are natural and inevitable as history moves on. It should follow that basic Islamic postulates must remain genuinely progressive. Retrogressive thinking by going back in history in order to solve current problems cannot be the goals of enlightened Islamic thinking or behavior. We can admit that all relics of great civilizations often do produce a thinking trend that hopes at re-living the former periods of greatness of such peoples. But pragmatic awareness of important current realities would dictate that it may be better to think afresh about the future course of actions for such societies by keeping its former epochs of glory as a historical reminder of what has been lost.

True history can guide us from its repository of experiences and empiricism as to the course to adopt in times of choices. But it can not be the sole objective to simply live in the past howsoever glorified it may seem. Such an attitude would also work against the very concept of Ijtehad which is not only mandated and permissible by classical legal Islamic thinking, but is considered by many to be the touch stone of progress in Islamic attitudes towards matters of contemporary significance. [8]

Understanding Islam’s core doctrinal message

Islam places, as elaborated hereinafter, the highest significance to a few fundamental, or core, norms which have a dogmatic value for all Muslims. The message of Islam is contained in the word of God, the Holy Quran itself. In dealing with “fundamentals” of their religion, Islamic theologians distinguish between Iman (religious belief), Ibadat (religious duty pertaining to worship) and Ihsan (right doing), all which are included in the term Din (religion). The Quran says:

“Verily the religion (din) with God is Islam. [9]

Iman involves the foremost Islamic normative article of Faith. It involves belief in One God and his Angles, His books, his Messengers and the Last day of Judgment. For Muslims this Iman is epitomized in the norm, “la ilaha illa-l-lah”: no god whatsoever but Allah (God), followed by “Muhammad ur Rasul Allah”: Muhammad is the Prophet of God. In Islamic religious postulates, God (Allah) is supreme and according to many scholars, 90 % of Islamic theology deals with this conception in diversified forms and modalities. [10]

Beyond this mandatory article of Faith are said to exist five pillars (arkan) for Muslims to believe in. These are:

1. Shadaht ( Iman ) , that is belief in Oneness of the Almighty God (Allah) and the end of Prophet-hood with Muhammad.

2. Prayer as an institution of collective well being. It is to be offered five times a day. [11] Except for Friday afternoon prayer which is public in nature, the rest are all to be privately offered.

3. Alms giving. It is doctrinally a voluntary obligation given out of love and goodness and is akin to piety. Zakat is the giving of legal alms. [12]

4. Fasting is an obligatory matter as the Quran specifically mentions the month of Ramadan [13].

5. Pilgrimage is the fifth and last pillar of Islam. Once in a life time a Muslim of either sex should perform it if it can be afforded [14].

It would be seen that Islam really only means submission to God or Allah and nothing more. The five arkan or fundamentals of Islam are essentially private acts and their performance is left to an individual’s priorities, health and inclinations. Howsoever performed, their undertaking would lead to the uplifting of personal piety or taqwa, which has high moral significance for any Muslim. Islam’s fundamental norms of observance have a simple existentialist approach and aim to create a highly moral people. Except, therefore, for the basic dogma that Muslims must believe in One God and in the institution of Prophets ending with Muhammad, they do have to observe, on a voluntary basis the other five responsibilities if they wish and physically can do so. Conversely, the state’s role in regulating individual’s personal life is vastly restricted and, by evolution, only the nominal Zakat tax could be collected from a person’s unused accumulated wealth. Indeed, the polity of Islamic society would ensure that the greatest deregulated form of governmental edifice is really permitted in Islamic theology.

Islam forbids terrorism

While no generally agreed upon definition of terrorism has been internationally legally formulated [15] it may be stated that Islam’s doctrinal emphasis never preaches or condones either terrorism or extremism with the intent to harm the lives or property of innocent people. It would be helpful to quote the following Statement issued by the Council of Arab Ministers of Interior & Justice in Cairo as recently as 1998 in which it was agreed that ‘terrorism” would mean:

Terrorism is any act involving violence or aggression, whatever its motives or it individual, and which aims to cause terror or alarm among people by harming communal aims, which is committed in order to carry out a criminal enterprise, be them or endangering their lives, their freedom or security, by doing damage to the environment, facilities or public or private property, by stealing or seizing such property, or by endangering some national resource. [16]

We may further note and refer to the well-known Quranic passages that support such a conclusion. Islam, while denouncing terrorism in all its forms, advocates its adherents to shun away from violence and aggression. Indeed violence to one’s self is equally prohibited:

And make not your own hands contribute to (your) destruction. [17]

The Quran upholds the sanctity of human life. This is absolute in its applicability. The major Commandment on this occurs in Sura an An’am:

…do not take any human being’s life, (the life)
Which God has declared to be sacred; otherwise than in (pursuit of);
Justice, this has He enjoined you so that you might use your reason. [18]

In Sura al- Maidah occurs the famous verse in which it has been stated that he who slew a person is as culpable as if he slew a community. The Quran says:

We ordained
For the Children of Israel
That if any one slew
A person, unless it be
For murder or for spreading
Mischief in the land,
It would be as if
He slew the whole people;
And if any one saved a life,
It would be as if he saved
The life of a whole people. [19]

Therefore, as provided for in all major legal systems, it is absolutely forbidden to take a human life for private aims or for the thinking of a particular group. The sanctity of life is the basis of several further injunction contained in the Quran and it seems that to contend, as some critics of Islam are apparently doing, that terrorism emanates from religious beliefs is not correct.

Theoretically, all Muslims must believe in these norms that have been outlined above. So, in this sense, unlike Christianity, all people of the Islamic faith have a uniform code of core beliefs. Howsoever described, it is doctrinally incorrect to say that it is the fundamentals of the faith that are responsible for terrorism.

Realization of this fact in the relevant Western places of influence and power has resulted in a changed nomenclature of this phenomenon to that of Islamic “extremism”. By this description it is aimed to convey that those culpable of such actions have political or social motivations to cause panic and terror to achieve their purposes. Conversely, it is not that the Faith but matters of a political nature that are the cause of this malaise.

Seen in this context, it can be seriously questioned how every norm of doctrinal Islam can be described by its current “opponents” as the basis of terrorism. How can it be that Islam is so depicted that it begins to appear to be quite fearsome, or totalitarian, in approach that it can “compel” people from the Philippines to Indonesia to Pakistan to Chechnya to Palestine to commit suicides and murder many others? Even a moment’s reflection will be enough to make us realize that the causation of such acts is not religion but local and regional politics and the feeling of being the victims of aggressors.

Throughout its history, Islamic faith has been both deeply cherished and misunderstood for its emphasis on enveloping the entirety of a person’s life with its normative structure of rules of conduct and precepts. Amongst the major norms of such expected behavior are those that are devised to apply to the institution of the family, women, and the weak in the society. Simultaneously, the jurisprudence and moral philosophy of the faith also acutely focuses on the larger matter pertaining to the subject of human rights of the human race. [20]

Today’s discussion proceeds in the background of an acute crisis of international proportions regarding the message and place of contemporary Islam. Whether or not one agrees with the thesis advocated initially in modern times by Samuel Huntington, it cannot be ignored that from the political avocations to the cultural, religious practices and beliefs of Muslims have come under severe criticism in the popular Western press and governments. As such the “clash” that he spoke of has arisen, realistically speaking, from the imperceptible to the visible.

In my view, Huntington was regrettably realistic in projecting a thesis of Clash of Civilizations in the 21st Century. However, such clashes are fundamentally of “political’ dimension and have little by way of application in the private or ordinary lives of Muslims. This conviction has been strengthened by the late Pope John Paul’s recent affirmation of this trend in his recent address to a multi-congregational audience in Assisi on 1/22/2002. At that time he said, particularly to the Muslims, that he feared what he saw was an ongoing, even increasing, crescendo of clashes, involving the Western civilizations and that of the Islamic peoples. As such, ab initio, while the Huntington variety of clash is entirely of political connotations, it has begun to engulf larger populations of Muslims in the totality of their lives. When such metamorphosis begins, the finer distinctions of political and religious tend to disappear.

In face of such an onslaught, many Islamic leaders have plainly become afraid and a few have openly defended anything that Muslims believe in or do. It is indeed “fashionable” to appear to be “modernistic” in outlook in all that affects the statecraft of such nations. In this context, in a Hegelian sense of historical perspective, recent political events towards a “secularized” Islamic World have to be seen. [21] Different phrases to denote this emphasis are employed by powers that may be to exhibit such a policy. However, I am certain that “secular” in this context is not the equivalent of “liberal”. The former has a political expediency angle underlying its avocation or adoption. The latter is an index of a thought process of policy and attitudes.

When this process of being placed to “defend” one’s faith is initiated, so-called hard liners become ascendant. Amongst the major objectives they advocate for societal resurgence include ones of being avowedly self righteous and totally bound with the past. According to some strategic thinking, this behavior is deemed “desirable” by such hard liners since it provides them with a psychological sense of relief considering they are convinced they are under siege from the those who are believed to be aggressing somewhere against the Muslims in the vicinity.

Humanitarian postulates and dogmas of Islam, as of other great faiths, are heavily grounded on principles of high morality. Any dilution in their ethos would be a devastating blow to the religious practices of its millions of adherents. Extremists may have political motivations for doing what they are undertaking, but it is not for Islam. To do so in the name of Islam, even if it so proclaimed, is both unjustified and regrettable.

Before concluding this phase of this presentation, it may be mentioned that the theological controversies which confronts doctrinal Islam are as much the result of its religious opponents as they are of its ardent political supporters. Many crucial issues have thus been confounded by its own clergy, or what goes generally undisputed by such labels. If I may, most respectfully, quote from one of my own legal works on this subject:

“History has dealt an irony, in that Islam has often been controlled by priests though the faith rejects the institution of organized priesthood. By the term “priest” I do not include the great saints, mystics, traditionalists’ thinkers and other men of piety and learning who form a distinct class. For centuries the ill educated mullahs have periodically monopolized the pulpit. With one hand, the mullah has woven into Islam a crazy network of fantasy and fanaticism. With the other hand, has often used it as an elastic cloak for political power and expediencies.” [22]

The foreseeable challenges thus emanate from a desire to have religion serve patently irreligious goals and from illogically admonishing the liberal facets of contemporary thinking about human rights and perceivable trends. Indeed, all religions that have survived through man’s history over several hundreds of years stress essentially a message to be progressive, tolerant and to avoid rigidity. The broader aim of every society that aims to be genuinely attentive to all within its fold has to be “liberal" in the sense Rawls has canvassed, not in an empty sense in which contemporary politicians, some of tremendous international weight, have been stressing of late. Since the later classes of people have transformed even some of the most innocuous and rhetorical sounding precepts of liberalism and morals into one of ferocious political transformation of society ever witnessed in human history.

Basic Islamic societal conceptions

Apart from its core beliefs outlined earlier, it may specifically mentioned that in Islam there is great emphasis in what are generally referred to as “care rights”. The philosophy behind this thinking is that Muslims are enjoined by Allah to be kind and compassionate to others in the society. Once properly comprehended, it would be axiomatic that all talk of undertaking revengeful acts of “terrorism” against others becomes less than substantially meaningful. [23]

It may be instructive to review the doctrinal basis of the “care” rights in the philosophy generated by the Quran. As I see it, two predominant themes permeate this subject.

First, the basis of all the desirable human actions emanate in the concept of kindness, especially towards women, children and non Muslims. In Arabic, the corresponding word for God’s ever present kindness is designated by the word “Rahim” or “Rahman”. This word appears many times in the Quran and indicates one of the titles for God by reference to him as “the Kind One” or “the One Who gives kindness”. Indeed, this word is oft repeated in Muslim prayers and is perhaps the most beloved of God’s descriptions in human vocabulary. Linguistically, it comes from the root word “Rahm” meaning the “womb”. It underscores the theme of God’s care and love for all His creatures as a “Mother”. This is important for it also shows the status eventually bestowed upon the institution of motherhood in the human race.

The loving and compassionate attitude of “care” is amply reflected in the Quran. [24] The Quran further indicates that He is pleased with those who are kind and helpful to those in need and distress. He further says that He will reward “good deeds” of this category in a special way. [25] As briefly mentioned in the earlier part of this narrative, Islam actually demarcates two kinds of rights for Muslims to observe. The first category is that of “Rights of God” called “Haqauq Allah” while the second category is known as “Rights of God’s creatures”. This is known as “Huqaq al ibad”. The Quran and classical Islamic writers are explicit in diverse ways that unless a person fulfills both kinds of rights in his life, his totality of human duties remain unsatisfied. Indeed, in terms of spirituality, it is also maintained that obedience to God is not really complete unless help is rendered to one’s family, then to kith and kin, then to ones other distant relatives needing assistance and finally to neighbors and even strangers that come to visit a person of means. [26] The Quran says:

Sees thou one
Who denies Judgment (To come)?
Then such is the (man)
Who repulses the orphan (With harshness),
The feeding of the indigent.
So woe to the worshippers
Who are neglectful of their Prayer
Of their Prayer
Those who (want but)
To be seen (of men),
But refuse (to supply)
(Even) neighborly needs. [27]

The second basis of these rights is the Islamic conceptions of Justice. It will be seen that the Quran, while addressing the matters of human relationships, laid the greatest stress on justice in both public and private life. Justice, accordingly, is thus a divinely mandated duty of all Muslims. Whether it is a question of the rights of the members of family, or those of the people in a State, Quran mandates in various forms the highest adherence to Justice, called “adl”. While there may be a number of ways to look at this phenomenon, I think the basic message of Quran is that the merit and the quality of one’s claims and demands or expectations are to be evaluated on the basis of justice and righteousness. It is self evident that a “just society” cannot take away the property or lives of others in any reckless manner through acts of terrorism.

Righteousness itself consists of three elements:

Belief (Iman)
Just action (“’amal”)
Adl

Accordingly for any human action to be acceptable in a worldly context, it must nevertheless accord high priorities to these notions enumerated above for it to be considered worthwhile in a religious or spiritual connotation. A most eloquent expose’ of this thought comes in the following Quranic pronouncement:

It is not righteousness
That you turn your faces
Towards East or west;
But it is righteousness,
To believe in God
And the Last Day,
And the Angles,
And the Book
And the Messengers;
To spend your substance,
Out of love for Him
For your kin
For Orphans,
For the needy
For the wayfarer
For those who ask,
And for the ransom of slaves
To be steadfast in prayer,
And practice regular charity;
To fulfill the contracts
Which you have made;
And to be firm and patient,
In pain (or suffering)
And adversity,
And throughout
All periods of panic
Such are the people
Of truth, the God-fearing. [28]

In another notable injunction, the Quran candidly asserts: -

The most honored of you
In the sight of Allah
Is (he who is) the most
Righteous of you. [29]

One other memorable passage about Justice may be mentioned before leaving this point. The Quran says:

O ye who believe!
Standout firmly
For justice, as witnesses
To Allah, even as against
Yourselves…………
Follow not the lusts
(Of your hearts), lest ye
Swerve, and if ye
Distort (justice) or decline
To do justice, verily
Allah is well acquainted
With all that ye do. [30]

The above brief analysis reveals the emphatic focus that the Quran places on the concept of “ kindness” and “justice”. There are other allied concepts as well that tend to generate the ethos of Islamic dynamics towards creating a “caring” society with the family occupying the pivotal position. [31] It is self evident tha,t while addressing matters relating to affection for one’s family, one’s kith and kin and neighbors the allied expectation of assistance required of a Muslim community, the ingredient of “Adl” or justice plays a uniquely esoteric and ethical role.

Extremists’ emphasis

In an environment of changing, or even “decaying”, public mores or traditions, moral and ethical Islamic doctrines can still install progressive, yet conservative, perspectives in important matters relevant to a proper and caring development of the society. The protagonists of an active fundamentalist philosophy, or that of the extremist orientation, cannot of course dispute the availability of the Quranic messages already cited. Nevertheless, at the societal and cultural levels, they do have a divergent emphasis on certain “public” aspects of the role and functions of what good Muslim should do in life.

In my evaluation of this divergence, one can straightway and succinctly focus on three fields in which the active fundamentalist approaches may be particularly noticed. These three fields relate to:

Islamic education.
Ostensible compliance with Islamic norms with respect to public life.
Political life of the society and behavioral restrictions/ participation and responsibility relating thereto.

It will seen that the basic focus of all these three issues relates to an effort by the active fundamentalists’ thinking to regulate the development and movements of people in the particular society in which they live. The level of attaining these limitations would depend upon the quantum of societal awareness that already exists in that society. It is axiomatic that in more advanced and progressive environments the quantum of restrictions is both less and more subtle.

In societies, however, wherein the entireties of people are essentially Muslims, such as Pakistan or Iran, these “limitations” (from liberal perspectives) can be more ostensible and pronounced. Such pronounced and noticeable projected “fundamentalist” views on mores for ordinary people are usually more manifest in rural areas. In such countries, or in a number of Islamic societies in Africa, the attitudes of the fundamentalists have a decisive affect on societal practices. This was always historically true. But, with the advent of political developments of the last few years across the world in which Muslims find themselves the targets of various misfortunes, the fundamentalist activists have become understandably more goal oriented in their policies towards such matters.

In the implementation of such attitudes, the activist’s fundamentalist philosophy, usually accompanied by a depth of commitment, believes that if the public practices lend themselves to a trend in which they can feel that a “true” Islamic society is clearly visible, it is a step in the right direction. [32] In other words, a visual and apparent adherence to form, dress and behavior assumes a cardinal focus of such fundamentalist philosophy. These attitudes have been greatly hardened by what has gone on since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began. The resultant position being that there is clearly, from the perspectives of liberal or democratic ideals, a less than satisfactory status for the civil liberties in many such areas of the world.

Local customs and culture have also to be reckoned in such societies. In some such areas religion has to be attributed only a secondary role since it is the social rules of behavior that have to govern their daily lives. For instance, in Pakistan denial of some basic human rights of women as enunciated by Islam or in the accepted texts of the international community, such as violence or honor killings, have little to do with religion (which is clearly Islam) but are certainly connected and emanating from cultural prejudices and customary practices.

The aim of many conservatives’ elements in such environments is to ensure that the traditional and historical relics of the society are maintained. I believe that this is true of most Islamic societies as much as for people of other faiths in similar circumstances. [33] I can see that, inherently, this is only natural in any contemporary society and nothing seems to be basically unnatural about such phenomenon being visible.

It is thus sufficient to keep in mind that all such conservative and traditional thinking in the Islamic world would do well by trying to accommodate fundamental norms of democratic levels of acceptability in evaluating its future course of action. Only if this is done can Muslim societies hope to keep up with the contemporary scientific progress that has seemingly arisen through out the world.

Regrettably, in many Islamic societies, predilections towards such acceptable attitudes which are in harmony with contemporary ideas are not encouraged at the societal level. Manifestly in countries such as Pakistan, where the Government is visibly trying to be accommodatingly “progressive”, the integrity of such government policy itself is under serious challenge. It is considered simply opportunistic for a military dictatorship to appear to be in the Western led bandwagon of “rationality” or “secular” for purely self serving purposes. Not surprisingly, therefore, in Pakistan, wherein there is much demagoguery about “enlightened moderation of Islam”, there are more cases of gang rapes and honor killings than any where else in the world [34].

Indeed, many Muslim societies, despite the clear weight of history to create a just and egalitarian society, remain lost in achieving this pursuit. Polygamy, poverty, absence of gender equality, and otherwise mass scale denial of political an civil rights of the people at large are legal matters still awaiting a proper redress in many an Islamic environment. The reality is, unfortunately, true that genuine democratic thinking, much less behavior, is seldom a basic truth about most contemporary Islamic states. Most are straightforward dictatorships where even ostensibly “civilian” heads of government are continuing in office for twenty and thirty years!

This lamentable state of affairs is only possible with the active support of those countries’ armed forces. Most modern armed forces are basically of “secularized” thought since they often become the elitist segments of societies in many parts of the Third World, including the Muslim countries. [35] By their training and professional contacts it is clear that they have more in common with “foreign” segments of the advanced international civil society than with their own societal milieu, which is often ostensibly fairly religious and genuinely poor. Eventually, therefore, it is easy to see why in most such societies the active fundamentalist Islamic thinking is at variance with the policies of the armed forces of many such countries. [36]

Extremism, a political phenomenon

It is in this context that the current international political developments have to be seen. In the preceding analysis I have used the phrase “fundamentalist” to essentially designate that segment of the Muslim society which keenly believes and is dedicated to the overt observance of Islamic ideas and values about life. This segment of the Muslim civil society aims to project basically a religious and a spiritual outlook for Muslims in communities where Islam is to be found.

From this group there emerges a smaller core of still fervent believers who are activists as well. They in sincerity apparently believe in the recreation in practice in contemporary society of mostly the ritualistic aspects of Islam and of Muslim history in its times of glory. They may be referred to as the “activist fundamentalists” or simply as the “extremists”. This is the term which has been lately used by many, including the documents issued by the British Government in which it is asserted that the creation of an Islamic State is the ultimate aim of such partisans or “extremists”. Some Muslim scholars also submit that emulation of this glorious Islamic past is necessary to meet the current turmoils faced by the Muslims the world over. Crucially, they also call for the establishment of a Muslim State. [37] It is further argued by some, as the documents of the British Government assert, that this would be gained by various means including the use of Jihad. The popular Western press uses other terms as well to describe the same ideology by calling it straightforward “militant” Islam. When used in such a context it is prima facie a political aspiration in simpliciter of its advocates which is devoid of any manifest religious foundations.

This evaluation of this phenomenon is also apparently fully supported by both President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. Following the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the USA, President George Bush informed a joint session of Congress that the 19 terrorists responsible for the 11th September attacks were part of

“a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam”.

Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech to the House of Commons also reportedly remarked:

“I say to our Arab and Muslim friends, neither you nor Islam is responsible for this act if terrorists”

A similar statement was again recently echoed by Prime Minister Tony Blair shortly after the 7th July 2005 London bombings, when he referred to the ideology behind these acts of terrorism as a perversion of Islam and not being a part of the practices of mainstream Muslims. I am, therefore, fortified in my evaluation and assessment of this topic when we see that even the two countries in the forefront of this war against terrorism do not subscribe to the view that it is Islamic teachings that are the theoretical basis of this militancy which has greatly defamed Islam and its teachings. Only a core group, or fringe movement, of Muslims is apparently advocating such acts of aggression.

In sum, therefore, extremist Islam, if such a term is used, clearly aims to stand for the political ideology of the relevant activists. How widespread this ideology is is impossible to say with any degree of exactitude. But that it does exist is equally impossible to deny. In the wake of the end of the age of colonialism, after the conclusion of the Second World War, there surfaced rapidly a phase of liberations; many new countries in Africa and Asia with vast Muslim populations emerged. In these countries, soon and sure enough, right wing authoritarian regimes, invariably backed by the local armies, took control. The political and civilian opposition to these regimes has been noted by all leading human rights institutions, including the Sub Committee of the UN Human Rights Commission. [38] When such oppositions failed to dislodge the incumbents, a religious based opposition nucleus gradually emerged. Within this nucleus a hard core group of hardliners naturally took the lead to challenge the status quo and became clearly a force to be reckoned with. Howsoever described, this dedicated group of a few began the movements of ideologues which, in the post 9/11 scenarios, are often described as the “extremists.”

In 1947, Pakistan indeed became the first country in history to be created solely on the basis of the religion of Islam. But it is important to note that religion was unable to keep the integrity of the country alive. In 1971, East Pakistan was created following a bloody civil war on the admitted basis of political victimization of the Bengalis by West Pakistan Establishment and the Pakistan Army action in that region following the annulment of the Session of the Elected Parliament in March 1971. The creation of Bangladesh provides the best illustration of how political causation is apparently of greater violent propensity than any religious motivation.

More importantly, India, from which Pakistan was carved out on the basis of religion, with its established democratic credentials, now has a larger Muslim population than Pakistan. As such, how far is this argument really maintainable that Muslims, with even a majority, would necessarily succeed in practice to devise an “Islamic” state? It is probable that many who so believe live in the shadows of the past. Indeed, there is “some” evidence to the contrary from Pakistan itself that the nation simply wishes, at least according to present military leadership, to have a “moderate” Islamic existence effectively equating it with a secular society. [39]

Thoughts in conclusion

From this situation it can be justifiably stated, as does a leading scholar of this field, that nationalism, apologists and dynamism are the three outstanding new tendencies of modern Islam [40]. I am convinced that, in a broad sense, this manner of approach fully describes the extremist perspectives of current Muslim history. Both dynamism and nationalism have an important bearing on producing the acts and occurrences which are the raison d’ etre of this misunderstanding that extremism is a part of the Islamic teachings. At the same time, there exist the “apologists” as well who wish to deny the very essence of simple Islamic teachings by trying to make it appear almost as a “secular” method of looking at life. Most current Islamic governments fall into this category. Why they do so is not difficult to see. [41]

The decline of genuine liberalism in Islam, in the political sense, historically has been largely the result of the West’s expansion into areas far removed from their Continents under the mechanism of colonialism. With the presence of liberalism in Europe in the 19th century there existed pari passu, in most places where human civilization existed, a corresponding grain and trend of liberal thinking. But, when political expansion began, it correspondingly resulted in the creation of nationalism which was “above’ or rather “more pressing” than a call for religious perceptions. With the rise of religious and political conservatism in the West, there has come about a gradual decline of liberalism in Islamic political thought as well. As such, W.C. Smith aptly remarks that:

“Equally, the latter’s more recent decline (Islamic liberalism) it is not difficult to discern a Western influence.” [42]

It seems to me that, accordingly, there is a direct link between the prevalence of liberalism in the West and elsewhere; conversely, the rise of religious based dogmas from the West produced a corresponding amount of rigidity elsewhere, but particularly noticeable in the Muslim societies.

One aspect of “Islamic” thought, norms or dogmas and perceptions requires a brief, but necessary, comment. Since Muslims live in far flung places of this world, they have diverse ethnic affiliations and emanate from clearly varied cultures. Is it justifiable to even speak with any degree of assertion about their “Islamic” thinking or identity being really as if it were a homogonous whole? The uniformity of Islamic thinking on key issues in diverse cultures presents one of the most fascinating problems associated with the development of Islam, from its modest beginnings in Mecca into a world religion numbering over a billion people toady. An eminent analyst therefore inquires with much force:

“How did it come about that in the vast world of Islam a distinctive thought and culture came into being, in spite of all the geographical and temporal variations that resulted from the continuing influences of the earlier cultures and religions, and from an ongoing life of indigenous habits, practices and attitudes? [43]

Therefore, the oneness, if you will, or Islam’s homogeneity must have some source or reason to develop and then maintain its hold and existence in the billons of the followers of this Faith. The uniformity lies in a mental attitude that is apparently coexistent in all Muslims. It was this awareness which prompted me to submit at the outset, that, if theological conception is the criteria, then all Muslims believe in the same fundamentals. As such, the answer to his inquiry as to how manifest ethnic or cultural diversity is effectively harnessed by all the Muslims the world over lies in the realization that:

“..the uniformity of this culture or thought (of Muslims) was not confined to similarity of creed; it expressed itself much more in a common mental attitude, and in a common style of life which pervade all levels of personal and official existence, thus reaching beyond the boundaries of the “religious” as understood in the West.” [44] (Emphasis supplied).

The extremist elements in Islam are, therefore, the product of contemporary history. They represent a phenomenon that has become the dominant and vital aspect of contemporary political volkgeist. Even a brief glimpse of the major events of the last few years would make us aware of this particular perspective of current history. A little more than a decade ago the US utilized the mammoth zeal of Muslim Jihadist elements to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. Now they (the Jihadist) are branded as terrorists or at least extremists. Such a major shift in the foreign policies of the only super power may be full of sense to its makers. But, to the often illiterate Muslim warrior, such a metamorphosis is just incomprehensible. Doctrinaire religion was used there for political purposes. But now such doctrines are relegated from the level of the sublime to that of pure and simple militancy.

Now we are told that it is very wrong to do so as human “liberty” is a higher norm, so that we can we have “democracy”. The philosophy behind such attainment of admittedly liberal goals, such as human rights and freedom at the expense of religion, can not be doubted. But the deeply underlying forces of such a motivation are truthfully conservative religious aspirations of some who matter in the Western societies.

The foreseeable challenges thus emanate from a desire to have religion serve patently irreligious goals and from illogically admonishing the liberal facets of contemporary thinking about human rights and perceivable trends. Indeed, all religions that have survived through man’s history over several hundreds of years stress essentially a message to be progressive, tolerant and to avoid rigidity. The broader aim of every society that aims to be genuinely attentive to all within its fold has to be “liberal’ in the sense Rawls has canvassed, not in an empty sense in which contemporary politicians, some of tremendous international weight, have been stressing of late. Since the later classes of people have transformed even some of the most innocuous and rhetorical sounding precepts of liberalism and morals into one of ferocious political transformation of society ever witnessed in human history.

Three practical aims requiring attainment

The obvious result of this analysis is that we must create a situation in which extremism as a political phenomenon loses its importance in Muslim political society. To reach such an end, I suggest the attainment of the following three goals.

The basic and primary foundation of achieving such a desirable political end is through education. Muslim societies in particular are amongst the most under educated masses on earth. I advocate that all concerned institutions and governments must attempt to improve this aspect of the lives of the peoples of such areas by making the fruits of education reach all sections of the society.

Only an educated society is capable of becoming aware of the evils of controlling violence and hatred by genuine societal or state controls. But whether the governments of both the West and Islamic countries are capable and willing to do so presently is another matter. As such, the path ahead for achieving a level of dignity, even a respite from being feared, for the would-be extremist is not free from difficulties.

In addition, participatory democracy must be genuinely ushered into Muslim countries with the assistance of those who can accomplish such tasks. Sham elections must not be accepted as they provide a convenient tool for the authoritarianism of today to flourish with apparent impunity. Conversely, dictatorships must not be aided under any circumstance, since such a state of political reality breeds extremism. Only then we can produce a political climate where the dynamism of the Islamic peoples can be beneficially channeled for better results.

In these troubled times, those determined to achieve such a humane and civilized solution for ordinary Muslim communities, that invariably possess some extremist elements, have quite a struggle ahead. We must work for alleviating the economic and societal deprivations, in addition to the political ills requiring redress submitted above. Manifestly present in Muslim countries and Islamic societies is wide spread hunger, disease and glaring absence of ordinary civic care and facilities of daily life. They have to devise methods by which governments’ policies wherein the Muslims live are genuinely egalitarian and not dictated by the political exigencies of these difficult times. Extremism is as much a product of being revengeful against the West as it is a revulsion against local dictatorships which are generally indifferent towards the deplorable living conditions of their own people.

In the end, I submit that the subject on which I have addressed today is both vast and complicated. I have therefore been selective on the points and issues that I have focused on. However, I feel that the central issues have been attended to by me in this analysis. Every religion has a moralizing effect in every civilized society. Let us keep this simple truth in mind and not miss the point that real causation of recent ills lies elsewhere.

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End notes:

[1] D.Phil.; B A Juris, MA. M.Litt, (Oxon), DCL (Columbia), DIA (Harvard), Of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister at Law, UK, Attorney at Law, US, Senior Advocate Supreme Court (QC) of Pakistan; Affiliate & Visiting Professor of International Affairs, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, Special UN Ambassador for Family for the World Family Alliance, Advisor to four Prime Ministers of Pakistan on Law & Foreign Affairs; Delegate to the UN, NY, & to the Human Rights Commission on Human Rights & to the Sub-Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, Leader of Pakistan’s Delegation to the International Criminal Court Prep Coms., NY & Delegate to UN GA Sessions. Also, inter alia, on the Faculty of Law, Human Rights Program, Harvard University, Faculty of Political Science, Tufts University, the Secretary General, American Asian Institute of Strategic Studies, Boston. International Legal Counsel before transnational Tribunals & US Congress. David M Kennedy Scholar of International Studies, Kennedy Center, BYU 2003-4, distinguished Visiting Professor, JNU, Delhi, Memorial Lecturer at Benaras Hindu University, Mumbai University &Ambadkar Center, Auranagbad, 2004-5 ;President, Pakistan Family Forum, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Pakistan Bar Association at Lahore, 2003/4.

[2] Defensive war can be a part of the lesser “jihad” but the Quran repeatedly emphasizes that “God loves not aggressors”. “Jihad” as ongoing effort is a part of everything that a Muslim is required to do – from praying five times a day (“salat”) to fasting in the month of Ramadan (“siyam”) to wealth-sharing (“Zakat”) to performing pilgrimage (“hajj”) to standing up for justice and testifying to the truth. This concept has nothing similar to the distinction drawn by classical International Lawyers of the18th Century between Just and Unjust wars ( Bellum justum & injustum)

[3] The Encyclopedia of Religion: Mircea Eliade, Editor in Chief, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1987, Volume 5, pp. 190-191)

[4] General Musharraf has repeatedly told his Pakistani audiences that he took a complete U turn from the support of Taliban regime in Afghanistan following 9/11 as it was policy wise “necessary”. It is significant to note that but for such compulsions as he saw emerging after 9/11, Islamabad would have continued its erstwhile policy of being utterly pro-Taliban.

[5] I endorse and adopt the meaning of the term “fundamentalism” in the Concise Oxford Dictionary that defines this particular concept as: “Maintenance, in opposition to modernism of traditional orthodox beliefs.”

[6] The history of Christianity provides many significant illustrations of this matter. For a recent and excellent contemporary analysis see The Christian Question in American Politics, Justin E. Smith, 2004, University of Concordia, Montreal, Canada.

[7] Islamic jurisprudential doctrines of “Ijtehad” are of basic functional value in doing so.

[8] See generally, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Sir Muhammad Iqbal; see further, The Intellectual Origins of the Egyptian Nationalism, Jamal Ahmad, Oxford, 1960

[9] Quran: 3: 17. See further, Al-Shahrastani, Al-Milal w-a-Nihal, ed Cureton 1842, London P. 27 et seq.

[10] See generally History of the Arabs, Phillip Hitti, Macmillan, 1961 ed. especially pp 128 -138

[11] The word for a ritual prayer is salah, derived from Aramaic sources. It suggests that prayers did exit prior to Islam but in an unorganized manner. 

[12] Quran: Sura 2:216-17 and evolved into an obligatory tax that the state was entitled to collect.

[13] Quran: 2: 179-81. Abstinence from all food and drink is enjoined from dawn until sunset: Quran Sura 2-183

[14] Quran: Sura Hajj, 3:91, 2: 192-6, 5: 1-2, 96.

[15] Astonishingly as recently as 16 September 205, the UNSC failed to provide an acceptable definition of terrorism.

[16] See Human Rights in Islam and Their Application in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Suleman Al-Hageel, 2001, 231.

[17] Quran: 2:195. It signifies that even the current unfortunate phenomenon of so-called suicide bombing is not permitted.

[18] Quran: 6:151. Translation by Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Quran, Gibraltar, 1980,188

[19] Quran: 5:32

[20] Doctrinally Islam outlawed slavery and gave equal rights to women and the weak from inception; it took a civil war and a hundred years of experience for the political system in the US to legally acquiesce in this normative sociological phenomenon of freedom for slaves and for the equality of rights and vote of women a hundred and fifty years of political development. I have, however pointed in many of my other works that regrettably there does exist a vast gulf between theory and state practice on such issues in contemporary Muslim society.

[21] General Musharraf has been using the term “enlightened moderation” to be followed by the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”!

[22] See The Islamic Republic, Farooq Hassan, 1984, Aziz Publishers, p 4

[23] Most relevant in this context is the famous and oft quoted Quranic message that he who killed one soul unlawfully is tantamount to have inflicted the same blow to humanity: Quran: 5:32

[24] See, for instance in the Quran : Sura 2: Al Baqarah: 186, 286; See further Sura 3 Al Amran: 145, 150; Sura 4 : Al Nisa: 26, 28, Sura 50: Qaf: 16

[25] See, for instance Quran Sura 6: Al An’am:160,; Sura 28: Al- Qasas: 84

[26] See, Quran: Sura 107 Al: Ma’un.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Quran Sura 2: 177, See also Ali, A.Y. The Holy Quran, pp 70-71

[29] Quran Sura 49: Al Hujurat: 13

[30] Quran Sura 4, An Nisa: 136.

[31] The other notable concept, in this context, is that of “ihsan” discussed earlier. discussed earlier.

[32] The ultimate aim of such a trend of thought is conceivably the creation of an Islamic State. See generally this author’s work: Farooq Hassan, The Concept of State & Law in Islam University Press of America, Washington DC, 1981.

[33] For instance despite the manifestly heavy international opposition and in American urban areas to the recent war in Iraq, President Bush was constantly strongly supported by millions of people for his conduct of his war effort in all Opinion Surveys in the so-called Bible Belt of the U S.

[34] See this author’s Op. ed. piece : Farooq Hassan, Stared into Silence, The Nation, 24 June 05 stressing the agony of the gang rape inflicted on a rustic women Muktharan Mai by a town jury of elders in Pakistan and then attempted callously to be “hidden” from the world by the Government.

[35] General Zia in Pakistan was an exception in that he became amongst the chief mentors of the ideology of pan Islamism and forcefully carried out the “Islamisation” of the Pakistani Constitution and of Jihadist elements in Afghanistan. However, internationally, at that time the US led war against the USSR was founded on this aspect of “Islamic” thinking.

[36] The political situation in countries such as Algeria, Turkey and Pakistan are usually cited as examples of this reality.

[37] See inter alia the views of the Muslim scholar and formerly a London based preacher Umar Bakri Muhammad from Beirut in Lebanon where he went after being deported by the United Kingdom in the Summer of 2005 that soon the time was approaching when Muslims may even form an Islamic government in the U.K ( see Nawaiwaqt , Lahore, 25 September 2005 quoting AFP Agency). A similar assumption is reflected in a series of internal FCO/Home Office documents (Young Muslims and Extremism and associated documents produced in the earlier part of 2004) recently obtained by the Sunday Times.

[38] Unlike the UN H R Commission which is composed of 53 governments, this smaller body of 26 Experts, the Sub Committee of the Commission, is looked upon as more “objective” as its members are chosen in their personal capacities. However, regrettably, except for the Western specially the European nations from where genuine “experts” usually are sent, most Third World appointees are invariably the representatives of their governments without whose recommendation they simply cannot get “elected”.

[39] See the repeated statements on his point of General Musharraf e.g. his TV address of 12 January, 2002 by which he banned all religious political parties which allegedly had a “militant” outlook, and his interview to Time for the issue of week of 25 September appearing on 24th September, 2005. See further this author’s op ed. piece: Farooq Hassan, Can Pakistan be Moderate Islamic State? Dawn, 22 May 2003.

[40] See Islam in Modern History, Wilfred C. Smith, 75

[41] Example par excellence of this group of Muslim leadership is provided by Pakistan where General Musharraf has gone out of his way to placate American and Western lobbies by strenuously affirming that Muslims are not fundamentalist in their religious beliefs.

[42] W.C. Smith, ibid p 75.

[43] See Role of Traditionalism in Islam, J Fueck, in Studies in Islam, p 99, 1981, M.L. Swartz Editor

[44] See ibid p 99