19X More Energy Independence

Let's do the math on the corn ethanol hoax.

For every unit of energy I put into making grass biofuel pellets, I get 14 out = 14:1 net energy.

With corn ethanol the net energy is just 1.67:1

14/1.67 = 8.383 better return on the investment made in grass pellets.

Now consider how the two fuels will be used.

Pellets will be burned at 80% efficiency. Lets say 70%.

Ethanol will be burned in an internal combustion engine at just 30% efficiency.

.7/.3 = 2.333

So the systems advantage of grass pelllets over ethanol is: 8.383 X 2.333 = 19.56X

Solid biofuel in the form of grass pellets, gives us 19X more return on our investments, 19X more energy independence. And 19X more national security than corn ethanol.

So why is it that all of the subsidies etc go the the biofuel with 1/19 the benefit?

Isn't it amazing, the out right stupidity of corn ethanol? It is just a mechanism to transfer and redistribute wealth to ADM and Cargill. It just another example of corporate looting of the public treasury. It also depends utterly on fertilizers made from fossil fuels. Not to mention the virgin water degraded by the corn ethanol process: gallons of water degraded for each gallon of corn ethanol made.

Can we say that there is a pathological condition in this market and its supporting politics?

Your thoughts?

'Good' and 'bad' Taliban

By: FAROOQ HASSAN
The Nation
January 16, 2007

My friend from my Oxford days, and now a Professor and Dean of the Harvard of Kennedy School and formerly the Deputy Chief of the operations of the most sensitive institution of US government in the Clinton administration, and I were analysing over tea after Christmas some important issues of contemporary politics. While talking of the decline of President Bush’s political stock in the US the Dean said: “Nothing disturbs the mind of a politician or the public like a body bag.” He was speaking of this normative generality of common sense as it were a rule of universal application.

However sad as it may sound, this aphorism does not seem to apply to this country. In Pakistan it does not apparently matter how many people get killed so long as the highest in land are well and alive. Not a day passes when there isn’t a blast somewhere in this country but particularly in the areas next to Afghanistan in the two Pakistani provinces of Frontier and Baluchistan. As I see it these issues are likely to emerge as the top matters to affect the current phase of history of Pakistan. This perspective applies to foreign policy as much as in Pakistan’s domestic affairs.

Read the whole column here.

Pakistan, Musharraf & Terrorism

By: Dr. Farooq Hassan

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, the head of US spying operations says “the leaders of al-Qaeda have found a secure hideout in Pakistan from where they are rebuilding their strength.” He further said that al-Qaeda was strengthening itself across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee that al-Qaeda was still the militant organization that "poses the greatest threat to US interests". In his written statement, he admitted that despite world wide efforts of the US, terrorism was still very much in evidence in the regions where despite tremendous sacrifices Washington had even gone to war. Such a claim will be embarrassing for General Musharraf, whom Negroponte described as a key partner in America's war on terror.

Not surprisingly, Pakistan rejected these comments, which are the most specific on the issue yet. Afghanistan has welcomed the comments. President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, told the BBC that Afghanistan has long maintained the Islamic militants operate from within Pakistan and Negroponte's “statement was refreshing in its honesty”.

But the precise accusation made by him is very interesting. Until now the US has not been so specific about where it believes al-Qaeda's leaders are hiding. Does it indicate an inherent and subtle policy shift may be possible in this regard? A careful perusal of such a determination by the Americans is certainly not impossible. Hikmatyar’s recent admission of helping the al Qaeda leadership escape the US led onslaught on Tora Bora five years ago has to be seen in this context. Without question he remained and may be still have the support of important Pakistani leadership.

Negroponte’s statement which has been extensively carried by the American media on Friday, the 12th of January significantly added that “They are cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hide-out in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe," he said. "We have captured or killed numerous senior al-Qaeda operatives, but al-Qaeda's core elements are resilient. They continue to plot attacks against our homeland and other targets with the objective of inflicting mass casualties," Negroponte added.

The unusually forthright statement by Negroponte is the first time the US has publicly singled out Pakistan, one of its key allies, as the current home of al-Qaeda's high command. Previously, officials had spoken more vaguely about the group having bases in the mountainous border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, the US spy Chief was also personally kind to General Musharraf by saying that he had indeed been instrumental in handing over key suspects of the Al-Qaeda to the US in the past. "Musharraf is our partner in the war on terror and has captured several al-Qaeda leaders. However, Pakistan remains a major source of Islamic extremism," Negroponte’s submissions the Senate committee continued.

A clear distinction is being apparently made by the US by emphasizing that:

(1) General Musharraf remains loyal to the US interests.
(2) Pakistan, as a State continues to remain suspicious as far as the US is concerned about harboring, terrorism and its chief benefactors.

As such it is easy to understand that all the relevant Pakistani official spokesmen really asserted the role of the “country” rather than that of the current military junta in command in Islamabad. Who accepts such meaningless distinctions for a country like Pakistan is anybody’s guess. In Pakistan whatever the ruling regime wishes seems to occur. Not long ago General Musharraf said plainly that “if the people did not elect his supports, there was disaster in store for the entire country”. He clearly has in his mindset what Louis XIV had in view when he said: “Après’ mois le deluge!” There is no doubt that General has come to believe that he and Pakistan is synonymous!

A statement from Pakistan's foreign ministry said that Islamabad had done more than any other country to break the back of al-Qaeda and that while its security forces continued to pursue remnants of the group, it was wrong to link these to al-Qaeda elements. Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao also downplayed Negroponte's comments as "too general", saying that Pakistan responded to specific information about al-Qaeda members and claiming that the “movement was totally marginalized”. It would see therefore that in the current mood that exists in Washington, the occurrence of a one serious mishap in the pursuit of terrorism could be the harbinger of an alteration of American foreign policy towards Pakistan. I am aware that only this week the US Ambassador to Pakistan said that democracy was Pakistan’s “internal affair”, but I doubt if that is really Washington’s stated objective or a fundamental ingredient of is foreign policy. The tragic rise and fall of Saddam until his disgraceful death is the latest illustration of this point. Until he served the interests of the powers that may be, he remained “acceptable”. People still remember vividly photos of people of the level of Rumsfeld standing in attention in honor of the now defamed dictator! However, how the scenario changed leading to his ultimate downfall was predicated by the avowed accomplishment of a pursuit of “democracy” in Iraq.

So clearly with terrorism now being placed at Musharraf’s door steps, the moment of truth for the General might be nearer than he thinks. With the change of key army personal in Central Command in the US military, Musharraf has to re-convince everyone of has continued loyalty and obedience. How he does so if the accusing finger is pointed towards Pakistan itself and not to him remains to be seen.

He also has the task of convincing he new spy master of the US about his bona fides. President George W Bush last week named retired Navy Vice Admiral Michael McConnell as the new US national intelligence director. Negroponte took charge of the 16 US intelligence agencies in April 2005, but is shortly due to move to the state department where he will become Condoleezza Rice's deputy. Would that mean that even in the State Department Pakistan and or the General may have critical times ahead? It seems to me that both in the Pentagon and the State departments Pakistan had, relatively, speaking an easier time. Now with intelligence services opining otherwise about the activities of the Islamic hardliners or activists, there is the possibility of newer attitude in the US foreign policy towards Islamabad.

While talking of terrorism and Pakistan a word may be helpful about the current activities regarding hostilities in Afghanistan. Recently the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt-Gen Michael Maples, said Pakistan's border with Afghanistan remained a haven for al-Qaeda and other militants. He was of the view that the tribal areas on the border are thought to be where al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden and his deputy Zawahiri could be hiding. He admitted that Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 1,400-mile (2,250km) mountainous border which is extremely difficult to patrol. Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be operating on both sides.

But the buck stops when this is realized that Afghanistan remains within the territorial military control of the Americans. Where they cannot do much except sophisticated guess work in addition to electronic espionage, is to conclude that the real perpetrators have to be there within the Frontier Province of Pakistan. Two points of interest are however with which we can conclude:

(1) Kabul particularly opposes the Pakistani idea of mining stretches of the frontier, saying it will endanger civilian lives. Pakistan has reiterated its intention to fence and mine sections of the troubled border. No one in the world that matters, such as he EU, or UK or even the US including Afghanistan accept this measure which is considered by them to be dangerous and self serving mechanism devised by the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan.

(2) An Islamist insurgency spearheaded by the resurgent Taliban militia is at its strongest in the southern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan. Presently an objective overview will compel one to conclude that except for Kabul most of the southern regions have already passed back to the resurgent Taliban. These fundamentals stem from a proper understanding of the conceptual problem at hand.

Finally a word about history is necessary. Not only the Americans are not familiar with this phenomenon, it is clear that even Pakistan’s General Musharraf seems to be oblivious to these nuances that emanate from such a historical reality.

It is over 250 years since Afghanistan was cobbled together, from many ethnic groups, and two centuries since British colonisers tried unsuccessfully at stretching their writ to India's (now Pakistan's) north-western frontier, where the plains crumple up towards the Hindu Kush. Yet, in both places, a large part of the population is still wedded to Pushtunwali. Some 15m Pushtuns live in Afghanistan, or 50% of its population; and 28m in Pakistan, mostly in NWFP, representing about 15% of the local population there. Most of them are still ruled by their tribal codes, the notable exception or addition being where the rival Islamist teachings, including some of the stringent Saudi variety which is preached by the Taliban are strong and followed. Islamism has rivaled Pushtunwali for centuries; it has often gained prominence, as currently, in times of war. More typically, the two competing ways have cross-fertilized in both in Afghanistan and North West Pakistan, each subtly influencing the other. Whatever the device that Musharraf comes up to finish either Al Qaeda or Taliban with, until this basic fact of the demographics and peoples dynamics is perceived in totality, it is very difficult to realize what he wants to accomplish for what Qazi Hussain Ahmed calls, are his “external masters”.

General Musharraf’s basic inability to fathom such matters is that he is not, in American constitutional terms, a son of the soil since he only migrated from Delhi to Pakistan after the country had been created. This cultural gulf apparently still stands to disable him from comprehending the human strength of the local elements and forces at work in this area and domain. Except for DeGaule or Eisenhower military generals are not good at understanding the realities of an adversary historical legacy that may confront them some day. Even the British, the greatest recent imperial power to exist in recent history in this part of the world, learnt this to its chagrin in Afghanistan when it foolishly fought two Afghan wars in 1841 and 1842. It is one thing to be a good general or to assume unlawful power in a country such as Pakistan. Is an altogether different matter to do well as a statesman?

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

In search of a people powered narrative for 2008

What will the master narrative for the 2008 Presidential race be? This is a question that has been bouncing around in my head over the past couple of days for several reasons.

In The Decider from “On The Media” this weekend, Paul Begala said, “Democrats tend to be the party of the laundry list. We have four point plans for everything. We have more solutions than the country has problems. Republicans, understanding the media better, because they mostly are still disciples of Ronald Reagan, the master of the media, they mostly tell narratives, they tell stories and stories beat laundry lists every time.”

At a party this weekend, I was speaking with a journalist about what happened with the Lamont campaign. The discussion came down to narrative. The pre-primary narrative was about an unknown challenger taking on a three-term senator and former presidential and vice-presidential candidate. It was about Ned, who he was, what his issues were, and what was wrong with the political system. After the primary, the narrative shifted. It became about Lieberman, how he was fighting to hold onto power. How he wouldn’t give up.

I am reading drafts of a book about the Dean campaign that focuses on the archetypal narrative; Trippi’s role in the narrative, and how email was used to foster that narrative.

Narrative is important, and as I think about Lakoff, I think that perhaps what matters is less the frames, than the underlying narrative. The frames help shape the narrative, ideally, they give it some archetypal structures, but it is the narrative that matters.

So, what will be the narrative for the 2008 presidential campaign. Already, I imagine, people are trying to shape that narrative. When I was down at RootsCamp in DC, there were people from different campaigns there looking for possible staff and perhaps trying to start shaping the narrative.

You see the narrative taking shape already in blogs. Some of it is the superficial horserace components. Who has the most money and the most support early out of the gate? Who is the dark horse to watch? Some of it gets to issues: the environment, the economy, the war. A big component is excitement.

In Washington, one person, knowing I was from Connecticut asked what I thought about Sen. Dodd. I started talking about things like habeas corpus and reforming the bankruptcy law. My interlocutor didn’t want to hear about that. His question? Would the bloggers in Connecticut be excited about Sen. Dodd.

I like Sen. Dodd a lot, but exciting isn’t one of the first things that come to mind when trying to characterize him. How will the narrative shape around his campaign? I’m not sure yet.

At the other end of the spectrum is Sen. Obama. He is a great orator. The idea of a draft Obama movement is generating a lot of excitement, as can be noted by the hordes turning out to hear him in New Hampshire. Will that excitement carry forward? What sort of shape will it take? What larger narrative will emerge?

Perhaps a clearer narrative is emerging around Gore. His message about climate change resonates. There is a tension in the question of whether or not he will run. That tension will be resolved at some point, but a clear ongoing narrative is easier to imagine.

The same applies to Sen. Edwards. His message about economic justice also resonates. Katrina brought economic issues into stark focus. Yet economic justice seems to recede from the spotlight fairly quickly. Will Edwards’ supporters be able to build a sustained narrative around economic issues and/or expand the narrative?

Gen. Clark’s narrative seems to remain around security and defense. The way things are looking in Iraq right now, Gen. Clark may end up with a compelling story handed to him.

Sen. Clinton’s narrative seems a bit more challenging. She has a lot of money, a lot of connections; a lot of power. She is also being portrayed as polarizing. How will that play against the One America sort of themes that seem to reside in both Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama’s speeches? Can something new be added to the narrative?

Likewise, for Sen. Kerry, what sort of narrative will emerge for him? Vilsack and others have potentially interesting stories, but can they catch fire? People have started to talk about a Bobby Kennedy-esque narrative. Will Obama, or perhaps Edwards take on the mantle of RFK?

More important, where will the narratives come from? How much will they be produced by ‘the people’, or to stay with the archetypes, from the Greek chorus? Will the people be the netroots? Something more than the netroots, or something other than the netroots? How much will the narrative be crafted by the campaigns and how much will the narrative be crafted by the traditional media?

I don’t have any specific answers. However, I will try to keep friends focused on what the underlying story is or could be.

Treason or terrorism?

By: DR FAROOQ HASSAN

The recent news about the criminal activities of an agent of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) about planting a bomb next to the residential compound of the Chief Minister of the Frontier Province sends ominous signals to the country and indeed the world about the mindset and scope of operations of such super-national level spy agencies that work with the tax payers money in Pakistan under the directions of the Federal government.

According to the latest press reports the said would-be saboteur has been “eventually” handed over to the local police. This occurrence came about after the alleged culprit had been forcibly whisked away by his own superiors from the grasp of the local police after he had been apprehended on the spot in broad daylight. It does not need much emphasis that police comes under the constitutional domain of the provincial government where as the Intelligence Bureau is a Central department under the scheme contained in the 1973 Constitution.

So the ultimate legal question is that does this act, if true, constitute treason? Treason means to undertake any act to undermine the state apparatus, in this by violence, and thereby, to “subvert” the Constitution of the country. The relevant proviso of which says:

Article 6: (1) Any person who abrogates or attempts to conspire to abrogate, subverts or attempts to subvert the Constitution by use of force or show of force or by other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason.

Read the whole essay here.

Global Warming and Cycles

On October 28th, 2006, the 7th Southern New England Weather Conference was held. Joe D'Aleo - Alternative view of climate change - was one of the presentors. You can download his two slide decks here.

D'Aleo argues that cycles in solar activity and ocean flows are more significant, and offer more useful explanations, than changes in the amount of CO2 in atmosphere.

According to D'Aleo, some Russians think that 2022, the end of sun cycle 25, will mark the beginning of a period of significant cooling -- even to the degree of a mini-ice age.

Some of D'Aleo's slides are very compelling. Is there a climate dynamics model that integrates solar energy output, ocean cycles, CO2, Methane etc? As Robert Steele writes: It would appear to be prudent to look at all this stuff across at least 5 centuries and ideally ten, and certainly be acutely conscious of 2025-2075 time frame in terms of planning and not over-correcting for a "temporary" half century cycle.

Post Election Day Blues

This news won't break my heart
It's already been blown apart
I feel like a helpless girl
In this tender troubled world

It’s something I seem to get every November, those Post Election Day Blues. I work my heart off fighting for a candidate and a cause I believe in only to get it blown apart, never to see the promised land.

Oh but the promised land
Is just across another line in the sand

But you know? That is where the hope really lies. I’ve written before about this. Winning isn’t about getting elected, it is about changing the dialog, and last night, Ned Lamont’s victory became apparent. Gov. Dean stood up and spoke out when it wasn’t popular to do so. What did that get him? The DNC Chairmanship, where he started pushing an unlikely idea, the Fifty State Strategy. What an idea, that we should have a vigorous discussion about the direction the country is going in every precinct in America. It was supposed to be a long term strategy. Rebuilding a political party takes years, it takes many election cycles, or so we thought.

Ned Lamont stood up and said, “If Sen. Lieberman won’t challenge President Bush’s failed policies, then I will”. After defeating Sen. Lieberman in the primary, a lot more people started challenging President Bush’s failed policies. The discussions around the dinner tables became a little more vigorous. What happens next? I don’t know, but I do have my suggestions.

While the candidates that I worked hardest for last night were not elected, many others were and there is a lot to be joyful about.

Last night, I was asked about these “Stand up for Change” signs that were all over the place. Someone hadn’t followed the bus tour as closely as some of us. They asked, is that a new leadership PAC or 527 that Ned is going to grow out of his campaign, sort of like how Gov. Dean formed Democracy for America out of his 2004 Presidential bid?

I don’t know, but it fits well with my hope that we all stay together. That was the topic of many of my discussions. One person came up and said, “This changing the world stuff is really exhausting”. Yeah, it takes more time and takes more energy than any of us would really like. We might not even see the promised land, but it is what we must keep on doing.

In the background, the band Black47 played. They started one song with the melody of Skye Boat Song, an all too apt melody for the night. It is about Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight to the Isle of Skye after some disastrous battles for Scottish independence. The last verse ends with “Charlie will come again”.

So, what about us? At the end of Ned’s concession speech last night, he continued his call for bringing our troops home to the heroes welcome they deserve. He continued his call for sensible foreign policy, for affordable health care for all. He said he approved that message and we all responded, “And so do we”. Yes, the dialog has changed, and it is a good thing. We need to keep the dialog going and the change alive.

Outside, a light rain is falling. Lucy Kaplansky’s song, “Line in the Sand”, which I quote at the beginning of this blog entry ends off with

”I hope a forgiving rain will fall sometime
And wash away that line”

Blumenthal’s First Draft of History

November 7, 2006

By Rick Perlstein

How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime

By Sidney Blumenthal
Princeton University Press · $26.95

Journalistic compilations are a crucial part of America’s literary, intellectual and political heritage. They enjoyed a golden age in ’60s and ’70s trade publishing: Gazing over the library of books I am using to write my own history of the years 1965 to 1972, I see collections by Joan Didion, Garry Wills, Jack Newfield, Steven V. Roberts, Jonathan Schell, J. Anthony Lukas, Tom Wolfe and Michael Herr, compiled from Esquire and the Nation, National Review and the New Republic. Without them, our understanding of postwar America would be much the poorer.

Well, we are without them now. Trade publishers today rarely print such compilations—and our understanding of the years we are now living through has suffered for it. Thus it is altogether fitting and proper—though, in the grand scheme of things, a little sad—that university presses should pick up the slack.

It fell to Princeton University Press to publish How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime, a compilation of articles from the (London) Guardian and Salon by the great Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide and a longtime journalist who did some of his important early work for In These Times. The best of the classic journalistic compilations draw out common threads that lie scattered across occasional pieces, often tied together in an introductory essay. This gives the compilation a twofold purpose, as both a document of an era and an argument about that era. In this regard, How Bush Rules is exemplary, convincingly arguing that George W. Bush is “the most willfully radical president of the United States,” by documenting in real-time the episodes that have made up his presidency.

Snip ----

Read the entire review here.

The vote's about Bush

The New York Times is offering its subscribers free access to Times Select for this week only. I clicked through and when immediately to Paul Krugman's latest column, called "Limiting the Damage." He says tomorrow's elections are really all about Bush, and "whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office." [Link - works only if you have access to Times Select] I think this is an important point, and why voting in this election is critical. Krugman summarizes very well why Bush's power should be limited:

At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.

In other words, he’s the sort of man who should never have been put in a position of authority, let alone been given the kind of unquestioned power, free from normal checks and balances, that he was granted after 9/11. But he was, alas, given that power, as well as a prolonged free ride from much of the news media.

The results have been predictably disastrous. The nightmare in Iraq is only part of the story. In time, the degradation of the federal government by rampant cronyism – almost every part of the executive branch I know anything about, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been FEMAfied – may come to be seen as an equally serious blow to America’s future.

And it should be a matter of intense national shame that Mr. Bush has quietly abandoned his fine promises to New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast.

With his party dominating the legislative and, now, the judicial branches of government, we have a scenario where "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and a leader whose limited competence, insensitivity, and ethical blindness creates a political perfect storm the catastrophic effects of which has, among other things, trashed the USA's standing in the world community as well as our competitiveness in the world's economy. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but just in case you haven't already – please vote tomorrow, and pray that your vote will be fairly counted.

What happens next?

I am girding my loins for the disappointment I expect to overtake me on Wednesday. I am not talking so much about one candidate or another that I am committed to not getting elected. I expect this to happen. It comes with the turf. Some of the candidates I’ve been supporting have always been long shots at best.

I am not talking about the need to find a new purpose that will come. I’ve spent the past two years preparing for tomorrow night. I know that when this is over, I will spend some time figuring out what the next cause to demand my attention will be. I know that it will come.

No, my biggest concern is what happens to the wonderful communities of supporters that have sprung up during this election cycle. What will happen to them? How can we hold them together as we go from one cause to the next?

Over the past few years, I’ve been on several panels which have talked about the future of political parties in the United States. What is the role of political parties in the twenty first century? The best answer I’ve heard about why we need political parties is ‘institutional memory’. When I visit friends on the local Democratic committee, they have incredible institutional memory. They remember who is who. They know how to find the people that will get the job done. They are the social networks that existed before it became in vogue to talk about social networks.

On the national level, many of my best friends are people that I met online during the Dean campaign. We have stayed in touch. We’ve used mailing lists, online social networks, and any other tools we can to stay in touch.

The tools have gotten much better over the past few years, and I hope that everyone finds ways to stay involved. Please, sign up for the DNC’s PartyBuilder. Please, sign up for DFA’s DFALink. Please, sign up for OneCorp.

Beyond that, stay involved with national blogging communities like DailyKos or MyDD. Get involved with, or stay involved with local blogging communities like the Soapblox based sites, or those that leftyblogs point to.

Yet if you are reading this entry, the odds are that you are already plugged in, most likely to many of the tools I’ve mentioned. However, you are also probably someone that can influence other supporters, especially those new to politics. Be sure to encourage them to sign up and stay involved in the communities that last beyond campaigns.

So, let’s get out the vote. If we work hard, today and tomorrow, we might be able to lessen the our disappointments about election returns. But let’s also keep an eye on how we hold together the wonderful communities we’ve been part of.

Winners and Losers

In a few days, everyone will be writing about the winners and losers in the 2006 elections and I will feel frustrated that the real stories aren’t be told. The most obvious stories will be about who was or wasn’t elected to the U.S. Congress and some Governor’s seats. Beyond that, the discussions will be about changes in the balance of power in congress and whether one party or another exceeded or failed to meet expectations.

People will talk about whether one group or another is gaining or losing power. This is already happening over at Firedoglake, where Pachacutec looks at the potential fortuntes of the DC/K Street Elites, the Grassroots Theocrats, and the Grassroots Progressives.

Meanwhile, Michael Davies, Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee tries to get people to look at State Legislative races.

With this, let me approach this from a different perspective and talk about some of the stories that aren’t being told. I think there is a problem with black and white, or perhaps red and blue thinking in American politics, and the discussions about winners and losers is misguided. To illustrate this, I am going to declare a winner in the 149th Assembly District in Connecticut. The winner is, my wife, Kim.

But, some of you might note, Kim isn’t even running this time around. True, and it is also true that when she ran in 2004, her opponent received more votes and was easily re-elected. Nonetheless, Kim won back in 2004, and with people who have been inspired by her running this year, Kim will win again.

The second winner I want to know is ‘the unknown volunteer’. If you work with campaigns, you’ve probably met her. You may even know his name. The unknown volunteer may or may not read blogs. She comes to campaign headquarters, and does whatever needs to be done. He becomes friends with the other volunteers and her life is enriched by the experience. One of the reasons the Lamont campaign and Connecticut as a whole is winning is because of the great volunteers that have been showing up at headquarters around the state. My biggest question is, how sustainable will this be? What will these people with their newly energized civic spirit do after the election? Will there be things to do, groups to be involved with?

Beyond that, I want to move towards looking at elections as part of a continuum. Will this year’s election move us closer to a government, of, by and for the people, or a government of, by and for lobbyists for large corporate interests? Will this year’s election move us closer to post broadcast politics which is more of a dialog between voters and candidates, or reinforce the ‘air game’. When I look at YouTube, I see glimmers of hope, which are countered by the massive air buys for negative ads which seem to only be making broadcasting companies better.

But perhaps the biggest question is, how will this really affect the people of our country and our world. I remember going to the No Nukes rally in New York City in 1982. It was the largest rally in New York City history. I remember leaving the rally and heading home down Second Avenue. On my way, I passed a funeral home, where I saw a hearse and a large procession leaving. For that family, the funeral was the big event of the day.

Now, twenty-four years later, nuclear weapons proliferation and U.S. energy policy are still problems. Today, and everyday, between 30 and 40 people are likely to die of cancer in New York City. It is easy to look at politics and say why bother.

Yet if we do that, extremists and corporate interests that are currently taking advantage of our political system will only expand. No, we need political change in this country, but that change needs to be about more than just who is heading down to Washington. We need to be changing the way people do politics. We need to take a play out of Dean Corp, John Edwards OneCorp or Matt Dunne’s Service is Politics.

We need to make politics an ongoing effort to make our country a better place, through not only elections, but also advocacy, service and ultimately restoring the fabric of our society.

Iran Lures US Into Invading Iraq and Attacking Iran "Pre-Emptively"--Nuclear Riposte Anticipated

I wonder if this is could be "the plan" that has Rove so confident? Let us all hope not.

Here is a scenario that spells disaster. It is also a bit too possible for any comfort.

2006-11-01 Iran Lures US Into Invading Iraq and Attacking Iran "Pre-Emptively"--Nuclear Riposte Anticipated

It is our best judgement, drawing exclusively on open sources of information, an understanding of history, an understanding of the intent of the Bush-Cheney Administration, and an understanding of the reluctance of the US military flag officers to "stand down" and refuse to obey illegal and stupid orders, that the U.S. is about to launch a "pre-emptive" strike into Iran, and that this will result in a Sunburn missile with a Pakistani nuclear warhead taking out whatever is in the Red Sea (six times Hiroshima), or the nearest carrier battle group, whichever is closer.

Read the full post and supporting material on the source site.

Tom Atlee: About RedBlue

[This is cross posted from Tom's list.]

As Daniel Yankelovich noted in a post-2004-election Christian Science Monitor article, "Democracy requires space for compromise, and compromise is best won through acknowledging the legitimate concerns of the other." Yet today, there is little space for the other to be heard. We talk about issues with people who already agree with us, re-circulating the same ideas within our own communities of interest. We take our cues from our favorite media outlets, where opposing TV sound bites pass for honest dialogue, or from partisan information sources like talk radio, email lists and weblogs that aim to further polarize the electorate.

Recognizing that opinions differ, and then creating the means for people to engage in constructive rather than destructive conversations, can reduce invective debate and set the stage for the deeper dialogue so necessary to democracy, negotiation, and solving the problems our nation faces.

RedBlue will be an interactive Internet application that will provide an exciting yet safe way to engage directly with someone on "the other side" of the political spectrum. This new approach to civic engagement is designed to leave behind the confrontational and polarizing forms of discourse that dominate today's Red vs. Blue debates and reintroduce Americans to the old-fashioned notion that in matters of public policy, there can be room for reasonable people to disagree.

RedBlue will create a private, one-on-one online dialogue process by matching participants with contrasting views. "Counterparts" will learn about the ground rules of productive dialogue, then engage on a difficult issue by viewing or reading a fictional narrative scenario that frames a front-page issue in personal, rather than theoretical, terms. Their email-style discussion will be monitored by a "virtual facilitator" that will make suggestions, provide feedback, and offer to step in when the heat of the moment threatens to derail the civility of the dialogue.

The partners who have joined forces to create RedBlue are uniquely qualified for the task: Internews Interactive is a non-profit pioneer of digital media convergence which has been creating innovative public policy dialogue using digital technology since 1989; Gekko Productions specializes in adapting video tools to online and offline interactive media, and is a frequent InterAct partner in realizing the technical aspects of projects; Public Conversations Project is a nationally-recognized facilitation group working with contentious policy issues that has extensive experience in on-line dialogue, and Alejandro Levins serves as strategic and technical lead on innovative web-based initiatives for businesses and non-profits.

Questions about the project? Email us.

Want to participate?

The first phase of the project, to develop a proof-of-concept prototype, is now underway. We are recruiting testers who will be matched with cross-spectrum counterparts, and who will then use the system to conduct a dialogue. Their feedback will help us refine the system. If you're interested in participating, please enter your email address below (we will use your email address only for this notification, and will not share it with anyone). Thanks for your interest.

Tom Atlee * The Co-Intelligence Institute * PO Box 493 * Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org * http://www.democracyinnovations.org
Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY * http://www.taoofdemocracy.com
Tom Atlee's blog http://www.evolvingcollectiveintelligence.org
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Joe Lieberman Sells Out the Internet

Monday, October 16, 2006

by David S. Isenberg

I just got a letter from my senator, Joe Lieberman, dated Oct. 6, that indicates that he's completely flaking on network neutrality and other key telecom reforms. The letter says that he supports the principle of net neutrality, but underneath the letter's tricky language he's saying that he will vote for the telecom industry's telecom bill (S. 2686), the bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last summer without any net neutrality provision. Moreover, it shows that Lieberman is not willing to wait a year to see if his (former?) party wins a majority in one House of Congress so maybe the country can get a more balanced law.

Commerce Committee chair Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been scrambling to find the 60 votes needed to stop the filibuster promised by Senator Wyden, Senator Kerry and others who believe that the Stevens bill is anti-democratic and an industry give-away. To date, Stevens has lined up about 57 votes, and now with Lieberman and perhaps other swing senators falling Stevens' way, passage of the Senate telecom bill looks more likely than ever before.

Continue reading here.

Note: For more about David, see his home page.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

This is a cross posting from Dewayne Hendrick's list:

[Note: This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis. DLH]

From: Mike Cheponis
Date: October 14, 2006 11:10:17 PM PDT
Subject: "Who Killed the Electric Car" video now online and free

Watch it here

Good stuff!

I highly recommend you watch this film. One note on the problem of charging plugin hybrids with power from coal fired power plants that discard 2/3s of the energy in the coal they burn as "waste" heat.

We know from all of the global warming studies that releasing the sequestered carbon in the oil, gas and coal that we are currently consuming in vast quantities is a very significant threat to the viability of the biosphere. If this is the problem, then an important and common sense part of the solution will be simply to keep all sequestered carbon safely sequestered.

A major step in this direction will be for all of us to make our own electricity in our basements with micro-CHP units powered by solid biomass fuels. Carbon neutral solid biomass fuel has a superior net energy content of 14:1. On the other hand, when we convert biomass into liquid fuels, the net energy drops to only 7:1, if not a mere 2:1. Further, the production of ethanol also results in the degradation of several gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced.

In this scenario, we will power our plugin hybrid cars with electricity we make in our homes with appliances that achieve 95% efficiency. In this way, our personal transportation becomes an integral part of what Al Gore calls the “electranet".

The Political Palimpsest

The movie, The Ad and the ego has caused me to spend a bit of time thinking about the overall effect of political messages getting etched in our consciousness, only to be scraped away for newer messages to be added, a sort of political palimpsest.

As an aside, I am ever indebted to Judge John M. Woolsey for introducing me to the word “palimpsest” in his decision in the case United States of America v. One Book Called "Ulysses.", which I found in the forward to my copy of the book Ulysses.

Joyce has attempted - it seems to me, with astonishing success - to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impression carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious.

I started exploring this idea in a post I put up on MyDD entitled, Ad Watch and the Ego Research.

Since I was offline for a few days, I’m digging through all the emails that have piled up in my inbox. There is the standard collection of emails from Howard Dean, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and so on, asking me for money, to take time off to get out the vote, to vote in a poll on who my favorite progressive candidate is, etc. I’ve often wondered if these political request emails have become superfluous. I typically barely glance at them before I move them off to my ‘requests’ archive, paying them no more attention than I would an advertisement on TV.

That is when it struck me that we need to look at all these requests in a similar light as we look at the advertisements on TV. It isn’t about the request or the messaging, it is about residue that gets left on our political palimpsest.

My email box is still overflowing, but I can only take so much at a time, so I took a moment to try and catch up on blogs that I follow through Bloglines, as well as a few others that I go directly too. I scanned a couple hundred posts on official campaign blogs from around the country, again, with about as much attention as I devote to advertisements on TV. This too, then is another part of the political palimpsest.

What then, is the emerging image of our political landscape? I have my own thoughts, which people who read me regularly probably have a sense of, but I wonder what the vista is to you? Perhaps more importantly, are political campaigns thinking about this in their messaging? How could or should they change the whole of their communications to more effectively bring about the change they want?

Islam: Environmental Protection

By: Professor Dr. Farooq Hassan
President Pakistan Ecology Council

(Presidential Address to the Pakistan Ecology Council at the Karachi Hall, Lahore High Court Bar Association, 6 October, 2006, Lahore)

I am grateful to be invited to give this year's main Annual address on the highly important subject of Islam and protection of the environment. As Chairman of the Bar's Environmental Committee as well, I am pleased to be here at this historical Karachi Hall, the venue for many events dealing with this country’s constitutional history. To days talk is even more significant since it deals with the survival of the human race. My interest in this subject is not new. Let me at the outset take a brief moment of your time to submit to you that as far back as 1975, that is thirty years ago, I was elected amongst a handful of Third World delegates to the First International Ecology Congress in Vienna, in which I presented my views on a subject which was in some ways similar to the one today but without reference to the available Islamic conceptions about it. [1]

The current debates on environment and its much needed protection seems to be at the center of many controversial aspects of US foreign and domestic policy. Conservationists feel that exploitation of earth’s resources for commercial goals is leading the entirety of human race into an uncertain future. On the other hand, many Western governments, led by Washington, maintain that this threat is over exaggerated and that putting an end to useful acquisition of such resources by latest scientific methodology would be tantamount to impeding human progress.

It is the purpose of this presentation to examine this debate from an Islamic perspective. My research indicates that although some aspects of this topic have been handled by a few scholars mostly in the Arabic language, this appears to be a pioneer effort to do so in an exhaustive manner. I request therefore, that you give the message of this address, the needed significance for an adequate dissemination to the people of this country. Not only third of world countries are comprised of Muslims, a number of them are pivotal in enunciating policies with respect to oil exploration.

In this context, we may keep in mind the peculiar environmental controversy intertwined with fossil oil which Muslim states have in abundance. Their rapid utilization at the urging of mostly Western states, and by the US in particular, causes serious pollution hazards and also emission of gases that are a cause of acute danger to the ozone protection of the world’s atmosphere. This has resulted in clearly the single most dangerous pollution hazard, namely, global warming to which I shall revert to later in this presentation.

The ensuing analysis examines the Islamic injunctions, if any, on this subject. This is with a view to see the philosophy of the Muslim faith towards this most crucial of current topics of human concern. Islam is considered a comprehensive way of life whose teachings, directly or indirectly, cover every possible human relationship including what today is described as “environment”.

These teachings are primarily available in the revealed knowledge which comprises the Quran and in the teaching of Prophet as handed down in the Sunnah. In articulating and expounding the thesis of these presentation two further sources, namely Ijma and Qiyas, have been kept in mind by me. But, as they are dependent on the first two primary sources, it is not necessary to go into them in detail.

In what follows, therefore, reference will be mainly made to those verses that define the epistemological parameters of the Quranic teachings in this respect. In support, I would refer to some sayings of the Prophet through which the quintessence of the Shariah may be perceived. In sum, I would rely on the highest form of sources from Islamic Shariah to present my conclusions and analysis.

To begin with at the beginning of Sura Al-Baqarah, the Quran is presented to mankind as a book of guidance: "This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those who fear God" (Quran, 2:2). God furthermore says that the Quran encompasses the foundations for knowledge and ethics: “Nothing have We omitted from the Book…" Quran, 6:3. In addition, the Quran announces that Islam, as a Din (Faith), has been perfected by God. It is considered a comprehensive way of life which accommodates every aspect of it. The Islamic world-view is established upon the very notion of Islam as a perfect religion:

"This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion" Quran, 5:3

In the light of these Divinely ordained articulations, it can be justifiably submitted that a jurisprudence of the environment can be discerned and should be locatable from the confines of the metaphysical and practical messages in the Quran.

It should be equally self evident that all aspects of the environment's protection cannot be summarized in this limited initiative of mine. But sufficient coverage in depth would be provided to see if the current controversies can be resolved by applying the message of God for Muslims. This much however, is clear. That norms relating to environment from within the Muslim theological foundations would have an Islamic world-view of this topic. Once a Quranic injunction is located, it has to prevail and applied.

Depletion of resources

Before a more direct mandate about environment is referred to, it would be helpful to expound the general guidelines that may be usefully kept in mind while understanding the Islamic philosophy on ecology. Moderation is one of the main attributes of Islam. Islam furthermore discourages self indulgence, lavish living and waste. Those peoples in the past that did so were destroyed by the Almighty. The Quran says in Sura Al- Isra 17:16:

“When we intend to destroy a township, we permit its luxury loving people to commit wickedness therein. Then the word is proved true against it and we can destroy it utterly.”

Therefore many sayings of the Prophet towards modesty in living have to be kept in mind. Excessive indulgences of any kind are likely to inflict incalculable damage to our surroundings. It is manifest that such a tendency has to be stopped and discouraged by the Faithful through all forms of available legal recourse, influence and intellectual dissemination. Once it is grasped that human beings essentially remain care takers of the earth, it follows that they must preserve the environment in which they dwell. Humanity should behave in such a way that would maintain the balance that exists within the kind of environment that we inherited. In fact it is incumbent as a moral duty to restore and even retrieve the balance that had existed before we caused, collectively, many ecological disasters( See Quran: 15: 19):

"And the earth We have spread out; set thereon mountains firm and immovable; and produced therein all kinds of things in due balance."

The earth and its countless bounties have been created for mankind. It is also manifest that God made such natural bounties for all human beings in perpetuity. This huge reservoir is available for human use, without abuse or misuse. The circle of naturally available blessings for the benefit of humanity has to be kept alive for all generations to come.

“Environment”, as a term of art as we use it, has to be in the forefront of all such human thinking, policies and actions. There are numerous verses in the Quran that could be cited in this respect, but it suffices to mention three of them:

"And He has subjected to you, as from Him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: behold, in that there are Signs indeed for those who reflect.” Quran,45:13

Again the Quran says that His bounties to Mankind are always there: 


"Do you not see that God has subjected to your (use) all things in the heavens and on earth. And has made His bounties flow to you in exceeding measure, (that are essentially both) seen and unseen?" Quran, 31:20



 In another part the Quran maintains that:

"He has made subject to you the Night and the Day; the Sun and the Moon; and the Stars are in subjection by His command: verily in this are Signs for people who are wise." Quran:16:12.

There are other verses in the Quran that emphasize the point that mankind has merely a temporal use of nature and over other similar environmental elements. So tremendous is the ability of Man that God made night and day, stars, moon and the sun subject to his potential control. Therefore the primary reason for highlighting the temporality of things is to remind people of the Hereafter and to focus upon the non-permanent character of human existence on this earth. It is hoped that once people are conscientious of the limitation of life on earth, they will behave in a positive and constructive way. As a result, it is anticipated that the environment itself will benefit from the proper behavior of people.

The cosmic order of things seen or unseen and natural phenomena ultimately come to an end, as is reflected in this verse:

"…He has subjected the sun and the moon (to his Law)! Each one runs (its course) for a term appointed. He does regulate all affairs, explaining the Signs in detail that you may believe with certainty in the meeting with your Lord." Quran, 13:2

The subjection of the elements that make up the environment is spoken of in many chapters of the Quran:

"It is He who has made the sea subject, that you may eat thereof flesh that is fresh and tender., and that you may extract there from ornaments to wear; and you see the ships therein that plough the waves, that you may seek (thus) of the bounty of God and that you may be grateful." Quran:16:14

Concept of Vice Regency

Mankind and the human being are perceived as the trustee of the earth. The notion of trusteeship implies specifically that he is not supposed to cause corruption in any form on earth (i.e. the environment). Life on earth entails great responsibilities. This test implies accountability. It is followed by either reward or punishment. These concepts are mentioned both in the Quran and in the Sunnah. The Quran says in the following verse:

"It is He who has made you (His) vice regents, inheritors of the earth: He has raised you in ranks, some above others: that He may try you in the gifts He has given you: for your Lord is quick in punishment: yet He is indeed Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful." Quran, 6:165

This verse proclaims with clarity that mankind in this vice regency role is subject to a natural system of reward and punishment. If the cosmic order is preserved in good order, human beings are better of; if they interfere adversely with such natural order of things, punishment shall surely follow. The Quran further says in famous verse which ordains the preservation of environment:

"Then We made you heirs in the land after them, to see how you would behave!" Quran, 10:14

I feel that this verse of the Quran may be said to be the simplest magna carta of the genesis of a law of environmental protection in Islam. The same message is implied in the Sunnah of the Prophet:

"Verily, this world is sweet and appealing, and Allah placed you as vice regents therein; He will see what you will do. So, be careful of [what you do in] this world and [what you do to/with] women, for the first test of the children of Israel was in women!" [2]

These emphatic commandments of the Quran make it clear that the Islamic perspectives of mankind’s vice regency on earth forms a test which includes how human beings relate to the environment. Is it going to be based upon divine instructions, or based upon personal desires, greed or commercial exploitation that might lead to the destruction of our environment? If the latter condition prevails, then vice regency will be entrusted to another and different people or generation. The possibility of this kind of a change over of the inheritance of this earth to another set of people is understood from the following two verses:

"Call in remembrance that He made you inheritors after the people of Noah…" Quran,7:69


 Again the Quran says at a different place about changing the “inheritors” of this earth: 


"And remember how He made you inheritors after the 'And people and gave you habitation in the land…" Quran, 7:74

These verses of the Quran contains the philosophy that God can and does switch the vice regency on earth to different peoples if the ones who are incumbent fail to honor their Divine commandments. This would be particularly relevant to those set who alter the human environment for the simple reason that with damage to such natural legacy by a certain set of people they would appear to lose that mantle of leadership of incumbency.

Maintenance of Natural balance

This leads me to the next issue which in terms of the epistemology of this matter deserves our consideration. How does one maintain the natural legacy of mankind as is implied in the verses of the Quran cited above? Clearly it seems to me by the continued adherence of a “balance” in the natural order of things that exist in this earth since the dawn of civilizations.

Therefore, mankind’s dominium over the earth is based upon knowledge that enables human beings to remain care takers of the environment in which they live and have inhabited it for thousands of years. Humanity must, a fortiori, behave in such a way that would maintain the balance that exists within the environment ultimately for the survival of the human race. Efforts must indeed be made to retrieve and redress the balance that has existed before any current generation may have caused collectively ecological disasters of great magnitude (see Quran: 1519):

"And the earth We have spread out; set thereon mountains firm and immovable; and produced therein all kinds of things in due balance."

The earth should remain therefore available for human use; its use without abuse or misuse has to avoided, indeed shunned as it is tantamount to a breach of trust imposed by God on the believers. The following verses may be cited from the Quran that support this perspective:

"And He has subjected to you, as from Him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: behold, in that there are Signs indeed for those who reflect." Quran, 45:13

In another verse already cited earlier we may re-emphasize when God tells mankind that all things in heavens and earth are in abundance and care must betake to part-take of such bounties with prudence and care: Quran 31:20. God further ordains in yet another well known verse:

"He has made subject to you the Night and the Day; the Sun and the Moon; and the Stars are in subjection by His command: verily in this are Signs for people who are wise." Quran: 16:12.

We can see the same message in other verses that point to the temporal nature of the natural elements. The reason behind highlighting the temporality of things is to remind people of the Hereafter. It is hoped that once people are conscientious of the limitation of life on earth, they may respond in a positive and constructive manner. As a result, it is anticipated that the environment itself will benefit from the proper behavior of people. Even the cosmos and the natural phenomena remain subject to this balance and ultimately come to an end when they go against the Divinely ordained course:

"…He has subjected the sun and the moon (to his Law)! Each one runs (its course) for a term appointed. He does regulate all affairs, explaining the Signs in detail that you may believe with certainty in the meeting with your Lord." Quran, 13:2

The Quran contains an elaborate identification of the natural order of this universe by pointing that nature’s elements too are governed by norms of the cosmos. As such the elements that make up the environment are spoken of in many important verses:

"It is He who has made the sea subject, that you may eat thereof flesh that is fresh and tender., and that you may extract there from ornaments to wear; and you see the ships therein that plough the waves, that you may seek (thus) of the bounty of God and that you may be grateful." Quran: 16:14.

The Quran again reminds us:

"It is God who has created the heavens and the earth and sends down rain from the skies, and with it brings out fruits wherewith to feed you; it is He who has made the ships subject to you, that they may sail through the sea by His command; and the rivers (also) has He made subject to you." Quran:4:32

Then yet at another place the Quran tells us that Man has been even given the ability to: 


"Then We subjected the Wind to his power, to flow gently to his order, whithersoever he willed …" Quran: 38:36

These verses highlight the simple point that natural facilities that are available to human beings must be utilized in manner that genuinely furthers the nature’s design of human progress and not in way that bedevils that scheme. Whether it may be the utilization of the strength of animals or be it natural elements, all these measures of human assistance have to be used with prudence and care so that natural balance remains in tact:

"That has created pairs in all things, and has made for you ships and cattle on which you ride, In order that you may sit firm and square on their backs, and when so seated, you may celebrate the (kind) favor of your Lord, and say, "Glory to Him Who has subjected these to our (use), for we could never have accomplished this (by ourselves), And to our Lord, surely, must we turn back!" Quran, 43:12-14

Clearly humanity was not restricted to the use of ships and animals to move from one place to another. There are many other modes of transportation that are subjected to our use. The utilization and use of natural phenomenon and elements that mankind uses has to be undertaken in a humane and visionary manner.

Focus of Islamic on natural eco-system

The above discussion may be summarized as under:

(1) That Islam gave to mankind a message which is complete for guidance for all times to come. This message contains injunctions against human misconduct or excesses including, it is submitted, about utilization of nature and the elements.

(2) That in the support of this thesis we find numerous quotations from the Quran about harnessing the natural elements such as wind, water and the produce that comes from the land. The design of Almighty being to provide reasonable comfort and well being of the human race for all times to come.

(3) It is also clear that in such exploitation of nature and its resources and the elements there is depletion of such natural heritage of mankind.

(4) That as such God ordains Muslims to maintain a balance in these exploits so that the natural equilibrium is kept aloft as we inherited it.

(5) It is well to remember, as the Quran emphasizes, that those peoples who did not obey these natural laws were changed.

(6) On this earth God has appointed mankind as trustee and vice regent to oversee the affairs of its earthly existence. It is a trust that needs to be faithfully executed.

The above summary succinctly provides us with the fundamental philosophy of Islamic provisions of the earth’s eco-system and its conceptions relating to the environment. While there are many aspects of this environmental attitude of Islam, this exploratory analysis is only intended to concentrate on one particular aspect of this otherwise large subject. Do the injunctions of Islam address the current critical problem of global warming which is arising as a consequence of excessive fossil fuel burning and emission of carbon at the expense of the earth’s ozone environmental protective layers? I particularly refer to this problem as by itself it is quite sufficient to wreck havoc on the current living patterns of all kinds of living species on our planet.

Irreversible environmental damage

There has been an increasing worldwide clamor against this non-abating and irreparable damage to the earth’s environment through this peculiar form of “pollution”. At the international scene European countries have been generally in the forefront of this visibly active movement at both the governmental and at the NGO level.

This international furor finds support in a recently made powerful statement from a notable American personality. It would be instructive to refer to a memorable passage from the address of former Vice President of the US, Al Gore, who in a speech to the New York University on 18th September 2006 in which he said:

“A few days ago, scientists announced alarming new evidence of the rapid melting of the perennial ice of the north polar cap, continuing a trend of the past several years that now confronts us with the prospect that human activities, if unchecked in the next decade, could destroy one of the earth’s principal mechanisms for cooling itself. Another group of scientists presented evidence that human activities are responsible for the dramatic warming of sea surface temperatures in the areas of the ocean where hurricanes form.

A few weeks earlier, new information from yet another team showed dramatic increases in the burning of forests throughout the American West, a trend that has increased decade by decade, as warmer temperatures have dried out soils and vegetation. All these findings come at the end of a summer with record breaking temperatures and the hottest twelve month period ever measured in the U.S., with persistent drought in vast areas of our country. Scientific American introduces the lead article in its special issue this month with the following sentence: The debate on global warming is over.”

Manifestly, this quotation gives a capsule summary of the major assaults on the existing environment by and under the guise of exploitation for “scientific progress” through this process referred to as “global warming”. These “assaults” to which I refer have been noted most contemporaneously by the international community when analyzing the Kyoto Protocols. However, Islam examined the philosophical genesis of this danger fifteen hundred years ago. The fundamental genesis of this fear is that this ceaseless drive to deplete the fossil fuels’ reservoirs of the earth for purely commercial goals is at the expense of the eco-system and environmental balance that was identified above.

Message of Kyoto Protocols

Let us initially focus our attention on one basic facet of this contemporary debate. It seems to be beyond any doubt that mankind is faced with a huge danger because the Kyoto Protocol was not put really into effect by the all the relevant actors of this pollution drive on account of the commercial aims of a few but important international actors. This inability of the world community to act in unison has resulted in a potential disaster of incalculable proportions. The acute and impending damage to the earth, inteneded to be averted through the Kyoto Protocol, continues to loom large on all of humanity. We would initially briefly examine the contours of this controversy. Once the fundamental issues are realized we would with advantage visit the corresponding position of this topic from the confines of Islamic theological formulations.

Kyoto Protocol was signed in Japan in 1997 initially by 165 countries but that number now stands at over 180. The ideas behind Kyoto were aimed to achieve that state of affairs that existed as far back as in 1972, when human development and environment initially came under serious international discussions. This was at the Stockholm U.N. Conference on Human Development. Twenty years later, in 1992, came the famous Anniversary meeting of the UN at what is known as the “Earth Summit” when the UN Conference on Environment took place in Brazil.

Its landmark contribution was the signing of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration. In these international instruments the UN brought together conflicting interests of development and environment firmly into public view for an evaluation. As a consequence, two binding international texts were produced. These international texts of far reaching influence were the agreement on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCC).

The quintessential elements of the Kyoto Protocol were that it committed the 38 most industrialized countries of the world to cut their emissions of greenhouse gasses between 2008 and 2112 to levels that are 5.2 percent below those that existed in 1990.

The simple question that arises, therefore, is why is the danger still there if nearly all countries of the world are in favor of abiding by it? The answer, regrettably, is that the US, possessing the world’s largest economy, and Australia, are holding out and refusing to ratify this crucial treaty engineered and crafted for the future survival of the human race on this planet. This danger is directly connected with the emanation of the greenhouse gasses by the industrialized states and pollution caused by transport vehicles by fuel emissions.

How are greenhouse gasses produced? What is the disastrous impact they produce on the environment?

Greenhouse gasses are a term that means those gasses like carbon dioxide which are mainly generated as a result of burning fossil fuels like coal, petrol and diesel. While burning these resources have been greatly beneficial to gigantic oil corporations producing them trans-nationally, they have simultaneously resulted in raising the level of carbon in the atmosphere. This has been the chief cause of world-wide pollution. Scientists predict significant global warming as a consequence of this process by warming the earth by about 5 degrees Celsius. This could potentially be disastrous to ecology by changing environment, expanding deserts, melting ice, causing sea levels to rise and engulf low lying coastal areas of the world. Were this to occur, many well known cities and seaports of the world would be submerged for ever under the oceans.

Islamic theological perspectives

(a) Basic terms

Before proceeding further to analyze the relevant Islamic perspectives, let me make a lexicographical submission of far reaching impact. We must, a priori, make a basic philosophical distinction between the concepts of “environment” and “ecology” or eco-systems”. Both these terms are interchangeably used in contemporary literature on this subject. However, there does exist, prima facie, a clear difference between the two terms. Intellectual exactitude requires that we keep it in mind for appropriate application the relevant term when necessary.

Both terms are employed in Muslim texts of authentic value. Indeed, it can be said that there exists a branch of jurisprudence (fiqh) about 'environment' (bi'ah). It may be described as the Fiqh al-biah al Islam. This would be the equivalent of Islamic jurisprudence of the environment.

On the other hand, the word “ecology” does appear to be utilized in lexicographical and epistemological semantics through out Islamic texts of the highest validity. Ecology in its lexicon sense means a branch of human knowledge that deals with living organisms, habits and modes of life.

Historically, therefore, it is necessary to comprehend that whereas the term ecology or co-systems have a direct base in the Quran, “environment" is newer addition to the classical texts on this subject. This is invariable. Not long ago, such a term was not even used in Western legal parlance.

It should be thus emphasized from the above analysis that Islam does advocate the protection of the environment as a matter of “law”. At the same time the preservation of earth’s ecology is equally mandated as the Quran normatively contains literally dozens of verses about keeping the natural balance that prevails on this earth. The quotations from the Quran cited earlier were clearly of this category and import.

The various verses of the Quran cited at the outset were towards establishing the thesis that Islam does have an in ecological sense. We tried to establish that Islam does have:

(1) A broad set of guidelines towards nature that calls for preservation of this earth.

(2) In these guidelines there is the warning that there must be avoided damage to this human legacy.

(3) There is the allegorical reference to the past history of mankind that those that did not obey such guidelines were removed and replaced by another people.

It may further be noted that the term “environment” per se, along with its diverse connotations, gradually evolved in recent times through interpretation provided by essentially jurists. This important development is predicated on the premise that all concepts that owe their genesis to the Quran are of an injunctive kind. Hence, I used the phrase of “towards jurisprudence of the environment.” Islam clearly has a high regard for the environment as support for such a proposition, as submitted above, is found in the Quran and the Sunnah.

(b) Basic norms

However, this should also be noted that by emphasizing that nature must be preserved does not mean that there has to be no human progress! In fact, it may be necessary to undertake the contrary route involving scientific advancement for the preservation, protection and for alleviating the difficulties of the human race itself. According to one Hadith, the Prophet is reported to have said that a person who uprooted a tree (which formed an obstacle) in the path of people, ended up in heavens. In other words, the object of interfering in nature has to be higher and nobler than mere exploitation for economic gain of the relevant actor.


The fundamental postulate in this context is thus the “balance” we adverted to earlier and to maintaining a course that keeps nature as purified as we inherited it, but subjecting it to mankind’s use intelligently with prudence. That this is the role and responsibility of a Vice Regent on earth is reiterated again and again in the Quran. It is incumbent on all peoples at all times to so perform their assignments in this world that nothing impinges or adversely affects on the natural state of scheme of such matters.


Islam modulates a middle path between human behavior that has disregard for the environment and those who practically want the environment or certain parts of it to remain untouched. While the Islamic world view supports the protection of environment from the greedy behavior of human beings, it also allows room for sustainable development.

At this juncture let me pause and introduce you to a term “I’mar”. Generally this term is given the conception of “to inhabit”. It is useful to comprehend the wider conception of this word. Such meaning includes spreading and settling all over the earth, inhabiting every livable quarters, building and undertaking civic projects that benefit the community at large. In short, it includes every positive activity that would make life on earth prosperous. If an activity diverts humanity from the right path which means against the Shariah, then it cannot be considered as I'mar.

It is clear from a study of the Quran that the earth is our habitat and that we are required to dwell on it, work it out and establish a balanced way of life without excesses or deficiencies. The Quran says:

"To the Thamud People (We sent) Salih, one of their own brethren. He said: "O my People! Worship God: you have no other God but Him. It is He Who has produced you from the earth and settled you therein: then ask forgiveness of Him, and turn to Him (in repentance): for my Lord is (always) near, ready to answer" Quran, 11:61


A well known commentator on Muslim theology says on this verse:

"And Salih reminded them (the people of Thamud) about their origination from earth, the creation of every individual from the nutrition of the earth or from its components that make up their bodies. Despite being (created) from this earth and its elements, Allah appointed them vice regents so that they may inhabit it! He wanted them to be vice regents as a species, and as individuals to replace those who came before they did!" [3]

In advocating the cause of preservation of inherited human environment and the prevalent eco-systems, the Quran reminds us with this warning that those who did not heed such messages before were wiped out of existence themselves.

"Do they not travel through the earth; and see what the end of those before them was? In strength they tilled the soil and populated it in greater numbers than these have done: there came to them their apostles with Clear (Signs), (which they rejected, to their own destruction): it was not God who wronged them, but they wronged their own souls." Quran, 30:9

The I’ mar of the earth should be in areas and projects that could benefit humanity and not harm it. This means that projects and activities that destroy the environment are excluded from permissible human enterprise. The brute form of the capitalist system encourages such “destructive” industries as drilling oil as long as the earth’s reservoir lasts. They find imaginative ways to counter the facts of pollution of the air, destruction of human health, lost energies and funds in combating and treating the resulting diseases, misuse of the land which could be used otherwise for other humanely beneficial purposes for mankind.

Protecting environment

Every act, as long as it is good in protecting the environment and done for the sake of generating and assisting life and also preserve the earth is allowed by Islamic teachings. A middle road between two extremes is the proffered solution; neither there should be a total disregard for the environment’s integrity nor an abandonment of the justifiable progress that mankind may achieve through sustainable development and evolution.


The total disregard for the environment is detrimental for the human being is not to be encouraged. Similarly it is equally true that the adoption of a position on the other end of the spectrum of protecting the environment in an absolute sense must not adhered to. 



The Islamic position forms a middle path between human behavior that has disregard to the environment and those who practically worship the environment or certain parts of it. While the Islamic world view supports the protection of environment from the greedy behavior of human beings, it allows room for sustainable development.

The oft quoted Hadith mandate on this point is in the following verse:

"He who cuts a lote-tree (without justification), God will send him to Hellfire." [4]

The lote-tree grows in the desert and it is very much needed in an area which has scarce vegetation. A well known Muslim theologian, Dr. Al-Qaradawi, is of the view that this Hadith provides us with the most vivid illustration in terms of protecting the natural resources and preserving the balance that exists between the diverse elements of nature in the environment. [5]

In this background, where the continuity of even one tree is appreciated, one can visualize what would be the Islamic position towards destroying millions of trees, or depleting the earth’s resources, or the destruction of the ozone layer of this planet? Non preservation of the natural environment of mankind or the habitat of the human race as a result of humans directly acting upon nature (e.g. deforestation) or indirectly (e.g. acid rain) cannot possibly be contended by Islamic dictates.

In this context there is much, for instance, on plants and the activity of agriculture in classical Muslim teachings. The Prophet indeed encouraged people to work hard under all circumstances in maintenance of the earth’s natural heritage. He explained that people should plant and undertake all kinds of plantations. This trend is particularly focused upon for those plants that bear fruit particularly a palm-tree seedling. So much is this emphasis that it is enjoined upon all Muslims, even if it is the Day of Judgment and that the world is coming to an end, they should still do it!

It is for this reason that it is prohibited by Islam to let the land set idle for a long time without working it out. Reviving a "dead" or “barren” land could lead, under customary Islamic law, to creating a legal right to use it indefinitely, as long as it was continued to be planted. This was a direct incentive from the state and the community to encourage cultivation of barren land. Hence it is obvious that Muslim jurists from the very inception had been brought up to frame normative norms of positive law which were helpful to environment.

Protecting Land

Protection of land finds many verses in support thereof by emphasizing that it must be kept clean and free from rubbish. It is reported by a famous Hadith that God likes cleanliness. [6] Further, the Prophet is said to have warned Muslims not to throw refuse in public or near the fruit trees. The message that this Hadith sends is that cleanliness is something desirable, good and reflects an act of necessity towards the environment. As such it is submitted that if cleanliness is something good, then it should be reflected everywhere.

Islam has thus created a bond between faith and cleanliness, rendering the latter as a part of faith. The Prophet’s sayings on this point illustrate that solid waste of any kind must not pollute the grounds that produce food or which forms parts of the dwellings. It is obvious that cleaning such places means, in this context, the removal of material obstacles or solid waste which constitutes a kind of pollution in contemporary perspectives of this matter.

The prohibition in such Hadiths is thus intended to prevent pollution. The direct human polluting activity presently is manifestly to extend to indirect sources of pollution as well, such as through sewers. The natural pollutants of any given time conceptually extended to include the chemical pollutants or other activity which is connected, for instance, with industrial production. The language of another Hadith which prohibits the pollution of water may further be cited to support the thesis just articulated by me that, in a contemporary context, pollution of any kind is impermissible in Islam. It is mandated that a Muslim should keep the channels of drinking water clean. We know already those chemicals such as pesticides, insecticides, or herbicides which are detrimental to the health of humans, and we know that much of these chemicals reach the reservoirs of drinking water. Analogical reasoning will justify, therefore, from the perspective of the Shraiah, that such activity be also prohibited and not allowed to be undertaken. 



The Shariah aims at protecting the environment, and while the individual is asked to help in this respect, the ultimate responsibility is in the hands of the state. When Abu Musa was sent to Al-Basrah as the new governor, he addressed the people saying:

"I was sent to you by 'Umar Ibn Al-Khattab in order to teach you the Book of your Lord [i.e. the Quran], the Sunnah of your prophet, and to clean your streets." [7]

The function of the governor who represents the authority of the state, in the narration about Abu Musa, tends to establish that keeping the environment clean is amongst the responsibilities of the Administration. This position should be highlighted, because it obligates the governments, as much as the Muslims themselves, to keep their civic environments and amenities clean and free of pollution.

Preserving Water

The above analysis would have already stressed the significance of water for various human needs. It is God's will that all living beings on earth are dependent for their existence on water:

"…We made from water every living thing…" Quran, 21:30

Furthermore, there are many verses in the Quran that reflect the direct involvement of the Divine Will whenever it rains. Following are typical of these verses from the Quran:

"And God sends down rain from the skies, and gives therewith life to the earth.” Quran:16:65

And again Quran mandates to Muslims: 


"…and He sends down rain from the sky and with it gives life to earth…" Quran: 30:24

Yet another instance of this philosophy this contained in this verse:


"And We send down from the sky rain charged with blessing, and We produce therewith gardens and grain for harvests." Quran: 50:9


In addition to the protection of water from pollution, the Sunnah emphasized the proper use of water without wasting it. One more Hadith regarding the protection of water is related to the use of clean still water. The Prophet said: "No one should bathe in still water, when he is junub (impure)" [8] In a Hadith that reflects the future scene regarding the said issue, the Prophet said according to Abu Dawud:

"There will be a people amongst this Ummah who will transgress in their supplication and ablution."

It is obvious that the transgressing in wasting eater even in ablution means the use of excessive amounts of water or it misuse even for an ostensibly laudable purpose and objective is disallowed by Islam. This is contrary to the Islamic ethos of maintaining the healthy balance between need and waste.

Preventing air pollution

Protecting the air from pollutants can be deduced from many sayings of the Prophet. There are many Hadiths that tell us that the Prophet , discouraged or prohibited activities that result in offensive smells and odors, from taking place in certain public places. 
Another Hadith aims at protecting the Muslim community from offensive smells that result from eating garlic or onion. The Prophet said:

"He who eats from this tree - meaning garlic - should not get close to our mosque." [9]

According to another Hadith:

"He who eats garlic or onion should stay away from us, or he said: "should stay away from our mosque and stay at his home." [10]

The period which one should stay away from the mosque is limited to the duration of the smell. This is understood from the Hadith narrated by Abu Dawaud :

"He who eats from this wicked plant, should not get close to our mosque, until its smell goes."

Al-Qaradawi refers to a religious ruling (fatwa) upon the fact that smoking is detrimental to the health of primary and secondary smokers. It is the harm that results from releasing anything into the air which forms the fundamental basis of al-Qaradawi's reference. By analogy, anything that pollutes the air and is detrimental to the health should be prohibited. This includes indirect harm such as in the case of CFC which depletes the ozone. Harmful fumes that cannot be prohibited all together, should be reduced and alternatives should be made popular. The emission of Carbon Monoxide would certainly be a target of this prohibition. A case is also made out to find out alternative sources of energy to ward off, if possible, the damage by way of global warming phenomenon by a continued use of fossil fuels.

Injunction against noise pollution

Islam took care of the human being and made sure that he should not be subjected to loud and annoying noises to prevent harm to him both physically and psychologically. There are multiple Hadith that point out that loud noise is tantamount to foolish conduct and is basically harmful. In the Quran, Luqman advised his son saying:

"…and lower thy voice; for the harshest of sounds without doubt is the braying of the ass." Quran, 31:19

The Islamic Shariah, it is interesting to note, does not contemplate loud voices or sounds being made even in the mosques. The right of others to pray peacefully, or to recite the Quran quietly on their own, during times other than the obligatory prayer, which is performed by all present at the same time together, should be respected. The argument in favor of preventing pollution by noise is that reciting of the Quran by voices is not encouraged because it may distract others from reflection; if this be the case then any other sources of noise pollution deserve the same evaluating criteria; they are all seemingly prohibited. It is established by modern medical sciences that if one is subjected to loud noise over a long period of time, it reduces the ability of a healthy person to react normally; such noise can adversely affect the hearing ability of some and possibly also result in psych-somatic problems.

Islamic objectives in environment protection

There are said to be five major aims (maqasid) of Islam in life. As mentioned many times by most scholars through out of its history of mankind the Shariah aims to:

(1) The protection of life,

(2) The protection of religion,

(3) The protection of the mind,

(4) The preservation of one’s offspring and progeny, and

(5) The protection of property.

A well known recent authority of the Islamic theology, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Tahir Ibn 'Ashur went beyond the original five and added another two objectives as aims of a good Muslims life:

(6) The maintenance of equality and (7) the right to remain and keep freedom in life. [11]

Quite clearly, the protection of Environment may be said to exist as a part of the quintessential nucleus of many such objectives. Indeed the right to life itself becomes a meaningful reality only if mankind’s environment is capable of living as we know of it presently and as known to us historically. I think I can refer with advantage to a well know case from the Supreme Court of India on pollution. In Sachidananda Pandey VS. State of West Bengal12 AIR 1987 SC 1109, in which Justice Reddy remarked on a public interest Petition against the construction of five star hotel next to the historical Calcutta Zoo by saying:

“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land, or the life that goes along with it since long time? It is not a question of only buying or selling land; we have to see the totality of the ecology involved when the matter involves invasion of the nature by man’s desire to go on building”

The thesis presented in my address today is that protecting the environment and eco-systems of the earth are a major concern of the Islamic Faith. It is therefore a major aim of the Shariah. Hence it has rightful place as a norm of rule of jurisprudence for Muslims. If the situation of the environment keeps deteriorating at the present rate, there will ultimately be no life, no property and no religion left.

The environment encompasses, it is submitted, the totality of the other aims of the Shariah. The destruction of the environment prevents the human being from fulfilling the concept of vice regency on earth. Indeed, when the very existence of humanity is at stake here, as in the case of the destruction of the ozone layer, this phenomenon assumes special significance.

It is an established scientific fact that excessive pollution of the air might lead to serious deformities, abortion and chronic diseases. It is in evidence from advanced Western countries that highly polluted industrial cities might not have clear sunlight for days, resulting in deep depressions which affects a person's ability to rationalize properly. Certain radiation might also produce results that can affect adversely the quality of human and animal brain power. The attempt to protect any kind of property rights will also be in vain if, in the context of a highly polluted environment, the cities and dwelling places become uninhabitable. There are already many rivers and lakes that are considered dead with no marine life. This is a direct result of acid rain which also destroys forests. These forests and water sources form the natural habitat of many species; their death means the possible extinction of some of the signs of natural life that we presently know of.


To consider the protection of the environment as one of the major aims of the Shariah will, hopefully, enable the neo-model of Islamic civilization a chance to be advanced as an alternative to the already existing western model, which is the primary source of pollution. Adopting this position makes it imperative for the Muslim governments to establish laws for the protection of the environment and implement them. Internationally also, serious efforts are required by them to achieve these objectives.

End Notes

∗ 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; David M. Kennedy Visiting Scholar & Professor of International Studies, Kennedy Center & Visiting Professor, Fellow, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. The author has been Advisor to four Pakistani Prime Ministers on Foreign Affairs & Law, Member & Delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission, and the UN Sub Commission on Human Rights, Geneva. He has also represented Pakistan delegations to the UN GA and was the leader of Pakistan Delegation to the International Criminal Court (ICC); He is currently the UN Special Ambassador for Family, the President of the American Institute of South Asian Strategic Studies, Boston; President Pakistan Ecology Council and Chairman Pakistan Bar ‘s Committees on International Affairs and Environment, 2004-2005; he was awarded the highly prestigious King Faisal Memorial Award for 2002 by Saudi Arabia and in 2003 he received the International Professor of the Year of Human Rights Award in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia In 2004 he became the first Pakistani scholar to be appointed a distinguished Visiting Professor by JNU in Delhi, & to give Memorial Lectures at the Benaras Hindu University, University of Mumbai and at Ambadkar University in Auranagbad. In 2006 he was given the London World International Islamic Award for Family.

1 See: Proceedings, International Human Ecology Congress, Vienna, Austria, September 15-19, Present day Shortcomings of Environmental Law, Suggestions for Improvement, Dr. Farooq Hassan, pages 829-833, Georgi Publishing Company

2 See Muslim, Sahih

3 See See Fi Zilal al-Quran, Sayyid Qutub, 12th Edition (Dar al-Shuruq) Vol. 12, p. 1907

4 See: Al-Tirmidhi, # 5239

5 See: Al-Qaradawi, al-Sunnah Masdaran Lil-Ma'rifah wal-Hadarah, 143-144

6 Al-Tirmidhi # 2799

7 See: Al-Darimi, # 560

8 Narrated by Muslim

9 See Al-Lu'lu' wal-Marjan, # 331, 332

10 See Al-Lu'lu' wal-Marjan, # 333

11 See Isma'il Al-Hasani, Nazariyyat Al-Maqasid 'ind Al-Imam Muhammad Al-tahir Ibn 'Ashur, p. 16

12 AIR 1987 SC 1109

The Fifth Freedom

On January 6th, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his famous Four Freedoms speech to congress. These freedoms are: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship God in his [or her] own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Norman Rockwell produced a series of paintings representing these freedoms, and to me, it makes up an important view of America.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these freedoms recently. Yes, I wish to be free from the fear of a terrorist flying a plane into a building where I work, but there are other fears that seem a little more immediate right now. I want to be free from the fear of losing health insurance, or seeing the economy tank so badly that I lose my nest egg.

I want to be free from the fear that someone will come into my daughter’s school and start shooting. I want to be free from the fear that my child could become a victim of exploitation simply by expressing an idealistic love of our country and becoming a page in Congress. I want to know that our leaders will do everything in their power to prevent any future exploitation by holding perpetrators responsible.

Unfortunately, the current administration and congress in Washington is doing little to assuage my fears. They are doing little to make me believe that perpetrators of exploitation against the most vulnerable in our society will be held accountable and brought to justice.

In the most recent congressional scandal, the Republican leadership seems more interested in protecting their own, than in protecting the youth of America. The recent military tribunal legislation appears to be more of the same focusing on protecting members of the administration in the event that their procedures violate war crimes acts than in coming up with procedures that will bring swift justice in a way that restores America’s moral leadership.

So, perhaps there is a fifth fear, the fear that our most vulnerable will be exploited and the exploiters will not be held accountable. It’s a pretty real fear right now.

The liberal blogosphere as a village,

the question is, what sort of village.

Over on MyDD, Micah Sifry has posted his thoughts on the meeting former President Clinton had with a group of bloggers. Matt Stoller, who attended the meeting, has this post up talking about some of the impressive stuff another blogger, Jane Hamsher, who also attended the meeting is doing. In his post, he writes, Like Chris, I'm feeling bored by the political environment, and somewhat useless.

I mentioned this to a friend who wrote that he wasn’t worried about the post and went on to talk about new connections being forged.

Perhaps it is what is going on in my personal life that is fueling my worry. About two weeks ago, my wife’s face went numb. She rushed off to the hospital to make sure it wasn’t a stroke. It turned out to be Bell’s Palsy, a common symptom of Lyme disease.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been dealing with this. The ability to detect and treat Lyme disease, like any other important medical advance has come as a result of people working together. As John DeStefano often says in his stump speech, none of us got to where we are by ourselves. We all stand on other people’s shoulders. We go to work on roads paved by others.

It has become more personal to me, as friends have brought food, have taken care of Fiona when I’ve had to take Kim to the doctors, have given me rides to take care of a broke down car, provide invaluable moral support, and so on. To borrow from the title of Hillary Clinton’s book, It Takes a Village. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to care for a loved one.

So, I think it is useful to look at the liberal blogosphere as a special village, a global village of sorts, to borrow from McLuhan. Working with the Lamont campaign, I’ve seen the great things that can happen when nationally known bloggers work closely with local bloggers, and with people who haven’t even read a blog yet. So, when I read about Matt or Chris getting bored, I worry. They are important parts of our liberal global village. When I read about bloggers feeling left out, I worry, they too are important parts of our liberal global village.

I’m sorry to get all mushy on you and stuff like this, but this is really important. We need to find ways to work together to help our country rediscover a government, of, by, and for the people. a country where everyone’s voice is important. We need to uphold people like Matt and Chris. We need to connect with bloggers that aren’t feeling connected. We need to raise up a new generation of bloggers.

Jeffery Feldman has some good ideas on this, as does Terrance at The Republic of T. I want to thank them for what they are doing. I want to thank people standing by Matt and Chris, and especially I want to thank everyone who has stood by Kim and I while we battle her Lyme disease.

Blogging at 37

Back when I was in college, Jerry Rubin visited my campus as part of a book tour promoting his book, “Growing (up) at 37”. Some of my friends protested his visit with signs saying “Cashing in at 37”. I really didn’t pay close enough attention, so I have no opinion about whether he was growing up, cashing in, or a little of both.

Years later, during my cashing in period, I worked with a management consultant who pointed me to Joseph Campbell’s book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. During a particularly difficult period we talked about the return of the hero. After the hero’s life changing adventures, he returns to his town and teaches and helps those around him to learn from his experiences.

These provide a backdrop to part of my understanding of some of the larger issues embedded in the recent discussions about certain A-list bloggers meeting with former President Clinton.

Over the past few years, the community of progressive bloggers has grown stronger and more powerful. I have seen much of that power first hand with my work for the Lamont campaign. The power elite of bloggers that were invited to the Clinton meeting represent to many people the heroes of this new community, and the question that sits in many people’s minds is, will they be growing up at 37, and exhibiting the traits of the returned heroes, will they be cashing in at 37 taking from the community that has made them strong, or a little of both. It is my hope that most of them will wear the mantle of returned hero proudly and continue to help build the community and to nurture new bloggers.

Yet I’m not part of that group. Tens, if not hundreds of people read what I write. I hope my assorted posts around the blogosphere help a little bit here and there, but I don’t have the audience of the A-listers. I probably never will and that is okay.

But still, I too am driven by a desire to make this a better country, to promote progressive ideals, to get people to think and act in ways that Democrats should be proud of. So, what can I do?

What I think I do best is to help build bridges and to help train new bloggers. By building bridges, by exploring new online communities, by trying to help nurture them, I am doing the little I can. Terrence, of the Republic of T has a proposal for moving forward. It relates nice with Jeffrey Feldman’s proposal as well as a small amount of what I was driving at with this diary.

We can, and should, be looking at ways to build community, diversity and welcome new bloggers. Some of it may happen at YearlyKos 07. Some of it may happen at other events around the country. I just hope that all of us, from the mighty A-listers, to lowly bloggers like myself can work together to make this happen.

Detroit, New Orleans & Baltimore

Detroit has never recovered from the riots of 1967. What does it say about a nation that, after 39 years, it can not, or will not, heal such a wound? What does it say about the future of New Orleans?

As for Baltimore, I highly recommend a few hours watching HBO's The Wire. Although it is "fiction", it tells more truth than any "reality" TV show and is more relevant than the vast oceans of escapism that so define American television fare.

The question is this: If our house is not in order, as the evidence from too many of our cities suggests, why should we expect any other peoples to welcome the forced imposition of our imperfect model on them?

Secondly, if our model is imperfect, if not broken, why should we support politicians who can do no better than offer us more of the same old same old? Today, it seems that the leadership of the two largest political parties in America brag too loudly about how effectively they suck on the sugar teat of the corporate lobbyists. Do we really want politicians who are little more than the bitches of the lobbyists?

If we want an America that can do better by her people, an America that will lead the world in preserving a biosphere that we will be proud to pass on to our grandchildren, then we need to demand better of ourselves and our politicians.

Will we? Will we stand up to the Carbon Barons before their sequestered carbon has driven the biosphere into a seriously damaged state that bears little resemblance to the living conditions we have enjoyed in the past? Will we do it in the next 10 years?

Perhaps Al Gore's speech today at NYU Law School will help us get on a better path. It is an excellent speech I highly recommend to one and all.

60 Seconds to Steal an Election

This is a cross posting of a Marty Kaplan note posted originally on The Huffington Post.

09.14.2006
How to Hack a Diebold (Ivy League Edition)

Watch this video

Princeton computer scientists have figured out how to hack into a Diebold AccuVote [sic] TouchScreen voting machine. The subversion of democracy takes a coupla minutes, a screwdriver or paperclip, plus a floppy with the malware they've written.

This is no comedy video; it's a bone-chilling, blood-pressure-raising, citizen-outraging rebuttal to all the calming unctuous bromides you've heard about the safety of our voting technology.

The authors of this paper may be geeks, but they don't wear tinfoil hats. The P doesn't stand for Paranoia; it stands for Princeton.

I'd upload the Princeton video so you could watch it right here, but the Creative Commons non-commercial license it's copyrighted under precludes wrapping it in an ad. As long as you attribute it and don't profit from it, you can post the video on any site you'd like. If the hotlink to the video doesn't work for you, here's the URL:

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/videos.html

The complete paper can be found here.

Had enough?

Once Upon a Time

"This is a story about the neo-conservative thought process. It is also an answer to the question in what world does George W. Bush live?"

Read the whole essay at Killing the Frog.

Aikido and the War on Terrorism

Submitted by M. D. McDonald

In the martial art of Aikido, an attacker's directed energy is used against them to take them down, while an individual or society that remains balanced -- remains protected in that balance. Some are concerned that the stands of preemptive war that have become so popular and vigorously supported in the United States since 9/11 and in Israel in recent days, make these societies particularly susceptible to enemies that can use our own imbalanced momentum against us. The U.S. and Israel now have no lack of enemies that would like to initiate, and would celebrate, our fall.

There is a concern that the "War on Terrorism" has such a blind momentum that a "patriot" can only follow in lock step -- no longer able to live by the broader principles upon which our democracy was founded. Some practitioners of Aikido believe that a society which would label those that speak of moderation and regaining thoughtful balance as being "cowards" is entering a very dangerous phase in its political trajectory. If those that are exercising freedom of speech to suggest alternatives, especially those that have demonstrated their heroism, are further labelled as "traitors," it may be wise to consider the possibility of significant danger ahead.

At a time when world opinion is now galvanizing against further atrocities catalyzed under the rubric of the war on terrorism, it may be wise for Americans and Israelis to recenter themselves. The underlying principles of Aikido would indicate that prudence would warrant a shift back to a more defendable and morally justified balance. It may be time to regain a broader situational awareness in a rapidly changing environment.

Perhaps, we should be considering the possibility that our recent string of counterproductive actions and reactions that have led to such destruction in Iraq and Lebanon may make us particularly susceptible to more devastating loss. If unwise actions remain unchecked by the broader principles of democracy and humanity, societies lost in their own martial aggression run the risk of becoming what they are fighting against.

Is this an appropriate time to consider the possibility that the concept of the "war on terrorism" may have become blindly counterproductive? Our enemies that stand balanced for the time being on the sidelines, are certainly hoping that we do not regain our balance. Otherwise, they may have to face us while we still have the strength, the will and the humanity to check their unilateral, imbalanced aggressions, when they decide to make their move.

End Game behind Lebanese War?

By: Dr. Farooq Hassan

Harvard University

A major puzzling question agitating many is how to evaluate the end game behind this huge military onslaught that is destroying Lebanon? On 3rd August the Senate Armed Services Committee gave the Defense Secretary a difficult time when he appeared in a public debate to explain the Administration’s stance on the war situation in Iraq and Lebanon.

These exchanges quintessentially centered on Rumsfeld’s earlier upbeat assessments and what has actually occurred. It was an ex post facto analysis of the recent past: the aim being to demonstrate the short sightedness of the US polices. Senator Hillary Clinton categorized the Administration’s policies in Iraq as faltering failures and their execution incompetent. Embarrassing for the Administration, its two top generals, who had been frequently describing American fortunes in Iraq’s war in reserved yet clearly platitudinous semantics, frankly admitted that Iraq was near enough a civil war. Manifestly the army’s think tanks have now come to adopt the same perception of events in Baghdad that the public has known for many months! For many months, with nearly a hundred deaths a day, there is little that any sophisticated spin of concepts could possibly otherwise accomplish.

What is, however, the ultimate goal of the current state of continued bombardment of Lebanon that clearly has Washington’s support? To realize this end game scenario a number of fundamental questions need to be raised. In pursing Hezbollah, why was the high degree of damage to Lebanon’s infrastructure and people acceptable to the US? Did Secretary of State’s repeated assertions that “sustainable peace” was the US goal, implicitly permit the devastating civil toll? If, for a moment, we accept the underlying rationale of this perspective on account of its possible strategic implications, we still are not told why this was a necessary element in this process. Hasn’t such a policy politically strengthened Hizbollah? If the aim was to destroy their military might this objective has failed. Indeed, this war, now in its fourth week, put an end to the myth of invincibility of Israel’s armed forces.

Alternatively, was this apparently destructive bombardment conducted with the aim of demoralizing the Lebanese government and the people? Or is it to use it as a prelude to attacking Iran? Is an attack on Syria similarly a possibility? And if Israel, hypothetically speaking, succeeds in all these aims, or one of them, how does that advance US interests when political loss of its standing in the Muslim world is obvious? The OIC Declaration in Kuala Lumpur on the same day, 3rd August, affirmatively said as much. What is the US role in the Lebanon War? Is she a party on Israel’s side, or is it neutral? If so, what credence can be given to such avocations by Washington that both Lebanon and Israel are its friends when the former is being physically wiped out of existence by the latter?

The war has not gone well for Israel. Even Hassan Nassullah, despite heavy bombing efforts, could not be prevented from appearing five times on public TV! On the 23rd day of this war, claims of down grading the military potential of Hizbollah were belied when over 200 rockets landed in northern Israel, killing 9 civilians besides four solders during combat. On the same day Beirut was fiercely hit by air attacks and the Lebanese Premier announced that over 900 civilians had been killed by these Israeli bombardments, about one third of the country’s structures demolished, many thousands injured, and over a million made refugees in their own country.

While discussing Lebanon, one should not over look the Iraqi situation. That war, despite worldwide opposition, was started at Washington’s urging to destroy WMD. When they were not found, it was canvassed that it was necessary to continue the military operations as democracy was at stake. As hostilities have still continued, it is now also said to be war against terrorism.

Why this transformation of semantics? Or is it a difference in concepts?

The most affirmative awareness of this phenomenon came recently through a speech delivered last week by premier Tony Blair in Los Angles. Signaling a clear break with American neo-conservatives, and arguably with President Bush, in this address there was no mention of there being in existence now a “war on terror” in Lebanon and possibly in Iraq. Blair remarked:

"We are fighting a war, but not just against terrorism but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st Century, about global values. We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world."

Tony Blair now seems to accept that some of the approaches have been wrong. He was not repudiating the war in Iraq but was saying that not enough emphasis has been put on solving underlying problems, like the Israel/Palestine issue for one. There is thus a muted and belated reference to causation and the need to address it on moral principles.

"Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalize the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win. And this is a battle we must win,"

he said.

True neo-conservatives might consider that Tony Blair is going soft, especially in his call for the US not to use "unilateral action" as a "preference". But the time has come to ask seriously about the goals of the end game in Lebanon.

US & Lebanon: Unintended Power Shifts in Middle East?

By: Dr. Farooq Hassan

Harvard University

International events of a momentous nature in the past few years have proved that military solutions do not auger well for its users in this millennium. Since 9/11, despite overwhelming superiority of technology and armaments, it is beyond question that military over-kills have achieved little except physical demolition of structures, landscapes and of thousands of civilians. Indeed, there is incontrovertible evidence that it has generated a wave of nationalism seldom seen on the international scene since the beginning of the last century.

Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Lebanon have effectively demolished the notion of invincibility of supposedly super trained armies against rag tag militias who are determined to undertake “liberation” of their locales - at least as they see it in non conventional warfare. History seems forgotten by those who are supposed to know it. Those wishing to learn may read the accounts of the British Afghan Wars of 1842 and 1843 to comprehend that the greatest Empire of that time at Westminster was ruthlessness brushed aside by a handful of Pathans.

Hezbollah is riding a wave of popularity on the Arab street. Not since it played a role in forcing Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000 has it enjoyed such adulation. Its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, is enjoying something akin to a personality cult. At a time when Arab governments are seen as largely powerless to influence events, Hezbollah is seen as taking on the Israelis - and behind the Israelis, the American superpower. This has put Arab governments - in particular those allied to the United States - and other Muslim leaders, such as Musharraf and Mubarak, in a difficult quandary.

When this crisis began three weeks ago, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan did not hide their view that Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers was "reckless adventurism". This was unusual enough, but they also openly directed their displeasure at the group's backers, Syria and Iran. Such publicly voiced stance manifestly pleased the Bush administration as such critiques, for what they are worth, were frequently quoted by the US leadership and by and by dozens of “experts” in the media. It is equally clear that it was routinely ignored [in the West] that such Muslim countries’ governments were roundly criticized at home. The Saudi media made much of the fact that the king and the crown prince made handsome personal donations. In addition, the Saudi state has given $1.5 billion (£800 million) to support the Lebanese pound and help rebuild the shattered country. It is not that these countries have changed their minds. They are only. as a part of the realpolitik of the situation, correctly evaluating the growing influence of Iran and Hezbollah. They believe the regional balance of power is shifting in Iran's favor.

Washington's Arab friends are pressing urgently for an immediate ceasefire. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned darkly of the danger of a wider regional war. Saudi television this past week organized a day long appeal - or "telethon" as the British called it - which raised some $29 million (£15.55 million) for Lebanon. It is not that these rulers have changed their minds. They can clearly perceive the growing influence of Iran and Hezbollah and, indeed, of impoverished Syria as well.

Indeed, if a not so subtle endorsement of this phenomenon was needed, it came through the Iraqi and Lebanese Prime Ministers who went out of their way to be critical of Israeli action and impliedly of the US. The comments of the Iraqi leadership were particularly poignant for US policy makers. They were issued in the US and, considering the billions spent by Washington to install the maker of these views as that nation's Premier, it must make such policymakers ponder of how wrong they may have been!

As such, howsoever they may be negatively viewed by Washington and London, the predominant view in the Middle East, and the wider Muslim world, is overwhelmingly supportive of Hezbollah. The hope of some Western analysts to see the sudden eruption of the Shia and Sunni divide is, in this case, utterly ill founded - as results have shown thus far. For most people, the Palestinian cause transcends sectarian differences. Even al-Qaeda, no friend of the Shia, has felt obliged to speak out. The group's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has issued a video saying no Muslim can stay silent in the face of events in Lebanon.

Israel's Lebanon adventures have coalesced the fundamental antagonists in a manner that famous Muslim thinkers like Iqbal & Rumi could not accomplish. Al-Qaeda’s declaration is thus, doctrinally, nothing short of, historically speaking in strategic terms, a startling phenomenon.

The U.S. evidently miscalculated the [cost of the] delay in supporting a ceasefire: A delay that resulted in the tragedy at Qana. It only underscores the awareness that there has occurred, as a result of such overall thinking in Washington, a manifest unintended shift in the balance of power in this region.

Killing the Frog: Notes on the Latest Middle East Crisis

By: Roger Hurwitz
Cambridge, MA

The killings and capture of its soldiers, first by Hamas and then by Hezbollah, gave Israel the need to respond, but left it the choice of how. Israel leaders took each case as an opportunity to destroy, dismantle or, at least, permanently cripple an enemy. On this view, the question is not whether Israel chose disproportionate force to coerce the return of its soldiers. Rather, can Israel achieve its larger ambitions and how much will civilians on all sides suffer for its attempts?

The Israel strategy is relatively simple: Degrade and deter the enemy through assassinations and bombing; make life hell for the other inhabitants, so they will turn on the enemy. In the meantime, no negotiations with anyone, but encouragement for people on the other side to start civil wars. In terms of a purely self-interested calculus, the first problem is that this strategy seldom works and sometimes backfires.

So far, the attacks on Hamas have not destroyed its capacity to launch its low grade, homemade rockets against Israel’s Negev. The attacks have sometimes missed their targets and instead wiped out innocent Palestinians. Such tragedies and their increased miseries have rallied almost all the Palestinians in Gaza to Hamas. Support has vanished for the more accommodating Abu Mazan, ironically confirming the Israelis’ earlier dismissal of him as politically impotent.

The present situation in Lebanon recalls the 1970s, when Israel repeatedly bombed that country to coerce its government to dismantle the “state within a state” that the Palestinians had created in southern Lebanon. From there the Palestinians launched attacks on Israel. The bombings, however, created several hundred thousand refugees, who poured into Beirut. The refugee problem overwhelmed the weak, laissez-faire government, undermined the shaky political system and aggravated other processes that were leading the country to civil war. When the war came, Israel hoped in vain for a victory by the Christian forces that would lead to the expulsion of Palestinians from Lebanon. Instead, in 1982 then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon saw a need for Israel to intervene in the war and do the job directly. Although Israel succeeded in expelling the Palestinian leadership and dismantling the Palestinian base, it found itself in a quagmire of low intensity conflict with Hezbollah. It took Israel eighteen years, several hundred dead soldiers and countless dollars to get out of Lebanon. By then Hezbollah had build its own state within a state and was ready to join the Lebanese political system.

Earlier outcomes like these prompted Levi Eshkol, an Israel Prime Minister of the 1960s, with a profound sense of irony, to call his country a “hapless Samson.” I think, however, they also reveal two fundamental flaws in Israel’s strategy: First, to coerce the other side to curb your enemy, someone there has to have the capability or will to act. Today, as before, Israel wants a weak Lebanese government to take strong action against Hezbollah, but it has neither accepted the weakness of that government or done anything to strengthen it. On the contrary, Israel’s bombings of civilians and Lebanese infrastructure can only further weaken that government. Similarly, Israel while wanting strong action from Abu Mazan, dismissed him as weak and offered him no payoff for such action. Second, to be deterred by threats, people must have something of value to lose. Unfortunately, Israel has not cared whether the Palestinians in the territories or the people of southern Lebanon have a quality of life they would want to protect by acting according to Israel’s wishes when Israel threatened it.

These lessons about the mixed motives and social relations of conflict, which Nobel Prize winner Thomas Schelling taught nearly fifty years ago, seem particularly lost on the present Israel government. Claiming the legacy of former Prime Minister Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz were already committed to unilateral courses of action, as if decisions about the future of Gaza and the West Bank can be made by Israel alone. As an editorial in The Forward just remarked, it seems for them war is the continuation of unilateral diplomacy by other means.

This is not to deny legitimacy in Israel’s use of force – even disproportionate force. By some objective standards and certainly in the eyes of most Israelis, the withdrawals from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip removed almost all the grounds for grievance of people there toward Israel. What right then do the sub-national groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, have to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers? Why did the governing authorities not stop them? How can the governing authorities deny responsibility if these groups are part of the governing authorities?

Yet in the Middle East legitimacy has helped nations less in getting what they wanted then have the intelligent use of force, some restraint and a little help from friends. In the past, the rapid escalations, like those we see today, did not entirely destroy the ongoing game. Before they spiraled into regional conflagration, they were capped with incremental gains and losses, by the intervention of the superpowers. Because the United States and the Soviet Union feared being dragged into direct confrontation by their clients, they set limits on what each client could lose or expect to gain. The situation is scarier today. There is only one superpower; its decision makers are distracted by the misadventure in Iraq and deluded by the idea that regional and global politics are zero-sum games. Linking everything to monolithic terrorism, George Bush looks forward to Israel putting Hezbollah out of the game and hopes to give it enough time. That would put Syria, Iran and more generally Islamic fundamentalism on notice.

Given the green light, Olmert and Peretz have lost no time in responding appropriately in word, as well as deed. In the Knesset today, Olmert identified Tehran, Damascus, Hezbollah and Hamas as an axis of evil. But what about the mid and long range effects of their decisions? Will they lead Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, when that has already proved unbearably costly for Israel? Will decapitation and destabilization of the other sides assure there is no one to talk with, when the United States finally says “enough.” Will there be no Israeli solution for Gaza and southern Lebanon other than emptying them of inhabitants and sowing the earth with salt?

Roger Hurwitz rhhu@csail.mit.edu

Opposite Sides of the Same Bad Coin

Remember the counter culture extremes of the '60's? Life without limits, restraints, controls or consequences. Free sex, free love, free drugs, and rock and roll with general disregard for the future. It may well have been a predictable reaction to both the 1950s with its McCarthyism as well as the technological and cultural determinism that lead to the travesty of the VietNam war. In the end, however, it was not very effective. It was a bad idea that promoted immature self-indulgence, greed and the I.Me over the We. It did not and could not work as envisioned. Perhaps because it was basically an unbalanced view of "reality".

Now, some 40 years latter, we have the business cultural extremes of the first decade of the 21st century -- last seen from 1890 - 1929. Free market capitalism without limits, restraints or controls and with the same general disregard for inconvenient consequences. It too is a bad idea that promotes immature self-indulgence, greed and the I.Me over the We. It is not working. It is showing us every day what a bad idea it is. Enron being but one example. It too is basically an unbalanced view of "reality".

Worse, the Bush team has now, with the internal logical consistency of their prior business excesses ala Cheney & Haliburton, brought this same no limits, no controls, no boundaries, no consequences dogma to our politics. This is producing yet more disasters. Iraq being chief amongst them. They will be remembered for the gift they are giving to the future.

Remember the Club of Rome Study: Limits to Growth? It was an arrow to the very heart of the business culture of no limits, restraints, controls or consequences. The very word "limits" was anathema. The Business community reacted to it, via the National Association of Manufactures et al, just the way they reacted to FDR's first Inaugural Address in 1933. FDR was reasserting the need for limits and controls after the country was put into a many year Depression by the excesses and zealotry of rampant free market capitalism without limits. This had to be countered by the NAM at any cost. So they hired Edward Bernays and hijacked the New York World's Fair of 1939 to trumpet the superiority of the Corporation. Bernays manipulated the Fair to give one message: The future would be brought to you by the almighty and benevolent corporation. And what a future they have created for us. See, for example, "An Inconvenient Truth".

For more on Bernays, The New York Worlds Fair, and much more, see the BBC series "The Century of the Self".

Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, illegal spying, denial of science and global warming, etc are not anomalies. They are all of a piece. They are the logical approach of those who demand life, government and business without limits, restraints or controls with complete disregard for consequences. The triumph of the I and ME over all else at any cost.

The irony is the 60's extreme counter culture leaders and today's extreme business culture leaders hate each other while they embrace so many of the same values integral to a Life without limits, restraints, controls or consequences.

Is it any wonder that neither group has found a way to fix the war zone in Detroit? Much less address the impending global consequences of de-stabilizing the biosphere?

The Communications Commons

I have a few thoughts on the June 26th article in NY Times reported by Ken Belson: What if They Built an Urban Wireless Network and Hardly Anyone Used It?

The missing conversation on the policy side of the municipal wireless issue is whether or not it is important to preserve the hub and spoke organizational model for our communications paradigm in order to preserve "billing" by "providers". Of course this also reinforces the regrettable notion that we the people are merely unequal consumers locked into an asymmetrical relationship.

Or should we look at another policy option, namely that wireless communications should be seamless, always on Big Broadband publicly operated as an element of the commons in order improve public life, promote innovation and the efficient use of end user capital? In this case, billing is a mute point, just as billing for street lights, snow plowing, police services, fire services etc are not billable events. In this case, we are allowed to view we the people as all of citizens, producers, distributors, and consumers.

It is wise to remember that the very successful PC revolution was largely funded by end-user capital when we upgrade our PCs every few years for $3,000 an upgrade.

As I wrote earlier this month:

The issue is do we want a connectivity environment that takes full advantage of all of the things we have learned since the founding of the FCC in 1934?

Or do we insist on remaining locked into the 20th century Hub & Spoke architecture [Master/Slave] in order to preserve the "customer" model supported by "billing"? IE, do we want to invent the future looking in the rear view mirror?

If, on the other hand, we want a network of equals for the 21st century, a model congruent with our professed political values, then we need to not only allow sharing of connectivity, but to actively encourage it. This suggests that we need a completely new billing model. More accurately, a no billing model!

If we want a modern communications paradigm, it would appear that public entities are the best, perhaps ONLY, entities to run it. Why? Because they do not have requirements to bill every user every month for every bit. We are not individually billed for police and fire protection, nor for street lights, nor public education and so forth. Thus government, which generally DOES work, has an proven and existing model for public services, such as public access to the internet, that can only work if sharing is leveraged for cooperative gain, not billed for private gain.

From another pont of view, if I were a stock holder in one of today's incumbent connectivity providers, would I want my company to invest its scarce human and financial capital in very low margin bit hauling? Or would my investment be better served if my company invested in high margin, innovative, products and services delivered over commodity bits? Do I want the cost of bits to be a barrier to my high margin products and services?

The conversation has been distorted by the recent notion that everything should be a market function and the false premise that anything a government does automatically and unfairly competes with the "sacred" private sector. Rubbish.

The private sector loves externalities that allow them to shift costs to others. Bit hauling should be seen as an opportunity for a magnificent externality that allows them to re-allocate resources to more profitable operations. In this light, it is, in fact, in the self interest of the incumbents to work with the municipalities to create the very best possible bit hauling externality. Consider: Did the proponents of the market object to our tax dollars building the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system that has allowed them to externalize so many transportation costs? Or that out tax dollars subsidize airports that benefit the business traveller the most? Or that our tax dollar created the internet in the first place?

So the win win here is a robust publicly operated network of equals operated by municipalities. Such a network will allow the private sector to externalize low margin operations in order to improve their bottom lines while enabling an innovations commons to support our emerging 21st century world.

For perspective on the appropriate role of government, consider what Frank Rich wrote in the June 25th NY Times:

"Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the very model of big government that the current administration vilifies, never would have trusted private contractors to run the show. Somehow that unwieldy, bloated government took less time to win World War II than George W. Bush's privatized government is taking to blow this one."

I suggest government has a significant and appropriate role in building wireless networks that are "free" from direct billing.

The only question is this: How long will it take creative citizens to invent applications that saturate the network? In Mongolia it took about 1 week. As long as the architecture of the network is scalable, this is not a problem. Consider that a modern fiber cable has 144 strands, each strand can carry 70 lamdas, each lambda is 10 gigabits. The backhaul capacity is available to support very big broadband -- if we enable it.

As James Burkes said:

"The other general thing to be said about how change comes about through innovation, and especially about the rate at which that changes occurs, is that the easier you communicate, the faster change happens."

James Burke. Connections series 1, program 10 at 19:00 into the show.

Finally, it is worth re-reading a few paragraphs from the March 4, 1933 First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt

... Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Bring on the publicly created municipal wireless projects. We need every bit of innovation we can get.

Right Turn on Green

Something is happening in English politics we should know about. Ode Magazine has published a very interesting essay by Jay Walljasper in their issue 34:

Right Turn on Green

Excerpt:

The rise of a political paradox brings hope for the world

Modern politics is notorious for the way it creates strange new meanings for familiar words. “National security,” for instance, now means attacking distant countries. “Choice,” in American electoral debates, is a secret code for abortion, and “family” signifies fierce opposition to gay rights. “Us,” in the minds of some European political candidates, refers exclusively to white people.

But the word that has undergone the most dramatic transformation at the hands of politicians is “conservative.” It once clearly described a political philosophy devoted to preserving tradition. But powerful leaders around the world now use the term to justify a complete reordering of society according to the wishes of global corporations and radical free-market economists. The merit of these policies is open to discussion, but it seems obvious that this kind of political agenda is anything but conservative.

“It’s no accident that ‘conservative’ and ‘conservation’ are almost the same word,” notes American environmentalist philosopher Bill McKibben. “But what we call conservative today has been captured by something else—the idea that we need economic growth at all costs. That can be ruinous to our environment and our communities.” That’s the great irony of politics today: The very idea of conservation—conserving the environment, natural resources, energy, a sense of community or anything else—is considered unnecessary, or even a dangerous obstacle to economic progress, by most so-called Conservatives. U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney summed up the prevailing right-wing view when he said, “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis... for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”

This is what makes the recent turn of events in British politics so fascinating. The Conservative Party, which earned the undying wrath of environmentalists when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, is now trumpeting green issues in an effort to unseat the ruling Labour Party. The new Conservative leader, David Cameron, who assumed power last fall, quotes Gandhi in urging people “to become the change we want to see in the world.” He can be seen riding his bike all over London and plans to add solar panels and a wind turbine to his home in the fashionable Notting Hill neighbourhood. He’s gone so far as to question the dominance of corporate power in the UK, declaring in a recent newspaper ad, “We should not just stand up for big business but to big business.”

While this might sound like some sort of political gimmick, there are signs that Cameron is sincere about pioneering a new brand of “green” conservativism—which could become as globally influential as Thatcher’s free-market policies were in the 1980s. If the environment ceases to become a divisive issue among parties of the left, right and centre around the world, we will see a new flowering of green initiatives.

Read the whole article at: Right Turn on Green

Thanks to Greater Democracy member Erika Keller Rogoff for bringing this to my attention.

Political Narratives, Dead Cats, Lame Ducks and the Expectation Game.

Columbia Journalism Review Daily Traces the Birth of a Narrative. They talk about how cable news reporters and pundits are questioning whether the tide is turning for Bush. They comment, “How are they answering themselves? It's a mixed bag. But if a question gets asked often enough in the media, the answer begins to (almost) not matter. And before long the question mark is dropped entirely and a narrative is born.”

They sum up the discussion with “And there it is, in the blink of an eye, so fast that you might have missed it: A narrative is born.”

I lived on a sailboat for several years and one thing you learn on a boat is that the tide changes four times a day.

Another phrase that people use is if Bush is experiencing a “bounce”. Here, I go back to my experiences on Wall Street. When a market has experienced a sharp decline, similar to how Bush’s approval has declined, everyone looks for any positive uptick. The question that always gets asked is if we are experiencing a market reversal, or if the uptick is merely a “dead cat bounce”.

This goes back to the old saying in investing that even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from high enough. When a market experiences a dead cat bounce, there is a brief respite from the downward trend, but the downward trend resumes before you know it.

Is Bush a dead cat? A lame duck? Perhaps the emergence of another narrative gives us a little insight into this. Staying with the Wall Street focus, today’s Wall Street Journal asks, Will 2006 Reprise 1994? This question keeps getting asked and as with the other narrative, ”the answer begins to (almost) not matter”

The narratives feed into another part of the political process, the expectations game. If Bush can claw his way back to only 40% perhaps, Republicans think, maybe they can change the other polls about a plurality of voters thinking we would be better off if Democrats controlled Congress. Of course this 40% is a low expectation compared to Clinton’s 48% approval rating in 1994.

Yet all of this still stays with the horse race narratives. We really need to be talking about narratives around how we will get back to having a government of, by, and for the people.

RFK Jr. on the 2004 Election

Speaking of the "the corruption of democracy, itself", as Tom Atlee does below, consider tnis:

Friend Bob Weber forwarded this note to me. It is very much worth reading. How will we counter election fraud, apparently a fundamental and essential tactic of the Bush administration, in 2006 and 2008? Election fraud is both necessary and sufficient for Bush to assure "victory".

If you read one thing this year, let it be the compelling article by RFK Jr. on the theft of the 2004 election.

And look at the accompanying 3 charts:

This one is going to be hard to ignore.

A House Divided will not Prevail

Jock Gill, Aldon Hynes, and Robert Steele

If the Republican party can be said to have fragmented into 1] an evangelical extremist wing aligned for convenience with unregulated corporatism and neo-liberal capitalism, and 2] the rest of the more moderate Republican party that has lost all semblance of influence within its own party, the Democrats can be said to be even further fragmented, to the point of ineffective incoherence.

In control is the “last gasp” of the 20th Century wing of the Democratic party, where big money displaced labor and the grassroots, the caring church, and the intellectuals to craft the Democratic leadership as “Republican Lite,” equally corrupt, but more inept than their counter-parts. They stand for nothing other than incumbency and the power of money over ideas.

As insurgents emergent, we have the Netroots that were first noticed for their support of Howard Dean. In 2003 and 2004, the Netroots wing experimented with “bonding” social capital and micro-cash campaign contributions, but were not able to organize themselves in time to stage a break-out and capture the flag. Although Dean is today the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, his loyalties appear to be split between the new Netroots and the traditional Democratic Grassroots. A house divided cannot stand. In addition, there is every expectation that he will be trumped by the bigger databases and larger bank accounts of the 20th Century wing of the party.

These two groups have left three core constituencies of the Democratic Party, Labor and the traditional Grassroots, the intellectual, and the caring church, grasping at straws and feeling powerless. Labor, the intellectuals, and the caring church have no one in the top ranks of the Democratic Party organization who will listen to them or help them contribute to a restoration of the power of the people.

In our view, the Democratic Party is headed directly for another disaster, as the New York 20th Century gang self-destructs on the twin rocks of financial and ideological warfare, where the Republican Party, under the control of its well-heeled extremists, excels.

The Democrats, however, could work to unite at least these 4 core elements: 1] The traditional grassroots; 2] the new netroots; 3] the intellectual/progressive wing, and, importantly, 4] the caring church. How? By recognizing that the party must nurture the formation of both forms of social capital: Bonding and Bridging. The Wikipedia has this to say:

Bonding and bridging

In his pioneering study, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon & Schuster 2000), Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam wrote: "Henry Ward Beecher's advice a century ago to "multiply picnics" is not entirely ridiculous today. ...

Putnam speaks of two main components of the concept: bonding social capital and bridging social capital. The former refers to the value assigned to social networks between homogeneous groups of people and the latter to that of social networks between socially heterogeneous groups. Typical examples are that criminal gangs create bonding social capital, while choirs and bowling clubs (hence the title, as Putnam lamented their decline) create bridging social capital. Bridging social capital is argued to have a host of other benefits for societies, governments, individuals, and communities; Putnam likes to note that joining an organization cuts in half an individual's chance of dying within the next year.

The distinction is useful in highlighting how social capital may not always be beneficial for society as a whole (though it is always an asset for those individuals and groups involved). Horizontal networks of individual citizens and groups that enhance community productivity and cohesion are said to be positive social capital assets whereas self-serving exclusive gangs and hierarchical patronage systems that operate at cross purposes to societal interests can be thought of as negative social capital burdens on society.

The concept of social capital in a Chinese social context has been closely linked with the concept of guanxi.

There is one issue, one place, one foundation, where the neglected elements of the Democratic Party can make common cause with moderate Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, Reforms, and all others, and that place is Electoral Reform. Working together as a Citizens Party respecting dual political memberships, they can generate significant bridging capital. Together, they can re-vitalize the notion that we all have challenges we can overcome by working together, but not if we work alone.

Al Gore won the majority of the popular vote in 2000. John Kerry, for all his problems, won a significant portion of the vote in 2004. In our view, the combination of Al Gore and a governor with a nationally recognized track record, working with a Citizens Party, as a non-rival builder of bridging social capital, committed to Electoral Reform as the litmus test issue for every incumbent and challenger in 2006, is a winning proposition.

Who else is better positioned to run against Senator McCain, the Republican’s anti-Bush?

Citizen Participation Activities in Porto Alegre, Brazil

We the People decide our city budget - and other democratic innovations

A letter from Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

When I last wrote about citizen participation activities in Porto Alegre, Brazil, their democratic budgeting practices had "only" spread to 70 cities in Brazil. Now 200 cities in Brazil are using annual participatory budgeting and it is spreading to dozens of other cities in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, as well. Do you think this profoundly democratic practice might someday reach the U.S.?

Brazil's remarkable weaving of top-down and bottom-up participatory democracy into the field of budgeting serves to inspire all who work to invigorate democracy, whether we are public officials, political parties, civil society organizations, activist networks, or individual social change agents. One thing is certain: When we see The People competently controlling the government's purse strings, we are seeing a different kind of democracy...

Participatory budgeting is one of an expanding family of innovative practices and creative ideas to make democracy more sensible, creative, participatory, and collectively intelligent. To pursue these innovations, however, requires that we shift some of our focus -- and resources -- from candidates and issues to THE SYSTEMS WE USE TO DECIDE about candidates and issues. Until those systems are healthy, we will continue to have grotesque distortions of democracy and a painful inability to make any real sustained progress on the issues most people are most concerned about and most affected by.

Viewing democracy as a form of collective intelligence can help us think more clearly about its possibilities. Other perspectives can also help, including more established approaches like "deliberative democracy" (see and also -- and mind-opening democratic concepts like "transpartisanship" , which helps partisans step outside their partisan roles long enough to work together on issues where they DO agree, to which their partisanship may have blinded them. Many other approaches to democratic innovation are listed at Democracy Innovations (a site which could use some updating: Any volunteers?)

One of the most intriguing new ideas to come across my desk is a proposal by Robert Steele and Jock Gill for "a 'dual membership' party, the Citizens Party. This new party would not ask its members to leave their original party, but would, instead, serve as a second home, a unifying party, committed to one issue and one issue only: achieving electoral reform". Steele and Gill want to attract citizens who may be proud of the ideals and traditions of their primary party (be it Republican, Democrat, Green, or whatever) but who are unsatisfied with how that party is behaving in the current political system. A "dual membership" party could provide such partisans with common ground on which to work together to change the system so their traditional party and the whole partisan approach could better function to serve the whole country.

In my co-intelligent dreaming I like to envision a broader transpartisan version of such a "dual membership party": It would provide common ground for creative collaborative work on ALL issues. Such a party could sponsor citizen deliberative councils to discover what the informed, deliberative public -- a truly inclusive "We the People" -- wanted on various issues. (Such a deliberative process provides a much deeper understanding of what the public truly wants than can be discovered through polling. See "A Call to Move Beyond Public Opinion to Public Judgment".)

Once members of this party knew the "public judgment" on an issue, they would support solutions and policies that implemented that judgment. They would also propose -- and lobby for -- ways to embed empowered citizen deliberation in all aspects of government, including budgets, as we see being done in Porto Alegre (below). A voter or candidate could be both a Republican (or Democrat, or Libertarian, or Green) AND ALSO be a member of this dual membership party. When an issue was resolved into what we might call "a People's Policy" -- an inclusive "We the People" solution -- they would play a TRANSPARTISAN role, promoting that solution. For every other issue, they would play their normal PARTISAN role, acting as they ordinarily do in our system as it is. As more issues were deliberated, and as more deliberations were empowered as part of our system of governance, partisanship would shrink and collective intelligence would expand.

Individually and collectively, we may not be evolved enough yet to step so far beyond partisanship. But times are changing. If enough of us see that there is more to be gained, in the long run, by supporting systemic changes towards more inclusive collaboration and collective intelligence, we can influence how our societies respond to the coming crises that will be demonstrating -- with painful clarity -- that the systems we have now can't handle the complex, challenging, and rapidly changing conditions of the 21st century.

Well informed, well connected, and moving ahead with alert awareness, we can become agents of the conscious evolution of civilization towards greater sustainability, thrivability, inclusivity and wisdom.

And every moment, as we enjoy each other and this work, we might also enjoy the added thrill of waking up as part of the 14-billion-year unfolding of the Big Bang and stardust, showing up today as our rapidly evolving world, galaxy, universe... Because deep inside what we are trying to do, evolution is seeing if human consciousness can call forth a self-evolving wise democracy on Earth, as one more remarkable experiment of Life...

And now let's take a look at a special, inspiring step on that strangely courageous journey....

Coheartedly,
Tom

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

The Citizens of Porto Alegre
by Gianpaolo Baiocchi ; Boston Review

Marco is a self-employed handyman in his mid-30s who moved to the city of Porto Alegre from the Brazilian countryside eight years ago. A primary-school-educated son of a farmer, he'd had few opportunities in his small town and had heard about the city's generous social services. He borrowed money for bus fare and landed in Porto Alegre, where he found construction work. But when his wages wouldn't cover rent he headed for one of the squatter settlements on the outskirts of the city. He soon moved in with a companheira who sewed clothes and ironed from home. In time his life became more settled, with incremental improvements to the house, small but growing savings, and brisk business owing to his good reputation in the community. Marco's story of migration, squatting, and survival was unremarkable--until he attended a local meeting on how the city government should invest its money in the region.

Read the whole essay.

About Tom Atlee

Tom Atlee * The Co-Intelligence Institute * PO Box 493 * Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org * http://www.democracyinnovations.org
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Citizens Party, part II

Informed, Engaged, Democracy
Collective Public Intelligence

By: Robert D. Steele

Introduction

If we want an extraordinary future for all of our children, America and Americans must embrace reality. While, as a society, we may have recently found it comfortable to ignore reality, reality is most assuredly going forward, with or without us. What we have allowed to happen from 2000 to date can only be described as a national break-down. We the People failed to do our duty, to pay attention, to stay informed, to remain actively engaged and to keep our government honest.

Today, both the Republican and the Democratic Parties are “running on empty”. They cannot be trusted to represent the Republic within the current “winner take all” system. In addition, their exhausted 20th century solutions that got us to where we are today cannot be expected to get us to where we need to be tomorrow.

After a great deal of reflection, I have come to the conclusion that we need a Citizens Party, not to compete with the Democratic or Republican, or the other 60 plus parties, but to bring all of us together on the one big issue that really matters: Electoral Reform. If we are successful, a Democratic or Republican Presidential candidate willing to field a Vice President from the counterpart party, and a Coalition Cabinet, could win in 2008.

Citizens Party

I have three “big ideas” that I want to present for a “collective public intelligence” process.

Idea #1:

A Citizens Party (www.citizens-party.org) must be created. This new approach would be a party that is a “second home”, or alternative party, that respects every individual’s primary political affiliation, but offers them an opportunity to come together with citizens from other parties to keep government honest. It would NOT be a party set up to compete with all the other parties!

Moderate Republicans like me, for example, can join forces with those from other parties to beat back the extremist ideological and fundamentalist tendencies of the original Republican Party. We can all, as Paul Ray explores in his discussion of “The New Political Compass,” create coalitions across all issue areas. We can use the power of actively engaged citizens, networked, collective, public intelligence, to hold the Democratic and Republican parties in particular accountable for representing their individual members rather than special interests.

Idea #2:

There are actually two really big issues on which we can all come together as citizens in 2006 and again in 2008. They are: 1] Electoral Reform and 2] Energy/Environmental policy -- as discussed by Thomas Friedman. The reality is that our votes no longer count in the contrived monopoly that the Republicans and Democrats have established. Even if our candidate is elected, within weeks they have fallen prey to the corrupting combination of “the party line” which demands that they vote as they are told to vote by the party leadership; and special interests who bribe them to betray the people and favor specific corporations not acting in our interest.

Idea #3:

A Citizens Party can welcome immigrants enroute to citizenship as associate members who can use the Citizens Party as a neutral ground within which to both learn and practice their civic responsibilities, and be exposed to the many different parties that co-exist in America. A Citizens Party can offer generic civic instruction and opportunities for community service, and then once an individual becomes a citizen, they can be asked to declare a primary political affiliation, while retaining their “second home” in the Citizens Party. Membership cards for non-citizen immigrants should show where they are in their path toward citizenship, and be a source of pride and evidence of their commitment.

Discussion

The U.S. political process has been lost to monied special interests, including the most corrupt of those special interests the Republican and Democratic parties, who use party line control as a means of achieving outcomes that are NOT in the best interests of the public at large.

At the same time, the U.S. Government and the national infrastructures that it regulates, from education and health to water, energy, industry, finance, and telecommunications, have all become dysfunctional. Consider this summary drawn from Alvin and Heidi Toffler in Revolutionary Wealth:

Their first key focus is on TIME and its relation to space, knowledge, and effectiveness as translated into wealth. Innovative businesses are going 100 mph; civil collective groups at 90 mph; the US family at 60 mph, labor unions at 30 mph, government bureaucracies at 25 mph, education at 10 mph, non-governmental organizations including the United Nations at 5 mph, US politics and the participation process at 3 mph, and law enforcement and the law it enforces at 1 mph. This is really quite a helpful informed judgment as to the relative unfitness of all but two of the groups.

Now, keeping in mind—and Henry Kissinger has expressed similar concerns about the archaic slow processes of government and politics and law enforcement—the abysmally slow rating given by the Tofflers in relation to real life moving at 100 miles an hour, consider what this means when attempting to protect America and nurture American prosperity in the fact of global threats and in relation to global opportunities. Below is a threat table based on the report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change (A more secure world: Our shared responsibility, United Nations, 2004) where LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft was the US representative. Note that poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation head the list, and that terrorism is next to last on the list. The percentages for the contribution of Open Source Intelligence [OSINT] to understanding and addressing the problem are my own informed judgment, but they are consistent with the “80-20” rule. I believe we can rely on the general point being made by this table, i.e. that we need to redirect at least half the secret intelligence budget toward open sources and all ten of these threats, instead of obsessing on secrecy and terrorism alone.

Threat to the Security & Prosperity of the USA           % Open Source

Threat #1:   Poverty  ............................................................... 95%
Threat #2:   Infectious Disease  ................................................. 99%
Threat #3:   Environmental Degradation  ..................................... 90%
Threat #4:   Inter-State Conflict  ................................................ 75%
Threat #5:   CivilWar  .............................................................. 80%
Threat #6:   Genocide  ............................................................. 95%
Threat #7:   Other Large-Scale Atrocities  .................................... 95%
Threat #8:   Nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological weapons  ..... 75%
Threat #9:   Terrorism  ............................................................. 80%
Threat #10:  Transnational organized crime  ................................. 80%

Average Importance of Open Source Intelligence       86.4%

We are spending close to $60 billion a year on secret sources, and less than $600 million on open sources of relevant national security information—on this alone the Bush Administration can be proven as derelict. At the same time, we are spending over $500 billion a year on a heavy-metal military, and next to nothing on waging peace or implementing what General Al Gray, then Commandant of the Marine Corps called for in 1988, “peaceful preventive measures.” We can still benefit immensely from the insights presented in May of 1966 by then Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara in his speech “Security in the Contemporary World”: In a modernizing society, security means development.

At the same time, because our secret intelligence community is so out of touch with reality, and our political system makes it easy to ignore secret intelligence, we have a federal budget that is catastrophically mis-managed, combined double deficits (debt and trade) with excessive entitlements and subsidies, and mis-directed expenditures that over-spend on a heavy metal military -- including missile defense and other unrealistic, or unnecessary capabilities, while severely neglecting “soft power” including cultural, diplomatic, economic, educational, and informational sources of national power. As McNamara said in 1966: The decisive factor for a powerful nation already adequately armed is the character of its relationships with the world.

Finally, because our political system is corrupt and our national counterintelligence and crime intelligence capabilities are virtually non-existent, we have failed to increase federal tax revenues by failing to demand that corporations pay a fair share of the federal revenue (they pay 6% down from a high of 32%, this needs to be brought back up to 25%), by failing to eliminate subsidies and other tax breaks illicitly obtained by special interests, and by failing to detect tax fraud. Taken together, these could produce an extra $500 billion a year.

A Citizens Party could utilize the National Budget Simulation, available online, to develop a balanced budget that clearly identifies the differing choices that each “wing” of the party makes, and puts before the larger public the specifics of the budget that demand resolution. Our budget is too important to be left to one party to manage without public oversight.

Here are a few more thoughts:

1. 2008 will not be 2000.

The Cheney-Bush Administration has radicalized America, everyone is now ready for decisive and reasoned leadership, and we can field a unity-reform team rather than a weak Democratic choice. America is ready to be brought back together. A winning and collaborative coalition of 20% of the Republican vote, 20% of the non-Democratic vote and a further 20% of the immigrant vote, as influenced by their relatives still in Latin America, China, India, Korea, and Viet-Nam, can make an important contribution to a Democratic victory in 2008, especially if we begin setting the stage in 2006 while campaigning for others. However, Democrats can only win if they adopt the Citizens Party platform.

2. One Dog-Catcher Issue.

The “dog-catcher” issue is now and will remain this: “does your vote count?” The answer to this question for most, including those that vote and then lose their Congressional representative to the party line and special interests, is no; consequently their concerns in other major issues are unheard and not represented. I believe that America will come together on our promise to reform the electoral process—everything else, including governance, policy, and budgetary reform, will follow from that. Making voting the first issue will set the stage for the second: Energy & the Environment. It is important to make voting the hinge issue, not the environment, or anything else, as the latter are “intangible” threats neither understood nor valued by a third of the electorate.

3. Citizens Party Breaks the Partisan Log-Jam.

Paul Ray knows what he is talking about when he discusses cross-over alliances on new progressive issues. I am a life-long moderate Republican who is also religious but in a practical rather than a fundamentalist sense. I have been giving speeches across the country and my sense is that we could begin the process of winning in 2008 by encouraging allies to start the Citizen Party in 2006. This new entity would be used to invite all Americans to consider a new concept: “dual political membership” in this new party that welcomes moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Greens, Reforms, and the members of the Dean set into a safe haven with one common cause: restoring the integrity of the electoral and representational processes. Further, it would also allow for the creation of an innovative Coalition Cabinet (next point). This party will, at a minimum, be committed to electoral reform that levels the playing field and isolates the extremists. This coalition party could well enable us to re-establish the core American values of integrity, vision and compassion for the greater public in America as well as our stewardship of the global environment. In the event the Democratic Party nomination goes to a polarizing candidate who cannot win the general election, this new party could be critical for the candidacy of a more generally acceptable Democratic candidate willing to choose a moderate Republican as their Vice President, and commit to a Coalition Cabinet to be announced in advance of the general election.

4. We Must Form a Coalition Cabinet now.

Such a cabinet, formed now as a shadow government, has several potential advantages for bringing citizens from disparate political groups together, especially since the Democratic traditionalists will not be willing to abandon the Master/Slave hierarchical and star-centered system. Coalition Cabinet members can serve as our outreach Ambassadors in building the big umbrella for decisively wresting power from the extreme right by recruiting “wings” from each party into the Citizens Party. Further, it could be used for developing, from 2006 to 2008, policies that make sense and pass the smell test. This will also allow us, in 2008, to articulate sound policies in detail—demonstrating the fruits of your innovative approaches—and to challenge the other candidates for President, in both the primaries and the final election, to identify their Cabinet choices. If they do not, we can mock them for not being able to pick a government, much less run one, and if they do, we challenge them to add selected Cabinet candidates (State, Defense, Justice) to the Presidential debates process. We win by showing that we have a balanced team, not a personality cult.

5. Peer-to-Peer Co-Intelligence.

There are creative resources, including Joe Trippi and the two authors of the new book on Crashing the Gate, as well as others, who have a lot to offer in the way of innovation in the peer-to-peer engaged democracy space. My friend Tom Atlee, for example, is at the forefront of the national Co-Intelligence or Collective Intelligence movement, and I believe that we are now at a point where Public Intelligence can both elect a coalition reform ticket, and drive sound Public Policy. We need votes, and contributions, but we also need a consensus of shared ideas.

6. Immigration & Catholic Social Justice.

I am in touch with the U.S. Council of (Catholic) Bishops on the matter of reducing poverty and increasing social justice among Latinos, who are inherently Catholic and more likely to be won over by a pro-immigration, pro-Catholic candidate (see point 9). This will be a big issue. Paul Ray’s help in dissecting this issue by voting base will be important. However, it will also be connected to foreign perceptions of America, and foreign influence on immigrants that vote—we need to promulgate our vision globally, in at least 15 languages. I believe that Michael Cudahy (a former Republican activists who worked on campaigns for G. H. W. Bush), Clyde Prestowitz, and a few other moderate Republicans can deliver 20% of that vote to Citizen Party candidates. I can find Citizen Party candidates another 20% bump in the voting immigrant pool. I am, incidentally, a white Latino, born in New York of a naturalized Colombian mother with Spanish ancestry and an American father of English and Scottish descent. This idea of a Citizens Party can, by the way, be migrated to all countries, and is not exclusive to our Nation.

7. Reality-Based Budgeting

This is a concept I have been working on for some time. I have been working with very senior former staffers from the Office of Management and Budget on developing this project. We are convinced that we could take the online National Budget Simulation and turn it into a tool for both establishing public consensus on revenue, spending; and for establishing a balanced budget at all levels of governance. We can make the budget process transparent and participatory, and we can really bring the power of the Open Source approach to help the voters understand where things now stand and are going at all levels of government and in the private sector.

8. Presidency.

I believe we should explore new concepts of governance in which the President focuses on the broad strategic issues, the really big picture and the really big alliances (both domestic and foreign), while the Vice President—ideally a former Governor with significant operational experience—serves as Chief Operations Officer with three Chiefs of Staff—one for policy, one for strategy, and one for treasury—ways and means.

9. Faith-Based Governance.

Finally, I believe that Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Left Hand of God and my friend David Johnston’s Faith-Based Diplomacy both have something to offer. If combined with due respect for the passion of the black church as identified by Bonhoeffer and represented in part by Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, I believe we could find innovative ways of revitalizing the faith-based compassion of the Democratic Party, while opening doors to those of other faiths who have not found a haven where they feel they belong. Many Republicans of faith are beginning to see the hypocrisy of the extreme right fundamentalists. We cannot win the Latino vote, or the Korean vote, without showing that strong faith, loving faith and family values, are part of the proposition. America right now needs hope, and rational answers alone will fall flat. We need to offer pragmatic community-oriented faith versus nutty militant faith.

Conclusion

In 1994, Al Gore used the phrase “harnessing the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth.” Now we have a clear and present emergence of networked “collective intelligence” or co-intelligence. It is clear today that the people in the aggregate can generate more campaign contributions, more votes, and more wisdom, than any collection of corporations or special interests. The Citizens Party is a non-rival means of taking back the power at the individual level, while respecting the unique concerns and insights of each of the traditional parties. That’s what I think. What do you all think?

A note on Mr. Steele

In the course of a twenty-five year national security career, Mr. Steele has served as a Marine Corps infantry officer and service-level plans officer; fulfilled clandestine, covert action, and technical collection duties; been responsible for programming funds for overhead reconnaissance capabilities, contributed to strategic signals intelligence operations, managed an offensive counterintelligence program, initiated an advanced information technology project; and been the senior civilian responsible for founding a new national intelligence production facility.

He was one of the first clandestine officers assigned the terrorist target on a full-time basis in the 1980's, and the first person, also in the 1980's, to devise advanced information technology applications relevant to clandestine operations.

As a government employee, he was a founding member of the Advanced Information Processing and Analysis Steering Group, a member of the Information Handling Committee, and a member of the Foreign Intelligence Capabilities and Priorities Committee, among others.

Mr. Steele, a political scientist liberally educated at Muhlenberg College, holds graduate degrees in international relations (Lehigh University) as well as public administration (University of Oklahoma), and certificates in intelligence policy (Harvard University) and defense studies (Naval War College).

He is an elected member of Pi Alpha Alpha, the honor society for public administration, and has received the Meritorious Honor Award (Group) from the U.S. Department of State; Certificates of Exceptional and Special Achievement from the Central Intelligence Agency (Operational), and a Certificate of Achievement from the Department of Defense.

The Citizens Party

“Had Enough? Vote Democratic!” Is NOT ENOUGH,
We Need a New Dual Membership Party

Robert David Steele Vivas

A few days ago I was discussing strategy with Jock Gill. Both of us tried to help Dean, Edwards, and then Kerry, in that order, with a concept for winning over non-Democrats like me (a moderate Republican). None of the staffs had sufficient gravitas to realize that we were absolutely right when we said, over and over, that the Democrats cannot beat the Republicans on base, issues, or leadership alone.

Last week, I conceptualized the concept of a “dual membership” party, the Citizens Party. This new party would not ask its members to leave their original party, but would, instead, serve as a second home, a unifying party, committed to one issue and one issue only: achieving electoral reform by electing a coalition government committed to the American Independence Act of 2007. Thereafter, the Party could serve as a second home for individuals, like myself, who are proud of what the Republican Party once stood for, but do not wish to consort with impeachable leaders or the extremists who have hijacked the party.

Today, I read with admiration a really superb Op-Ed by Tim Roemer in the New York Times (Saturday, 29 April 2006) entitled ‘Enough Already,’ that suggested that all the Democrats need to win in 2006 and 2008 is the simple slogan, “Had Enough? Vote Democratic!.” This worthy gentleman is half-right.

The Democrats, in my view, cannot beat the Republicans base-on-base or on the issues. Even a character debate will be a toss-up. There is, however, a major opportunity for a lasting revitalization of democracy if the Democrats will match up their most promising unity candidate with a new party, the American Independence Party, and a commitment to a Coalition Cabinet and Coalition Legislature committed to electoral reform.

This new party would be unique in history in that it would specifically foster the concept of “dual citizenship” and respect the original political allegiances of the moderate Republicans, the conservative Democrats, the Independents, Libertarians, Greens, Reforms, and the newly mobilized from both the Latin and Asian immigration pool as well as the survivors of the Dean revolution.

This new party would have ‘wings’ and leaders from all American political parties, and they would commit to support Democratic *and* Republican legislative incumbents or challengers who agree to dual citizenship in the American Independence Party, and its single reform focus: restoring the vote to *all* Americans.

Electoral reforms, including instant run-offs, the end of gerrymandering and even physical districts, restoration of multi-party debates, and voting on week-ends so the working poor have a shot at voting without losing work, all need to be part of an American Independence Act of 2007 that will have it greatest effect in 2008. In addition, we need to end “party line” voting that forbids our elected representatives from voting for their district instead of their party, and of course end campaign financing while introducing publicly funded campaigns and higher salaries for representatives, teachers, cops, firemen, and preventive health care professionals and other public servants.

Only one issue can unite all sensible Americans: ‘does your vote count?‘ The answer for most is a resounding ‘NO.’ If we were to establish a new party and an interim Coalition Cabinet now, even before a final candidate for President is chosen, and commit publicly to this single lasting “fix” on the system, everything else will fall into place -- including wiser foreign and domestic policy, an end to the double deficit, and a restoration of the moral legitimacy of the Republic. We must restore informed, engaged, democracy (collective intelligence), honest public policy, moral capitalism, and America the Good -- instead of America the Idiot Bully.

In 2006 we must demand that incumbents and challengers commit to this unification reform idea. In 2007 we pass the American Independence Act that implements sustainable electoral reform. In 2008 we elect a President and a Coalition Cabinet and Coalition Legislature that restores America the Good, an American Republic that is Of, By, and For We the People.

I have secured the domain name Citizens-Party.org. Shortly, we will open the web page, once we are as secure as possible. So I have a question for all of you: anyone interested in helping set this party up, register it in every state, and be ready to announce it on the 4th of July?

Warm regards to all,
Robert

10 Threats to the Public Interest & Security

Robert David Steele
04.18.06, 6:00 PM ET

Why Secret Intelligence is Bad

Director of National Intelligence [DNI] Covers 17.5%

In the Age of Information, when secret sources are less valuable and open sources are more essential in understanding reality and crafting responsible public policy, what are the ten greatest threats to the United States of America? What ten questions should the reformed and revitalized Director of National Intelligence (DNI) be able to answer for Congress and the public? This challenge has been answered generally by the Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A more secure world, Our shared responsibility (United Nations, 2004), but nothing the DNI is doing today is helpful in actually addressing, in a substantive sustained way, each of these threats.

In the table below, the percentage of the relevant information available from open sources rather than secret sources is provided in the second column, to make the point that spending $50 billion a year on secrets and less than $500 million a year on open sources simply does not make sense and is therefore politically and economically irresponsible.

Clear & Present Danger to the Security & Prosperity of the USA

Threat #1: Poverty 95%
Threat #2: Infectious Disease 99%
Threat #3: Environmental Degradation 90%
Threat #4: Inter-State Conflict 75%
Threat #5 Civil War 80%
Threat #6: Genocide 95%
Threat #7: Other Large-Scale Atrocities 95%
Threat #8: Nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological weapons 75%
Threat #9: Terrorism 80%
Threat #10: Transnational organized crime 80%

Average Importance of Open Source Intelligence 82.5%

A proper national intelligence endeavor should be able to define the current and projected extent of the threat in the USA and elsewhere, specify the political, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, and natural-geographic costs and nuances associated with the threat, and recommend or at least benchmark a specific spending plan to eliminate the threat in the USA by 2015 and in the world by 2025. Only the President and the Cabinet can make policy, but they are largely uninformed and are not accountable because the intelligence baseline is not a public intelligence baseline.

U.S. Intelligence, like the Department of Defense, is a dinosaur from the Cold War, a direct outcome of allowing the military-industrial-congressional complex to specify how we spend the taxpayer dollar without regard to reality or proper intelligence. We have a special interests spy world and a special interests heavy-metal military. Both need draconian reform, and the fastest, cheapest way to benchmark public policy and the public budget is by creating an Open Source Agency that serves the public interest, publicly.

To be explicit: the $50 to 70 billion being charged to the U.S. taxpayer for secret intelligence is delivering no more than 20% of the relevant intelligence necessary to address the high-level threats to America and the civilized world. This is unacceptable and requires the generation of public outrage as a first step toward practical and honest intelligence reform. What we have now simply will not do.

An Open Source Agency would provide a national peer-to-peer network with public intelligence that is transparent, shareable, accountable, and sensible. Creating such an organization is one step toward sanity.

Islam, terrorism, democracy

The Nation 19 April 2006 , www.nation.com/pk

DR FAROOQ HASSAN

To learn of the bomb explosions in the famous Sankatmochan temple in Benaras and Varanasi Railway Station on 8th March was deeply shocking for me. Over a year ago I was highly honoured by Beneras Hindu University to give a Memorial lecture at their beautiful lush green campus.

During this memorable visit I saw the scared places of great religious significance for hundreds of millions of adherents of the Hindu and Buddhist Faiths. Apart from its many historic temples and places of worship, I had an opportunity to go over by boat on the magnificent Ganges River seeing at close hand how deeply felt centuries old sacred rites and rituals are performed. Regretfully these explosions jolted South Asia severely by bringing into focus the dreaded potential of the menace of communal lack of confidence between the followers of main religious persuasions in this region.

I am thus pained to note that those responsible for this tremendous act of senselessness are thought, or at least alleged to be, Muslims. According to contemporary Indian press reports, they have allegedly done so at the behest of, or urging by, Pakistan. The Indian Government's highest level statement on this matter came on 19th March, when the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister stated that the Beneras tragedy, resulting in 23 deaths, and the earlier one in Bangalore, emanated from a new strategy of the Jihadi camps or elements in Pakistan. It was explained that such elements available to the powers that may be have devised a new theory of producing communal riots or troubles in that country.

Blaming indirectly Pakistan for encouraging this highly provocative act of terrorism is a matter deserving serious notice. It could be said that this blame was conceivably rhetorical as is the case with Islamabad; every time it is unable to solve anything major in either the Frontier or Baluchistan it is said the "foreign" hands are involved. This veiled reference fools nobody as the accusation, inevitably without proof, is vis-à-vis India.

I was interviewed by the VOA hours after the statement of the Indian National Security Advisor hit the international wire services. My view was that this needed a response from the Pakistan's Foreign Office (which according to VOA had not been given to them despite a formal request). At any rate, whosoever they may be who had perpetrated such heinous acts, ought to be regarded as criminals against the lives of innocent people.

But, when asked further had Pakistan been levelling similar accusations against India, I responded that that was indeed the case. Blaming a "foreign hand" for all of the troubles that the government continuously faces in Baluchistan and in other places invariably arises where it is unable to handle a deteriorating domestic situation. Does it not reflect the presence of an inefficient administration which, when failing to perform its basic duty to protect the lives of its people, resorts to manifest subterfuges and excuses? Are such references to "foreign elements" intentionally left vague and undefined with a view to fill in the blanks when so required?

The credibility of the ipse dixit of the present regime in such matters is mostly suspect. After all, every time a high ranking US official is here we see escalation in military measures being deployed in the Waziristan region! Implicitly this is an admission that there is something going on there which Islamabad has not been able to remove or to lessen. It is maintained by many knowledgeable experts that the sustenance of this brand of terrorism lies embedded in this area. Both Afghani President Hamid Karzi and the Indian Premier had similar reservations on the Musharraf claims to the contrary on this point. Recent statements of no less than the US President in Islamabad tend to show that Pakistan failed to establish that it had indeed stopped the "infiltration" from within its borders to both these countries.

At the moment of writing, those responsible for such a chillingly mischievous action have thankfully not invoked Islam to provide a cover for their criminal deeds. However, the alleged involvement of Pakistan is seemingly present. The first putative source of causation has religious overtones, while the second one is intimately connected with political undertones of the Sub Continental politics.

It is immaterial, realistically speaking, which of the scenarios is correct. The question that bothers me, however, is why, whenever some action of this kind occurs anywhere, the first country related accusation is made against Pakistan? In analytical, thematic, identification of motivation of such deeds, it is all put down to the activists of Islamic extremists, term used by both Musharraf and Western commentators to refer to such groups. In the nomenclature in local parlance, the term utilized is "jihadis".

Some of them, while claiming responsibilities for such heinous acts, assume Arabic sounding names. Some even call themselves "mujahids" to pass their misdeeds as an act of jihad. It can deceive no one, least of all Muslims. In fact, these terrorists have their own political agenda. In promotion of this agenda, they do not mind involving the fair name of Islam to provide some grandeur to their misdeeds. Either consciously or unconsciously they are realistically only promoting the agenda of enemies of Islam.

The question of alleged Pakistani involvement in many such cases of terrorism has been admitted by General Musahharf himself. He has said many times that, regretfully, whether an alleged act of terrorism occurs in the West or the East, it is claimed by someone somewhere that Pakistan is connected or behind it. It does not mean that Pakistan is behind it, or that such an accusation is correct. Yet the perception, as General Musharraf points out, is that it is indeed so. The question that we must ponder over is why?

My own perception, without going into too may details, is that terrorism of this variety and lack of democracy have a direct connection. In areas and countries where the role and rule of law is replaced by the power of the gun, or by the will of a military commander, the resultant crisis becomes inextricably intertwined with the raw balance of actual power that protagonists can wield.

In Pakistan, the persistent supremacy of patent illegality and usurpation of constitutional power by military juntas has thus resulted in produced this truest basis for actual settlement of grievances through use of acts of brute force. If this force is used by those who control the instruments of state, it is said to be the "writ of government". If deployed by those who oppose such regimes, then it is often described to be terrorism in such surroundings and political milieu. All sides, through an Islamic cultural legacy, claim that normative Islam is on their side since this country was founded for Muslims!

I thus feel that Pakistan military crackdowns on such terrorists in Waziristan or elsewhere could fuel militancy instead of curbing it. Analysts maintain that this point requires a deeper analysis for an objective understanding. On the other hand, General Musharraf has warned foreign militants to leave Pakistan's tribal belt or die, but the crackdown has little chance of success and risks alienating, even radicalizing, local people. They have, after all, lived for centuries with their own traditional and historical ways and codes of honor and civility.

In late 2003, Pakistan deployed the first of the 80,000 troops who are presently now in the rugged zone bordering Afghanistan to tackle Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels who fled across the frontier after US-led forces drove the regime from Kabul.

The fugitive rebels found support from devoutly Islamic local tribesmen and launched attacks on Pakistani forces in early 2004, leading to massive battles in the troubled tribal agency of South Waziristan. Pakistan's military ruler Musharraf, a key US ally, knows only the language based on direct or indirect reference to force, rather than diplomacy or political dialogue! The Pakistani forces have actually lost hundreds of soldiers in this combat. The government, with non existent political credentials of legitimacy, remains under increasing pressure from both Washington and Kabul to tackle insurgents who allegedly launch attacks in southern Afghanistan from bases in northwestern Pakistan.

I feel, finally, that the US has learned that it is democracy, and not dictatorship, that can prevent terrorism. This is more true where the population is essentially of Muslims. It has learned it the hard way, after mind boggling losses and damage in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

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

A post for Daily Kos

[I'll post this to my new diary on Daily Kos after my one week waiting period is up.]

To shape our politics we have to shape our communications.

Here is a little personal history about the Dean campaign and how communications shaped it.

In 2003 I was asked by Steve Grossman to go to Burlington to work with Joe Trippi’s team on creating the Dean campaign’s internet strategies. At one point we were discussing a new tool that would allow Dean supporters to find one another. The original idea was to find supporters with 1, 2, 5 or so miles from your location. After some energetic exchanges, I was able to persuade Zephyr that the most important Dean supporter I needed to find was the one who lived in my building or on my block. We could then begin the face-to-face relationship building that would allow us to support each other in over-coming our inhibitions and to swing into local, retail political action supporting Dean: leafleting, hosting events in our homes, visibilities, and so forth.

The key was that the Dean campaign, like the Clinton Gore campaign in 1992, trusted us to communicate amongst ourselves in a true, symmetrical, peer-to-peer model. As a result, both Clinton and Dean enjoyed powerful benefits created by their supporters. In contrast, the Kerry campaign did not.

I was subsequently asked in April 2004, by the then CTO of the Kerry campaign, to work with a very small team of online community organizers [DemTech/DemComm members] to develop a vibrant peer-to-peer social networking strategy for the Kerry team. A small sub-group, including Howard Rheingold, AOL's Director of Community Management, Nanci Meng and Jon Lebkowsky, were tasked to create and submitted a draft proposal to Kerry HQ. We never heard back. We could only watch as Kerry imposed a traditional, asymmetrical, industrial era Master/Slave broadcast communications organizing principal on his campaign. Kerry did not trust the voters to generally do the right thing most of the time. Thus he was basically unable to leverage cooperative gain created by the collective actions of his supporters at the edges of his campaign. Kerry only understood power as it is created by asymmetrical relationships. This lead him to treat his supporters as sheeple, not as citizen activists.

Dean, of course, also made some critical mistakes in his communications. Perhaps Dean's greatest error was his scream speech in Iowa. We know that Lincoln understood that his audience in the Lincoln - Douglas debates was NOT the people in the immediate audience, but rather the multitudes reading the telegraphed transcript in papers in distant parts. For this reason, Lincoln adopted a radically new telegraphic debating style. Or, more recently, my friend Dan Hurley was asked to address a Democratic convention some time ago. As he was getting ready, an old Kennedy hand came up to him and told him two things: 1] go to the beach the day before to relax, and 2; address the audience beyond the cameras, not the people in the room.

Unfortunately not only did Gov. Dean not know this when he went out on the stage that fateful night in Iowa, but he had also not been rehearsed in BOTH an acceptance speech and a concession speech. Thus he was totally unprepared to leverage the opportunity of addressing the millions beyond the many cameras focused on him on that Iowa stage. A perfect example of how his communications strategy, on that night it was pure and simple 'wing it', shaped his political fortunes.

All of this is a round about way of getting around to the point that we must understand how the dominant organizing principle our national communications infrastructure shapes and determines our politics. If we want a truly democratic politics, based on the notions of equality with justice and fairness for all, based upon truly symmetrical relationships, we will have to have a communications paradigm that supports that goal.

Currently we do not. The dominant organizing principal in American communications is one that is fundamentally asymmetrical “Master/Slave” in nature with limited ability for the average citizen to participate and dependent upon rigid control of the distribution process. Why else would the current beneficiaries of this organizing principal demand draconian Digital Rights Management, with Infinite Copyright, and go to such great extremes to vilify and demonize peer-to-peer approaches? Indeed, the current communications paradigm, as enforced by the FCC and thus the US government is, at its heart, anti-democratic in both principle and fact. In truth, our current communications concentrates power in the hands of a few, supports a politics of oligarchy, and rule by the wealthy 1%. One clear result is today’s dominant politics of money, with humanity working for Mammon. It requires that we be sheeple.

I invite you to read the blog posts below to see some of my views of how else we might organize our communications in a true, symmetrical, peer-to-peer model. This is the only model that incorporates and energizes the core values of a politics of democracy.

Daily Kos, with its support for lateral, symmetrical and peer-to-peer participation is a case in point. For another example, see “OhMyNews” a South Korean online news site written by its readers who now even pay each other as well. But now, if we want our democracy back, we must extend the symmetrical, peer-to-peer model to all modes of communications. We now have both the understanding and the means to do so. All we lack is the political will and the political power to make it so.

So what will we chose for our future: Master/Slave or Peer-to-Peer?

Here are links to four posts of mine that relate to this topic.

1] Master/ Slave or Peer-to-Peer

2] To Encourage or Stifle Wireless Economic Innovation?

3] Wireless Civic and Economic Development

4] Mammon, masquerading as "The Market", is a false prophet

Depleted Uranium or DU

The Open Source Intelligence site has posted this news item:

News Flash: Depleted Uranium Reaches England?

Depleted uranium from the Iraqi campaign has evidently reached England.

A repeat of Gulf War syndrome, which put over a quarter million US veterans on disability, appears to be joining the massive number of amputees.

Some of the coverage of this new finding is quasi-hysterical, but what we find very interesting is the combination of policy acceptance of depleted uranium impacts on both our own troops as well as our downwind allies, and the larger discussion of deliberate depopulation strategies including genetically modified corn.

The post includes an interesting list of links.

I note that a search of the NY Times for "depleted uranium" turns up 135 results, the most recent which is from December 20th, 2005:

THE REACH OF WAR: DETAINEES; 24 Ex-Hussein Officials Freed From U.S. Custody ... effects of the depleted uranium used in American bombs ...View free preview December 20, 2005 - By JOHN F. BURNS (NYT) - World - News - 1110 words

It is certainly true that, if the allegations contained in the story about DU reaching England are proven, then we will be unable to claim ignorance of what our government has been doing in our name as an excuse. We did not fight the current administrations policies of secrecy above all else and now we may rue the years and days we did not.

For, if the story is true, then the Bush administration has plumbed unknown depths of moral depravity while we stood silently by. Do we honestly believe that our ineffectual protests will atone for the consequences of our willful ignorance?

It is time to take stock. We are now a debtor nation and have put our children and their children in debt for the foreseeable future. We are creating enemies faster than we are creating friends. We are destroying our middle class and shifting the burdens of society to those who can least afford it -- simply in order to make the rich richer. We have allowed the the wealthy elite to impose the notion that humanity serves the market, putting Mammon ahead of people. We now have more people in hunger, without jobs, without health insurance, and with no retirement security. Our only earthly environment is at risk while our government refuses to confront the issue. Our economy and our foreign policy are held hostage by our unrelenting reliance and unquenchable demand for imported energy. And the list goes on.

How much longer can we afford to remain ignorant and passive?

Master/Slave or Peer-to-Peer?

Sheeple Consumers or Citizen Activists?

Language matters. When Municipal wireless projects talk in terms of the "last mile in" to the "customer", it pretty clearly indicates that they have opted to maintain the old industrial era "Master/Slave" metaphor for their municipal wireless solution -- And probably for their politics and businesses as well.

The other option, of course, is to adopt a modern, peer-to-peer, mesh network architecture in which ALL nodes on the network are active participants in the mesh. This is the only way a municipality can create a truly Extra-Ordinary outcome for its citizens. This also creates a "first mile out" solution. In turn, a peer-to-peer mesh solution has the added benefit of giving all participants an incentive to improve their local infrastructure to improve their personal conditions. In the past, this has been called "leveraging end-user capital." It is what financed so much of the PC revolution that so benefited the US innovation economy. It is what creates a virtuous cycle of improvements.

The question is simply: Why do municipalities chose today to abandon this proven engine for economic innovation and growth?

Of course, the current EULAs from the "incumbents", such as Comcast, Verizon, AT&T etc., all specifically forbid sharing of connectivity by, at or for the end points. Intended or otherwise, this has the result of making a true peer-to-peer mesh a forbidden fruit. But is it really a municipality's function to pick business plan winners? Or is it to provide the very best solutions for its citizens?

From the above, it is clear that, until Peer-to-Peer business models are adopted by the incumbents, only municipalities are able to create and sustain modern, peer-to-peer, mesh network architecture in which ALL nodes on the network are active participants. Today, only municipalities can create networks that enable a virtuous cycle of improvements financed largely by end-user investments.

If a municipality fails to develop a municipal wireless solution that allows it to benefit from leveraging end-user capital, and the resulting cooperative gain created by this edge capital, I predict that such a system will have a substantially higher risk of failure. If we treat our fellow citizens like sheeple, as in the Master/Slave model imbedded in WiMax technology, they have no incentive to spend their own money to make local improvements. Thus they can never realize the innovation economy benefits of a system with inherent cooperative gain.

So what, my fellow citizens, do we expect from our government leaders? Master/Slave or Peer-to-Peer? The past or the future?

Kite flyers defying writ of regime?

The Nation, 11 April 2006

DR FAROOQ HASSAN

The writ of the present regime is seen by some to be met with open defiance in the kite flying “revolt” by a section of the population in the province of Punjab. Through out the 11th and 12th of March, in the face of a total ban imposed by the Punjab Government, kite flyers indulged in this [kite fighting] pastime, which is menacing to the wellbeing of thousands of innocent people. So manifest was this act of “illegality” that the TV channels gave this news throughout these two days. However, neither the police nor the administration did precious little to enforce its own orders. In the process, more lives were lost as well as injury to many others.

Can one imagine NY City police, after denying the holding of a procession, watching silently for hours the same prohibited rally defiantly proceed, resulting in deaths? The local cable TV networks have been having plenty of talk shows on this defiance of the law, with the diversity of views being as striking as the fact of this open disobedience to the law. This act of defiance of law concerned the kite flying ban imposed by the Punjab Government on 9th of March, on the eve of the impending Basant day celebrations on all kite flying activity.

It is interesting to note that to seek a “dispensation” from a ban for an additional four days was a formal decision to this effect by the Punjab Government itself! It is most strange that the two formal legal actions were made by the same government one hundred eighty degrees at variance within span of days! First it prayed to the Supreme Court to extend the period for flying formally ending on the 11th to the 15th March. Then on its own accord it decided to end it all on the 9th March!

Clearly, its second move was forced by circumstances as in the intervening period a number of deaths of innocent children and infants had tragically occurred through the murderous cords used by the kite flying enthusiasts. But authoritarian states and their governments do not readily admit of their inadequacies so quickly for the fear to be perceived as feeble and dilly-dallying. Junta run regimes takes pride in exactitude of enforcement even be it to the genuine democrat foolhardy to so remain focused.

Pakistanis have become greatly used to the term of “writ of Government”. It is frequently used by General Musharraf whenever civil libertarians or those calling for a political acceptance of their rights as guaranteed under the nation’s frequently suspended Constitution demands. The most often usage of this term these days is visible while Administration talks of the critical loss of law and order situation in Baluchistan or in the Frontier Province region of Waziristan. So this loss of face by being unable to stop people from heavily indulging in kite flying and also causing many unfortunate deaths should be worrisome to the military junta? I doubt it really! That dozens of innocent people mostly under the age of seven got killed by the kite cords should have been deeply bemoaned.

I do not know how and why, but the Pakistani public and its government have seemingly become impervious to such rampant killings. This is terrible and deserves a great deal of thought by powers that might be.

While there are many points of interest in this whole affair, I intend to focus only on two points. First in an academic sense we shall briefly see this issue in the historical context from the perspectives of liability. In this overview I would provide the erudite readers the purely jurisprudential foundations of this topic which deals with the “escape of dangerous objects from someone’s custody”. Secondly we shall have an overview of the broader sociological cum political questions relating to the matter of erosion of the writ of an authoritarian regime.

Turning now to legal history of this point, there cannot be any cavil with the simple jurisprudential point that anyone who brings a dangerous activity to his premises or under has control is liable in toto for the resultant damaging consequences. Fundamentally if the state allows any activity, it is its duty to make certain that it does not result in the death of others. This much is clearly deducible from Article 9 of the Constitution. Throughout history a number of “games” that were greatly popular at one time became outlawed because of their potential danger or mischief to the public at large or in fixed localities.

Interesting illustrations of such matters are provided by King Henry 111 decision in 1270, at the request of the University of Cambridge, to forbid “obscene tournaments”, “jousting” or other “warlike games” within the University and in a five mile radius of the University. In 1382, King Richard 11 granted to the University of Cambridge the power to “inquire and take cognizance of forestallers and regulators and of putrid, corrupt, and unfit flesh and fish, in the town and suburbs, and to make punishments thereupon.” These were activities that were generally harmless but when it transpired that they were threatening the academic culture, or safety of the University people, the King’s permission was obtained for the local law enforcement to take appropriate action.

The Common law had always insisted that anyone continuing dangerous activity on his premises was liable and responsible for resultant loss or damage. The leading authority, which became the landmark case on this jurisprudence, was Rylands v. Fletcher (1866). The principle of Roman law invoked by English judges was that of sic utere tua ut alineum non laedas. It signified in simple terms that no one could use his rights to the detriment of others and if he did so he was totally responsible for the consequences. These principles were based on the common sense approach of any civil society where different segments or individuals may have diverse social preoccupations to follow. If transgression occurred, law inflicted a total penalty on the perpetrators.

As such, the continuing spate of deaths of usually poorer people of our society, particularly of the very young and of infants, is unbearable. It is indeed mind boggling how and why any government can allow any activity in which it is certainly foreseeable that death will result. No one can even pretend that any scientific system exits to save innocent or ignorant youngsters from falling from rooftops while running blindly to catch a drifting kite. The cords of these kites ruthlessly go through the throats of many a young person, no matter how well it may be regulated.

Only those who have lost their loved ones can tell the terrible and unspeakable suffering they are going through when a death occurs in the manner that really defies description. The well-known legal rules briefly articulated, a fortiori, [must] be given effect to and respected by State institutions.

Now let us turn our attention to the second point about the matter of “erosion” of state’s writ so openly after banning kite flying. The administration did nothing meaningful to arrest and stop the open defiance of its orders. Why a military run administration would ignore its own orders is very perplexing. But does it really represent a case of “erosion” of the “writ of authority” so called? Is it not merely a subterfuge, or a mock appearance, by a junta of being so “defied” as an excuse for potentially allowing holding of an activity that it did not want to prohibit anyway?

One can not be unmindful of the fact that there was a rising tide of severe criticism of the top leadership of the Administration that included General Musharraf for endorsing the celebration of Basant and kite flying. It had been, after all, announced that General himself was traveling to Lahore to participate in these festivities as he had done a year ago in great style. Those responsible for having him in Lahore had gone to tremendous lengths by inviting the best known film and entertainment personalities to provide the event with the necessary glamour befitting the top boss of the country.

This year too, like Nero, the regime was keen to play the fiddle while Rome may burn! The misfortune of the kite flyers of particularly Lahore and the regime’s essential leadership was that the country’s press boldly took up the matter. It reported the daily slashing of throats. It began to look really bad, even for a stubborn regime, to insist on a frolic of the nature of the kite festivities to go ahead on Basant.

Nevertheless, the Government did everything “legally” possible to accomplish this goal. An extension of a dispensation by four days of the ban to have the benefit of being involved in this event was materialised. To their chagrin, more deaths occurred even after this short extension. It was only then that it had to undertake a reluctant volte-face by again banning the activity itself, just a day before the Basant was to be normally observed.

We should thank the country’s apex court, which has done its best to stop these needless killing sprees, avoidable suffering and needless misery through this inherently dangerous activity. If it were not for the Supreme Court and the current Chief Justice, this dangerous flippancy would have continued unabated.

As for the writ of authoritarianism, it seems to be selectively availed of. When the government wants to prevent political rallies against it, all kinds of legal maneuverings are utilised to have its goals accomplished with rash impunity. But when it wants to do really nothing, it conveniently dons helplessness; as in this kite flying mania of the selected few, the junta regime allows such murderous activity to go ahead despite an overt ban to the contrary. This was evident as, even after the complete ban by the Court on the 17th, I saw parts of Lahore violating the ban, with no ostensible police action to stop it, on the 18th and 19th March under the rubric of “Mini-Basant”.

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

Wills on Religion & Politics

In today's New York Times, Garry Wills has written a very interesting analysis of the religion in politics question:

Christ Among the Partisans

By GARRY WILLS
Published: April 9, 2006

Chicago

THERE is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: "My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here" (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.

This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, "Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him" (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.

Those who want the state to engage in public worship, or even to have prayer in schools, are defying his injunction: "When you pray, be not like the pretenders, who prefer to pray in the synagogues and in the public square, in the sight of others. In truth I tell you, that is all the profit they will have. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and your Father who sees you in hiding will reward you" (Matthew 6:5-6). He shocked people by his repeated violation of the external holiness code of his time, emphasizing that his religion was an internal matter of the heart.

But doesn't Jesus say to care for the poor? Repeatedly and insistently, but what he says goes far beyond politics and is of a different order. He declares that only one test will determine who will come into his reign: whether one has treated the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the imprisoned as one would Jesus himself. "Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me" (Matthew 25:40). No government can propose that as its program. Theocracy itself never went so far, nor could it.

.... Read the complete Op-Ed here.

What do you think?

Great Flying, Right Up to the Point Where They Crash and Burn

Book Review
Robert Steele
March 31, 2006

Crashing the Gate
Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga

This is an absolutely superb book, one of the finest reviews, in a readable form, of all that ails this Nation. The authors are like fighter pilots, performing incredible feats of daring-do, right up to the point where they crash and burn by suggesting that the Democratic Party can win anything at all. 



I read a lot--almost exclusively non-fiction about information, intelligence, emerging threats, anti-Americanism, the lack of strategic culture, white collar crime, and the negative impact of US domestic political machinations on our national security and prosperity. This book is one of the single most extraordinary overviews I have ever seen, and if you buy and read only one book this year, this is the book. 



 I bought the book on faith, but for those who wish that the publisher had done a proper job of posting the table of contents, let me just post that information. 



American Reality covers corporate cons, theocons, neocons, and other losers 



This Ain't No Party starts with Divided We Fail and then discusses how each of the major movements (labor, environment, women) failed. 



The Gravy Train is about white-collar crime--the beltway mafia, the commission mafia, the media, propaganda against our own. 



Laying the Groundwork is best summed up by the quote from Mahatma Gandhi on the first flyleaf: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." We WILL win--there are not enough guns on the planet, or enough places for white collar crooks and crooked politicians to hide, to keep us down or avoid our justice. 



Civil War discusses the Dean machine and the path to "Netroots." 



The book concludes with Inside the Gate, which I have mixed feelings about--the authors have some thoughtful ideas on challenging every Republican, but they miss the boat completely in failing to understand that the Democratic political leadership is just as corrupt, slightly more stupid, and much less ruthless and effective. 



That leads to my two critiques that take away one star, but I certainly do consider this book a must read and the authors to be geniuses and thought leaders: on the Dean revolution (which failed--as did the more elect able Edwards). John Kerry was the epitaph of the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton will be its gravestone. 



1) Peter Peterson, in "Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It," does a much better job of laying out the prevailing mood across America, which is essentially, "a pox on both parties." They have both main-lined bribery, they both lack ethics, vision, strategy, and a commitment to the public interest, and neither party is suited for managing America. What the authors forget, perhaps because of their focus


2) The authors make the mistake, from the above starting point, of thinking this is about mobilizing a bigger Democratic base against the Republicans. That will not work. Base on base, the Republicans will win every time in this era; in part because the Democrats have given up faith (see my review of the utterly brilliant "Left Hand of God" by Rabbi Michael Lerner). As I tried to tell Dean, and then Edwards and then Kerry, you do not beat a bigger dog with another dog, you beat them with a dog-catcher. There is only ONE dog-catcher issue in this country, and it is this: does EVERYONE's vote count? The answer is no. Hence, I see the author's well-intentioned guidance going down the drain UNLESS they write a second book, which I eagerly encourage, that does two things this book does not do:


a) Show how an American Independence Party, to be launched on the 4th of July 2006, can have a federalist organization that includes conservative Democrats, moderate Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Independents, and Couch Potatoes all as self-organized units that come together with one goal, and one goal only: crushing the extremist religious-corporate right, and restoring the concept of moral representative democracy to America. Any Congressman who fails to leave either the Republican or Democratic Party, who fails to join the new party, should be defeated in 2006.

b) The authors could write a handbook for organizing the people through a national budget simulation that brings out the issues and demonstrates what Paul Ray has known all along (see "Cultural Creatives" and "New Political Compass"): every issue can attract a mix of ideological views where consensus can be achieved. The problem with our two main parties today is that their corruption eliminates honest representations (see my review of "Breach of Trust" in which the author discusses how forcing Members to vote on the "party line" dishonors their obligation to represent their District).

I am prepared to contribute financially if these two authors will establish a web site where we can create a virtual coalition government, with all "wings" of the American Independence Party represented, and where we can use a national budget simulation ("it's not policy until its in the budget") to sort out our spending priorities inclusive of elimination of the double-deficit and a shift of $100B a year toward waging peace. Ralph Nader's book "Crashing the Party" has some good ideas-why can't we do this under the author's guidance, and also pick a coalition cabinet that challenges both Republican and Democratic candidates to do the same and participate in cabinet-level debates under the League of Women Voters?

This is a super book, but the authors repeat the mistake Joe Trippi made early on (see my review of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"): the Internet will not save the Democratic Party. Using the Internet to create a new umbrella party will, however, save democracy. The two should not be confused. The Democratic Party today is Republican Lite, and not worth saving. Bring on book two-I'll buy the first 100 copies!


Implications of anti-blasphemy movement

By Dr Farooq Hassan

The Nation 8 March 06

The strategic implications of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of the cartoons blaspheming holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are spreading in several directions. It has caused great anger and hurt the Muslim world. One fundamental implication is clear. The public furore has assumed an antagonistic posture towards Western political interests and those of its supporters. Even Condoleezza Rice was constrained to note publicly that this "severe" Islamic condemnation of caricatures was getting out of hand and threatening to block "the progress that the US was endeavouring to achieve" on many international fronts.

As a result, worldwide agitation and protests have evidently become a terrifying prospect for policymakers of countries such as Pakistan where democracy has been held hostage by the army. So much is the government shaken that it had to vote for a condemnatory parliamentary resolution. A countrywide protest and strike resulted in severe destruction of public property. The government agreed to participate in the national anti-blasphemy protest on 3rd March, the day President Bush came to Islamabad.

The reason for the government's dilemma is obvious. It is petrified that if it supports even by lip service the Islamists' call, it gets doomed in the eyes of its Western benefactors including Washington. If it does what it wants to really do, it is doomed to an unceremonious ouster as it has no political base among the people. Besides, it loses credibility in Washington and elsewhere that he can turn the screw at will against fundamentalist forces.

Read the whole essay here.

Mammon, masquerading as "The Market", is a false prophet

Why have we not heard of the 300,000 to 500,000 people who demonstrated in Chicago on Friday?

"300,000 to 500,000 people marched in Chicago to protest The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005."

Or this major development:

"Now comes the conservative American Bar Association--400,000 lawyers--whose House of Delegates has overwhelmingly approved a task force report accusing President Bush, in polite legal language, of violating both the Constitution and federal law. ABA President Michael S. Greco sent it to Mr. Bush with a cover letter dated February 13, 2006." -- Ralph Nader.

Why is the Mainstream Media [MSM] failing to report these stories? Google these stories and you will see that the MSM are missing in action. A conspiracy of silence.

Is it because they fear the restoration of the primacy of the people over Mammon's market?

It is clear once again that the proposition that the "market" is the best, if not only, solution for all problems is false. Just as in the “Roaring 20s,” Mammon'sMarket has, in fact, created one train wreck after another: healthcare, the environment, education, international relations, the middle class, justice as fairness, social equality, the rule of law, our Constitutional civil liberties, -- you name it. Our Civic and Economic viability and health are in deep trouble as a consequence.

The question is simply this: Is the market meant to serve humanity or is humanity meant to serve the market?

Mammon will always answer that we are the servants of the market. We have now tried Mammon's corporatist approach since 1980. After more than a quarter century, it is manifestly emerging as a massive failure, as it always has and always will.

A significant consequence of accepting Mammon's argument is that it replaces the functions of government with the operations, short time horizons, and metrics of the market. Dick Cheney's quip in the 2000 VP debate that "the government had nothing to do with his success" is a pure example of Mammon's value proposition. Government is incompetent and bad. The Market is supremely competent and good.

The British gave into Mammon even earlier: The policies of Margaret Thatcher, and earlier, in the 1960s, The Mayfair Set, including David Stirling, Jim Slater, James Goldsmith, and Tiny Rowland, rapacious take over con men who corrupted British political ethics and sold off England's Industrial assets for Mammon's short term profit imperative.

Until we once again assert the primacy of citizens over the market, and thus the validity of government's role in human affairs, we will remain in the thrall of Mammon's false prophecy. This can only lead to our demise, just as it did last century with the great market crash of Black Friday in 1929.

Can we afford another unregulated market inspired economic crash?

The false prophet Mammon sets up an equally false dichotomy: The Market or The Commons. From this, Mammon creates the tautological arguments that have powered the radical right and their corporatist paymasters for the past 25 years. At root, this is their attack on FDR's politics that clearly gave citizens primacy over the market. This attack on FDR was exactly the mission that the National Association of Manufacturers gave to Eddie Bernays in the 1930s. Bernays was Mammon's genius hand maiden. His successor and disciple, Karl Rove, is the same.

This is NOT to say that we do not need a market. We do. But one clearly and firmly dedicated to the service of all humanity: A market that respects and encourages the public good as its essential partner in sustaining both civic and economic well being.

When will the Democratic party wake up and reject Mammon? When will the Democrats declare the obvious: The market is not sufficient for civic and economic health and well being. It is necessary, but not sufficient.

The truth can only be found in the synthesis of and/both: The Commons and the Market: The citizens with primacy over the market but respectful of it, as they recognize and value its essential and necessary role.

I look forward to a political leader who will articulate this as the basis for claiming a brighter future for all of us: An extraordinary future full of promise, opportunity, and innovation.

Expulsion of Muslim foreign students

DR FAROOQ HASSAN

It has been widely reported in the press that all foreign students from Islamic countries have been expelled from their religious institutions in Pakistan as well as ordered to leave the country by the end of December 2005. Apparently this order applies to everyone in such a category irrespective of whether they are in possession of a valid visa and travel documents. This measure of the Musharraf government is to purportedly advance its role in the war against terrorism. The matter has been opposed by religious oriented political parties on the grounds of a major policy "tilt" towards anti-Islamic elements in the giving of such an order by the federal authorities.

However, irrespective of policy considerations about the respective stands the two protagonists the essence of which is by now well known, what needs to be examined is the constitutional and legal vires or justification of this decision. On what legal grounds is this action of the Pakistani Federal Government sustainable, if at all? Let us briefly examine those issues which are prima facie significant in such an analysis.

The jurisprudential rationale of the Musharraf decision patently suffers from a number of patent legal infirmities. First, without giving reasons which are legally sustainable, no action can be taken against anyone who is on Pakistani soil without due process of law. That is clearly the established law of the realm. Secondly, there is no conception in any civilised country's jurisprudence that allows the state to pass "omnibus" orders to be valid against individual people.

These are orders that not given in specific cases but against a "class". Such powers just do not exist and are utterly non-sustainable in a court of law. By the established norms of the legal philosophy of courts of major Anglo-American legal systems and of the Pakistani superior courts, any such administrative decision is presumptively steeped in "male fides". The US government did so against the people of Japanese origin during World War II which is to this day regretted by its successive administrations. However, Japan had attacked the US at Pearl Harbor; no Muslim country has attacked Pakistan to remotely even "morally" permit such a policy. International legal rules regarding travel and rights of ingress and egress or visiting other countries were theoretically laid down, inter alia, in the Helsinki Accords many years ago. Such law ensures at least legal doctrinal aspects of this matter. No country can discriminate in the grant of such facilities. Further once admitted, no prejudicial action can be taken without recourse to local law. Such local norms must be at least of the level of the minimum international standards. Pakistan, which is usually cited as amongst the worst offenders of the immigration laws of other countries, is usually at all mentionable international fora, the leader to stress that whether or not the person is in any foreign country, he should be afforded the complete procedural safeguards before being subject to an order of deportation.

Indirectly this is to defend its export of illegal manpower to other countries with the government's connivance or by a liaison of corruption between such illegal visitors and the border or airport government officials. As such it is highly strange that the government herself passes an order of omnibus expulsion (in law deportation) of nationals of other countries (in this case Muslims from Islamic states), without the least bit of trouble of following any legal formalities mandated by law. By "law" I mean here both domestic and international law. I will briefly examine both such norms to submit that the action of the present regime is at best the worst form of apologists' behaviour. At worst it represents a terrible and willful disregard of fundamental rights of foreign people lawfully on its soil.

Under international law, there exist many obstacles against the ethos of the Musharraf policy articulated above. Under several treaties comprising the International Bill of Rights there exists a number of direct provision that a foreigner within the territory of another state is legally due many safeguards including the right to be not deprived of his personal liberty, property or the right to movement.

As such is the case with the Treaty of Rome 1960 which although applicable in Europe, is nevertheless indicative of such a regime of law protecting citizens of other states who happen to be in a another country at any time. Recently when the US Administration began clamping down on illegal immigrants and hundred were deported, specific action was taken against all such deportees.

No omnibus order was effective against such deportees. In 2003 when six Pakistani nationals manifestly were sneaking through Greece and Macedonia to Europe and were killed in a police action, the Pakistan Government officially took up the plea that I have just outlined that no such actions possible with due process of law. No purpose is served by multiplying such illustrations as there is no question that under established international law, a state is under a legal duty to observe such formalities after it has admitted a foreigner on its soil.

Above all it is mandatory under the Vienna rules relating to diplomatic and consular protocols that every action against a foreigner must be preceded or accompanied by an intimation of the facts of each particular case to the concerned Embassy. I doubt if even single country was informed by the Pakistan Government of the action being taken against any student and for having committed what wrongdoing in Pakistan. Pakistan's Constitution is equally explicit. Under a conglomerate of provisions in Chapter 1 of Part 11 dealing with Fundamental Rights many articles prevents the government from doing that it has purportedly done. Since this matter hopefully may well be challenged one day in Court, I will not go over the specifics of such provisions. But this is clear that no government action is valid unless:

1. A specific notice is served upon the person outlining his delict or wrong doing.
2. He has given a hearing.
3. He has adequate time and opportunity to contest before a court the legality of the government's action.

This is deducible from an examination of Article 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 24 and 25.

In addition, the question that naturally arises is what had the Muslim students illegally done to invite such wrath of the authorities? Since when has it become crime to study Islam in the only country in the world solely created on the basis of Islam?

We must remember that under Pakistan's Constitution, Articles 31 and 40 say that:

1. The Pakistani Government is under a legal duty to enforce and observe Islamic way of Life in the Country;
2 That it is the constitutional duty of the Government to ensure the most cordial relations between Pakistan and Islamic states.

It is clear that such actions can hardly be germane to a betterment of such relations with other Islamic countries or for the implementation of an Islamic way of life in the country.

Before concluding let us also look at the broader scenario and questions raised by this patently unlawful decision of the Musharraf regime. If the theory is that by doing so, the Pakistani Government is endearing itself to Washington, then that may well so. But did the US itself expel a single Arab student after 9/11? After all 15 of the hijackers of the 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia and four presumably from Egypt. Conversely after 7/7/05 the men responsible for London bombing had overt Pakistani connects, did the UK expel all or any Pakistani students? Of course not.

Not only this logic is medieval in approach, the law of no county recognizes any concept of vicarious guilt by ethnic or nationality connections. As such, Musharraf regime's illogical and inhuman action in expelling foreign students and only from Muslim countries is legally perverse and indefensible. It appears that if a student came from the US or Australia or France to study here in a school he is acceptable but from Sudan or Egypt is not!

I hope therefore that one day this matter is challenged in court to test the validity of patently high-handed actions directed by our federal government against only Muslims students. In the end it is necessary to note that I regret the inaction of the religious political parties to contest such matters in the courts of the country. High sounding slogans by such parties of the county indulge freely in rhetoric and verbal protests against such decisions of the government; but none having the understanding or perhaps the moral courage and the needed logistical commitment to challenge these actions in a court where such tussle sure are rationally contested.

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

Rational or Irrational?

I hope you have seen Adam Curtis' "Happiness Machines", episode one of the 2002 BBC "The Century of the Self" series.

The arguments that Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss make, and to some extent Frued in his "Civilization and its Discontents", that humans are far too dangerously irrational and prone to chaotic barbarism to ever participate in a democracy of self governance, is both tautological and false. It is also powerfully self serving. But Eddie Bernays and the National Association of Manufacturers, and now Karl Rove and the Neocons, would certainly make you believe it was gospel.

They are past masters of playing to the emotional aspects of our imperfect rationality. Bernays' "Freedom Torches" as the name for cigarettes was brilliantly successful in getting women to smoke cigarettes -- much to their detriment.

We need to expose their cynical assumption, going back to President Hoover, that citizens can only be, must only be, passive consumers.

Fact: Their imperfect knowledge is clearly as imperfect as anyone else's -- just look at their record of horrific mistakes. Their claims to know better than the citizens how things should be done are purely self serving claims to power and the right to enforce the status quo to their advantage, status, and profit. That they claim to have more perfect knowledge is in itself proof of their ignorance.

Secondly, they create a false dichotomy when they reduce the argument to their terms: Is man rational or irrational? They then point to the far too many episodes of carnage in the last 100 years -- the first 100 years of transition to an era of Industrial Mass Production -- as proof that man is far too irrational and incompetent to rule himself. QED their conservative assertions on the nature of politics must be true. For them, politics is the ends and the ends do justify the means. Liberals who believe politics are the means are delusional and irrational.

A better explanation than Freud's 19th century constructs may simply be that the essential human condition of imperfect knowledge can lead to both good and bad outcomes. The new post-industrial world of the internet has examples of both: Amazon.com on the one hand vs child pornography rings on the other. It is how we address our imperfect knowledge that matters. The neocons' claim to more perfect knowledge is patently impossible and thus false.

We liberals have had a hard time with this tautology, as can be seen from our inability to respond effectively to the Bush take over of our government.

It is past time that we Democrats assert our belief that we all, neocons and liberals alike, have imperfect knowledge and thus are imperfectly rational. None-the-less, we believe that we the people are sufficiently rational, ala FDR and the Founders, to participate in the process of our own self governance. Liberals are the party of and for the engaged Citizens. The Neocons are the party of the passive Consumers. This distinction is sharp and hard. Yet we Liberals have been unable to make it. Why?

The neocons have contempt for we the people as they view us as irrational beings whose only role is to be consumers. This is deeply cynical. Note Bush telling us to go shopping in times of crisis. This is pure Eddie Bernays. It denies the very premise of the American revolution.

We must make this contrast in what we stand for, and believe in, starkly clear. Today, am not seeing it, or hearing it, from the leadership of the Democratic party.

I am reminded of the age old conflict between the Apollonian and Dionysian. The subject of Thomas Mann which he addressed in Death in Venice and resolved in Magic Mountain: the synthesis of the snow flake and the snow drift.

Likewise, we can see an approach and solution to this problem in B. Franklin and his Junto Club: Coming together for self improvement, the improvement of the commons, and, lastly, for gains in private wealth.

Franklin's synthesis of the conflict between private gain and strengthening the commons is one of the secrets of American Liberalism. On the other hand, DeToqville was convinced Franklin was wrong - that the conflict between the impulse for private gain and the impulse for community and the commons would tear America apart.

Today, we benefit from realizing that the old arguments about human nature and politics were rooted in the shared assumption that a central authority, either government or other large centralized orgnaizations, would naturally be the locus of power. Central planning by technocrats of one stripe or another, or, the opposite side of the same coin, total absence of planning, imposed by the demands of a single metric, free market capitalism, were the two polar opposites of this old false dichotomy.

We are now able to see that a world more in tune with the principles of internet architecture, an IP world view, with distributed solutions to distributed problems may offer a third way. What if the edges are as important as the center? Or more important? What if the edges are made up of millions of imperfectly rational citizens actively engaged in the world. What might emerge?

The Wikipedia is one answer. It is neither the product of central planners nor the product of unregulated free market capitalism. Is the product of a new view of the world with a new set of energies - more akin to spirit of Franklin’s Junta than anything else.

Our new synthesis, then, may well be imperfect rationality expressing itself at millions of actively engaged points on the edges.

Can we now re-affirm the genius of American Liberalism in the revolutionary era and restate it in terms appropriate for our era? We will never defeat the Neocons and their tautological arguments until we do.

Would a VC invest in the Democratic Party today?

A Venture Capitalist would look at things such as the Democrat's business plan, their key executive staff, their projected milestones, results to date, product development, brand integrity and so forth.

My VC response today would have to be: No.

I am not going to pour more money into a plan that has not worked, executives who can not execute, milestones that I can not see or find, same old same old unsatisfactory results, non existent new product development, and a very tattered and poorly managed brand identity.

This is why I was so annoyed today by John Kerry's gimme letter asking for support for action promised, hopefully, 9 months out! Frankly, I am tired of waiting.

I am not going to invest one penny more in a spineless Democratic party that seems utterly incapable of holding Bush to at least the standards that were demanded of President Clinton by the GOP.

So my response to your gimme letter, Senator Kerry, is: Find your backbone, sir. Show me some spine. Show me a Bill of Impeachment for all of President Bush's lies, lawlessness, deceptions, and utter disregard for the integrity of the office of President.

If you want me to invest in your party, show me a business plan that excites me and convince me you can execute it.

Convince me that you understand that the price of real freedom is not one cent for foreign oil.

Convince me that you have a plan that we can execute together that will get us to that goal in 10 years, creating a stronger, healthier and safer America for all.

Horrendous Publication

By: Dr. Farooq Hassan
Published in The Nation

Barely seven months ago a number of leading American TV evangelists had some highly derogatory comments about the Prophet of Islam (pbuh). A leading Republican Party supporter of this category, referred to the Prophet as a 'terrorist'. The Muslims, the world over, were deeply offended. The Islamic populations protested as did their governments but as expected in a most respectful manner. In the wake of 9/11 it was considered to let this perfidy pass. Even the Government of Pakistan, conceivably the most important Islamic country, did not seriously protest to any one. Emboldened by the muted reaction of the Islamic world to such heinous moral invasions of the Muslim Faith this new found technique of hurting the Muslims has now emanated from Europe. This time a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has done so again. It came out with posters depicting the Prophet of Islam in a light that is unspeakable in a shocking affront to any civilised decent person in the international civil society so called.

It is reported that both the OIC and the Arab League are holding some kind of Executive Session to chalk out some strategy to lodge protest with the Danish authorities. What that means I cannot foretell. But if all that is designed to accomplish is to merely apprise the Danish Authorities that such publications are deeply offensive to the Muslims feelings, I am afraid it misses the point. Such routine diplomatic rumblings are taken in stride and really accomplish nothing. Already worldwide demonstrations by the people at large in the Islamic world have made this point abundantly clear.

Read the full essay here.

Is a Democracy for, of, and by consumers possible?

Or is it an oxymoron?

Clearly, a democracy for, of and by corporations is an oxymoron.

How can we understand the Bush administration’s use of security agencies for internal spying, as well as the powers and rights they claim for the executive branch to create and enforce laws as they see fit, independent of the checks and balances of the other branches of government? One analysis is that it is an unintended result of their corporate view of the people as passive consumers, objects to be manipulated in an ethics free marketing zone, not as active citizens with Constitutional Rights. This view of the American people may be the consequence of a culture in the late stages of mass market consumerism.

The dominant market culture’s view of the people as fundamentally one dimensional consumers, not citizens, is also, sadly, deeply ingrained in the Democratic party as well. During the Clinton administration, the “Re-inventing Government” project focused on service to the “customer” [consumer].

Words matter. In the above analysis, the word “consumer” suggests a notion of a person reduced to the impoverished status of an passive and objectified target to be manipulated for power and profit. Targets clearly have less power, in any form, than the “shooters”. Further, such a view can create a relatively ethics free zone with respect to how that object is treated. Objects without power are ideal for an economy too dependent on mass market consumerism. Without the power of real choice, they are much more easily stimulated to behave as desired. In the end, how can a dynamic democracy be sustained and vigilantly maintained by passive targets?

For another view of persons who have been reduced to objects with diminished choice and power, watch the film “North Country”. Ask yourself how the men portrayed in the film could treat the women workers, who were members of their union, their culture and their community, literally their wives, sisters and daughters, so very badly? Now ask yourself how hard it would be for this abuse of objects to be extended, but with greater severity, to “other objects” who are of a different culture, skin color, religion, speaking a foreign language, and are also viewed as “enemy combatants”? Creating an ethics free zone around powerless objects is very dangerous indeed.

The word “Citizen”, however, conjures up a far different notion of a multi-dimensional person who has the power of choice to exercise a wide range of capabilities, some of which may even involve consumption, and who expects and demands fully ethical treatment. In return, a person is expected to be ethical in their behavior as well.

A curious question is whether corporations should be considered “people”? Should corporations be given all the legal rights and privileges of human beings? Or are corporations more accurately described as legal fictions, created by humans for their convenience, and thus subservient to humans? Since 1888, corporations have asserted claims to full personhood. In fact, late 20th century neoliberal trade treaties have forced all signatories to declare corporations legally people. Why? Is it to the advantage of we, the people, to make such grants of power, protection and privilege to corporations? Or should we, as we reassert our citizenship, also reassert our primacy over all corporations?

On a global scale, the conflict between the views of the nature of people, and their roles in society, economics, and governance, is made starkly manifest if we compare and contrast the corporate paradigm's annual World Economic Forum at Davos with the people paradigm's World Social Forum held in different cities around the world.

In the U.S., we can see this conflict between the views of the nature of we, the people, citizens vs consumers, playing out in a range of other domains. The short term consumer market metric of the 90 day time frame is inappropriately applied to many long term issues confronting people as citizens: healthcare, education, employment, retirement, and the environment all come to mind. Is this, in fact, a question of who has primacy, people or corporations?

We can also see this conflict in the birthing pains of the new communications model that is emerging as we switch from the old, centralized broadcast/telephony model to a new distributed communications solution based on internet technologies and architectures. If we, the people, use the power of the new IP Communication tools and model to reassert our natural power of communications, this will conflict with the claims of the legacy power structures in the center of the old networks. They have, after all, grown large, rich and powerful by controlling the power of communications to their benefit. Indeed, we have no further to look than American technology corporations who are at this very moment withholding the full and democratic power of communications from the people of China, but delivering it, in the name of profit, to the Chinese government.

This is exactly why President Bush’s domestic spying is such a bold grab for unlimited and unconstitutional power: it denies we, the people and citizens of America, the right to secure and unfettered free speech in our communications. President Bush would deny we, the people, the fundamental right that is required to secure and sustain democracy: Free Speech. President Bush’s illegal domestic spying, if allowed to stand, will reduce us to the status of the citizens of China with respect to their government. Is this what we want?

With respect to the democratic IP communications revolution emerging in America, three critical communication questions are:

1] Where is the power of choice located? In the nexus of centralized government and corporations or at the edges in we, the people?

2] Where is content produced and distributed? Only in the center by corporate entities or at the edges by we, the people for oursleves?

3] Are we Consumers or Citizens?

We can find hints of the new answers on, of all places, the .Mac home page on the web.

Clearly, Apple wants people, in their homes and offices, using their personal, ever lower cost and ever more powerful technology, to be full fledged producers of audio, video, text and graphic content, to be shared [distributed] over the internet to as few or as many other interested people as there may be.

If the message from Apple, and others such as DTV, the Sony Playstation Portable, and many others, wasn't clear enough last year, it is brain dead obvious this year. The home, the end point on the network, is the new locus of communications and rich multi-media productions for distribution on the internet. It is becoming a first mile out world. The power of choice will be in the home. The old 20th century last mile in from the center model is fading away, but not going gently into that good night either.

This is revolutionary. It turns the old media model upside down. And, from the point of view of the old model, it only get worse.

Take, for example, Apple’s 2005 deal with Disney to make broadcast TV programs available almost instantly on iTunes, advertisement free, for just two bucks, for convenient downloading and viewing on Apple’s mobile platform, the video iPod. This has triggered a value chain flattening tsunami that is the essence of a disruptive innovation.

The revolution will be mobile, wireless and broadcast by the people. It will give people the power of choice as to what they watch and when, where and how they watch it. The idea of having to be in a special place, sitting in front of a large, immobile object, at a fixed time, with a limited menu of choices is already becoming quaint. Unless we choose it for our own personal and social reasons.

The question is whether people with this level of power of choice, owning tools to be their own radio and TV producers / broadcasters will rediscover the meaning of being a full citizen as well as a consumer?

If we take a deeper look at this changing situation, we can see that the legacy cablecos and telecos will have great difficulty with at least these factors:

1] Wall Street's demand for compounded growth every quarter. -- Their capital base is so huge the compounding requirements are also ever higher barriers to meeting the Street's demands. Customer churn and defections to other options make this problem worse.

2] Customers who want it when, where, and how they want it will drive up the pressure to flatten the value chain in order to get closer to their goals. Middle Men are obstacles to customers.

3] Be closer to your customer than your competitor, or lose your customer. This forces suppliers to flatten the value chain to eliminate middlemen barriers that keep them distanced from their customers;

4] The mis-match between tax depreciation schedules and the Innovation cycle within the communications sector. How do you upgrade if you have not finished depreciating a huge capital plant? Lower cost and distributed 802.11n will trump Wi-Max with its high cost central nodes before it is even born, much less depreciated.

5] Only if you give the power of choice to the end user in a distributed and decentralized network can you benefit from the leverage of the end-user’s capital investments to create cooperative gain for the network. A centralized network, with its massive capital costs, but unable to make use of end user capital investments, simply can not compete with the more agile and radically more broadly capitalized new model.

6] Consumers want the power of choice to control their lives. Middle men want have the power of choice to maximize their profits. The customer will always win this fight in the end. This drive by the customer for the power of choice will also force the value chain to flatten.

This, then, is the powerful story of change driven by customers and suppliers. It is not driven by any particular technology. The incumbents are no more than old middle men obstructing the customers' wishes and putting barriers between the "content providers" and their customers. So it will be 2:1 against the middle man.

In the end, the real question facing us today is whether this IP communication revolution will revitalize our citizen driven democracy before we, the people, are reduced to the status of Chinese citizens. Will our fundamental human right to free speech, in the form of democratic and constitutionally protected rights of access to unfettered communications and unrestricted information, be denied to us? As we know, it is today being denied, with the complicity of American technology corporations, to the Chinese people. What must we do to escape the fate of the Chinese?

Democracies in Danger

Dr. Farooq Hassan [1]

Synopsis of a presentation given to
The Medford Democratic Meetup
Medford, MA at Lino Avellani’s
11 January, 2006.

I am very privileged to address this highly committed component of the Democratic Party to speak on a subject that is of immense concern to people. I will articulate tonight some thoughts on the future of democracies. I fear, despite the recent two “wars for democracies”, this new millennium does not auger too well for the concept of representative governments. This is not only manifestly evident from even a glimpse of the basic international realities that confront us presently, there is also much doctrine and history behind this phenomenon as well. This state of affairs, to my mind, is most visible in those communities that have a diverse composite character.

But before I do so, I am delighted to express my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Jock Gill who has kindly taken the initiative to be the Convener of this Meetup and to preside over this meeting. I thank Mr. Dan Hurley for having introduced me to this distinguished audience, amongst which I see my friend Dr. Bill Wood - whom I have known for sometime. The presence of so many committed Democrats ensured the lively discussion that followed my formal presentation.

Let me frankly admit that the U.S. has a patently crucial role to play in this process. If we wish to have a commitment towards the cherished ideals of Rawls or Lincoln in realizing a genuine democratization of the notion of representative governments, parts of this system direly need immediate attention. The current status quo, as internationally visible, however, does not give us much encouragement.

On 25h April 2000, President Clinton, after landing at the Islamabad airport, rightly in my submission, lambasted the military regime of the still current incumbent, General Musharraf. It is well to remember what he said about democracy. He had just arrived in Pakistan after spending four days in India, a great example of this system that we cherish. He categorically asserted what had been the US law. Washington cannot basically turn a blind eye to military takeovers under any pretexts. A military government is by any yardstick of doctrinal analysis, a dictatorial system. It is the boldest negation of rights of people by those who are paid servants of the people to defend them!

I refer to that address of the US President as it is both refreshing and reassuring that the world’s leader of political influence means business. After all, an army chief had then recently over thrown the nation’s Constitution and a popularly elected government in conceivably the most important Islamic country. Quite rightly, in accordance with the US laws dealing with foreign assistance contained in the 1961 legislation on this subject, in the face such massive disruption of the civil liberties protection in that county, all aid stood suspended to Islamabad. I have thus great administration for President Clinton for having taken the only possibly correct and prudent step to put an unelected and unaccountable administration on notice to mend its ways.

Then came 9/11. Not long before that monstrous tragedy took place, in an interview in Boston, President Bush did not even know, as it is well known, the name of General Musharraf, or whether he had come to power through a coup d’etat! After that, however, Musharraf acquired, by cleverly self-serving devices, the status of a close ally of this country in that region and also the privilege of being touted as a personal friend of President Bush. But, constitutionally and morally, he remains for the people of Pakistan a usurper of all authority of state.

I have started with Pakistan as in this country democracy had to be simply retained. As we shall see, in others, wars have been undertaken to establish one! In this process, what has occurred is so poignantly well known to those who genuinely think sincerely about long-term interests of this country and normative democracy that I need not say anything further.

Four years ago the U.S. landed in Afghanistan with a burning and avowed goal to hunt down Bin Laden, destroy the Taliban regime, and establish democracy. This mission is only partially accomplished. But it appears the U.S. is on its way out. The picture does not look very appealing! Bin Ladin is still at large, and Hamid Karzai is just holding on to Kabul with the aid of 20,000 foreign troops. The country is again going the way of its traditional regional warlord's fiefdoms with pro-Taliban leadership clearly emerging.

Incidentally two points may specially interest you! First, Hamid Karzai, before becoming the President of Afghanistan, or rather of Kabul, sold Afghani Kebabs in Cambridge - barely a mile from where we re meeting tonight! Secondly, with zero production of poppy crops during the previous regime, this country is again the top producer of this terrible menace to the world’s community.

The point I am making is manifest. If the U.S. has to create a setup which looks “democratic”, at least the credentials of the incumbents must be seen and perceived to be genuine! According its blessings to military people, or people with scant knowledge of the local political affairs, does not auger well for the ultimate success of the foreign policy of Washington. Please ensure, through an intelligent public debate on such issues, that those who make these policies for the U.S. that result in setups that cannot really succeed do not consult merely “TV experts”!

In Iraq too, the U.S. seems to be retreating, after following a similar trajectory of policies from its post invasion grandiose commitments. More importantly, no meaningful, tangible, help has come from any quarter and the financial burden of this undertaking seems ominous. I just read today that Columbia has come out with a projection that, by this year's end, the U.S. will have spent around two trillion dollars in Iraq. With over 2,200 killed in action, over 38,000 seriously injured and with no clear end in sight, I am certain that, despite public rhetoric to the contrary, the U.S. policymakers should be worried. Above all, no matter how elections are formulated in contemporary Iraq, the creation of another Iran is in the cards. Short of this, we have prospects of a persisting civil war.

The Russians can be seen to have learnt lots of lessons from their history. President Vladimir Putin has behaved since his incumbency between a Czar and a KGB chief. He has rolled back democracy with near impunity and remains impervious to all international criticism.

As such, what should have been truly an American century of tremendous influence, with no political power or ideology to really oppose it, has now developed a momentum towards uncertainty. I feel that unless sensible corrective actions and decisions are taken by the U.S., the quest for establishing democracies the world over remains a far off a distant dream. With respect, let me end by saying that it would helpful in this not too rosy a scenario if the US Administration consulted knowledgeable and scholarly Muslims from its vast population of over three hundred million people. I do not see a single person of stature from this faith in either the present governmental setup or the one that the Democrats may seemingly have in the next elections.

I thank you for giving me this time to address your Meetup. I hope that in the ensuing discussions we can analyze more specific points and issues that are significant to this subject.

End note

[1] The author has been a professor of law & foreign affairs at Harvard, advisor on Law and foreign policy to four Prime ministers of Pakistan in the last sixteen years and has studied at Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia and Harvard Universities. He has also been a diplomat, a member of the UN Human Rights Commission and Sub-Commission for protection of human rights and is currently a Special UN Ambassador for Family

Religion & Islamic Extremism: Impact in South Asia

Dr. Farooq Hassan [1]

Brief thematic synopsis of Address given to
The Center for Society & Secularism, the Vikas Adhyayan Kendra and
The Pius College Seminary
Mumbai 29 October 2005

Religion has been a dominant factor in determining the history of the people’s of South Asia. It still continues to be the case. Today this region has several countries representing a diversity of faiths. Out of these countries, Pakistan was created, at least in an historical context, on the solitary basis of religion. Yet, despite this fact pertaining to the doctrinaire basis of the country in 1971, it was torn asunder by the political aspirations of the people of East Pakistan. At the same time, India, the world’s largest successful democracy, has had to face up to this phenomenon numerous times - sometimes with tragic consequences. More recently, even in Bangladesh, created on solid secular foundations, there are signs of emergent nuances of Islamic extremism.

At times it is very hard to distinguish between seemingly ethnic conflicts and more deeply held religious controversies. Generally, the minorities have had to face the brunt of unpleasant implications. But this is not invariable. Both in India and Pakistan, Hindus and Muslims have respectively suffered the effects of sectarian turmoil at the hands of their own followers of the same faith. A question thus naturally arises: does religion assume a secondary role of importance if political necessities of a given time, as perceived, are considered more urgent for redressal even at its expense? This realization is based on empiricism. Effects of far reaching significance affecting the geo-strategic realities of this region have been witnessed to occur presumably on such a foundation. Or, conversely, is the real question that religion is primarily used initially as a cloak or cover for wider political aspirations of the “relevant” people? If it is indeed so, then the enormity of the dynamics of the religion factor is evident. In sum, whether or not religion per se is the initiator of change, it continues be to a major matter propelling alterations of the status quo.

Most of the major religions of the world are present in South Asia, including hundreds of millions of Hindus and Muslims; this region also has a very large numbers Christians, Buddhists and even Jewish people. In addition, there exist several scores of other faiths in the peripheral areas of the main land mass of this vast and diversified sub continent, each possessing hundreds of thousands of adherents. While Pakistan was created on the basis of providing home land for Muslims, there still remain more Muslims in India.

Amongst the followers of these regions, some have ardently advocated frequently certain perspectives held in high esteem by them with emphasis. For some the effects of such partisanship are confined to their own locales. For others, such effects are of much wider application. [2] The emphatic focus envisaging changes of the status quo by such religious activists is often at variance with the thoughts of those constituting a majority. But hard liners often have an ascendant position in such controversies.

Over centuries, despite these sociological cum political differences, there was generally an overt appearance of acceptance of each others perspectives. Absence of homogeneity in the basic dogmas of diverse faiths was not by itself a major insurmountable hurdle for creating a healthy society of a pluralistic nature. Indeed, there existed pari passu with such discordant avocations a great deal of harmony in the Indian society.

It is my view that, in the wake of different political currents of ideology emanating from essentially non Sub Continental European and Western powers during the last century, the seeds of communal discord gradually appeared in South Asia. The fact of a difference in religion amongst very extensive populations was played up by skillful, vested, interests. This resulted in the creation of still more acrimony as the last century moved gradually towards the present day international infrastructure of modern times. Not surprisingly, therefore, the two most populous countries of South Asia, India and Pakistan, have seen regrettable acrimony of religious intolerance even after they separated to become sovereign countries at great human costs.

In Pakistan, there has been indeed serious sectarian violence between different sects of Muslims themselves. In India, too, there has been witnessed intra-faith discord involving Hindus, Muslims and even Christians. This analysis attempts to point out the extent of the conceptual impact of such religious pursuits have with the corresponding affects on the body politic and the public philosophy of the day.

I have already advanced my major conclusions on the broader theme of this subject in my accompanying talk today to the Indian Center for Society and Secularism entitled: “Islam & Extremism” (Now available on the net on the Greater Democracy site). What remains to be examined with a sharper focus is the impact of this phenomenon in South Asia; given my own familiarity, I will focus basically on Islamic issues in this presentation.

This audience, I am particularly happy to note, is a gathering of truly an inter faith variety. I see that this function is being held in a Christian seminary of great antiquity in the historic city of Mumbai. Also present amongst the sponsors of this event are the members of the Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, which is dedicated to promote religious harmony based on egalitarian principles of democracy and tolerance. I thank its Executive Director, Mr. Ajit Muricken, who has written enormously on the subject of religious harmony in India for being here this afternoon. Finally, we have amongst us the supporters of the Indian Center of Society of and Secularism which aims to achieve in the multi-religious Indian environment the attainment of the goal of a dignified civil society through the process of secularism. Its esteemed Chairman, Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, is presen. His scholarship in Islamic learning stands on a pedestal of its own in this country and abroad. [3]

I may add that “secularism” has been variously interpreted in constitutional terms vis-à-vis its political connotations. One of the main authors in this field in the Sub Continent, Dr. Engineer, who is present today at this function, has described [4] this as an “attitude of respect for other religions" and has been summarized in the often quoted Hindu maxims “sarva dharma samabhava.” For my present analysis, this description, rather than a definition of secularism would do - as it is not necessary presently to delve into a number of controversial aspects of what this concept really envisages in constitutional law and in sociology.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the most notable manifestation of the religious phenomenon in the Sub Continent is the political divide of this region when Pakistan was carved out of British India as an autonomous country. For the first time in modern history, a country was created on the basis of a religion alone. It was almost a year later, in 1948, that the State of Israel emerged as a Jewish homeland in the Middle East becoming the second country to be so created by conferences and international diplomacy.

Thus, long before the contemporary controversy regarding the place of religion in a modern state, or that of the concepts and contours of religious extremism arose in its present form, the British Government, by lending a helping hand in the creation of both Pakistan and Israel, had demonstrated what it felt on such crucial issues. The British thinking, initially contained in the Balfour Declaration of 1916, was further solidified in its basic thematic content by the Cabinet Mission to India and the Mountbatten Plan of 3 March, 1947 regarding the independence and eventual division of India. These political ideas were carried into effect by the British through the then international community, consisting of just 55 Member Nations of the UN, to endorse and adopt the creation of new countries on religious basis alone.

The breakup of Pakistan in 1971, leading to the creation of Bangladesh, establishes that religion was not sufficient by itself to maintain the homogeneity of the country. Indeed, within Pakistan, it is still unclear whether the establishment of a separate homeland for Muslims also signified the creation of an Islamic state. Furthermore, what exactly is an “Islamic State” is far from a settled question. [5]

Given the political realities of the present millennium, such precedents may not be repeated for decades to come in the history of the world. Such an attitudinal metamorphosis is now manifestly evident. Contemporary de facto bashing of such ideas by the foreign policies of the Western states that matter is now beyond question. It has clear implications that over-indulgence of religion in an international context is not something to be lightly countenanced in future by the policies of significant Western powers. [6]

The policy to which I refer has been heavily underscored by the recent events in Afghanistan and Iran. In the former case, the Taliban regime, based on purely Islamic postulates, was overthrown by the U.S. led war, while the political cum strategic tensions against the Islamic Republic of Iran underscore this perspective as an illustration of the latter scenario articulated above. It is possible that, fearing this kind of a resultant turmoil in Pakistan, General Musharraf keeps on harping upon “moderate Islam” being the policies of the Islamabad military regime. This rhetorical repetition is as much an act of self preservation for an unelected ruler as it is to placate his newly found Western friends. Be that as it may, it is clear that a State based entirely, or mainly, on religious avocations is not likely to have many supporters in any significant Western Capital.

In South Asia, not merely religion, but ethnic antagonism based on historical acrimony, have compounded the tensions that have sadly been the cause of much friction. In Sri Lanka as well as in former East Pakistan, for instance, it was ethnic diversity and apparent exploitation (both economic and political) of a large segment of the society, which produced consequences of far reaching significance. Similarly events which led to the storming of the Golden Temple in the early seventies were predicated on similar aspirations of those that felt “afflicted” by those in authority. Thus hegemonic treatment within a state by those who posses the de facto elements of power vis-à-vis the disprivileged ones is also a malaise capable of producing deadly consequences.

I am very familiar with this phenomenon. In 1980, I was amongst six international jurists selected by UNESCO to frame the Third Generation of human rights. The right I outlined, “the right to be different”, was officially recognized in Mexico City in 1980 by the UN. It deals specifically with this problem. [7]

The minimum conceptual consequence that clearly emerges from this reality is that willingly, or by device, the continued presence of a state of “injustice” to a community, often by the majority, is the catalyst for eventual violence for change. [8] Stretched further, the hegemonic policies of foreign powers, whether real or perceived, gives rise to acts of extremism and terrorism. [9] In a broader sense, this is as true, in my view, of domestic South Asian events that have been noted above, as much as it is for international matters of grave significance affecting this region. For instance, the East Pakistan embroiled situation in 1971, or the current insurgency in Afghanistan, or Iraq, are directly the result of such perceptions and feelings. “Nationalists” naturally contest the external controls placed on their “independence” by domestic elements, or by governments emanating from abroad, and dominating them by presenting such fiats of and from outsiders. There is little doubt in my mind that “democracies” produced by armies, whether domestic or foreign, cannot easily succeed.

In this charged atmosphere, nationalism has assumed tremendous force. It is axiomatic that the emergence of this basic characteristic throughout the world is an addendum to the Age of Industrialism and Western expansion that led to colonialism in the 19th century. All serious analysts must surely realize this simple fact of history. Just as the industrialized West needed colonial possessions for it successful existence, nationalism dictates that foreign imposed rulers, howsoever beneficial they may actually be, be prevented from now arising. It is equally a truism that to not expect opposition to such a status quo by the affected people is utterly unrealistic.

In South Asia in addition, we have at the Government level a remarkable spectrum of different practices. India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka possess, despite cultural and systemic difficulties, representative institutions. Pakistan and Nepal, on the other hand, demonstrate the existence of military or authoritarian regimes which have a token or face saving pretense of being democratic. When this perversity is examined in a particularly a religious environment, autocratic regimes have a great deal to lose. Fascism, as such, is truly and historically allergic to any Faith. It is thus not surprising that Communism was always averse to any religion. Notwithstanding the different systems of government in various counties of South Asia, the presence of religion as a factor of great strength, with a potential for decisive change in the society, remains in tact.

While the topic of religious extremism is evidently vast and important in countries of South Asia, I am mainly concerned today in this analysis with the effects pertaining to Islam and Muslims. This topic has been in the center of all reverberating news, and developments manifestly impacting the foreign policies of states of great significance since 9/11. But, as I have said enough on this theme in my other accompanying article, nothing further need be noted here except its impact in the South Asian context.

The relationship of reason and faith requires a close examination. In terms of human values, one really cannot be understood by itself, without reference to the other.  We should also understand that religion and faith are inseparable, as the former derives from it validity via a norm of acceptance and consequential obedience to its core fundamentals. But once the initial dogma part of faith is traveled, the rest must surely be supported by reason. As such, it is only prudent to suggest that, while faiths of all types need to be respected, reason too should be utilized more extensively whenever it is so felt. This would lead to an over all more tolerant society. The underlying troubles of a sociological nature arise from an inability of contemporary political leadership to grasp such conceptual and historical niceties.

While the institutional part of the Faith may be dogmatic, there is a large reservoir of human addendum to it which must be:-

(1) In harmony with the divine mandate of the relevant religion, and
(2) It must, a fortiori, admit of change according to evolution and development.

Every Faith has a system of values and each prospers according to this accepted characteristic as such. In this context, changing hegemonic relationships and information technology are defining elements. Large populations in the Third World, particularly those of the Muslims, find it increasingly difficult that this process of “modernization” is gradually eroding their identity. The comprehensive Western hegemony in the cultural domain is producing this identity crisis among religious and cultural communities in South Asia, and much more so among Muslim communities. Thus, lack of cultural affinity with contemporary movements is another reason for much of South Asian anxiety against the perceived hegemony of the West. The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have, in the short term, heightened these fears and apprehensions rather than toning them down.

In South Asia, as elsewhere, the religious rituals observed by Muslims are usually influenced by both history and local customs. It is also important to note that, though values and rituals are common to all religions, the former are really the cultural expression of the communities in which Muslims have lived for generations. As rituals are essentially the product of local custom, it is not surprising that Muslims in South Asia are largely influenced by local norms of behaviour of the Hindus. For such similarities to be accepted gracefully requires an attitude which is difficult to locate nowadays in quarters it should be vested in order to create a religious and communally harmonious atmosphere.

On most social issues, Muslims in Pakistan, for instance, have more in common with the Indian populations, regardless of religion, than with the Arabs or with the North Africa Muslim communities. Indeed, some Hindu social observances are observed with greater passion in Pakistan than even in India! [10] Such actual practice of local cultural practices of the dominant, or historical majority, has become, of late, not unnaturally, the cause of some friction. Even observances of minority cultural or religious practices has not failed to arouse local disharmony. [11]

Conclusions

This brief thematic expose has focused on specific issues of religious extremism in South Asia. In Pakistan, there is visible strife between Islamic sects, leading often to bloodbaths in mosques, of all places. This strife is recently also seen to arise in Bangladesh as well. In India too, despite its many successes in being a successful representative society, since many decades of regrettably tragic events of a communal variety have surfaced. Communal disturbances associated with the demolition of the Babri Mosque, and the more recent riots in Ahmedabad, are typical illustrations of such religious and societal discord.

It establishes that misplaced and demonstrative religious zeal, at times resulting in violence, is not totally under control of any government in this region; rational elements, however, are working hard to avoid the eruption of tragedies of horrifying magnitude. All prudent elements, individuals and institutions, must work to avoid these consequences. Some sceptics even maintain that the governments at the relevant times in different countries are conceivably involved in such terrible occurrences. [12] I am of the view that, while some evidence is available to justify such fears, on the whole, saner institutions and wiser elements in the overall structure of administration are at work to avoid such tragedies from erupting.

In line with these articulations, it is equally evident that similar developments on the basis of religion are taking shape in the rest of the world as well. It is clear therefore, that, not only in the South Asian context, but the world over, there is clearly, per se, a renaissance of religion. The more fervent this renaissance, arguably the more pronounced are its consequences and implications, including a corresponding reaction by those who feel threatened.

This phenomenon, according to some particularly foreign experts of American policies, is also noticeable in the U.S. itself. The strong showing in the last presidential elections, and the polling patterns, have established the manifest Bible belt support that President Bush obtained, compared to voting in the major urban civic centres. As cities like Los Angles, Boston or New York are representative of liberal attitudes, it is not surprising that they are apparently against him on the point of his adoption of a strong pro-war foreign policy. [13]

The U.S. emerged as the solitary World Power after the disintegration of the USSR in the late eighties. It is axiomatic that any major decision that Washington takes has genuine transnational effects and implications. What worldwide implications are likely to arise as result of a pursuit of Bush administration policies is, not as yet, clear as the purest might wish for. What political and strategic goals and aims have been achieved by the U.S. thus far, however, are still to be objectively evaluated. I am not going to go into this question as I am only concerned in this address with the effects of religious extremism in the Sub-Continent. But this much is clear to me: If, despite the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington does not take steps to ensure the creation of “true democracy” in countries other than India in South Asia, much that President Bush went to war for will be lost .

Communal and religiously based political activity operates at different levels. Its objective is to destroy the basic foundations of a pluralistic society. Why? Since it itself derives its dynamics on the basis of a monolithic elite. In military regimes, this corps of elites exists in the combined vested interests of the army and the feudal. In religiously led societies, this elitist element is epitomized by Mullahs and other kind of priestly classes. Since this aim is not easy to realize expeditiously, the process to obtain these goals is by a slow percolation and propagation of the social norms which suit the relevant society. In some ways, this phenomenon is found in all South Asian cultures. The only positive way to challenge this process is by producing a genuine participatory democracy.

Let me end these submissions by referring briefly to the ultimate goal of all religions. A genuinely religious human being, irrespective of his precise faith, should be devoted to freedom of person, freedom of conscience and compassion for all needing his care and assistance. Such a religious person invariably strives for truth and justice. In this respect, my detailed reference to the Islamic concepts of iman and adl (Faith and Justice) in my longer presentation needs to be properly comprehended. 

All religions basically advocate morality, tolerance and decency. Without such traits, they could not have survived for centuries. Where events take a course other than that of peace and harmony is when supervening factors and events outlined in detail in my longer text occur. As Mahatma Ghandi said, there is no religion higher than truth. Let us pursue this objective as it assures ultimate righteousness of human conduct.

The religious leadership of diverse institutions and parties in all South Asian countries must be vigilant against such possibilities that can create and have, with increasing velocity, caused tremendous damage to the multi-ethnic and multi-religious culture of the Sub Continent. It is also a phenomenon of current political evolution that religious based political parties are becoming tangible national or regional forces in their respective environments and societies. The great rise to political power of MMA in Pakistan and of BJP in India are the best examples of this trend. The real and perceived political and social victimization of some religious elements has created “extremism”. This situation must be attended to at the earliest, with respect to its causation, to prevent the deterioration of the law and order situation in these societies.

In any pluralistic society, the attainment of democracy, based of consensus and accommodation, is, in my view, the real, and ultimate only, end which can produce the desired results. India’s success in realizing this goal is, without question, a formidable achievement. True, it has still many socio-religious troubles, as evident from attacks such as those on the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune. But the wider reservoir of goodwill contained in its major state instruments of resolution of disputes, such as its judiciary, are still the best surety to proceed further in this regards.

Let me end this talk by bringing to your notice a unique consequence in the Sub Continent with respect to pursuit of religious bigotry in political or social affairs. Whereas terrorism is the normal result in such scenarios elsewhere, in the Sub-Continent the threat is of straight forward vandalism. In all major occurrences of this nature there is evidence of large scale destruction by mobs or gangs of a particular persuasion to achieve their avowed aims. The time has come for policymakers to devise appropriate modalities to combat this menace.

Clearly, a manifest attempt to achieve inter communal harmony is presently required. In all societies possessing multi-faith populations such a healthy evolution of attitudes would be invaluable. In a visionary spirit of looking at such matters, if inter-faith deliberations can occur, so much the better. It is imperative that in such a cultural attitudinal metamorphosis, past inter se grievances have to be over looked and focus should be on future betterment of the religious diversity. In more ways than one, the South Asian experiences on this subject have a tremendous role model potential. We have been victims of extraordinary religious bigotry and intolerance over a long time. We know too well how this has led to the most baneful consequences. I can only hope that, with a growing awareness of the immense benefits of peace and harmony, the time has arrived for turning a new leaf of history.

In this context, I am particularly keen to express my highest appreciation for my hosts, each of whom have done their share in contributing to this message of mine. The Center for Society & Secularism and the Vikas Adhyayan Kendra are leaders in this field. They have, to their credit, both vast publications and many activities devoted towards this goal. The Pius College Seminary is, likewise, an institution with a tradition of creating the kind of harmony which distinguishes a culture of toleration.

Thank you all!

Endnotes:

[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, 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. Given King Faisal Memorial Award, 2002 and awarded in 2003 the International Professor of Human Rights Recognition from a galaxy of international professor by Saudi Arabia.

[2] The Islamic concept of Ummah connotes a world wide application of Muslim norms to all of Islamic peoples.

[3] Conferred the Right to Livelihood Awarded by Parliament of Sweden, 2004.

[4] See: Religion, State & Civil Society, p 2, 2005, Asghar Ali Engineer

[5] See the two works of the author: Farooq Hassan , The Islamic Republic, 1984 and The Concept of State in & Law in Islam , 1981 University Press of America, Washington DC.

[6] The policies of the Republican Present Reagan in supporting and eulogizing the Jihadist elements in Afghanistan against the USSR have been utterly reversed by another Republican President George W. Bush since 9/11.

[7] See UNSCO Doc.SS-80/CONF, 806/COL.7 (1980). Also Final Report SS-80/CONF. 806/COL.7 at 22 The Right to be Different., Dr. Farooq Hassan.

[8] Ironically, it was the East Pakistan majority province that felt afflicted by the minority Provinces of West Pakistan on account of the clear Establishment bias against it.

[9] According to one view that is what is in evidence in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

[10] For instance the kite flying festival of Basant announcing the arrival of Spring is observed with tremendous fanfare in Pakistan despite strong opposition to it from religious elements.

[11] In Pakistan where the majority is of the Sunni faith, the taking of Tazia, a practice of the minority Shiites to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussian, is not free from local disharmony or law and order situations.

[12] See e.g. Lessons from Gujarat, a Compilation of Essays, Mumbai, 2003,

[13] Engineer, op cit says: “Bush mainly relied on issues like danger of terrorism on the one hand, and Christian values and family values on the other” to push for “the propaganda that American right wing Christian politics (are needed) to enhance its security,” P 244-245.

 

How Bush is empowering the Muni Wifi IPcom Revolution

It is a great and delicious irony that the tax cuts Bush rammed through in his first term, for the benefit his wealthy benefactors and corporate sponsors, are one of the key driving forces behind the municipal wireless IPcom movement that is about to gore the protected oxen of the telecom incumbents. The unintended consequences will be revolutionary in ways none of us can yet imagine. How so, you ask?

Consider that the tax cuts for the top 5% of the population and the mega corporations, combined with other budget recklessness, have slashed the flow of federal dollars to the states and then from the states to their respective cities and towns. As a result, the budgets of a great many cities and towns, with their increasing expenses and falling revenues, are in dire straights. And they are finding it almost impossible to raise real estate taxes to bridge the gap. So what do do to escape from this trap between a rock and a hard place?

Now consider the Chambers of Commerce that are very unhappy at they way the telecom giants have been exploiting them while taking them for granted.

Both groups are eager for a real choice that will improve services they can benefit from and at the same time cut the costs of their communications budgets. Both groups are discovering the many advantages offered by modern IPcom when compared to last century's Telecom. Both groups are also discovering that their peers in other countries have wider and more attractive choices than we have here at home. And both groups are discovering that they can, in fact, implement an IPcom strategy quite easily on their own. They are also discovering that cost savings from moving from Telecom to IPcom can pay for a muni wireless project in a few short years.

Today, the choice between old Telecom and new IPcom is clear and real. And we the people, when given the democratic power to choose what is best for us as we see it, are overwhelmingly chosing IPcom -- as the Muni Wireless explosion clearly demonstrates. The peoples' choice, no longer controlled by the Telecom incumbents, terrifies them. Why? Because if we the people chose IPcom, all of the business models locked to the old Telecom model fail. Can the old Telecom buggy whip makers transform themselves into modern IPcom services and content providers?

What is also happening is that we are seeing, across many domains, the adoption of the first mile out from the home model replacing the old last mile in from the center. IPcom sees the home as being the point of origin and the locus of choice, and thus power radiating out from the home. The old Telecom model, with the control of choice resident in the center to maximize profits on products delivered to the target home at the end of the last mile, is failing.

To see this, consider a home owner who buys a big, flat screen, hi-def TV home theater system for several thousand dollars. The choice is now in the home as to when, where, and how to view "product", that may even be free, produced by anyone, anywhere, on any topic with out restrictions imposed by governments or corporations on content or language. The choice is now in the home as to how best to optimize the return on the investment in home media systems, both for production and for viewing. The choice can no longer be dictated and controlled by the old industrial era producer in the center. That business model is as good as dead.

So we see Sony try to secretly control choice with rootkits clandestinely installed on privately owned personal computers by music CDs. We see the MPAA and RIAA fight tooth and nail to use anti-democratic and anti-innovation contortions of copyright principles to protect the power and profit they once had from the control of choice. We see the movie theater business fading away as they no longer control viewing choices. We see broadcast TV scrambling to survive in the face of the power of choice slipping from their hands. We see the Main Stream Media, with readership declining, very substantially challenged for "authority and reputation" by the new choices offered by text, audio and video "blogs" created at the edges. We see the wheels coming off the Bush political machine and agenda as it becomes ever more apparent that they have lost control of choice and the ability to impose their "story" on the American people, who are now clearly choosing alternative stories.

We are learning that, in the Bush political world of the stern, dogmatic and all knowing father who always knows best, and must not be questioned, the "children" grow up to realize that their worlds are not the same as "father's" and that he actually does not know best about their worlds. The next step is the recognition that Father probably did not even know best about his own world -- in fact, we soon learn that, with our imperfect knowledge, nobody can know best. The humbling realization is that all we can do is do the best we can to know "good enough" to muddle through life's many vagaries, ambiguities, and surprising unknowns. This is why it makes more sense to start at the edge and work our way out in cooperation with our neighbors, our community, each of us dealing as best we can with our local realities. If you can not "know best", then, in the end, any attempt at controlling choice from the center is bound to fail.

As a result of all of this, we are now living through the political, economic, and cultural tumult of the necessary relocation, if we want to preserve our democracy, of the control of the power of choice from its old point of origin in the center of the Telecom world view to its new point of origin: The edge of the network nobody owns and the new IPcom distributed world view.

A Public Relations campaign

As much as I dislike thinking about political campaigns in terms of advertising, marketing, public relations and all that stuff, the P.R. aspect remains very important. Two recent blog entries have helped me rethink my relation to P.R. as it relates to political campaigns.

Richard Edelman asks �Is Public Relations Ready for Discontinous Change?� and Elizabeth Albrycht writes about how �Collaboration Requires Contribution�. Both posts bring up important issues for political campaigns that can help make the P.R. aspect of political campaigns more palatable to grassroots activists.

Edelman recommends that �PR should move away from �pitching the story� mentality. We can be part of conversations on line.� It should �Recognize the influence and credibility of blogs� and �Experiment�. As an example, he suggests �We should be working with video clips attached to press materials to make it easier for bloggers in consumer technology to create v-blogs.�

It seems as if this applies strongly to political campaigns. For the sake of our democracy, we must move away from politicians pitching their story to an environment where they become part of conversations. We must return to good old-fashioned �retail politics� and move away from the sound-byte.

Albrycht takes this even further. She says �Both the development of communities and social capital requires reciprocity - the willingness to both take AND give -- to contribute.� She asks, �What do we have to offer to the communities we want to join/build?� Her answer is �If your answer is only �information about our company and products� then you need to head back to the drawing board.� Again, this applies strongly to political campaigns. If the only reason for a campaign website or blog is to provide information about the candidate, then the campaign had better head back to the drawing board. We need to promote greater participation in democracy.

How do we do this? Albrycht goes on to cite McMillan and Chavis� work on �Sense of Community� [SOC]. �They define SOC as consisting of the following four characteristics: Feelings of membership; � Feelings of influence; � Integration and fulfillment of needs � ; and Shared emotional connection�.

Political campaigns need to learn from the P.R. community how to enter conversations and build community. Otherwise, we will see more emails like this one I received today from a friend who has become disillusioned with a campaign she has been volunteering for:

�I'm still working on the � campaign, although with far less enthusiasm than in the beginning. I look at the web site and wonder what the hell they are thinking. Just like the Kerry campaign, they just don't get it. They talk the talk but that's where it stops. I've given up giving feedback.�

The Internet is providing politicians a chance to re-engage the American people in the political process, and frightening as it may sound on the surface, they can probably learn a lot from forward thinking public relations experts.

Techno Utopians and the Revolt Against Science

After watching the films Connections [James Burke], Pandora's Box and The power of Nightmares [both by Curtis Adams for the BBC], as well as The Fog of War [Errol Morris], I have this strange feeling that what we are experiencing today in American politics is a deep and angry backlash at the failures and bill of goods sold to us by techno utopians who had the unbridled hubris to think they could be Masters of the Universe. It does not matter if they worked at Gosplan in the USSR or for RAND in the USA. Fundamentally they were all techno utopians who got it wrong at great cost.

As Irving Kristol says in Power of Nightmares, the Liberals have no explanation as to why President Johnson and RAND did not produce a Great Society and End Poverty. They also have no apologies for their failures.

Of course it should be noted that today’s Neoconservatives, who also can never be wrong and thus must presume that their knowledge is perfect, are making the exact same mistake. It is certain that they will reap the same whirlwind.

Until the Liberals and Democrats can first acknowledge these failures and apologize for them, the Right will run amok with its anti-science. What we need is some fresh thinking that is able to embrace science and technology with humility, respect for the impossibility of perfect knowledge, and an honest acceptance of the existence of mystery. It is past time to move beyond the approaches of FDR's years and the far right's Cold War use of FEAR as an organizing principal. We will only succeed if we stop looking in the rear view mirror and tackle the future head on. FDR is dead. The Cold War is over. Long live a new and confident Liberalism -- now to invent it.

I recommend viewing the films I cited above for a deeper and more detailed analysis of this history. One the curious things is that these films are not easy to find and view. Curtis Adams’ “The Power of Nightmares”, for example, was never broadcast in the US and the film version has never been distributed. Why?

You can also find more on my views on our need for more science in the post on Greater Democracy:

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.

------- snip

I can also recommend George Clooney’s new film on Edward R. Murrow: Good Night & Good Luck. Bracing and very timely. Note at the end of the film the footage of President Eisenhower defending habeas corpus as a fundamental building block of American democracy.

War Among the Democrats

By: Dana Blankenhorn

This is another one of my political analyses. Please go elsewhere for tech bloggie goodness.

Clueless Washington analysts feel that the Bush Administration’s fall from grace means we have to sit through years before we’re delivered anything interesting.

The real battle, in fact, starts now.

Democrats today are split much as Republicans were 40 years ago. Back then the split was between the “establishment” party which had fought a rear-guard action against the New Deal for a generation, and a new more aggressive “conservative movement,” symbolized first by Barry Goldwater and, after his defeat, by the actor Ronald Reagan, who had placed him in nomination. (Note that the movement was so far down in 1965 its spokesman wasn’t even an office-holder.)

But the fight on the right was really about money, and how to get it. The “establishment” got its money from Wall Street, and the Fortune 500. The “movement” got its money from individuals – some rich, some more Justin Dart and John Olin, the “New Right” leaned on a new technology, direct mail, and on direct mail’s black magician, Richard Viguerie.

The “establishment’ party dealt with interests, pushing back on behalf of industries allied with it – defense, banking, manufacturing -- trying to cobble together temporary majorities by seeking the political center. Eisenhower did it, and the Party of Washington felt this was the only way. Democrats have recently been through the same thing with Bill Clinton, an accomodationist decade led, if not by a war hero, then at least by a foot soldier in the war-against-the-war.

The GOP “movement” party of the 1960s dealt with issues, because that’s where its money came from. It wasn’t important to win, in fact the issue was more valuable than victory. Rhetoric meant more than results. The issue gave you someone to hate, a focus for your anger. It was the big donors, and their big causes (cut government, kill Communists) who came first.

Back to today. The Democratic “establishment” party is based in Washington, and it, too, gets its money from special interests. Trial lawyers, Hollywood, insurance companies, investment bankers.

Then there is a “movement” party, sometimes called the Netroots, born in the wake of the Iraq conflict around the candidacy of Howard Dean.

To many there aren’t real ideological differences between these parties. That’s the mistake.

As before, the difference starts with money. Dean operates from the bottom up, the “establishment” from the top-down.

And that’s where the establishment is now attacking Dean, through the money issue. Never mind that Dean now chairs the DNC. (Goldwater ran with GOP party chairman William Miller.) Loyalty to faction means more in American politics than loyalty to party. Lobbyist Vic Fazio, a former Congressman, complained to The Washington Post that the Democrats are being out fund-raised 2-1.

It would be a valid complaint but for two facts. First, Fazio conflates corporate soft money with hard money figures. Second, Dean’s fund-raising is in fact a record for the party – it’s just that the moneymen of Bush have gone to Caligulan heights lately. (It should also be noted that a million from 10,000 people brings you 10,000 votes, while a million from 1 brings you 1.) The charge, however, resonated throughout the blogosphere.

On “Meet the Press” this week, Dean answered the charge, noting that the party will have operatives in all 50 states next year, that it will have plenty of money, and that the key will be having a message, which he then defined. Rhetoric will be under Dean’s control, just as it was under that of the New Right a generation ago.

Underneath all this is a concerted attempt by the establishment party to shut-out Deanlike candidates. You can see this in Illinois’ 6th Congressional district, where Christine Cigelis, who got 44% of the vote against longtime Republican incumbent Henry Hyde through netroots support last year, suddenly faces a primary challenge from the money party’s Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq veteran.

All this talk about money, however, ignores the real issue differences between the two parties.

You can see that most clearly when you get to issues of technology. The “establishment” party supports industry, the phone and cable companies, Apple Computer, Hollywood. Dean-ocrats are users. They stand for Fair Use, for open source, for WiFi.

Dean-ocrats should not expect a level playing field, if history is any guide.

Let’s go back to 1966 again. Throughout America movement conservatives won races for state legislatures, for school boards, and for other down-ballot offices. But what did the Time cover on the election show? Nearly all the candidates displayed were moderates -- Edward Brooke of Massachusetts , Charles Percy of Illinois among them. Governor-elect Reagan was pushed into a corner.

Even after conservatives won back the White House, the policies of Richard Nixon were strictly leftist. It was Nixon who passed the Clean Air Act, remember, Nixon who appointed Harry Blackmun to the Supreme Court, and Nixon who opened the door to China.

But in the long run it was Nixon’s rhetoric and political attitudes that resonated, because this was the rhetoric, and these were the attitudes, of his followers. The Bush problem in 2005 is that the rhetoric is now so divorced from reality that it doesn’t resonate, just as Lyndon Johnson’s call to the Great Society and Cold War began to fail in 1965.

There are important lessons here. Nixon’s nomination, remember, represented a compromise between the 1968 party’s establishment (Rockefeller) and conservative (Reagan) wings. Even in 1976, Reagan was unable to wrest the nomination from establishment, appointed President Gerald Ford.

But throughout this period, starting in 1966, movement conservatives rose within Republican ranks. Power is never given, it is only seized, even within a political party.

It was 15 years from now, in historical terms, before the New Right really came to power.

Can the Internet accelerate that for the Deanocrats? Can they really wait until 2020?

Personally, I hope not. That’s why the current battles are so important.

Reflections on nature & extent of India-Pakistan détente

Professor Dr. Farooq Hassan [1]
(Synopsis of address given at The Taj to SAPRA Delhi, 22 October, 2005)

I feel very privileged to address today this exclusive gathering of Indian intellectuals in this renowned center of thinking SPARA, India Foundation. It is an honor indeed to be invited by your renowned Center of advanced studies dealing with research on the countries of Asia. I thank you Sir and am most grateful for your gracious hospitality extended to me since my arrival in Delhi. I wish to particularly thank Indranil Banerjie who has kindly coordinated this visit and is also extended my deepest appreciation.

I will be talking today on the status and nature of the current state of détente in India –Pakistan relations and the possible consequences of the US foreign policy on this process. The Sub-Continental politics for half a century has been such that it has demoralized the expectations of many who have hoped for peace while unfolding often serious events of far reaching military and strategic implications. However, since the last year, on account of the analysis given hereinafter, a dynamics has been placed in motion which is headed hopefully towards a more predictable and stable period of friendly relations between the two bigger countries of this region, India and Pakistan.

But the period of the current state of optimism, if not euphoria, is geared towards a time frame which may be not indefinite and circumscribed by eventualities of a political nature from abroad or regional in character from factors within South Asia. From amongst the possibilities that can impact upon this evolution are primarily, though not exclusively, connected with the US foreign policy towards this region. From within the South Asian context itself, the matters to be considered are more complex and are directly relatable to the domestic’s politics of these two countries; these factors are later analyzed in this presentation today. First of all, it would be helpful to focus our attention to the relevant issues connected with the present state of this détente in South Asia. After this matter has been briefly examined we will the look at the prospects of the US political developments connected with this region and their possible impact on the current South Asian political scene.

Détente in South Asia: Nature and Complexity

In April 2003 Premier Vajpayee made his initial diplomatic overture of friendship to Pakistan. Since then clearly matters between the two nuclear armed neighbors have steadily improved. In respect of many public related matters of interest there has been substantial progress. In matters pertaining to art, sports, law or journalism, there has been tremendous improvement, even high level of cordiality witnessed between the peoples of the two countries. Some were therefore encouraged to say that the in the Cricket matches played between the countries in Pakistan in earlier part of 2004 it was indeed the realization of “friendship series”.

As barely two years ago the armies of the two nations stood eyeball to eye to eyeball along hundreds of miles of their frontiers, this is surely a most welcome state of affairs. There is no gainsaying the fact that were the present dynamics, both at the public and governmental level, to stay the course, it would add to the happiness and prosperity of the teeming millions of peoples of both countries. Terms at “ public” and at the “governmental” levels have been advisedly used by me.. There is no doubt in my mind that the people to people contact now being strengthened will grow. This is what I mean by public contact. The more difficult and uncertain inquiry is to correctly predict the quality and extent of expected progress at the “governmental” levels between Islamabad and Delhi.

The ultimate question in analyzing our responses to such an inquiry is to see how far all that is now in evidence is for real and expected to endure the vicissitudes of time and political dynamics of both international and domestic proportions? Here the important question would be to identify which of the two governments fundamentally wants substantial and a real détente? For if both want a state of real friendship to emerge then no problem should theoretically arise, as bilateralism is the key to the success of any genuine betterment of relations.

Although I had visited nearly 130 countries in the world only recently I had my first chance to visit India when I came to address an international conference at the JNU in early 2004. I must confess at realizing, happily I might add, that in the fields that fundamentally matter to states and to people, Constitutional governance, education and national policies towards intellectual pursuits, Indian attitudes and philosophy is at par with the highest levels for such activities anywhere. In hospitality I found my hosts to be both gracious and most attentive to our smallest needs. But where I witnessed the most glaring difference from Pakistan is in adherence to our cherished societal mandates: respectful to those older than oneself, deference to intellect and a continuous predilection towards humility and self-effacement. Indeed in acknowledgement of these facets of Indian life, I publicly wrote in one of my op-ed pieces [2] recently that it is not the possession of nuclear weapons that make and count towards the strength of a country but its adherence to the rule of law that does so. [3] In particular I observed:

“While those in Islamabad go on harping about Pakistan’s invincibility because of Dr. Qadeer, few have the courage to admit our political backwardness, vis-à-vis for instance India, in constitutional evolution under which even the courts, let alone those in other institutions of state, are too happy to agree that on some medieval perceptions of “state necessity” Constitutions can be torn asunder at any time by a local military commander.” [4]

Herein lays, in my view, the genesis of the answer to the question of whether the current detente is for real and will last or not. Whether harmony and reconciliation is achieved and is far reaching in effect is in my view entirely dependent on the relevant characteristics of the two states. I may now briefly proceed to analyze these essential component constituents of the countries.

Let me start with India. It is not merely the largest working but successful democracy in the world today. Its state institutions, particularly its Executive, Legislature and its Judiciary work within their allotted constitutional spheres. I have never seen its Army being described as an “institution of state”. It has many large minorities and has resultantly difficult problems. There are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. Minorities have asserted, at times rightly in my view that they have suffered. Broadly speaking, therefore, India’s problems emanating from the diversity of cultural and religious beliefs and practices amongst its hundreds of millions of peoples is a matter which is evident in all societies that have multiplicity of ethnicities and religions in its fold amongst it citizens.

The “core” issue of divergence between the two neighbors, according to the Pakistani Government, is that Kashmir. Geographically most of this State is in Indian physical control since the creation of either country. [5] India has witnessed recently a booming economy and out sourcing by many giant multinationals in its Bangalore region has made it a thriving prospect for the leading financial houses of the world. In addition to the information technology this region has made astounding strides towards excellence in the manufacture of advanced biomedicines. This is amply reflected by growth rate of over 8% in its economy. This is amongst the highest in the world. [6]

Regrettably Pakistan, on the other hand, has most unsettled political processes in evidence, a non-existent observance of peoples’ rights, weak state institutions including judiciary, and an over-bearing and politically minded army leadership that has repeatedly indulged in coups d’ etat. [7] In the economic domain, the decline in international interest rates and the after effects of 9/11 have combined to produce a bulging reservoir of foreign exchange. However, industry and investment are stagnant, and with inflation rising, poverty has actually increased from where it stood in 1999 when Musharraf took over.

So if the main irritants between the two countries were to hypothetically disappear, or become a non-issue for the time being at least anyway, what immediate and long term affects the countries would encounter?

As far as India is concerned, politically it has to genuinely cherish such a goal. Not only has an absence of tension allowed her to focus her attention to shift from being constantly on the look out for ad hoc political and military actions in its North Western frontiers, to something more constructive. It can help India considerably in dealing perhaps meaningfully with its large Muslim minority. In addition its economy will clearly benefit by a decrease in its non-development expenditures.

There is a school of thought, nevertheless, that articulates that the new Indian initiative was based on pragmatic grounds of domestic political compulsions at the relevant time. The BJP led Administration was cognizant of the fact that apprehensions existed in the rest of the Indian population, particularly in the Muslims of its staunch right wing religious sympathies. As such to negate the perception and indeed the impression that it had anything to do with the recent Gujarat riots in which 2000 Muslim reportedly perished or to deny the Congress of its traditional large Muslim electoral support, that Mr. Vajpayee and his think tank decided to turn a leaf in its relations with Pakistan. In sum, according to this view, the changed Indian attitude was fundamentally guided by the electoral priorities that the BJP was then faced with and not with any deeper considerations emanating from a sense of improving relations with Islamabad per se.

Personally, for reasons articulated below, I do not think that this thinking is sound. Had such been the case, Mr. Vajpayee could never have come to Lahore in January 1999 to then go to the Minar–a-Pakistan and accept the nationhood of this country. Even otherwise the language or its tenor used by him in talking of Pakistan had never been one of feelings of animosity. I do not recall any rhetoric where such an attitude was visible. More importantly, however, in the last three years in the aftermath of 9/11 international developments, India never used from her perspective, any issue that could have complicated Musharraf’s political troubles in domestic affairs. After all Musharraf's volte-face on the point of Islamabad’s long standing support of the Taliban or Pakistan’s support of “fundamentalists” were powerful issues that could have been exploited. Similarly Mr. Vajpayee did not utilize available reality of Pakistan Government’s denial of the Constitutional rights of its own people. After all such an argument was used in 1970 when the then Bangladesh crisis initially arose

I may hasten to add that in Pakistan most people still do not think that the description of “fundamentalist” should be used in a pejorative sense. Perhaps a majority of the Islamic populations also would be of the same view. However, there is no gainsaying the awareness that as a term of art as used by the Western press of late, this phrase does convey since 9/11 some element of aggression or rigidity in certain sections of the Muslim population’s world wide.

An important factor in support of this perspective that Mr. Vajpayee had been quite upfront about this new attitude relates to the Pakistani attack on the Kargill in early 1999. The Indian Premier never used this military and strategic misadventure reportedly undertaken by Islamabad at Musharraf’s calling. In more ways than one, that could have been done.

Militarily, one would think as some experts maintain, it was a serious blow to the technical expertise of the country’s armed forces planning and operations’ capabilities. Diplomatically this disastrous misadventure theoretically was even more embarrassing for the then civilian government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. [8] This tragic episode, in which Pakistan eventually suffered heavy causalities, could have proved most embarrassing for the military junta in Pakistan when it was itself in power after October 1999. All powers, after all, of any relevance in the country since October 1999 have remained with Musharraf. In the aftermath of post 9/11 international thinking, such state behavior by Pakistan could have been considered most reckless. I am thus of the clear view that Mr. Vajpayee had been substantially sincere in approaching his country’s relations with Islamabad de novo with a view to the establishment of genuine cordiality between the two countries by not raising any of such issues publicly

Let us now take a look at Pakistan and the available theoretical and practical considerations to evaluate her bona fides in the current political progress. Broadly speaking most people in Pakistan want peace and harmony with India. In recent times during the tenure of both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif ostensibly genuinely impressive steps were taken to improve qualitatively Islamabad relations with Delhi. But these modalities of diplomatic activity were hardly encouraged by the military leadership. Indeed an important Minster of the Bhutto Government was suspected of having passed on to India the lists of Pakistanis helpers in the Easter pat of Punjab!

The most relevant matter to be comprehended in this context is the realization of Pakistan’s considerable political clout of its armed forces leadership in the country’s political affairs. Further, the military prowess of this “institution” of the State is, by Pakistani standards supposedly impressive. Pakistan’s raison d ’etre of possessing such a substantial and large military establishment’s is her professed fear of India. [9] If ex hypothesi, such a state of affairs were to emerge that such fears become irrelevant to be realistically visualized, then one would be hard pressed to explain the present size or maintenance of such a large army and its consequential expenditures that is a huge burden on the national exchequer?

My point is simple. How can the leadership of the size of the army that Pakistan possesses, demolish the very basis that enables it to emerge with a pre-eminent position in the state power structure? With the meager resources of the country being largely taken up to support such a huge establishment, Islamabad has already, on numerous occasions, been advised by world monetary and financial institutions to decrease and cut down its non-development expenditures. With even Parliament being unable to scrutinize these extra-ordinary expenditures, it is a matter that surely needs some national scrutiny to provide, if possible, the poor masses some much need revenues.

Vital human and civil sectors of the country, dealing with such matters as health, education and communication are already receiving less than 3% of the total budgetary allocations of the country. Poverty per se is the largest source of unstable social conditions and the constantly deteriorating law and order situation that generally essentially prevails in the country. Yet the country we are told is “compelled” to maintain this non-development source of persistent drain on its meager resources because the “vital interests” so demand! There being no institutional watchdog in the country to question such omnibus fiats, the thinking public and the intelligentsia has just to learn to just live with it.

In understanding this matter it is also crucial to keep in mind the tremendous political significance that the army leadership in the country has acquired by the sheer power of its resources in the body politic of the country. Is it realistically possible that any army leadership can relinquish all this bounty and largesse willingly? [10] Surely if the perceived casus belli with India were to hypothetically disappear or put in abeyance as a result of the current détente, the scenario I am envisaging would have to be faced by any military establishment in Islamabad, which it would rather not.

As such it is not a mere coincidence that in the last dozen years on two important occasions when the purely civilian leadership tried to increase its level of friendship with India, the army leadership reacted with suspicion and distrust. [11] We cannot also be unmindful of the reality that at the time when the two previous major wars between the two countries took place the army leadership had the reins of political control in Islamabad.

Since history is the surest guide to fore tell the expected future course of evolution, one has to carefully but with some degree of surety predict, that despite Musharraf’s overtures of everlasting friendship to Mr. Vajpayee (and now to Mr. Manmohan Singh), when the crunch time arrives, the “present Pakistani Government” which I think is clearly that of a military junta, would not be as swift in moving ahead as some may think the present course of evolution may demand. One has still to know, for instance, for sure what really happened in Kargill in 1999? Was it a misadventure indulged in by the civilian Pakistani Government under Prime Nawaz Sharif’s orders? Or, as has been hinted at by many including President Clinton, that it was the result of the thinking of only General Musharraf? [12]

I am, therefore, of the view that as long as Pakistan does not have a validly elected Government works under the Constitution, inter-governmental cordiality presently seen involving Pakistan is more an outcome of opportunistic outlook by Islamabad rather than a genuinely felt need of the history of this age.

Recent history is fully in accord with these articulations. Deducible normative behavioral pattern of Pakistani motivations in approaching the current détente leaves one with such regrettable conclusions. I am further also fortified in making this qualitative assessment on the basis of available incidental circumstantial, yet concrete evidence, to which I may now briefly refer.

For example is it not surprising that despite the present climate of high good will, all official TV channels of and from India are still officially forbidden to be seen anywhere in Pakistan. These programs cannot be broadcast by Cable operators in Pakistan by specific banning edicts of the Musharraf regime? Why? Is it not surprising that in the 9 PM daily news bulletin of the Official Pakistan Television (PTV) ( called the Khabernama) India-bashing is still very much an integral part of the Pakistani news? [13] Does it not prove, as I see it, that the present Musharraf regime is keeping the anti-India rhetoric very much alive? What is the purpose of al this? Is the Pakistani official electronic media to be used along with its dissemination apparatus, if a “need” arises? Conversely preventing the Pakistani public from seeing what officially the Indian channels are openly disseminating is tantamount to keeping them attuned merely to the PTV sermonized broadcasts?

Pakistan’s population is composed of decent, very warm and intelligent people. They would like noting better than to know the truth about India, its cultures and its people. In arts and mattes of entertainment already Pakistani public just adores the high quality presentations of movies and the Indian cinema. Well known Indian artists and figures of the cinema are already household words in Pakistan. Similarly artists of note from Pakistan have performed with much credit and fame in India. There is thus much to know that is prevented by the Islamabad military junta by putting an embargo on the right to information of the people of Pakistan by not allowing free broadcast of Indian news and current affairs programs. Quite plainly this is due to the basic psychological insecurity of the military based regime in Islamabad having never been constitutionally elected to do what it purports to be doing in the manner aforesaid.

I think another reality in this context is the fact that I believe that that the present military regime fervently wants to hide from the 140 million people of Pakistan the vibrant presence of democratic values in India. This is so for two reasons; -

The fact is that we have currently no such representative system in evidence in Pakistan. Information of India and about its governance system would prove may be somewhat embarrassing to an unrepresentative Administration still essentially controlled by the army in such a irresponsible legal misconception that the country’s “Prime Minister” refers to his Army Chief, clearly one of his subordinates as his “boss”. Seeing that the army generals in India are nothing more than ordinary servants of the states in uniform, may provide some food for thought is too uncomfortable a proposition to be easily accommodated in Islamabad.

That it prima facie legally and morally weakens Islamabad’s case in the domestic and international fora for a plebiscite in Kashmir. If the people of Pakistan cannot have a duly and fairly elected Administration in the country, a case can hardly be made of having one in Kashmir through the same process discredited by the military regime in the country itself.

Therefore, it is most regrettable and sad that the people of Pakistan are still being dished out blatantly the supposed benefits of Stalinist type ideas of governance through the state run and controlled media. It is a form of rulership that all military governments in Pakistan find most difficult not to extol and eulogize. Who can find parallels in constitutional history of parliamentary system that Islamabad had on 25th of June last year (2004) three premier s standing in rostrum simultaneously? Premier Jamali despite commanding the support of majority had been replaced by Shujhat Hussain, who was to replaced by Shaukat Aziz thus becoming the first prime mister in waiting in the entire annals of Parliamentary history!

Such devices are, however, as faulty as they are bereft of any meaningful voice of reality. People in Pakistan, as in India may be poor and even largely uneducated. But they know the basic truths about their own governors. No amount of stopping the reaching of Indian TV stations can convince the people in Pakistan that non- elected Presidents and one man tailor made Constitutions are democratic. [14]

Thus a question arises: why did the Musharraf regime, manifestly after the 9/11 occurrence in the US, go so concertedly after a patching up mission with the Vajpayee Administration?

This fact is based on a realization by Islamabad, I believe, on two important considerations. However , before we articulate these two major motivations it might be helpful, however, to initially analyze the ethos of the prevalent factual situation. At the time of the 9/11 tragedies because of Musharraf’s coup of October 1999, Pakistani Government of the present military junta stood internationally ostracized. Two important points need to be mentioned here.

First, the manifest absence of an elected Government in Pakistan at that time led to Pakistan’s suspension from the Commonwealth. That suspension was in effect until the spring of 2004. This revoking of this suspension occurred, as on 25th December, 2003 Musharraf made a “promise” to the people of Pakistan on national TV. This had to be done by him since in January 2004 the SAARC heads of Government meeting in Islamabad in January 2004, was about to take place. It would have embarrassed Islamabad and indeed other participants to be sitting with a military led junta. Thus out of political necessity rather than a change of heart this promise was essentially made to restore the Civilian rule by not remaining simultaneously the President as well as the Chief of the Army by the end of the year. As later events are proving this “promise” was nothing more than a time gaining maneuver.

Similarly, Washington had imposed fairly crippling sanctions on Islamabad under various laws since Octber1999. This was a mandatory legal consequence as a result of the violation of the human rights clauses under which the US cannot aid any country under its Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 if there is the absence of a civilian government in a country. [15] Similarly, the European Union had passed Resolutions criticizing the assumption of power of Musharraf. [16]

As such the Musharraf regime was in a literal sense desperate not to further antagonize India since it could not afford a confrontation of a political kind with both the secular forces [17] and the religious ones led by the Jamait–a-Islami (JI) and Jamai-Ulema-a-Pakistan (JUI) as well from across the eastern borders of the country. It was in a political sense a necessity that persuaded the military establishment to become “friendlier’ with India to ward off any possibility of becoming more actively engaged in diverse fronts than could be handled at one time.

The two main reasons that certainly prompted Musharraf to cultivate India in this manner are therefore: -

The realization that by preventing India from agitating against the military government’s domestic denial of civil liberties, it would gain at least time for undertaking more damage control measures for maintaining its domestic hegemony over political power in the country.

To ensure that in the much-changed international political environment, Pakistan got the necessary American support for its domestic agenda despite being admittedly a non-democratic Government. [18] Elections were held in Pakistan in October 2002 but with such extensive state control mechanisms and manipulation as well as under such changed constitutional provisions that no parliamentary system in the world can possibly freely function. No international entity really that matters, such as the Commonwealth, accepts that these elections have resurrected the civilian nature of the government in Islamabad.

The realities of the present détente, therefore, are such that while India would like this peace process to stay the course, it depends more on the political fortunes of the present military regime in Pakistan whether in fact that would continue to do so. The process might well continue if the current domestic political scene of Pakistan and regional status quo somehow maintains itself. But the chances of the continuity of the Musharraf regime as it presently functioning are somewhat less than genuinely predictable.

Thus intergovernmental relations are thus likely to maintain their current pace and intensity in the immediate coming months. If, however, the present Islamabad military junta’s hold on power is threatened, the foremost casualty would be the rupture of the current level of cordiality with India.

But one factor over which the Musharraf regime cannot probably reverse the process now underway is the public participatory evolution that has now emerged as a result of the current enhanced peoples’ contact. On account of a bold and forthright policy orientation India has freely given its visa to numerous Pakistan organizations, delegations, and individuals. Much has been said about and by those visiting India back in Pakistan. As such there has emerged in truth a climate of high respect, indeed affection, for the Indian public in those who live in Pakistan. I had, for instance never visited India in my life until earlier this year. But since then having witnessed the vibrant dedication to a regime of rule of law, something highest in my priorities, I am the first to publicly acknowledge, the real genius of the Indian system in many of my writings and op ed columns.

I may now turn to some recent political developments as they deserve some comment. As these emergent factors have intimate connection with the subject of this script, I may now briefly advert to them.

On 19th April 2004, Musharraf visited Lahore and held long and exclusive meetings with the Punjab Chief Minister, Governor and with many elected members of the ruling party from the largest Province of Pakistan. It appears that he had at that time initially set his eyes on becoming the political head of the “official” or “sarkari version” of the Muslim League. This brand of this party is a collection of the same individuals that belonged formerly to Nawaz Sharif.

This group of patent opportunists has been handily available to his three hand picked “successors” by Musharraf in rapid succession as premiers, namely, Zafarullah Jamali, Shujahat Hussain and now Shaukat Aziz. Without any meeting of their Central Working Committee, they accepted these manifestly “appointed” individuals, as their Leader of the House in the Parliament. This is the surest evidence why we have only a facade of democracy in Pakistan crudely set up as a fake front of a military junta. For no working democracy can possibly “elect’ three different individuals in three months as the leaders of the party

Without question Jamali, publicly referred to the General as repository of all power and wisdom in the country. He happily extended his full support to the Musharraf “regime”. But he still had to go. Why? Because he remained by background a “politician”. Musharraf could not even apparently tolerate him since he wanted a complete rank “outsider” from the domain of politics to ensure the incumbent premier’s utter political impotence.

When prime ministers are changed without any formal meeting or consent of even the political parties they commanded at least theoretically to become the leaders of the lower House in the first place, it is impossible to call the system parliamentary or democratic. In my view this “regime”, therefore, howsoever labeled remains essentially a military junta led administration

Despite being a Prime Minister in a parliamentary system Jamali had no qualms in accepting the role of the second fiddle while formally running the Federal Government under Article 91 of the Constitution of Pakistan. Musharraf’s apparent and overt ambitions of entering the political process as head of a political party of the country had to be furthered by a straight forward dictation to the politically fragile Muslim League. This was done by replacing unceremoniously both Jamali and his “successor” Shujahat Hussain within a period of three months. He had one Shuakat Aziz, an unknown banker from New York in the employment of Citibank as one of its several vice-presidents until his recall to Pakistan by General Musharraf in 1999 after his coup, assume the high political office of the country’s Premier in August 2004.

A brief look at the new Pakistani premier may speak more eloquently on the terribly sad state of the character of the Pakistani politics, than any commentary by an “expert”. It is least surprising to those who follow Pakistani political milieu that the current Prime Minster of Pakistan had no home or “permanent residence” in the country. Neither had he lived in Pakistan since about the last forty years. That is why for election to the Parliament a “residence” had to be found for him! This search was extended from Sindh to the Frontier Provinces. Eventually a constituency was found for him from Attack, a remote area on the borders of Punjab and Frontier provinces.

The “appointment” of an utter non politician, and for all practical and legal purposes a “foreigner”, is the best evidence that Musharraf changed his mind from becoming the titular head of Muslim League to one possessing de facto powers over the Parliament. This was done as such by ensuring his hegemony over the country’s Constitution and by “appointing” an utter non-entity to the exclusive position of the nations’ Prime Minister. No wonder, therefore, that Shaukat Aziz is affectionately called “short-cut Aziz” by sections of the national press who allows General Musharraf to run single handedly all foreign and domestic policy agenda of the country. His job is apparently restricted to running merely the portfolio of that of the Finance Ministry. The other Ministers report to General in the conduct of their official duties. Accordingly, the Parliamentary system, for which we have expressly Articles 91 to Articles 97 of the Constitution give all such authority to the Premier, has been rendered in fact moribund.

Another recent political phenomenon deserving our close notice is the personal ambition of the General keeps his military rank and uniform despite having retired from his service many years ago. After most reluctantly agreeing to step down as Chief of Army in 2004, before the SAARC Conference in Islamabad in January 2004, Musharraf began to renege on this constitutional and moral undertaking given to the people of Pakistan on 25th December 2003. He clearly indicated through several Ministers of the present Government that he be allowed to keep both his current position of Presidency and that of the head of the country’s armed forces beyond the year 2004 [19].

Pakistan’s Parliament eventually enacted a “law” by the Shuakat Aziz led Muslim League Party, to accept him as the Chief of Army in addition to being the President - in clear derogation of the General’s commitment and the express words and spirit of the Constitution. It is the first “representative” institution to accept a serving military general, an ordinary servant of the State, as the country’s President and a part of the legislative process as well.

So since the Opposition did not challenge this measure on the ground that the country’s judiciary was not the appropriate forum after what Musharraf had been doing to the judicial branch of the Republic, it is inevitable that the future of constitutional rule of law remains in peril. [20] With the basic institutions of state held ransom by a military junta, the supremacy of rule of law remains an elusive goal. In this context it deserves to be boldly said that no parliament in the world can possibly do so which the Islamabad National Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has done. This is the truest factual commentary on the sad state of democratic functioning in Pakistan presently.

Potentially the impact of these political scenarios do not auger well for Pakistan. If he stays on in uniform, as well as the country’s President, having never been elected, it will result in a gradual increase in political instability in Pakistan. An unstable Pakistan, at a time of rule by a military junta, is the surest recipe for the emergence of a ‘ hostile” policy towards India in times of any crisis, real or fictitious. Musharraf may well believe that by doing so he will be able to ward off or divert, civil and political domestic unrest.

If, on the other hand, the General maintains the present status quo, and hangs on to the political power grabbed by him in 1999 through his coup, the conceivable consequences of such a phenomenon are hardly encouraging vis-à-vis relations with India.

His “unpopularity” level is alarmingly and abysmally low in the country. This is inevitable since he is about to enter the sixth year of his rule in power. In constitutional parlance of Pakistani Supreme Court jurisprudence [21], he remains a “usurper.” Hence, while faced with an increasing crescendo of domestic opposition, he is, more likely than not, to adopt policies on the lines indicated above. Since Machiavelli writings, it has been the opinion of some observers that to divert, control or confuse indigenous discontent, the ruler threatened would likely embark upon a foreign misadventure for patently obvious reasons.

Further, it may be noted, though practically I now discount such a possibility, if Musharraf decides to contest any genuine elections at the behest of “official” Muslim League, he will have to adopt a visibly anti-US stand. This will entail a series of possibilities which are easy to visualize but which may be disastrous for him. Elections are won on different principles than Byzantine maneuverings as a military dictator. To win any type of election in contemporary Pakistan, he would have to eschew policy declarations which are utterly foreign to his recent avowed attitudes towards the US and on Islamic teachings, aptitude and previous conduct while at the helm of affairs in the country.

Further complicating the prospects for Musharraf is his unending vulnerability qua his “justification” for remaining in harness. To set off this constant political liability all the time, and to remain politically viable, he must also say something on Kashmir. He has, though somewhat mutedly of late, therefore still referred to it as the “core issue” between India and Pakistan. Howsoever, he couches his stand on this point, he cannot possibly proceed to adopt any position that may lead to a real solution of this controversy. For if that ever occurred, the size and extent of keeping in line his own military constituency, as already emphasized earlier, will be in question.

In the context of the topic of this address, such far reaching possibilities are hardly encouraging. Regretfully Musharraf, with cosmetic differences dictated by circumstances, is following the exact footprints of the earlier military dictators of Pakistan, Ayub and Yayha. Both, in difficulties of their making, choose to go to war with India and adopted strategies that failed them. As I see it, the statement, some times echoed abroad, about Pakistan being a “failed state” is precisely due to such malefactors in the body politic of Pakistan. For after all, what else would you say about a country that has essentially no Constitution but a system of ad hoc governance at the will of a military commander occupying his own country?

Resultantly it is not impossible to visualize that India too may be driven to a lessening of cordiality as a result of such an evolution from Islamabad. Already Mr. Manmohan Singh’s statements on a number of diverse issues, from cross border terrorism to “demilitarization” of certain parts of Kashmir, as tentatively put forth by Musharraf, have been sharply dismissive of the thoughts on these issues emanating from Islamabad

Another factor furthermore is the slow, yet perceptible, deterioration of Pakistan’s relations with Kabul and indeed with some of the diplomats and military commanders of the US over there. Although the strategic ingredients of this equation (that is Afghanistan/ Pakistan) are fundamentally different, yet, for convenience, Musharraf could easily lump all his difficulties over there in India’s lap. There have been strong verbal public disagreements between the US envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalizad, and the Foreign Office Spokesman of the Pakistani Government. Both seem to blame each other for what Pakistan is allegedly doing or not doing adjacent to the boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition, when the Pakistan Army recently encountered heavy opposition from the local tribesman in Wana in Southern Waziristan, the same Military spokesman said that “foreign hand” in such elements and hostilities could not be “ruled out”

While what this reference to a “foreign hand” implies may be apparently ambivalent, in strategic terms, it can only realistically mean that he was referring to either Afghanistan or India. No other “foreign element” can theoretically be said to be even allegedly involved. Since blaming it on Kabul will be tantamount to hitting at the US interests over there, which presumably Musharraf cannot dare to do, it is inevitable that such allegations are clearly directed against only Delhi. There this is thus strong evidence that when the military junta finds it self hard pressed on account of some failed policy or misadventure, it is the cordiality of goodwill towards India that may be the initial victim.

With Musharraf seriously flawed record against the very concept of Rule of Law he can hardly expect to be in any position to win any non-military establishment support anywhere. [22] All these maneuvers and intrigues alluded to above, within the constitutional dictates of Islamabad Administration, to achieve a perpetuation of the control of all the institutions of the State by the army by Musharraf, cannot but be looked upon with grave suspicions by domestic and international actors dedicated to rule of law.

US Foreign Policy & the peace process

Despite lot of rhetoric to the contrary, it is very doubtful whether President G.W. Bush can stomach such a dictatorship ad infinitum in Pakistan. This “dictatorship formula”, after all, goes against his November 6th, 2003 speech on the Middle East when the American President said he wished the establishment of “genuine democratic Islamic regimes”. This is followed by his 2005 State of Union address when he used the word “democracy” 26 times in the first twenty minutes. This continuity of a military based rule in Pakistan seriously undermines the efforts of the American Administration to create “democracy” in countries where it has extended its hand of support, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is true that, while no one can say that democracy has arrived in such places either, but at least “elections” are being held and their heads of Government are clearly not from the uniformed military in service, like in Myanmar or Islamabad. Most observers think, therefore, that those remarks of the US President were principally directed against Pakistan, rather than Arab or the other two states mentioned of the Middle East.

Looked at from another perspective, in the wake of 9/11, the Bush Administration has followed in the past four years a one dimensional foreign policy in Pakistan. It was to obtain territorial hinterland and periphery topographic support in Pakistan to accomplish its military task against the Taliban in Afghanistan. By one account, written by General Tommy Franks recently, the US had obtained 74 land bases in Pakistan to facilitate its operation in neighboring Afghanistan.

Now, however, matters are certainly in a state of both political and strategic metamorphosis. Having been severely castigated in and beyond the US for having supported dictatorship in the area, Washington may well alter its foreign policy into one of being multidimensional. Post Saddam relentless and ongoing struggles in Iraq and the resurgence of guerrilla activity in Afghanistan has driven home the point that democracies in far flung areas cannot be maintained by armies. That spells, presumably, the end of the monopolistic control that Musharraf had assumed he had over Mr. Bush’s actions in this region. Hopefully, therefore, domestic politics in Pakistan and regional policies of the concerned powers do not allow the continuity of a military rule in Islamabad. This is bad for Pakistan, its people, the regional politics, and creates a whole new kind of uncertainty analyzed above for the Sub-Continent.

As the sole superpower, the US has larger interests in this region to see that relations between India and Pakistan remain on a harmonious footing. The American Government has already described India as “an emerging power”. With Pakistan’s “strategic need” for the US bound to lessen soon enough, and the issue of nuclear proliferation far from closed, as some might wish it to be, there are fair chances, that, despite the pessimistic scenarios alluded to by me, Washington may ensure in Mr. Bush’s second term that the blossoming of tranquil relations between the two countries is not jeopardized by usurpation tendencies of Islamabad’s current military ruler ship. Ambassador Blackwell, the US Ambassador to India, said as much in a recent interview. This newly emerging relationship with New Delhi has already seen the signing of civilian nuclear plans between the two countries, a large qualitative change in terms of strategic planning that India may now undertake for future.

Good relations between India and Pakistan remain long term strategic interests of Washington. Furthermore, from purely an objective perspective, the longevity and quality of any such relationship is dependent on the respect and prevalence of Rule of Law and Constitutionalism in Islamabad. [23]

South Asian Ingredients in US Policy

In order to see in a historical context the main thrust of the American foreign policy towards South Asia, a brief look at the evolution of Washington’s interests in this region may be briefly examined.

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as far back as 1966 described the essential historical foundational ingredients of the importance of the Sub-Continent to Washington when he said:

“South Asia has become, through a combination of circumstances and geography, a vital strategic area in the present context between the expansionist and non-expansionist power centers. In friendlier hands or as non-aligned states, South Asia can be a bridge between Europe and the Far East and a major physical barrier to the Southward expansion of Red China and the USSR; in hostile hands, it would seal the long term hope of building a free Asian Coalition able to provide counterweight to an expansionist China.” [24]

Clearly many practical and ground realities underscored in this statement have changed since 1966 and are no longer relevant. It is also clear that this view manifestly overstated the importance of this region to the US by giving it an expansive base of significance that never reflected the actual situation to impress upon the Congress the Administration’s needs of that time. Similarly, the perceived threat from the north was also an exaggeration made out for political needs of that Administration. Admittedly, absent also is the presence of any known and substantial natural resources of this region to qualify it per se as a “vital” interest of Washington.

But some important postulates emphasized in this policy statement are still apparently valid as they were in historical terms over thirty years ago. [25] These essential elements in my view being:

1. The emergence of South Asia regional politics in the global geo-politica priorities of the US. [26]

2. The clear intent of the US that this region does not fall under wrong or “hostile hands.” [27] This particularly applies to Pakistan with is nuclear capacity.

3. The emergence of Islamic fundamentalism so called in respect of Pakistan and the potential of an electorate siding with it.

4. The rise of India as an economic power house with limitless potential.

5. The potential of India being the largest working democracy in the world compared to the continuity of authoritarianism in Pakistan.

These present basic postulates of the American foreign policy vis-à-vis South Asia are truly reflected in the post 9/11period. The preservation of the status quo remains, in my submission, a paramount objective of the US policies in South Asia. The avoidance of chaos and anarchy in this region are manifestly evident in numerous US declarations made in the last two years. In 2002 and early 2003 when India and Pakistan were looking to conceivably be at war soon, the US duly led the international efforts to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring.

Historical US policy towards: Background

The creation of the new Dominions of India and Pakistan in 1947, witnessed a discord of foreign policies of the new countries. [28] In contrast to India’s growing involvement with many major powers, Pakistan’s links were almost entirely with Washington. But domestic changes in Pakistan, and the Sino-Indian border disputes of the early sixties, altered all that. Initial Indian reaction, which I might call as the ”traditional” approach of Delhi towards coups in general, Prime Minister Nehru rebuked the Pakistan government under General Ayub Khan as “naked military dictatorship”. [29] Although India did not do anything rash, it soon got militarily embroiled with China in border disputes along its northern frontiers. [30] However, because of Anglo-American pressures on Ayub Khan, Pakistan did nothing to add to India troubles at that time. But it did signal,which went unregistered with Pakistan, that Washington would not tolerate any real changing of the ground realities via-a-vis the territorial or political integrity of India by Islamabad.

Pakistan, while keeping itself unconnected with these occurrences, yet realized that both India and China were formidable military powers and that the armed conflicts between them were too close to her frontiers to give her any comfort. [31] While being not unhappy at the ease with which China prevailed in these borders tussles, Islamabad realized that it too had to carefully weigh its options in territorial disputes with India. [32]

Yet such awareness not withstanding, armed conflict between Pakistan and India erupted in 1965. From Washington’s perspective, it signaled a failure of an important element of its foreign policy in the Sub-Continent. Since the early sixties, Washington had attempted to keep a balance between both states by connecting all aid, particularly to Islamabad, by conditioning it to an absence of armed hostilities between them. [33] Since the Vietnam War, the US foreign policy has largely been predicated by a priority to keep Washington aloof from international involvements generally unless it’s vital “security” was threatened. [34]

Current US priorities

With this over-riding policy evaluation in view, we have to now see just how important is the United States to the Sub-Continent? The answer to this inquiry further lies embedded in the responses that we come up with to the following inquiries:

(1) Basic Questions:

Is it vital, as a national security matter that the Sub-Continent, or countries thereof, are not hostile toward Washington? Or is it that the answer lies somewhere in between, that is that the area is important in at last some respects, but as a geographical region that has little of immediate impact on US vital interests? Further, in light of the declared nuclear position of the two major Sub Continental powers, India and Pakistan, does the Sub-Continent acquire automatically a status of permanent vigilance for the US? If so, does it require a similarity of treatment for both these countries from the US? Or is it that it is Pakistan that must be monitored more anxiously? [35] Lastly, what is the significance of the element of so-called “Islamic fundamentalism” in Pakistan’s domestic and external policies and does this issue per se qualitatively tantamount to a “security interest” of Washington? An allied inquiry would be clearly with regard to Pakistan's role in the current US war against terrorism and whether such a role makes the region of “vital strategic interests “ to the US? [36]


There is no simple way to answer all such questions with great precision. This is partly due to the nature of the area. It is also not easy, furthermore, to do so since a number of political developments underlying these concerns are still in process of evolving. This is particularly evident in respect of the last three questions posed above.

It is not within the purview of this work to go into the diverse facets of the war against terrorism alluded to in these questions; however, it is safe to submit that at least as long as the US war against terrorism is perceived to be still on by Washington, Islamabad’s present importance to the US is bound to remain in tact. However, with armed hostilities in Afghanistan assuming a secondary position since the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, it is legitimately arguable that Pakistan’s erstwhile priority niche in the Pentagon’s planning has decreased and will continue to do so. [37]

(2) Immediate US Objectives

Immediately the major US objective has been to prevent from eruption the chaos that could result if there were real hostilities, howsoever caused, between India and Pakistan . Firstly is to prevent the terrifying threat, now clearly receded, of a nuclear confrontation between the countries. Such a horrible scenario can, in theory, arise out of gross mishandling of ongoing political differences. Secondly, is the theory that Islamabad’s possible military and political actions against the religious “fundamentalists”, primarily undertaken at Washington’s behest, could conceivably result in unpredictable domestic and regional upheavals within Pakistan. [38] The Islamabad army junta rejects this eventuality out of hand. However, such a conclusion is obviously self serving and based on ignorance of history. Military juntas world wide are known for their myopia in visions of their own fates.

Whether such causation criteria would stay and maintain its present form is difficult to predict since it is linked with the sustenance of such a phenomenon. [39] The US has come to recognize that through elections it is difficult to completely prevent such possibilities. The prevention of the emergence of political power of religious elements cannot be easily accomplished by elements that would rather see the retention of secular forces remaining in command. Elections in Turkey and Pakistan since 9/11 have amply proved this thesis. Indeed, already evidence is coming to light that, after the initial ousting of the Taliban, US has “lost” some of its zeal and physical control in Afghanistan. [40]

Such noticeable vicissitudes notwithstanding, however, it is high on American priorities that this region can be kept as calm as possible. However, to prevent such chaos from occurring, can the US go as far as it did in Afghanistan? With the most recent developments in Iraq, it is doubtful if this is a serious possibility. Short of actual involvement, though, Washington would do much to prevent such eventualities.

In the current phase of initiatives for peace, both India and Pakistan have been intelligently cognizant of the international realities that exit since 9/11. Both countries are manifestly aware that in a highly charged international atmosphere, it was only prudent that, at least for the time being, the erstwhile attitudes towards each other be put aside for more active peace oriented policies.

There are many cogent reasons for this awareness, but the most obvious one is to keep this region free of direct involvement of outsiders. India’s immediate strategic gain has been to satisfy an old need that Pakistan stop its alleged help to cross border attacks on its people in Kashmir. Publicly admitted to by Pakistan is the fact that behind the scenes the US has been actively assisting this process. [41]

Bush’s war on terrorism, his occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq, are matters and issues on which there is indeed an international debate in evidence. By all accounts no “war” in memory has evinced such world wide opposition, including from within the US. Yet Mr. Bush has also evoked very passionate support in the religious and bible belt regions of the US. He has also obtained by visible means the outright aid of the conservative and right wing elements of the country. As I see it, there has emerged a division on the line of rural and urban populations as well. Well over 70% of the Bible belt overwhelmingly is with President Bush. That is there seems to be a clear division between the conservative and liberal protagonists in the United States.

The overwhelming evidence that exits from past US history of the conduct of its foreign policy is that generally external policies, once in place, are usually maintained by either Party’s Administration since it is usually the “establishment” that has carved out its contours and direction. By this term I mean the bureaucracy, the cumulative advice of the country’s think tanks, and, indeed, of the major economic power houses of the US. This is invariably a long drawn out prognosis of what is the “need” of the US which is made years in advance. Such a policy therefore usually stays in place for foreseeable future.

Having seen that effectuating “imposed” governments are in long run self defeating, the larger US interests, a relic of the Dulles era of the past, may be it is possible that Americans would change their substantive policies without lowering the present level of personal cordiality towards Musharraf. [42] It is also worth mentioning that the geo-strategic priorities of Washington are no longer what they were in October 2001. Hence the combined effect of such causation might well be that Musharraf does not get the same verbal, or practical, encouragement that he has received of late. On the other hand, the political and geo-strategic goodwill and cordiality with respect to India is bound to stay what it has been since the last several decades.

There is, of course, another over riding factor recently articulated by Henry Kissinger that it would be wrong for the US to put all its eggs in the Musharraf basket as far as its policies in Pakistan are concerned. The period immediately following 9/11 was one of emergency and was an aberration from normal conduct by the US of its foreign policy agenda.

The fundamentals of US foreign policy towards Pakistan were spelled out in graphic detail by President Clinton when he visited Islamabad for four hours only on 25th April 2000. In severely reprimanding Musharraf for his misconduct in usurping the civilian authority of the state of Pakistan, he refused to even meet him in uniform or to formally greet him. In addition, because of the Musharraf factor, the US continued with the suspension of Pakistan’s military and economic assistance in place since the coup of October 1999. As compared to India, where he stayed four days, the message was loud and clear. The US had altogether a different assessment of its relations with New Delhi as compared with its view of Islamabad.

Hence, I can see that irrespective of what the General has done, the US will have to “locate an alternative” in Pakistan. The reasons articulated above would indicate that, given the nuclear status of Pakistan, it is impossible for Washington to solely rely on Musharraf. His replacement, therefore, has to be found and kept in mind during Bush's his second term. In view of what I have stated above, a Democratic incumbent of the While House would do likewise.

Hopefully, therefore, domestic politics in Pakistan and regional policies of the US do not allow that yet another military ruler emerges in Islamabad as Musharraf’s “replacement” while Washington may be searching for an “alternative” in case of need.[43] Moreover, as the sole superpower, its larger interests in this region demand that its relations between India and Pakistan remain on track in the historical context descried above. The American Government has already a high level of cordiality with Delhi. With Pakistan’s “strategic need” for the US bound to lessen soon enough, [44] and the issue of nuclear proliferation far from closed as some might wish it to be, there are fair chances, that, despite the pessimistic possibilities pointed out by me, Washington may ensure that the blossoming of tranquil relations between the two countries is not jeopardized by any “misadventures” by Islamabad’s current military rulers.

To conclude, India’s relationship with Pakistan in terms of durability, objectively speaking, is dependent on the respect and prevalence of Rule of Law and Constitutionalism in Islamabad. [45] Real questions of war and peace are better handled by representative governments as they have superior perspectives in view and interests at heart that can never be arrogated by self proclaimed protectors or by those who usurp public trust and authority. The lack of a democratic system in Pakistan is thus not only a threat to the wider strategic prospects of peace between the two major South Asian countries, it poses acute dangers to the unity and cohesion of the country itself. [46] Be that as it may, the prospect of peace now being generated by the peoples of the countries is the surest bulwark against adventurism from any side, on any pretext. In Delhi, the replacement of the BJP Government by one dominated by the Congress has had little effect on the substantive factors of the peace process. However, in history credit must be give to the BJP for having brought about a fundamental change in the public perceptions of the relations between the two neighbors.

__________________

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, 2003-4, distinguished Visiting Professor JNU, Memorial Lecturer at Benaras Hindu University, JNU, Mumbai University &Ambadkar Center, Auranagbad, 2004-5; President, Pakistan Family Forum, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Pakistan Bar Association at Lahore, 2003/4. Given King Faisal Memorial Award, 2002 and awarded in 2003 the International Professor of Human Rights Recognition from a galaxy of international professor by Saudi Arabia

2 See The Nation, 21st March 2004.

3 See Op cit. where I say: “ No wonder in inter se comparisons with Pakistan, the highest Government functionaries of even the US have to say that “India is an emerging Power.” I do not think by this description they mean a nation with a few atomic and hydrogen bombs. They surely mean a country with a growing international clout with a settled democratic base.”

4 See ibid.

5 “Azad Kashmir” a part of the state is under Pakistan control.

6 Compared to around 3 % of Pakistan despite exaggerated claims for this purpose by Musharraf regime.

7 On 14 April in a BBC Hard Talk interview, Musharraf publicly admitted that in Pakistan the Office of the Chief of Army Staff was most important, as the Army was the most important institution of the State. Since this assertion is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, it is manifest that open pronouncements of this nature can be made (clearly amounting to a subversion of the Constitution) because instead of principles, expediency has the upper hand in the Pakistani body politic. See further a monographic work of the author: A Juridical Critique of Successful Treason, Stanford Journal of International Law, 1984, 191.

8 This author at that time was Advisor for International Affairs and Law to the Prime Minister.

9 However see Nawai-Waqt, 19 April 2004, which reproduces a Statement by Air Marshall (rtd.) Asghar Khan that both the 1965 and 1971 war with India was started by Pakistan and not India.

10 See note 4 Supra. It is astonishing that, to a major foreign journalistic organization such as the BBC, Musharraf openly admitted to this fact.

11 In early 1990when Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister and then in 1999 when Nawaz Sharif held this office, newspaper reports are supportive of the perspective that such moves towards “cordiality” vis-à-vis India, were not approved by the army high command. Indeed, General Musharraf who held the highest army office in Pakistan in 1999 is reported to have refused to show the courtesy of appropriate protocol to the visiting Indian Prime Minister on his arrival at Lahore at the Wagah border.

12 See The News, &The Dawn, 26 April 2000, detailing the speech made during the Islamabad 4 hour stop over by President Clinton regarding the coup of Musharraf against the Sharif Government.

13 No such reference to Pakistan was seen by me while watching Indian daily TV news programs. Indeed, there is hardly any reference to Pakistan.

14 On the advent of the New Year, 2004, General Musharraf, went through the apparent “juridical” exercise of having the five Elected Assemblies of the Federation and the constituent Provinces repose “confidence in him to remain as “President” until 2007. He had on the previous date 31/12/03 signed into effect the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. This was to absorb his LFO (a military edict called Leal Framework Order) to gain a tailor made document through which he could feign, howsoever feebly, that he was the President of the Republic when dealing with the world community. The timing of this move was blatantly linked specially keeping in mind the SAARC conference in Islamabad between the 4th to the 6th January 2004. His initial “election” as President through the extra-constitutional Referendum that I had challenged on behalf of the major Opposition Political Parties in the Supreme Court had held this measure to be “extra-constitutional”.

15 There has never been any election to the Office of the President of Pakistan since December 1997. As such there is no doubt that factually no election has been ever held in which Musharraf got elected to any Office, let alone that of the President. Whether it is the Referendum or the purported vote of confidence or a judgment of any court, no one ever contested any such an electoral tussle.

16 See e.g. 2003 EUEOM 99 page Report on the state of “democracy” in Pakistan.

17 Represented by Benazir Bhutto, of the Pakistan People’s Party, and Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League. Both have been Premiers twice each during the decade of the nineties in Pakistan. Both are in exile from Pakistan at the moment.

18 Important to note is the “voting” for the President’s Office held recently for Musharraf’s benefit. He was the only candidate to contest under the “amended” Constitution. Out of the total vote cast in the Federal Parliament; Musharraf only obtained 56% of the vote suggesting that his landslide alleged showing, 97 %, during the Referendum was entirely false. Secondly, he lost the majority vote in both the Frontier and Baluchistan Provinces. He therefore does not represent the Unity or the Symbol of the Federation, which is a constitutional requirement under Article 41of the Constitution. In the Federal Assembly he barely got the needed majority by gaining 191 voted which is one less than obtained by Prime Mister Jamali at the time of his confidence vote. Overall by proportionate calculations, the formula of which is contained in the Second Schedule of the Constitution, Musharraf only got 53.28 percent of the vote. So with all the arm- twisting, bribery and straightforward duress that the Pakistani Governments are infamous for historically for the self-perpetuation of an incumbent administration or office holder, Musharraf’s showing is abysmal.

19 Under the 17th Amendment to the Constitution enacted by Musharraf himself, he must relinquish one of the two offices he holds by 31st December 2004.

20 On 25th January 2000 Musharraf dismissed the Chief Justice of Pakistan and six senior most judges, all from Sindh, who had refused to take an Oath to support the Military junta. Thereafter the military government has really been interfering in the structure of judiciary: see 10 November 2004 Report of the International Crisis Group, Paris, entitled: Building Judicial Independence in Pakistan.

21 In Asma Jilani Case the Supreme Court held in 1972 that military coups amounted to a “usurpation” of the country Constitutional authority; importantly such military commanders were “usurpers”.

22 Musharraf in 2000 dismissed the Chief Justice and the six Senior Judges of the Supreme Court who refused to accept his new Oath of Allegiance to him alone. It is still quite embarrassing that Pakistan, arguably the most important Islamic nation, has, a non-elected military chief of army staff as the country’s President! On the other hand whatever may be said about India, it cannot be denied that it has elected a Muslim intellectual to be the Republic’s President.

23 See generally present author’s recent book, Pakistan: Constitutionalism Restored? 1997.

24 Testimony of March 30,1966, Foreign Assistance Act of 1966: hearings Before the committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, p 269.

25 See Brands Op cit. p 267: “The same considerations suggest that the traditional American view that it is in US interests that India and Pa

26 This has manifest relevance with regard to the nuclear status of the two major Sub-Continental states, to matters relating to nuclear proliferation and the potential position of India as an emerging regional “power”.

27 The concept of “wrong hands” remains though its “identity” has changed. At that time it was the Communist dominated north, now conceivably the “ Islamic fundamentalists” would be considered to be equally opposed to it by Washington.

28 This is quite interesting since both emerged from “British India”, one country until 1947.

29 See Brands, India, Pakistan & the Great Powers, 1972, P158.

30 India was initially quite puzzled by non-manifest US support keeping in mind the declared American position by which it considered China as a regional “threat”. However, in a major speech in Delhi on August 8, 1962 Ambassador Galbraith explained his government’s position and urged restraint lest it might worsen the cold war implications. Two former US Ambassadors to India Chester Bowles and John Sherman Cooper, despite their overt friendship with India had shared such views.

31 See Wayne A. Wilcox, India, Pakistan and the Rise of China, 1964

32 ibid. P 75

33 See President Johnson’s declaration that no further said would be given until India and Pakistan worked out an understanding for living more peacefully, The New York Times, September 30, 1965.

34 See Brands Op cit, p 257 where it said: “We seldom recognize one unique aspect of America’s experience in world affairs---its lack of involvement except when confronted with an acute threat to its security”.

35 This concern is based on the of repeated American pronouncements that (1) it considers it vitally important that Islamabad’s nuclear assets do not fall into “wrong hands”, (2) the internal security of Pakistan is very unpredictable, and (3) the lack of a settled political system on account of frequent military adventurism in the affairs of the State.

36 The “wana” operation started in Pakistan’s Musharraf regime against “rebellious” foreign and local elements (of the fundamentalist variety) in South Waziristan on 15th March 2004, in military terms was only a limited success. The Economist opined that though Islamabad admitted to losing around 50 solders, actually lost over 150. This first major armed action within Pakistan by its military after 1971 has opened up another wide area of concern and raised many questions that have to be comprehended and understood by the Pakistan Administration if adverse fallout to the security interests of the state has to be avoided.

37 For instance in the 3rd week of April 2004 it was officially announced in Pakistan by the relevant quarters that American use of its airbases, particularly in Sindh at Shabaz had all but been given up by the US.

38 See note 8 Supra.

39 Much stress has been laid in this respect by the Bush Administration to continue the war against “terrorism” as long as it takes. But it is doubtful if it will really be long-lasting keeping in mind the current crisis in Iraq and the rising spiral of anti-American feelings in the area.

40 See for instance the testimony of Richard Clarke, former Chief of Anti-Terrorism in the White House before the 9/11 Commission. He maintains that by going after other political targets like Iraq, “which had nothing to do with international terrorism”, already US has seemingly lost long-term interests in acting against international terrorism.

41 See, for instance, the statement of Foreign Office Spokesman of Pakistani Government in Nawai-Waqt, 25 April 2004.

42 General Musharraf complained recently in a press interview with the Washington Post that while the Administration was all for him, he felt that US media was not.

43 Some analysts like General Aslam Beg, the former Chief of Army Staff, think that that the current administrative setup of the armed forces as created by the appointments made by Musharraf are such, that such an eventuality has already been taken care of him.

44 But see the statement of Secretary of State Colin Powel on 16th March 2004 in Islamabad that because of its assistance to US in its war against terrorism, Pakistan was “ a non NATO ally.” Exactly what this means is unclear and whether such a status can be conferred without congressional approval is questionable.

45 See generally present author’s recent book, Pakistan: Constitutionalism Restored? 1997.

46 The National Security Act demanded by Musharraf was enacted into law in the Senate of Pakistan in less than three minutes in April 2004. A controversial head of state like Musharraf and a parliament that enacts such fascist type legislation which allows the four army chiefs to sit and advise and monitor civilian institutions in the country hardly augers well for the country’s “democratic credentials”. There is no gainsaying the fact that it is none of the business of the army of any country to so openly interfere in the politics of that state. It is more than likely that a serving general who has taken over the supreme authority of a state is more concerned with multifarious problems dealing with his “legitimacy” than with real and live substantive and delicate questions relating to diplomatic progress in a region.

Steele Goes After Cheney 

On his excellent site, Robert Steele has a PORTAL: Collective Intelligence

Here is his COMMENT of 3 Nov 05.

Two forces have come together in our mind in the past week, and today we acknowledge both. On the one hand, as we further our strategy of Googlizing intelligence (Google still cannot data mine, visualize, game, translate, or connect people quickly with one another and with relevant information, but that is coming), we have realized this week that the pathologies of the secret intelligence community are what enabled the pathologies of the neo-conservatives, aided by the dishonest vapidity of most Members of the Senate and the House--the Republicans cravenly took orders from the White House (Dick Cheney specifically, as President Pro Tem of the Senate), and the Democrats cravenly let themselves get steam-rolled and sold out their constituencies as the extremeist Republicans sold out their country.

Secret intelligence is for all practical purposes dead as a force for good. At this time, with the $9 billiion satellite as the poster child of classified idiocy, the US Intelligence Community is a sucking chest wound in the Executive Branch, and unlikely to be operated on in a meanigful way anytime soon. However, and we are moved with admiration for Ambassador Joseph Wilson, this week we also saw the power of truth and openness.

In our 53 years on this planet, we have never seen a more balanced, elegant, articulate, exposition of relevant truth and honor as we witnessed when Ambassador Wilson spoke to the National Press Club this week, as covered by C-SPAN. It became crystal clear that it is Dick Cheney that has betrayed all Americans, and the Republic, many many times.

While we opposed the war and spoke truth to power in the run up to the war, and we have an adequate record of intregrity and honor, Ambassador Wilson caused us to realize that we had not done enough. Today we have released the final in a series of press releases relevant to America's difficulties in the world. Today's press release is somewhat unique in that it went to US1 (all outlets everywhere), to the paid lists of senior journalists that cover the White House, the Pentagon, and Foreign Affairs, to every publisher in America, and by fax, to every Member of Congress.

This release itemizes the crimes that Cheney has committed, and calls for his resignation before Christmas. Karl Rove, while he may be a maggot, is not the real deal. It will not be enough for Congress to pretend to go after Rove, all the while protecting Cheney. Cheney has been "outed" (in more ways than one, but we won't go there). Now we get to see if the American people, and the rather lazy unimaginative "Fourth Estate" called the media, will do the job of making Cheney untenable as a sitting Vice President. If Cheney does not resign before Christmas, ideally to be replaced by John McCain, whom we would eagerly support for President in 2008, then this country can kiss good-bye to whatever hopes it might have had of suriving the multiple debacles that have enriched Cheney while gouging flesh and blood from the Republic.

It is time for all men and women of good will who care for this wonderful country called America, to stand and be counted. IOP '06 is not a money-making event, but if you want to be subtle, sign up for it, and we promise a grand surprise. It is hard, we know, to do the right thing in the face of enormous bureaucratic and professional pressure. What Ambassador Wilson did at the National Press Club was nothing short of releasing the pressure valve. It's over--Dick Cheney is history. The only question is: will America rise to the occasion? God Bless America, which is no longer represented by the likes of Dick Cheney. St.

Press Release [MS Word format].

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.

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?

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.

_____________________________________

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

Why do we need Big Broadband?

There are now emerging a number of reasons we will soon demand Big Broadband. Participatory Culture and their open source project DTV and most especially their Broadcast Machine is but one.

Broadcast Machine is software you install on your website to easily publish video files and create internet TV channels. Broadcast Machine gives you the option of using torrent technology to reduce or eliminate bandwidth costs, even when you are posting high quality video to thousands of people. It is free, open source software, and is designed for easy installation. Broadcast Machine features an intuitive interface, integrated torrent creation, and flexible channel management. It also creates a browsable archive of videos on your website. Broadcast Machine is the prefect publishing tool for making channels that work with DTV: Internet TV.

A second, but not yet released, driver of demand for Big Bandband will be Six Apart's Project Comet. The goal of the project is to bring multi-media "webblogging into the mainstream."

A third, but more conventional, driver of demand for Big Broadband will be Super HD [4K TV]. This is the best TV today's technology can deliver. It requires 1.2 gigabits per second. But hey, we all want the best.

At the same time that these developments are emerging, the cost of connectivity is dropping significantly. One gigabit of connectivity that sold at wholesale for $20,000 per month in July of 2004 now sells for just $13,000 per month. This is an amazing reduction of 35% in just one year. Consider also that well over half the fiber optic strands already in place in America is still unused, or "dark fiber". It is simply waiting to be lit.

Taken together, these developments have very serious implications for a remarkable growth in demand for upstream bandwidth. Imagine if only 10% of the U.S. population, using the Broadcast Machine or Project Comet, took to uploading creative video works on a regular basis. Sudenly we would have 30 million new TV "channels". Suppose our educational system started to require students to create projects using full multi-media? How many student TV stations would that create as they sought to share their projects with teachers, friends and family members scattered far and wide? What happens when students want to use Super HD for their productions?

Could this happen? My guess is that 10% is a low estimate. Why?

As James Burke says in episodes 5 and 6 of his 1979 TV series "Connections", the era of "modern" and "scientific" mechanized mass production has us all living in the same city, with the same twice a day traffic jams, wearing the same clothes, driving the same cars, with the same sorts of stuff in our houses and pockets and worse, as the environment degrades.

Perhaps the current right wing counter revolution, a turn back to the dark ages of dogma enforced by inquisitions, with a rejection of the notion that if you can not prove it you can not believe it, the "fact-based" reality approach, is simply a classic reaction to the conditions Burke describes so well.

Could it be the case, however, that offerings such as The Broadcast machine, are, in fact, modern solutions to the modern condition of technologically imposed sameness? The ability of every person to have the ready ability and where with all to make unique content that nobody else has, that is not mass produced and not in everyone's pocket nor in everyone's house, is an important new development. After 100 years of monologue imposed by our exclusion from mass media, for reasons both technological and capital, we suddenly now have the ability to express ourselves in our unique and authentic voices when, where, and how we please. This is revolutionary.

As Marshall McLuhan observed, new technologies at first imitate what has come before. Films imitated stage production for a number of years before D. W. Griffith made Birth of a Nation in 1915 and showed the world what movies could be. Or take photography in its first decades, it too often imitated painting. TV began by imitating film and radio.

The internet has not been an exception to McLuhan's analysis. The internet and the world wide web have, in effect, spent the last twenty years exploring new ways to do text, numbers, graphics, radio and TV. So far we have basically only seen old solutions incrementally improved and in new easier to access guises.

The new Peer to Peer tools that allow individuals at the edges of the networks to easily cooperate with each other, while by-passing all of the obstacles created by governments, corporations and the significant hub and spoke inefficiencies found in the center, are some of the first truly new things to emerge from the internet/www synergy.

All of the required pieces, ala Connections, are now seemingly present and suddenly, and unpredicted, we have open source DTV and the Broadcast Machine, Project Comet, as well as the coming Super HD. This is a radical departure from the notion behind all of the traditional broadcast models of the past. No more technological or capital barriers to entry. No more having to ask governments for permission. No more government agencies acting as agents of Speech Control. No more government enforced unequal voices. No more barriers created by regulatoriums artificially creating spectrum scarcity.

90 years later, could this be our Birth of a Nation moment? Now that we can all have our "authentic" voices back again, how will we use them? Can we over come the McLuhan's warning in Gutenburg Galaxey as quoted in the Wikipedia?

Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence. [...] Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time. [...] In our long striving to recover for the Western world a unity of sensibility and of thought and feeling we have no more been prepared to accept the tribal consequences of such unity than we were ready for the fragmentation of the human psyche by print culture. (Galaxy p. 32)

I am a Reform Democrat

By: Jean Camp

I am a Reform Democrat. I want to reform the party all the way back to the last century. Decades ago, Democrats defined what we stood for:

freedom of speech
even to disagree with the government

freedom from want
a nation of charity without homelessness and hunger

freedom of worship
no state interference in internal religious debates

freedom from fear
functioning police, military and emergency services

I am blogging this now because it is safe to disagree. For a while disagreement was unpatriotic. Disagreeing was harming young men and women already in harm’s way in Central Asia. I was a bad American. Now I can write this. I know that some people will flame this. I know that common courtesy is now decried as politically correct. But I can speak, and you can declare you desire to silence me. And both are better than any alternative.

We can be free to speak but not free from speech.

When I was a child, I had never seen a homeless person. I saw people who depended on the government. We held church suppers in places where the only landlord was the government. I stood in line with kids with free lunch tickets. There were not homeless families. There were no “bag ladies”, also known as homeless women. Why did that change? Reagan’s American decided to embrace homelessness by stopping the construction of large housing projects. Reagan’s American and various ideological fools decided to institute homelessness for the mentally ill by closing down the hospitals and homes for the chronically mentally ill. It was later, shortly after I learned to drive, that I saw entire families standing up by the highway desperate for a better place and with nothing left to leave.

We can be free from homelessness as a nation.

When I was a child, I learned the words “integration” and “segregation” and “desegregation” in first grade. I didn’t use “desegregation” until the third grade. I could understand that the other two were opposite but that third word was a bit too complicated. I understood that the schools were the public charge, but that there were some churches that sought integration and some that did not. In many churches the congregation was deeply divided. Today, issues that belong in church, like the death of poor wasted Terri Schiavo, are in Congress. There is an effort to decide who my pastor can marry, by defining marriage in the Constitution. I can change churches if I have deep spiritual disagreements, or even change religions. But what about when the religion is put into the Constitution?

We can live with those who worship differently, who believe different, in a different God or looking at a different face of the same God. We can be free in worship.

When I became a mother, I learned the advice “tell your child to talk to a policemen if lost” no longer works. With the privatization of policing there is not enough oversight. We learned Sept 11 that the private security firms work for the first class passengers, whoever they are. You cannot trust some random minimum wage worker with your child because the mall has given him a uniform. Now parents say, “Find a lady with a stroller. She will help you.” The common interests of motherhood with hope that the person is kind has replaced the faith that a uniform and charge to protect the public interest has meaning. Privatization of security means the security firms don’t work for all of us.

We can be free from fear of those in uniform, return to a system where the police served us all.

All these freedoms are what generations of Americans have fought for, and waves of first-generation of Americans have sought.

I am Reform Democrat. I believe in freedom, like the Democrats before me. Reform, return, and remember why we are Democrats.

Let the Children Lead

By: Dana Blankenhorn

I have written often here about "generational politics," the idea that current politics are dominated by the issues and attitudes and alliances of the Nixon Era, and that a new kind of politics is needed to move forward.

What has happened in the past is that new leadership groups came along, at the tail end of an earlier era, who began the turn which culminated as the younger cadres they recruited came of age.

Let me shorten that. Young people are the key.

In the 1960s conservatives were funding a host of organizations, like the Young Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom, who drew stares and snickers on their college campuses, but who would wind up running the country through Reaganisn and right until today.

The netroots are a great source for these people. The Dean campaign was a great source for these people.

My point is we need to reach out and create organizational structures, and causes, that will bring us more of these people.

And then we need to let go. We can guide, we can help, we can offer wisdom. But this is their world. We need to consider just how to empower them.

I think churches can help us in this. Last night I picked up my son from a youth group meeting sponsored by his church. They were discussing what to do about Katrina, and what to do about their own plans for a pilgrimage to Scotland. There were some church elders there, and some heated discussions. But the point is the kids were heard, their feelings were validated, and they were empowered by the experience.

One big advantage a liberal church (like the one my son goes to) has over a conservative one is just this – they listen. And they follow. The priorities of these young people are going to become the priorities that are followed, certainly based on guidance, but followed.

That’s the model I want to see us adopt. We need to listen to younger people, empower them, guide them, nurture them, then let them go.

And then hope they are ready to support our retirements, whenever those retirements happen.

Dana Blankenhorn dana@a-clue.com
Editor: voic.us

Inequality Matters - Class Warfare

On June 03, 2004, Bill Moyers gave an excellent keynote speech: This is the Fight of Our Lives at the Inequality Matters Forum hosted by New York University.

"The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand.' This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us."

Moyers goes on to call this lie by its proper name: Class Warfare.

You just can't make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.

But what they are doing to middle class and working Americans - and to the workings of American democracy - is no laughing matter. Go online and read the transcripts of Enron traders in the energy crisis four years ago, discussing how they were manipulating the California power market in telephone calls in which they gloat about ripping off "those poor grandmothers." Read how they talk about political contributions to politicians like "Kenny Boy" Lay's best friend George W. Bush. Go on line and read how Citigroup has been fined $70 Million for abuses in loans to low-income, high risk borrowers - the largest penalty ever imposed by the Federal Reserve. A few clicks later, you can find the story of how a subsidiary of the corporate computer giant NEC has been fined over $20 million after pleading guilty to corruption in a federal plan to bring Internet access to poor schools and libraries. And this, the story says, is just one piece of a nationwide scheme to rip off the government and the poor.

Let's face the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the poor; if driving the country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor; if squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a nation of serfs - if this isn't class war, what is?

It's un-American. It's unpatriotic. And it's wrong.

Over a year has passed since this speech was given, and video taped, and still the opposition to the Bush regime, Republican, Independent and Democratic has been unable to call the rampant pathology attacking our core values by it proper name: class warfare.

Until we find the courage to unabashedly name the pathology besetting us with its true name, there can be no cure. When will we find the courage to speak the truth to power? How many Katrinas and Iraqs must we endure?

Video, Windows Media Player format, of Moyer's talk is here. Or here with videos of Barbara Ehrenreich, Robert Franklin, William Greider, David Williams and more.

Note: Works with MS Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player ONLY!

Do We Take the Internet Seriously?

Thomas Friedman asked a key question in his recent NY Times op-ed: Eating Our Lunch.

Being a tiny city-state of four million, Singapore is obsessed with nurturing every ounce of talent of every single citizen. That is why, although its fourth and eighth graders already score at the top of the Timss international math and science tests, Singapore has been introducing more innovations into schools. Its government understands that in a flattening world, where more and more jobs can go anywhere, it's not enough to just stay ahead of its neighbors. It has to stay ahead of everyone - including us.

Message to America: They are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top.

Friedman goes on to write that Singapore takes the internet seriously, and by implication asks if we do too.

Friedman, however, left off a very important question: Is the internet for corporations or the people? Is it a force for fossilization or a force for enabling the future?

To put it another way: is the internet about the government working as the hand maiden of the Hollywood cartel in a vain attempt to stop evolution and lock us in the past, or is it about the government working with the people to catalyze innovation and new economic opportunities for our future?

Current proposed legislation offered by Texas Republican Joe Barton, and the existing Digital Rights Management [DRM] and recently revised copyright laws, tend to point in the direction that the government is taking the approach that the internet is for corporations. What we affectionately call "The Cartel" wants the government to enshrine their obsolete business models in the law of the land. They want to be able to control what you do with the computers, and related equipment, you buy with your own funds, for your own private use. They do NOT want to have to re-invent their business model. For example, given today's new Peer to Peer distribution tools, why do we need movie distributors at all?

The market needs to evolve and adapt. Today, however, it is, with government connivance, fighting this necessary process tooth and nail. This is a disaster for innovation and our future economic vitality.

This corrupt and anti-democratic alliance of the government with the cartels is not too far removed from telling a woman what she can do with her body or what consenting adults can do in the privacy of their bedrooms. It fundamnentaly denies choice. The unholy marriage of the government with the cartel in alliance against the rights of the people is shockingly close to classical fascism as well.

When, and if, the Democratic party reforms itself to once again become the progressive populist party for, of, and by the people, not The Money, we might hope to see some positive changes that would once again favor the stimulation of innovation and education.

Along these lines, consider that the wireless community was able to quickly establish FREE Voice over Internet communications for Katrina victims, but this same community was locked out of a recent FCC meeting to review communications failures resulting from Katrina. Why? Is this the best way to promote the innovation required for our future economic viability?

Or we might ask ourselves why the cable companies selling broadband do NOT offer certified speed tests so that consumers can evaluate the quality of the connection and services they are getting. For example, I pay Comcast an extra $10 per month for their faster Pro package. This is supposed to give me "upto" 6 Mbps as my connection speed. Recent testing showed I was getting less than 2 Mbps. Note that the Comcast contract does NOT provide any contractual performance obligations that Comcast must meet. This is neither consumer nor citizen friendly. It is lopsidely corporation friendly. Is this what we fought the Revolution for? To protect the relationship between the Crown and the East India Company? The GOP has successfully, in too close collaboration with post 1980s Democrats, re-instated the model of the Crown in bed with the East India Company.

The asymmetrical Comcast model of the internet is simply as a pipe for the cartel to force feed their content down our consumer throats. What are we, just geese for fattening? Are the resultant consumerism and cult of celebrity the new opiate of the masses that prevents us from confronting the hard "reality" hurricane Katrina forced us to look at - if even briefly? It certainly does not look like an internet we the people want to use to create and distribute our own works and to create economic engine of cooperative gain.

The evidence, a look into "The Darknet", shows that we the people are changing the ecology of culture, politics and economics in spite of the best efforts of the cartels to stop change and evolution dead in their tracks. Are the cartels setting themselves up to become fossils before our eyes? In many cases today, more bits are flowing up and out from citizen's devices than are being downloaded from the Hollywood providers. Technically this is called reverse asymmetry. Something on the order of 60% of all internet traffic is now citizens working directly with other citizens - by passing the government and corporate obstacles in the center.

The resistance of the governments and corporations to change is merely a symptom of the larger problems facing us. Katrina is also only a symptom. Fixing New Orleans with out addressing the larger systems problems will be like putting a band-aid on rapidly metastasizing malignant tumor. Futile. But where are the Democrats? Why are they not warning us of the false sense of security the New Orleans band-aid will create?

When will our political and cultural leaders start addressing the larger systems problems represented by such thins as inevitable pandemics, Bird flu anyone? Global Warming, and the End of the Carbon Energy era? How well do you think FEMA will deal with these impending challenges to our way of life? Are all of these coming events evidence of the ultimate failures of the old paradigms that guided our lives in the past? Do we have the courage to confront this failure of our "story maps"? Do we have the courage to openly explore new territory in our search for new solutions?

Is it actually time to let the sun shine in and focus on putting our own house in order before we have the imperial arrogance to impose our ways on others via the WTO, baseless and counter productive invasions of other's sovereign territory, The world Bank, etc? Have we lost sight of the beam in our own eye as we carp about the motes in the eyes of others'?

The evidence is that the current hub and spoke, top down, organizational and operational models, the very models that got us into the situation we are now in, will NOT be able to get us out of it. Do we have the courage to abandon it before it brings us down? The alternatives are out there, ready to be recognized and embraced.

In the end, where is the Democratic party in providing the leadership out of the past and into the future?

Women in Islam: Distinction Between Religious & Fundamentalist Approaches?

Professor Dr. Farooq Hassan [1]
Special UN Ambassador for Family

Synopsis of a Paper presented at the Paris International Conference on Women (Conference internationale des femmes a Paris) on Women, Islam & Equality ( Les femmes, l’ Islam, l’egalite ) held by Women, Auvers sur Oise, Paris

Paris, France, 27 August 2005

I am very privileged to address this learned and distinguished gathering of outstanding contemporary scholars of Islam and trans-national culture and historiography. Such intellectual leadership of acknowledged theoreticians and activists of these fields would greatly assist the enormously delicate subject of Women in Islam as evident and perceived in the troubled contemporary prevalent time.

In this analysis, the doctrinal and place of women as found in the basic sources of Islam in contra-distinction to such an evaluation from “fundamentalist” perspectives will be examined. The “delicacy”, to which I refer to, arises not because of a priori intricacy of the theme or content of this topic. It is also not connected with any specific inherent predilection about such a consequence being inevitable while analyzing Islam. It emanates in the context of the current highly charged political, strategic and social upheavals that are in evidence since the beginning of the present millennium in countries where we have large Muslim populations.

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. 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 about women, without examining the totality of the surrounding phenomenon, which is essentially political and cultural in nature, would be incomplete, perhaps giving rise to even misleading conclusions. As such, I sincerely felicitate the organizers of this truly significant meeting as they manifestly have the vision to find answers to such contentious inquiries at the present time.

Preliminary perspectives

Before examining the relevant issues relating to this matter, let me articulate, broadly of course, my a fortiori understanding of this subject. As I see it, any 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.

However, let me at the outset make a point of vital significance. From a theological viewpoint, all Muslims must believe in five essential or “fundamental” tenets of Islam. As such, do all Muslims qualify for the description of “fundamentalists”? From a doctrinal theological viewpoint the answer would seem to be in the affirmative. Although there do exit different major sects, even branches in Islam, the distinction inter se is not based on a diverse understanding of their beliefs in the core texts or basic scriptures of the Islamic faith. The differences are essentially descriptive of the peripheral or incidental rituals or beliefs of their adherents qua non basic postulates of their approaches to religion. [2]

It should be borne in mind, therefore, that, while using the term “fundamentalist”, what is really aimed to be stressed is the “extremist” connotations in some peoples mind about some specific conceptions that some Muslim groups have in terms of the socio-economical, political or cultural biases that are contrary to the norms and practices of the civil society even amongst the Muslims. It is not really a doctrinal theological delineation that is being emphasized when such a term is used.

In other words, historically, the usage of this term, while signifying rigidity in a pejorative sense, is essentially descriptive of a political or a societal attitude rather than a theological one. Until around the 1980’s, the term used to designate such beliefs amongst Muslims was “Islamists”. Then the term “fundamentalist” gained currency and was accepted as such until very recently by mostly the Western press and governments. In the wake of the two recent wars, in Afghanistan and then Iraq, the phraseology seems to have changed. Now the preferred term is “extremist”. Be that as it may, I have no problem with any of these terms so long as the concept being advanced is clearly understood. [3]

But diverse problems begin to arise when such concepts and terms get mixed 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.

Indeed, sometimes it is not easy to decipher whether the prejudices against women in Islamic societies, properly so-called, are the result of “religious” misunderstandings or just cultural heritage of a locality or straightforward political machinations of the proponents of such attitudes. [4]

I personally feel that fundamentalism in this sense 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 for the same motivation. It can equally emanate as a tool or modality of raw power struggle nationally or internationally. No religion is fundamentalist in the 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 Hindus, Christians, 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 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 the ensuing analysis, let me advert initially to the place and content of women within the confines of Islamic doctrinal postulates. After traversing these norms, we shall see the “fundamentalist” versions of such issues to reveal the manner through which the puritanical message of the faith is being gradually eroded. [7]

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 on the basis of my own belief 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 men and women 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 positioning of 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 times. [8] God calls human beings as “Ashraf ul Mukhlukat”, or “the greatest of all his creations”. A fortiori, this concept covers both men and women. It also envisages changes in societal behavior which are natural and inevitable as history moves on. It should follow that inequality between men and women can not be contemplated by basic Islamic postulates or that it can not be genuinely progressive.

Understanding Islam’s doctrinal messages

Islam places, as elaborated hereinafter, the highest significance in life to family (as an institution), towards its different members, in particular women and children. The duty of “care” and “responsibility” is directly vested in those who have the ability to provide help to others in the family that need such aid. The message of Islam is contained in the word of God, the Holy Quran itself. Reference to such citations will hopefully stress the high significance that Islam places on this matter.

Throughout its history, the 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 and women. Simultaneously, the jurisprudence and moral philosophy of the faith also acutely focuses on the larger matter pertaining to the subject of human rights of these categories of the human race.

This discussion proceeds in the background [context] of the 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 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 [evolved], realistically speaking, from being imperceptible to being highly 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 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 when 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 social tend to disappear.

In face of such an onslaught, many Islamic leaders have plainly become afraid and 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. It is in this context, in a Hegelian sense of historical perspective, that recent political events towards a “secularized” Islamic World have to be seen. [9] Different phrases to denote this emphasis are employed by powers and forces 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 includes one of treating women differently than is expected by good and decent Muslim societies. 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 [10].

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. Fundamentalists may have, thus, reasonable political grounds for doing what they are in the process of undertaking. However, to do so in the name of Islam is both unjustified and regrettable.

Before concluding this introductory preface 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 it is of its ardent political supporters. Many crucial issues have thus been confounded by Islam's 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, [he] has often used it as an elastic cloak for political power and expediencies.” [11]

Basic Islamic conceptions regarding Family & Women

In the context of Islamic family obligations, a family is defined as “a human social group whose members are bound together by the bond of blood ties and or marital relationship” [12]. The Quranic injunctions created the basic framework of such obligations. The major thrust of such injunctions was to ameliorate the position of women and to grant to daughters rights and privileges ignored by the ancient customs which were present at the advent of Islam. “These Quranic reforms, as well as customary practice, constitute the substance of classical family law” in Muslim philosophy. [13]

The basic perception of marriage, which is considered to be the foundation of family life, is in the nature of “the strongest bond” [14] that exists in human relations. Surah 4: An-Nisa allows marriage of choice but forbids husband from inheriting the wife’s property against her will. [15] According to Quran, men and women have equitable and proportionate rights and responsibilities in a family. In order to preserve the survival of the family unit and to ensure the viability of the institution, it has been provided that the weaker elements in this unit have higher levels of protection. As such, the Quran allows the rights of women not only in the context of marriage [16], but also in protection from slander [17], maintenance [18], and care of children [19]. The cumulative quintessence of these diverse injunctions regarding the family as a social unit signifies that laws of Divine origin are in place to ensure the integrity of this unit.

In this scheme of the preservation of the family as a unit in a society described briefly above, the Islamic message seems to be to:

1. Make marriage based on free consent.

2. Preserve the economic viability of the wife.

3. Make the off spring, with great emphasis on the females of this union, an integral part of this unit in which they not only owe various duties of loyalty and respect to their parents, in return the parents must exert their best moral influence on them.

(1) Position of Women

While focusing on the institution of the family, two central themes need to be recognized. First, the extraordinary “secure” position and status Islamic thought gives to females in the family. While addressing the topic of females in a family, the Quran has several direct commandments. First, female infanticide, extensively practiced in non-advanced societies throughout history, has been severely condemned. Not only did it prohibit this evil cultural heritage of that 7th Century culture in which Islam began its infancy, it rebuked the idol worshippers of Arabia who ascribed daughters to God but wanted they to have only male heirs and reacted accordingly in their prevalent social practices. The Quran says:

And they assign daughters
For Allah! Glory be to Him!
And for themselves (sons- The
Issue they desire!) When news
Is brought to them, of (the birth
Of) a female (child), his face Darkens,
And is filled with inward grief!
With shame does he hide himself
From his people because of bad
News he has had!
Shall he retain it on (sufferance and)
Contempt, or bury it in dust? Ah! What an
Evil (choice) they decide on? [20]

Islam’s initial contribution of immense historical significance lay in recognizing the status of women as equals of men. Women’s inferior position in pre-Islamic Arabian culture was reflected in them being considered as chattels. According to a leading author, “marriage closely resembled a sale through which a woman became the property of her husband.” [21] Having no importance, in either initiation or termination of marriage, she was supposed to follow her husband’s tribe and essentially bear children. Since she legally was supposed to have left her tribe, thereby she was also deemed to have relinquish all property rights therein. As a wife, a woman became totally subject to her husband and his tribe. In this background came the Quranic inunctions regarding women‘s right to be respected, particularly as a mother, property rights, and to be considered an integral party of the family unit. [22]

According to Islamic injunctions, the aim and “purpose of marriage is to create and live in an atmosphere of love, harmony and companionship to fulfill the higher purposes of life.” [23] Leading Quranic mandates concerning these aspects of God’s commandments, stressing the complimentary roles of both the sexes to each other, can be gleaned from the from following verses:

They (women) are your garments
And ye (men) are their garments [24]

And again a famous verse says:

The Believers, men
And women are protectors
One of another. [25]

Perhaps equally well known is the following commandment:

And among His (God’s) Signs
Is this, that He created
For you mates among
Yourselves, that ye may
Dwell in tranquility with them,
And He has put Love
And mercy between your (hearts):
Verily in this are signs
For those who reflect. [26]

(2) Position of Parents.

Islamic teachings lay the greatest stress on the position of parents, especially of mothers. Indeed, the Quran gives a lofty position of respect to one’s ancestry and places the status of mother’s only second to God. [27] The Quran expressly mandates:

Reverence God, through Whom
Ye demand your mutual (rights),
And (reverence) the wombs
(That bore you): for God
Ever watches over you. [28]

Further the Quran says:

And We have enjoined on man
(To be good) to his parents
In travail upon travail
Did his mother bear him,
And in years twain
Was his weaning: (hear)
The command, “ Show gratitude
To me and to thy parents’
To Me is (Thy final) Goal. [29]

In another specific commandment God says:

We have enjoined on man
Kindness to his parents:
In pain did his mother
Bear him, and in pain
Did she give him birth. In
The carrying of the (child)
To his weaning is
(A period of) thirty months. [30]

A mandate to cater for and look after aged parents is directly attended to in the Quran. It is said:

Thy Lord had decreed
That ye worship none but Him,
And that ye be kind
To parents. When one or both of them attain
Old age in life,
Say not to them a word
Of contempt, nor repel them,
But address them
In terms of honor. [31]

The underlying message in such commandments derives its ethical foundations from the concept, inter alia, of “ihsan”. This concept, which figures in diverse forms in Islamic teachings, in the words of an author, “denotes what is right, good, and beautiful.” [32] In further analysis, it has been articulated by writers that through this Divine mandate we are commanded to do "among other things, kindness, compassion, charity, reverence, conscientiousness, and sound performance”. This applies with full emphasis to the parent and child relationship. [33]

It is further clear that this basic manifestation of “ihsan” has specific reference to the inter se relations between family members. In other words, such good will that is expected to be displayed towards the rest of the people in a community, ex hypothesi, increases manifold toward one’s own kith and kin. One author remarks:

It is the Muslim’s religious duty as well as virtue to show “ihsan” to his parents, be they Muslims like himself or otherwise. Concrete behavioral manifestations of this Divine Ordinance of “ihsan” to the parents include active empathy or ‘role taking’, compassionate gratitude, patience, prayer for them even after their demise, honoring their commitments on their behalf when they can no longer do so, sincere counsel, and veneration. An integral part of the children’s absolute religious duty is to provide for their parents in case of need and help them to be as comfortable as possible. [34]

(3) Economic Responsibilities for Family & Women

Economic responsibility in the family is placed primarily on the husband. Further domestic duties are proportionately to be “shared”. However, it is the duty of the man to support his entire family within the level of his abilities in the social structure of the society. One author maintains it:

The wife’s maintenance entails her incontestable right to lodging, clothing, food, and general care. The wife’s lodge must be adequate so as to ensure her privacy, comfort, and independence. This is interpreted by three major Schools of Law to mean that the lodging quarter must befit the means and lifestyle of both mates. However, it is the wife’s home in her capacity as wife; she has exclusive right to it. None of her husband’s relatives, dependents, or any other person may live with her in the same lodge unless she voluntarily agrees o it. The main concern here seems to be the welfare of the wife and the stability of the marriage. The husband’s responsibility for the wife’s has shelter does not entitle him to impose upon her any disagreeable arrangement of residence. [35]

These observations are derived from the Quran from which the following well-known verse may be cited with advantage:

Lodge them where you are lodging, according to your means, and do not press
Them, so as to straiten their circumstances.
Let the man of plenty expend out of his plenty. As for whose provision is
Stinted for him, let him expend of what God has given him. God changes no one
Beyond his means. After difficulty, God will soon grant relief.[36]

In a family, the wife’s right to be financially maintained is established by Quranic injunctions and by unanimous consent amongst jurists of all its principal legal Schools of Law. This right is vested regardless of whether the wife is a Muslim or not, rich or poor. There is also the mention in Islamic thought that this provision of maintenance is not based on some commercial formulations but on the basis of affection, love, affection and compassion that should exist between the husband and wife. According to one writer, “The essence of marriage is compassion, of which she is entitled to receive as much as she gives. The husband too, is instructed to be a source of compassion and security for his mate, to initiate and reciprocate in kind, not only to receive.” [37]

(4) Position of Children and the weak in a Family.

The Quran mandates that young children be properly look after and nurtured. [38] It is further stated in the same injunction that the children be raised by the mutual consultation between the parents. These directions form a part of the general guidelines provided in the Quran dealing with responsibility of family members towards one another and of the responsibility of those who are in a position to help to do so with a sense of a scared duty. There is a call to the believers that those who truly believe in Him are asked to be kind and forth coming in their assistance to those in need, or are disprivileged, or are handicapped. Indeed these injunctions go as far as to impose hospitality and to providing help to the elderly kin, those who are indigent, or even for a while for those who are traveling. [39]

An allied concept to provide for those in need in the family, including women and children, is that of “Zakat”. It is a basic obligation of a Muslim to participate in social responsibilities by donating a small part of their savings to those in need. This “purifies” the person giving such assistance. While thanking God for His blessings, it is deigned to help others in distress and needing help. The Quran says:

Spend out of (the bounties)
We have provided for you,
Before the day comes
When no bargaining
(Will avail), nor friendship
Nor intercession. [40]

In order to cause encouragement in assistance of others, God says that he will multiply the rewards to the generous in the hereafter. Indeed, in one passage in the Quran, it is described as a “loan to God”: -

Who is he
That will loan to God
A beautiful loan, which God
Will multiply unto his credit
And multiply many times?
It is that God giveth (you)
Want or plenty,
And to Him shall be
Your return. [41]

One of the foremost authors on Islamic learning points out, therefore, that: “ No religion prior to Islam had consecrated charity, the support of the widow, the orphan, and the helpless poor, by enrolling among the positive enactments of the system.” [42]

(5) Doctrinal basis of “care” Rights

It may be instructive to view 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 to women. 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 the 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 a Family.

The loving and compassionate attitude of “care” reflected in this description of the Almighty is amply reflected in the Quran. [43] 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. [44] Islamic Law actually, in the positive science of its rules, demarcates two kinds of rights. The first category is that of “Rights of God” called “Haqauq Allah”. The second category is known as “ Rights of God’s creatures”. This is known as “Huqaq al ibad”. The Quran and Islamic Law are explicit in diverse ways that, unless a person fulfills both kinds of rights in his life, his totality of duties remains 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. [45] It is said in the Quran:

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. [46]

The Second basis of these rights is the Islamic conceptions of Justice. It will be see that the Quran, while addressing the matters of human relationships, laid the greatest stress on justice - again particularly its application to women deserves notice.

Whether it is a question of the rights of the members of family, or those of the people in a State, the 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 the Quran is that merit and the quality of one’s claims and demands or expectations are to be evaluated on the basis of justice and righteousness. Righteousness itself consists of three elements: Just action (“’amal”)
Adl
Accordingly, for 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. Its most eloquent expose’ 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. [47}

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. [48]

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. [49]

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. [50] It is self evident that while addressing matters relating to affection for one’s family, and allied expectation of assistance required of a Muslim community, the ingredient of “Adl”, or justice, plays a uniquely esoteric and ethical role.

Fundamentalist emphasis

In an environment of changing or even “decaying” public mores or traditions, moral and ethical Islamic doctrines can still install more progressive, yet conservative, perspectives in such important matters as those involving the development of family rights and values revolving around fundamental human rights of women. With respect to the divergence of views on issues relating to women between established Islamic values in contradistinction to fundamentalist perspectives, it is now necessary to advert to the latter.

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

Women’s education.
Women’s access to public life.
Behavioral restrictions relating to dress, participation in family and personal inter-action amongst their peers.

It will seen that the basic focus of all these three issues relate to an effort by the fundamentalist thinking to regulate the development and movements of women 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 can be more ostensible and pronounced. Such pronounced and visible denial of ordinary human liberties for women is manifestly more so in rural areas of such countries, or areas which are far flung from main urban centers. In such places, and 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 women.

In the implementation of such attitudes, the fundamentalist’s philosophy, irrespective of its depth or commitment to such convictions, believes that the bringing of women on to the domain of public or educated spectrum should not be openly allowed or at least discouraged. These attitudes have been greatly hardened by what has gone on in terms of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The resultant position being that there is clearly, from the perspectives of liberal or democratic ideals, a less than satisfactory status for the women of many such areas of the world.

I may add that local customs and culture have also to be reckoned in such societies. In some areas, this kind of state of affairs regarding women is prevalent as matter of history. Religion has nothing directly to do with it. At best, it may be attributed a “secondary” role in establishing to provide this kind of a negative milieu. Women, regardless of religion, have to comply with cultural “regulations” in their daily lives as that is how the people generally live in those localities.

For instance, in Pakistan, denial of some basic human rights of Women, as enunciated by Islam or in the accepted human rights’ texts of the international community, such as violence or honor killings, have little to do with prevalent religion (which is clearly Islam) but certainly are connected to and emanating from cultural prejudices and local customary practices. In these circumstances, while no doubt the fundamentalist elements of the society have a more visible role to play in the enforcement or compliance with such unwelcome rules of conduct devised for women by the society, it is not invariable that this is so. Ordinary people may also be the vehicle for the use of discouraging societal compulsions. The worst and most notorious cases of this kind, which were internationally condemned, were not enforced by fundamentalists but by ordinary, even, “progressive” or “modern” elements of the Pakistani society.

Conclusions

The aim of all conservatives’ elements in such environments is to ensure that the traditional male domination of the society is maintained, as that is how they have been living there for centuries. I believe that this is true of most Islamic societies, as much as for people of other faiths in similar circumstances. But, as we are only concentrating on the former, it is necessary to point out that, as such, traits of such conservative and traditional thinking have to be modified and moderated to achieve democratic levels of acceptability.

Regrettably, women in many Islamic societies are manifestly given secondary status. Even in states such as 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 [51]. Generally, the women have little by way of actual security and the issues that confront them in daily lives are seldom, if ever, given the importance they deserve. Polygamy, poverty, and absence of equality, in matters such as divorce and child custody, are legal matters still awaiting a proper redress in many an Islamic environment.

The primary foundation of achieving such a healthy metamorphosis is through education. 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 women by societal or state controls. But, whether the governments are capable of doing this, is another matter. As such, the path ahead for achieving a [just] level of human rights regime for women is not free from difficulties and problems. In these troubled times, those bent upon providing women their just and rightful place have quite a struggle ahead. Not only must they work for alleviating the societal ills pointed out above, they have to devise methods by which governments’ policies are genuinely egalitarian and not dictated by the political exigencies of these difficult time.

How they can do so is not easy to envisage. Only 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 jihadists) are branded as terrorists or at least extremists. How women rights’ elements can control such policies of a superpower is very difficult to envisage. Religion was used there for political purposes. 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 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. The later classes of people have transformed even some of the most innocuous and rhetorical sounding dogmas of liberalism and morals into one of the most ferocious political transformations of society ever witnessed in human history.

Numbered 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, Aurangabad, 2004-5 ;President, Pakistan Family Forum, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Pakistan Bar Association at Lahore, 2003/4. Given the King Faisal Award 2002 & 2003 International Professor of Human Rights Award, Saudi Arabia.

[2] The term “fundamentalist” does have an accepted meaning in Christian theology where some denominations, such as the Baptists are considered as such for their formal belief in their Written Scriptures; other Christian denominations or evangelistic movements may not have a similar understanding of such perspectives.

[3] The reason for this change is based on awareness that in the war on terror, it became difficult to describe all such actions as emanating from “religious fundamentalists” since such actions were erupting in far flung corners of the world wherein high religious adherence was not really visible. Hence to be more non-theological and more political in emphasis, the nomenclature was altered almost non-obtrusively.

[4] It is outside the limited purview of this essentially “speaking work” to examine this point in depth.

[5] Hence I use the term “fundamentalism” in this script in its “popular” sense as evident in the usage today by press and governments of diverse countries. It does not purport to be lexicographical or semantically philosophical in content. However, it useful to adopt 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 an excellent contemporary analysis see The Christian Question in American Politics, Justin E. Smith, 2004, University of Concordia, Montreal, Canada.

[7] The year 2004 was observed as the Decade of the year of Family during which a number of important international conferences were held. Noting that 2004 marks the 10th Anniversary of the United Nations’ 1994 International Year of the Family and that the Doha International Conference for the Family was welcomed by UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/58/15 (December 15, 2003). On 30 November 2004 the Doha Declaration was issued followed by the UNGA Resolution of 6 December, 2004. In none of them, however, the difficulties faced by women in Islamic countries were even mentioned.

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

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

[10] For this phenomenon in current Iran see generally Enemies of Ayatollahs, M. Mohaddassin, 2004. see further Islamic Fundamentalism & Question of Women, M. Rajavi, 2004

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

[12] Abdalati, H., Islam in Focus, American Trust Publications, Plainfield, Indiana, 1975, pp113-114.

[13] Espositio J.L. Women in Muslim Family Law, Syracuse University Press, 1982, p13

[14] Islam in Focus, ibid. p 114.

[15] Ali, A.Y. The meaning of the Holy Quran, Amana Publications, Beltsville, Maryland, 1995, pp 184,190.

[16] E.g. see Surah 2: Al Baqarah, 228

[17] E.g. see Surah 24: Al- Nur: 4-5,23

[18] E.g. see Surah 2: Al-Baqarah, 241

[19] See, ibid, 233

20 See Surah16: An Nisa: 57-59; See also Ali A.Y. The Meaning of the Holy Quran, Amana Publications, Beltsville, Maryland, 1995, p 651.

[21] See Smith, R.W.., Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, Beacon Press, Boston, 1903, p 92

[22] Women in Family Law, Ibid. p 14.

[23] Parwez, G., Islam, A Challenge to Religion, Lahore, 1968, p 342

[24] Surah 2: Al- Bakarah: 187

[25] Surah 9: At Tawbah: 71

[26] Surah 30: Ar Rum: 21

[27] See generally, Badawi J. Gender Equality in Islam: Basic Principles, American Trust Publications. Plainsfield, Indiana, 1995. p 29.

[28] Surah 4: Am- Nisa: 1

[29] Surah Luqman 31:14

[30] Surah 46: Al-Ahqaf:15

[31] Surah 17: Bani Isra’ il: 23 [32] Ati, H.A. The Family Structure in Islam, American Trust Publications, Plainsfield, Indiana, 1977, 205.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid., p 205

[35] Ibid., p 149-150

[36] Surah 65: At-Talaq: 5, 6

[37] The Family Structure in Islam, op cit. p 148

[38] Surah 2: Al Baqarah :233

[39] Surah: Surah 2 : Al: Baqarah: 177, 180,215,263,273.; Surah: 4: Al Nisa: 8,25,36,92; Suruah 5: Al Ma’iadah: 89; Surah 8: Al Anfal:41; Surah 9: At- Tuabah: 60:; Surah 30: Ar-Rum:38; Surah 33: Al-Ahzab:6, Surah 58: al Mujadilah: 4; Surah 107: Al Ma’un 1-3

[40] Surah 2: Al Baqarah: 254;

[41] Surah 2 : Al Baqarah: 245

[42] Ali, Syed Ameer, The Spirit of Islam, Pakistan Publishing House, Karachi, 1976, p 169.

[43] See , for instance, Surah 2: Al Baqarah: 186, 286; See further Surah 3 Al Amran: 145, 150,; Surah 4 : Al Nisa: 26, 28, Surah 50: Qaf: 16

[44] See, for instance, Surah 6: L An’am:160,; Surah 28: A- Qasas: 84

[45] See Surah 107Al: Ma’un.

[46] Ibid.

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

[48] Surah 49: Al Hujurat: 13

[49] Surah 4 , An Nisa: 136.

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

[51] See this author’s Op. ed. piece 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.

A Minister Fights Back on Moral Values

Dr. Robin Meyers' Speech during the 11/04 Peace Rally at OK University

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.

Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral Value—I mean what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does.

Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

Read the whole speech here

An Epic Failure of Presidential Staffing

As a former staffer in the White Office of Media Affairs, my sympathy goes out to the current White House staffers for their recent epic failure to recognize that hurricane Katrina presented their principal, POTUS, an opportunity to demonstrate strong Presidential leadership - an opportunity which, unfortunately, may become more frequent.

Consider how differently things might have turned out if they had had the imagination and innovative drive to have President Bush address the nation on Sunday, the day before Katrina began her devastation of New Orleans. A national address could have reassured the nation that the Federal government was working closely with the governors and mayors in the storm path to minimize casualties and insure prompt and efficient relief for victims. The President might even have cited the excellent storm disaster recovery results that had been achieved by his administration within the recent past in Florida.

Such a proactive approach would have set the stage for one magnificent Presidential photo-op after another, day after day. The media would have been the President’s cheer leaders. His leadership in the Katrina recovery efforts would have offset the criticisms of his leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But such good fortune was not to be. And the mistake was compounded when the staff allowed the President to make the blatantly false statement that nobody anticipated a disaster of such a magnitude. And compounded yet again when the President praised the head of FEMA for the job he was doing, when it was clear from on the ground reporting that Brown’s lackadaisical leadership was increasing Katrina’s death toll due to FEMA’s late and under-resourced response.

The questions are: why did this epic failure of presidential staffing occur? How was such a terrific opportunity for burnishing the tarnished image of their principal allowed to pass unrecognized?

The answer may well be in both their hardened and dogmatic mindset that government is THE problem, an unnecessary adjunct to unbridled market mechanisms, and their rejection of the model that government is an essential facilitator of the public good. This rejection of modern mixed market economics, the fundamental innovation that brought the world out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, may have made it impossible for them to see a positive role for government in the Katrina disaster. If government could have no positive role, then how could there be an opportunity for President Bush to turn a natural disaster to his political advantage?

For example, as Harold Myerson wrote recently in the Washington post:

Consider the congressional testimony of Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's 2000 campaign manager, who assumed the top position at FEMA in 2001. He characterized the organization as "an oversized entitlement program," and counseled states and cities to rely instead on "faith-based organizations . . . like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."

This does not sound like something anyone who viewed government as a facilitator of the public good would ever say. It is, however, exactly what someone who viewed government as the problem would, and in fact did, say.

It goes without saying that faith-based organizations have roles to play in disasters, but they do not have the required manpower, equipment and supplies to match the scale of most disasters. Nor do they, much less the private sector with its 90 day profit requirements, have the staying power for a recovery process that will be measured in years, if not decades. A government that understands its role as a facilitator and guardian of the public good, however, does.

The question remains as to what other failures the Bush view of government has or will engender.

The challenge facing those who are critics of the Bush administration is to act and sound like responsible adults, not carping and hyperventilating partisan harpies. All of us who are critics of the Bush administration, and their rejection of the role of government as a facilitator the common good, would be well advised to review the Watergate hearings to study the calm and professional manner of Sam Irving, the committee chairman, as well as Barry Goldwater, Sam Dash, Archibald Cox, Barbara Jordan, Howard Baker, judge Sirica - amongst others.

Recovering from Katrina: Failure is Not an Option

Clearly, something is now broken in America. If failure is truly not an option, then we must evolve from where we are today to something that will give us more effective principles for more robust security, both at home and abroad.

Democracy Now is producing very powerful one hour broadcasts on the crisis and chaos resulting from hurricane Katrina. These can be easily be streamed or downloaded to your computer, for free, and I highly recommend taking the time to watch the shows.

Today's show, September 02, covers many aspects of this catastrophe, both natural and man made, with strong reports on the underlying race and class issues which have made matters so much worse than they needed to have been.

Why, for example, when it was well known in New Orleans that 10s of thousands of residents [One quarter of New Orleans residents -- some 134,000 people -- don't own a car - Progress Report] could not afford private transportation of any kind, was zero effort made by any government unit to evacuate these most at risk citizens when the general evacuation order was given BEFORE the storm?

There is a strong segment in which Bush's "zero tolerance" posture is turned against him and applied to Bush and the failures of his leadership. This may be a harbinger of things to come.

Mat Gross also has a passionate post on his blog: Clueless

I've posted at least fourteen times today-- perhaps the most outrageous and disgusting day I've ever witnessed in these here United States of America. Let me just rip wholesale from Kevin Drum:

Could the people in charge of managing the catastrophe in New Orleans possibly be more clueless?

George W. Bush, President of the United States, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, following widespread eyewitness reports of refugees living like animals at the Convention Center: "I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the Convention Center who don't have food and water."

Mike Brown, Director of FEMA, referring to people who were stuck in New Orleans largely because they were too poor to afford the means to leave: "...those who are stranded, who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city..."

The aftermath of Katrina clearly shows that something is clearly broken in America. And it is not just the communications tools that, 4 years after 911 in New York, still fail our first responders. Perhaps what is broken is our current core organizational principle: top down, hub and spoke. It is past time to ask if there is a better model we could avail ourselves of.

In an earlier post here, Can the Democratic party Evolve, I suggest there is.

It is time for us to move beyond our current political and communications models and to start implementing a politics and a communications that are based upon the concepts of mesh networks. The old model served us well for a time, but now we have moved beyond the limits of its effectiveness. In 2005, we have accumulated the knowledge and the experience to move on to more effective principles.

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