Urination and Arabophobia.......

Two faces of the same coin.....

In Bangladesh, to prevent people from peeing against random walls, authorities came up with an ingenious solution. They started inscribing Arabic phrases on walls. These usually were requests not to urinate. Muslims in sub-continent neither speak nor understand Arabic, yet they treat Arabic scripture with deep respect, as they automatically assume these were verses from the Quran. The peeing stopped duly, even if temporarily.  If anything it shows the ridiculousness of ascribing arbitrary respect to words and letters from a language you don't even understand.

Here in America we are seeing the opposite.
In poconos (PA) someone forgot a small box of mid-eastern cookies in a gas station with Arabic letters (brand name and description) on it. This caused such panic that a bomb disposal squad had to be called in!  From Scranton, which is 50 miles away.

A few weeks ago, sister of a terrified receptionist at a hotel in Ohio called the cops on a businessman from UAE because he was "pledging allegiance to ISIS on the phone".  Cops rushed in to take down the wealthy businessman, who was merely talking on the phone. He later suffered a heart attack from the physical and emotional trauma. How could a receptionist who doesn't even understand Arabic be able to tell if someone is pleading allegiance to ISIS?  And even if she did speak the language, what are the exact phrases for pleading allegiance?  What is the number to call?  And is a hotel lobby in Cleveland the designated place for it?

You can't make this stuff up.....

THE WHITE CROW ON NORTH POLE AND THE BURDEN OF PROOF

I'm about to tell you the most significant and life changing reality of this universe which you have never been told. Until now. 

The universe is actually run by a white crow which sits atop a small snow mound at the North Pole.  Well-camouflaged in its white surroundings, it's impossible to observe and track. However, I had the privilege of talking to it and he gave me a lengthy code of conduct and rules of life by which all mankind should run their daily lives, down to the minutest details.  

This God crow has made me your only conduit to this supreme being and anyone who does not follow my commands in this respect will be damned to live naked in a frozen world, shivering and tormented, but never dead.  Till eternity. 

You might laugh and scoff, but if you don't believe me, I challenge to prove that there is no such crow on North Pole.  You might come up with persuasive arguments, but you will never be able to "prove" that such crow doesn't exist. 

What leads me to the diatribe above? 

For the umpteenth time, I got a retort in the form of an email from an old friend, asking me to disprove the existence of God if I can. And by inference he means that since I can't disprove it, God probably exists. 

One of the fundamental pillars of logic is that you can't prove a negative. So anyone can make any ludicrous claim about reality of life and universe, and leave the burden on others to disprove. And if hey can't disprove, then claim the validity of their belief, regardless of how ridiculous it might be. 

So I wrote to my friend what I always write to others, "Onus of disproving existence of God is not on those denying its existence, but the onus of proving its existence is on those claiming it."  

I can only wish more people would understand this basic concept.  Or am I wrong and missing something? 

San Bernadino - A lack of expression

"You must be able to verbalize and express what your feel", said Dr. Abdul Wahab our Dean.  That lesson stuck with me for a long time. Initially it was in the context of business. But over time I realized its importance in life in general. Being able to verbalize our feelings and communicate effectively is one of the key mental and psycho-synaptic skills that put us head & shoulders above other species in the animal kingdom. 

And sometimes it feels that is what lacks in the youth of Muslim world.  And it's not merely the ability to communicate, but also the realization that if your cause is just and your argument valid, you should have no fear to speak your mind, peacefully.  And keep speaking till people hear you. There is certain strength that comes from the confidence of knowing that your ethical position is defensible and your reasoning rational.  

This is the confidence we see in moral crusaders who ascend to heroism in history books. People like MLK Jr, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi..... People who maintain their resolve and never resort to violence, no mater how justified it appears. "Non-violent resistance is not for cowards" said Dr King. So if you resort to violence, either your moral position is not defensible, or your lack intellectual capacity to express your viewpoint. 

"If you lose your temper, you lose your case", said Dr Wahab. These were some of the lessons we were lucky enough to learn at IBA, Karachi University - "an island of excellence in an ocean of mediocrity" as Dr Wahab proudly liked to call it. 

Every time I see an impatient, angry man get into an argument or altercation, the thought that crosses my mind is that he (or she) is not thinking it through. So aggression (and its extreme form, violence) mostly are an exhibition of a break-down of the rational human thinking process. 

Aggression or violence might seem like a short cut to the disenfranchised to get what they want.  It is a vestigial emotion from the days of tribal battles.  Except that in the era of modern warfare it doesn't work. Otherwise Islamic terrorists would rule the world.  (It sometime doesn't work even for the ones with most modern weapons - as we saw in the aftermath of Iraq war). 

Or maybe it is just an expression of extreme anger regardless of whatever it might or might not accomplish.  

In times of increasing connectivity, everyone has a platform to voice their grievances, and consequently there is a lot of cacophony. But rational arguments, if repeated enough, will win people over time. 

However, aggression and violence are too tempting a short cut. Even if the price is your life. Such is the power of ignorance when paired with enough anger. 

THE OPIATE AND THE REFINEMENT - the Saga of Meriam Ibrahim of Sudan

I didn't understand why the guy was rolling a thick string of hash that hard on a metal plate. Later I would learn what was marijuana and how they made hash from it by repeatedly filtering, refining and concentrating it.

I was in the main bazar of Darra Adam Khel, the commercial heartland of Pakistani tribal areas. It was mid-late 80s. Soviets had been defeated with American help and the enormous surge of Afghan refugees through this corridor into Pakistan had subsided. It was somewhat safe to visit these utterly lawless areas, for not only city kids from Pakistan like me, but even the foreigners (as long as they didn't stray from the populated areas). Those were halcyon days in retrospect.

This was the other lesson in concentration and refinement I learned, other than distillation in chemistry class in high school at Hasanabdal. So when a fellow atheist (albeit of a different pedigree - an American woman from the South, a consultant in Yankee-town now) sent me the article on Meriam Ibrahim (link at the end of this note), the Sudanese woman condemned to death by a court, it made think that this might be the concentrated version of fundamentalist Islam. The purely refined opiate of the masses that has afflicted, addicted and addled the thinking of even the high courts in the biggest Islamic country by land mass, Sudan. Indonesia is the biggest Islamic country by population. These were the proud facts I had memorized in my geography class as a kid.


The virus of Islam.....

Decisions like these are the end product of generation long educational programs designed by religious enthusiasts, driven by their sometimes well-meaning, yet always misguided desire to incorporate Islamic ethos into the law of the land. Judges are drawn from the society at large and reflect its collective Weltanschauung. So while it comes as surprise and shock to some horrified westerners, to a Pakistani accustomed to seeing scenes like the summary-murderer of Pakistani politician and anti blasphemy-law activist Salman Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri being showered by rose petals, by PROFESSIONAL LAWYERS, this should be of little surprise. This is the virus of religion (Islam in this case) having completely infected and taken over the host.


The devout, the donkeys, and the death of logic.....

One of the more vile characters I recall was an Islamiat teacher (Islamiat, or Islamic studies, compulsory subject that is taught not only in high school, but thanks to a pronouncement by the fundamentalist dictator Zia, also in universities and colleges). First day of class the teacher asked if anyone can tell the difference between a donkey and a human. Many students stated the obvious. A donkey can't think - the teacher replied, it can, even if at not as advanced a level as a human being. Humans have two arms and two legs - no, the two front legs of a donkey are not all that distinguishable from arms, said the idiot teacher. Donkey doesn't have same family bonds - no, but it does have mother and father. Etc etc. The only difference, said the imbecile teacher, is that the donkey doesn't pray to Allah. And who wouldn't want to avoid being a dunce? So pray to Allah. Don't be a donkey. Case settled.

This was the contortionist logic that we were being taught at times to prove the validity of religion/Islam. I doubt that the kids in Stuyvesant High or Horace Man in NYC were being taught by teachers that devoid of common sense, an ideology that required such mind bending arguments. At least I hope not. 

Smoke, mirrors, and dirty laundry.....

My fellow Pakistanis think I'm sometimes too hard on Islam. Maybe I am. Some of my admitted stories about our primary teaching are downright embarrassing, bound to make people uncomfortable in a culture where saving face is paramount. But perhaps I have lived in Yankee-land for too long. A land where people have no qualms about washing their dirty laundry in public, admitting their shortcomings, and welcoming constructive criticism even if harsh. Extremists within tea party and the bible-thumping patriotic lunatic fringe excluded.

If we are to make any ideology a guiding principle of life and source of our laws, then we have to debate it vigorously. We can't hide behind smoke and mirror world of generally applicable ethics masquerading as Islamic values and hence "proving" the truth and validity of Islam and declaring it as the final and unquestionable truth.

It's also true that other religions (at least the Abrahamic ones) are not all that different from Islam in essence and basic teachings. Difference is that those religions, especially Christianity, went through reforms. Which diluted them significantly. Islam needs similar reforms. Which in essence will mean less Islam in Islam, and its diminished role in writing constitution and devising the laws of the land.

Judaism unfortunately still contains much fundamentalism. But being a much smaller religion, practiced officially in only one country as state religion, it does not engender the same territorial influence as Islam, even if it exerts significant economic and political influence.

It's also true that ridding a country of Islam or other Abrahamic religions (or any religion) would not necessarily remove extremism, intolerance, and superstition, or instill progressive thinking. After all Haiti has voodoo religion which can be deeply superstitious, parts of Africa have extreme bigotry and intolerance even though they are not religious, and even the godless Chinese can be very superstitious. What we have to fight is extremism, superstition, fanaticism and muddled thinking in all its forms. It's an unfortunate reality that current day Islam occupies a high perch amid these outdated and bankrupt ideologies.

Mariam Ibrahim will likely (and hopefully) be freed under the western pressure, courtesy of Sudan's economic dependence on the outside world. But she will also have to leave her homeland and find refuge in some Western enclave. Because once politicized, there is no place in a conservative Muslim society for an apostate. My atheist friends and I might have lived in a hostel in Karachi without any fear, but we had never attracted any attention or unwittingly became part of any political drama. Things would have been a lot different otherwise.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2014/06/islam-and-apostasy?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C30-06-2014%7C53307f14899249e1cc7ae7d1%7C 

End Of Confusion - The positive side of TTP's militancy.

It has come to a head.....

Growing up I was confused.  We were taught that the ultimate source of all the virtue and goodness is Islam.  This was the sentiment echoed and reinforced by teachers, parents, relatives, Friday sermons at the mosque, and basically everyone you met in a country that is 98% Muslim and highly conformist.  But then there were people who took religion to the nth degree.  The fundamentalists.  We had mixed feelings about them.  But more than revulsion, these feelings were of reverence.  Selfless beings who sacrificed their own worldly pleasures for the goodness of God.  And in many cases this was true.  However, the goodness was not necessarily altruistic, but a bribe to the deities for eternal salvation in exchange of glorification of god.  Or Allah as we Muslim called it.

Then came the first Afghan war.  And the Mujahidins (holy warriors).  Glorified by pretty much everyone in the Western and Pakistani media, and trained and funded by CIA and ISI, they added a real life sacrificial component to the persona of a pious Muslim.  Someone who not only prays to Allah, but is also willing to lay his (they were mostly men) life for Him.  No wonder the country and its citizens became increasingly confused.  Children were the biggest victim of this confusion brought about by the increased Islamization of the era.

This confusion persisted through the 2nd Afghan war, but was really solidified by the unjustified Iraq invasion, which fed into insecurities of the Islamic world.  Even some otherwise thoughtful Pakistanis told me they believed America's object is to break the will and determination of Muslims so it is easier for the US to subjugate them.

Little wonder that there was such ferocious opposition to drone attacks by US in the tribal areas.  PTI, the political party led by ex-cricket star and international playboy (and now born-again Pashtoon Muslim - those are the most convincing kind) Imran Khan swept to power in KP province bordering Afghanistan.

Amid all this hoopla Pakistanis conveniently forgot they had left these tribal areas to their own devices (granted they were also bound by some old treaties) to fester.  Incredibly barren, providing little opportunity to earn a livelihood by other than smuggling or drug trading, populated by ultra-militant civilization with deep tribal bonds, and family enmities going back generations, armed to the teeth (the only civilization that perhaps puts America's gun culture to shame), this was a tinder box waiting for a spark.  At least this was my impression during my 3 visits as a teenager.

The 2nd Afghan war again lent the spark.  Tribal areas soon became the valhalla for every conceivable jihadi around the world.  Or as I used to describe to my friends, a brothel on the highway of terrorism.  Every aspiring terrorist and jihadi paid a visit.  Infuriated over Pakistan government's alliance with the US, even if it was a shotgun alliance, they started attacking Pakistan's army, airforce, infrastructure, and defenseless civilians.  They unleashed nothing short of hell.

The army was quick to realize these extremist cannot be negotiated with (they might have funded and supported Taliban, but perhaps they also realized they have now lost control over them).  They had tried this in Swat, only to see these medieval barbarians overrun the surrounding area.  Some political parties also realized this.  But some (most notably PTI) tried to make a case for negotiating with TTP.  As if TTP was a legitimate constituency, representing some disenfranchised minority of Pakistani populace.  They forgot that these thugs had no electoral mandate and represented no one from within Pakistan, except for a very small number of nihilist who had the twisted notion of establishing an Islamic caliphate, even if they couldn't even agree on the basics of what true Islam is.  And many of the TTP ranks are not even Pakistani, but Uzbeks and Tajiks.  Negotiations with foreign terrorists in your own country is as ridiculous an idea as one can imagine (of course exception being that you have no chance of fighting them, and are forced to bargain for your life).

Hopefully the carnage in Karachi is a turning point.  Most political parties seem to agree now that there is no point of negotiating with TTP.  After all what can you negotiate with someone who wants to overthrow the popular will of people and instead impose a medieval savagery parading for Islamic system upon them.  Karachi attacks might make it clear to political parties that this a fight for the survival of Pakistan as a civilized society.  Hopefully this would end confusion in peoples' minds that anyone parading the name of Islam should be given benefit of the doubt.  And they will realize that while religion might be used to help and heal, often it is used to torment and torture.  So next time we will all be skeptical of anyone using the name of Islam to push through their own macabre agenda.  But then this is just a hope......

We are reaping what we allowed to be sowed......

A doctor who went to my high school in Pakistan was recently murdered by SSP (Sibah-e-Sahabah Pakistan - Soldiers of the Caliphs, Pakistan) - the well known macabre outfit that has made its name in the brutal world of Islamic terrorism. So violent and relentless are their tactics, that they might be aptly referred to as terrorists' terrorist.

SSP is a virulently sunni organization, which has embarked upon genocidal attacks on shia minorities through target killings as well as mass bombing. SSP is also at the nexis of terrorist organizations that have made their business to execute polio vaccination workers in Pakistan. The reason for their obsession with stopping polio vaccination has been explained to me, but it's still not very clear. But such is the nature of deathly ideologies. Raison d'être gets forgotten. Just the killings persist.

This particular doctor was leading a vaccination effort for polio eradication. And he was a shia. So he had two strikes against him. I don't remember this honorable man, but he was doing extremely useful and desperately needed work in Pakistan, one of the last holdouts of polio, a devastatingly deforming and debilitating disease.

In the comments section of a facebook post announcing his murder, an old high school friend quipped on what I would think of this horrendous crime. Some of my high school friends appear intensely curious about my religious and social views. I am a professed atheist, a fact that does not sit well in the highly conformist Pakistani society. And I have been so since the age of 18 when I left high school to go to Karachi for college. Early childhood friends who never saw me during the most formative years of my life, which were the first three of university in Karachi, are often perplexed by my mental evolution.

In Pakistani society where religion is often (confusingly and erroneously) equated with morality, where even the most well educated and enlightened go to incredible lengths of mental gymnastics and pretzel logic to confirm Islam (or their version thereof) with modernity, science, logic and common sense, atheists are often looked down upon as people with some emotional and/or mental shortcoming. Or perhaps misguided souls to be pitied and shown the light again. This is the moderates' outlook. The more religious ones believe they should be killed, as mandated by Islam.

In my initial years of conversion to atheism in Pakistan I was often ridiculed by some as having an identity crisis, unhealthy obsession with western way of life, an aspiring "gora" etc. Incidentally a few of those people themselves after traveling the world, thinking through issues, and essentially "growing up", now question Islam (and all religions) themselves.


Inside the Firehouse

But atheists in Pakistan remain a rare breed.  In his epic book "Fooled by Randomness", Nissim Taleb describes the "Fire House Effect". In an experiment, firefighters in a quiet town, without many fires to fight and plenty of time to chat, were analyzed. As these people came from similar socio-economic strata and educational backgrounds, their views generally converged to the same conclusion about social and political issues. And the more they discussed these issues, the more some of their conclusions veered away from reality. In fact in some cases these fire-fighters reached consensus that to most objective outsiders would look to be completely absurd.
In that respect Pakistan is a giant firehouse in its own.


As you sow.....

The post made me think once again. We are reaping what we allowed to be sowed. When I lived in Pakistan, in my later teens, I increasingly came to the conclusion that we might be on a path of self-ruin. Religion seemed to make little sense to me all of a sudden. It started with a simple question, what if every thing I have been told as the reality of life and the universe is just not true? I didn't have any answers, but I spent a few years immersed in books on history and philosophy of religion. I found it astonishing that people in Pakistan (and many other countries) would let their lives being ruled to such an extent by an ideology for whose veracity they had scant evidence. Believing in an Abrahamic God, just because countless other people also believed in it.

I did not know what puts societies on the path of economic development and social progress. But I knew what I saw around me was not logically consistent. I was told that in faith we can't follow our mind, but our heart. This made little sense. Besides my mind I had nothing to follow. The only instrument of perceiving the world and any reality, no matter how obscure, is my mind. Abandoning logic, thinking, and the consequent conclusions is the biggest fraud I could pull on myself. I refused to do that.

Pakistan's middle class is largely religiously moderate, by Islamic countries' standards. But so committed are they to religion and so constant is their reaffirmation of their commitment to Islam, that it has bred an environment where there is no oxygen left for competing ideologies. Only for various degrees of Islamic fervor. This is the environment which breeds fundamentalism. Moderate middle class then tries to exonerate themselves by verbally distancing from the extremists. But they fail to realize they are unwittingly part of a larger support structure that makes extremist religious thought and conduct possible. 

Tolerance for intolerance

When I was in college in Karachi, one day at the lunch table someone showed us an article that described plans by one of the mainstream religious organization to set up a madrasah outside Lahore and train pupils, most 14-16 years old, for armed jihad. I was horrified and expressed my anguish. Many did not agree with me. One of the students in MBA-banking program bristled at my comments. Extremely defensive, he vehemently defended the importance of jihad and Islamic education. And this was at the dining table at one of the most progressive universities in Pakistan! 

I highly doubt if this future banker would have sent his own kids to a militant madrassah like that, instead of the posh (and westernized) Grammar or American School, where they can get good education, get admitted to top universities, and eventually get flashy jobs in finance, medicine, or consulting.  But being a good Muslim he had to defend Islam, and denounce any discourse which even remotely sounded like an assault on anything (no matter how ridiculous) Islamic. 

Pakistanis (and many other parts of Muslim world) are obsessed with a utopian Islamic past. A country that has not seen well functioning institutions of democracy or capitalism, they yearn for the glory days of Islam and harbor a strong yet misguided belief that a regression to the true Islamic values will eventually bring economic, political, and personal salvation. And the "Islamic values" they cherish are largely modesty, humility, work ethic, sense of fairness, scientific inquiry, etc. These all all noble qualities, but have little to do with any particular religion.  None of us was ever taught about the most fundamental concept of morality in humans, empathy.


Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play....

Another friend commented that other than illiterate classes, Pakistan is doing very well. This is akin to saying that other than criminals and killers society is perfect. It would be if the numbers of illiterates, criminals, and religious extremist were small. They are not.

The overarching and constant presence of religion has created an apologist environment where religious extremism is either tolerated, or brushed aside as the pocket of an insignificant minority. But the minority is not insignificant. 

Religion is not the sole source of misery.  Many other factors including lack of education, systemic corruption, unending wars etc. are at play.   In fact in the greater scheme of things geopolitical legacy might be the biggest hurdle to progress, prosperity, and general happiness.   But no factor has been as under appreciated and as frequently swept under the rug as the stifling and oppressive grip of religion in Pakistan.  This is the giant elephant in this cramped room that everyone refuses to see.

Dr. Babar's murder unfortunately will also become a small statistic, soon forgotten in a country overwhelmed by such killings. Society will continue to muddle along, with the same archaic beliefs and conspiracy theories about external enemies bent on destroying Pakistan and keeping it away from it's glorious future where it would be the most advanced, prosperous, and just Islamic republic. The drip feed of religion will continue......

Fighting Demons Is The Best Fight. Creating Demons, Even Better.

Fighting Demons Is The Best Fight. Creating Demons, Even Better - All Made Easy By Right To Free Speech

It was a moment of hilarity. Tired from long week of flying, I sank into my couch and turned on the TV. Scrolling through my emails I forgot to change the channel when O’Reilly Factor came on, after the usually watchable Shepard Smith. I find the intellectual fraud in the program infuriating, but today it turned entertaining.

Bill was ranting about “war on Easter”. Another faux enemy that faux news made up after their “war on Christmas” won them enough publicity, viewers, and advertising dollars. And this is the brilliant strategy of Faux News. Make up a fake enemy, convince the viewers that they were already feeling threatened by it, and then launch a jihad against it. Be a self-appointed custodian of American virtues and values (not much different from the sleazy mullah’s I despised when growing up in Pakistan).

 In today’s episode Bill went a bit further, declaring that he had “won” against the “war on Christmas”, citing some inconsequential example of an advertiser that refused to support a media outfit that chose the more PC term ‘holidays’ versus Christmas. Bill’s statements often remind me of what the famous corporate raider Carl Icahn said about the well-known hedge fund manager, Bill Ackerman. “I can’t tell if he’s the most arrogant person in the world, or the most sanctimonious”.

Tonight’s program reminded me of another O’Reilly episode I watched many years ago. Fox News found out some professor in a school in Colorado who believed that 9/11 was an inside job. Fox News jumped on the story and made it mainstream. Absent this, no reasonable person would have paid much attention to this fringe conspiracy theorist, the type of whom are frequently (thankfully) ignored by most (at least thinking) people.  But this was a prime opportunity for Fox to feed off the insecurities and paranoia of many of their viewers, who are frequently misinformed, thanks in no small part to Fox itself.

 Fox is a great lesson in how to tweak a business model, partly by finding out what will click with the target audience, and partly by selling them a product they never knew they needed (a bit like iPad), and make a great deal of money in the process. The only problem is the lack of truth in advertising. Fox’s catch phrase “fair and balanced” is comically antithetical to what they actually do in practice. For other businesses, truth-in-advertising laws would often prevent that. Maybe it’s time we start thinking of broadening these laws. Yes, media outlets like Fox will rail against it, and cite the right to free speech. But then any business can make any claim and mislead the consumer, all in the name of free speech.