Islam and the Age of Globalization

{Professor Ahmed and his team are traveling from Jordan to Syria, Qatar, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia to ask these questions of students, mainstream Muslims, political and religious leaders; men and women, old and young alike.}

Dear Writer,
Excellent article Bina Sahiba, we need more intellectuals of Dr Akbar`s pedigree, vision and ability to reach out and build much needed bridges. However, there is just one question and that relates to the Dr`s travel plans, why does he not have Saudi Arabia and Iran on his wish list? After all SA is home to 15 of the 9/11 hijackers, heartland of Wahabism and most importantly central to Muslim history. SA and Iran represents everything which moderate Muslims wud not like the world to see, is that the reason he skipped SA or was it because he (Dr Akbar) is not welcome in land of the pure?

Question that needs to be asked is what kind of bridges does the emminent Dr intend to build? The two muslim fundamentalist regimes mentioned above represent what is so wrong in the muslim world today, fortunately or unfortunately both are very well endowed with rich natural resources (oil and gas) which certainly has helped their ideologies by gaining political leverage both in the muslim and non-muslim world. No matter what global leaders plan or think, obscurantist rule these two countries with an iron fist and thru these two countries rest of the muslim world, you change mother load and you change the muslim world. Iam afraid all other trips will be initially percieved as glimmer of hope but will eventually suffer a quick merciful death of silence.

im sorry if i offended you bina, but obviously one can never see those people objectively if they have grown with them -- in any case i stand by what i said -- he is not as great or scholarly or brilliant as this article makes him out to be

oh -- it seems that my earlier post has not been posted -- while i hadnt said that he had embezzled any money i did say basically what is contained in post 50 --

hp what urstruly is saying is nonsense -- doesnt matter who said -- shahid masood is a moron par excellence

#50 Omar
[im sorry if i offended you bina, but obviously….]

Ama yaar, try as hard as I do, I see no prior interact from you on this board. What’s this? You got another nick tucked away that you use exclusively for offending people?

Or did you offend her in person?

O, the stealthy ways that editors operate! All cloaks and daggers - and the colleagues are the first ones to get it.

When are you guys going to give Manto a REAL job?

re Salim Chauhan # 18
(at the constant exclusion of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains by these Muslim and their Jewish and Christian Abrahamic do gooders. Real understanding is possible only when you consider ALL components of the religious divide on our planet. )

abay, what`s wrong with crossing one hurdle at a time-- preferably the lower ones first?
I could argue with your last statement too, if I wanted to be picky: Why only the RELIGIOUS divide? What about God-fearing atheists like myself? Why should we be left out of the Kumbaya Discourse, heh??

That said, I agree, that there is something irksome in apologetic or patronizing refrains I hear to ``ahle-kitaab`` from Muslims acquaintances. But they`re not coming from where the professor is.
At least i think he`s coming from elsewhere! hmm...

#51 Omar
[oh -- it seems that my earlier post has not been posted...]

Yup, those editors have you on their hit list, Omar! You better watch out - they are a MEAN lot and they really mean it!

Be nice to the writer and even more to ye ole Prof.! Or he will come after you with his questionnaire.

Now THAT would get all those terrorist killers shaking with fear - and the world at large nodding its head in relief! They just needed to UNDERSTAND the idealized Islam and the problems of the reality will go away.

That lipstick will work on the pig every time! And hey, if it does not - that is no reason to stop trying!

If Chowk can put so much on lip-sticking the subcontinent`s very first terrorist, why bemoan and begrudge the ole Prof. his goree grad students?!!

mullah omar quraishi: if your new job involves reporting on America firing missiles at will on paki territory and repeatedly invading paki airspace, please refuse..you don`t want to end up like that hayatullah dude...killed by the ISI because the Paki military wanted to save face..

Re: # 10
You say Bina, that``....I`ve known Professor Ahmed half my life and I wouldn`t endorse anybody who I didn`t have the highest respect for. Professor Ahmed`s integrity and honesty .....``.

Wasn`t Prof. Ahmed the man who was accused by Pakistanis in UK that he skimmed funds that were allotted to the production of Jinnah movie? Was he not the plotical agent of Pak Govt in Bluchistan once defending all that was good in military govts?.

I am sure with all his experience he can cover his tracks very well indeed!

Any comments Bina?

Re: # 34
Salim_Chauhan :

You should read his early books when he was a devoted Muslim, a devoted Pakistani who grieved at the loss of Muslim India which he equates to Muslim Andulsia.

He is very good promoting his books all right.an $s too.
Kamath

PM

My contention on lassaize faire globalization is not based on leftist/commie propaganda; all one has to do is to put 2 and 2 togethr to make four. Let me explain:

The driving force behind the current globalization effort is the ideology of the ``Invisible Hand`` propounded by Adam Smith some 200 years ago. He proposed that lassaize faire economy (i.e. economy with no restriction or taxation) is the force of nature that works in the best interest of the people. Whereever there is money to be made, people will put there efforts into that direction, and that will drive more people to join in which will cause competition and hence no one will be able to monopolize. So this force of nature will drive humanity together towards greater mutual good.

But two hundered years of history since Adam Smith has proven his thesis absolutely wrong. The core of his assumptions is wrong on two accounts:

1. He misunderstood the human nature, which has tendency to dominate others

2. He misunderstood the mechanism of competition

His theories work ina perfect environment where everyone plays by the rules and society is egalitarian and every component of society is goverend by the strict hand of law. But in real world we see that the playing field is not level. The Western nations consider themselves above any and all laws and general modicum of human decency. Semantics do not replace morality. They have destroyed all international institutions and use them shamelessly just to propmote their own self interests. So in this law of the jungle, do you think Adma Smith can survive? What is happening undercover of sematics of globalization is the global neo-colonialism. And every human being that has least bit of humanity left in him is opposed to that. Sematics do not mean nothing, you may call this resistance to neo-colonialism as terrorism or you may call it dictatorship of Hugo Chavez or psychosis of ahmadinijad but for that one whose children are hungary for the past three days and he is contemplating suicide, semantics cannot fill his stomach.

THE CRIME STATISTICS IN LAHORE - a city of 7 million


``In late December 2005, police stated that 53,296 criminal cases were registered in Lahore. According to statistics provided by the government of Pakistan, there were 557 murders committed in Lahore in 2005. The statistics state that there were 1,332 car-jackings in the city of Lahore and 1,050 burglaries in 2005. The government of Pakistan also stated there were 9,224 cases involving some type of firearm registered in 2005``

If this is not the jungle then what is?

http://karachi.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=40472


and by the way this report is from the abbajaan directly and not from a tutpoonjia ngo