The Power of Ideas and the Modern University

Tahmed writes "And if you have chelas who can explain the words of the great sage, I am all ears.."

I don't have "chelas", only that those two people I mentioned have more brains than you can possess in two lifetimes, and so their help should be sought by you in translating concepts that even a high school dropout should be able to understand (but you don't). Regarding the "I am all ears.." claim, I agree, amidst all the hollow space in between your "ears", you really are "all ears"...

Re: Okhla #48, whatever I am or am not, nobody believes your BS here anymore, and whatever I have "produced" is still better than your masterpiece of "fun day at fishing". People can factually see what you have produced, what tahmed has produced and what my production has been on Chowk and elsewhere.... don't be jealous, just shut up and learn if you cannot produce work of equal calibre...

Chaltahai writes "Masadi, Unicef just reported that the children of this world are better off...."

As usual you speak through an orfice that is not associated with thinking. You need to ask why the miserable condition of children to begin with in a world where there are enough resources to prevent the deprivation related deaths, you need to ask why the basic amount needed to prevent those was not made available by the countries involved even though "debt servicing" and military expenditures far exceeded that basic amount. You also need to note that disease related deaths have caused most of this so-called "improvement". And certainly with these things in mind, no slogans of USA, USA are justified given that it was dead-last among all the developed countries in indicators of child health and poverty...

Let me quote the analysis of the report for your "dumb a$$" mind:

"In 1993, Unicef estimated that $25 billion a year in extra resources would be enough to meet the basic needs of every man, woman and child for adequate food, safe water, pri-mary health care, family planning and basic education. That relatively small injection of money has not materialized, and international aid is at its lowest level in 20 years.

Developing countries spend more on debt servicing and armed services than on these basic needs, and little more than 6 percent of the $40 billion international bilateral aid actually goes to the social sector. Thus, much of the funds required could be found by reallocating existing resources."

and

"The rankings only highlight what was already clear about how poorly too many children fare in this country. Infant mortality is still at unacceptably high levels. The number of children living in poverty remains large and daunting. Too many children lack access to health care they desperately need. The U.S. was dead last among the countries on children's health and safety, based on infant mortality, vaccinations for childhood diseases, deaths from injuries and accidents before age 19, and whether children reported fighting or being bullied"

Re: tahmed32 # 45

Good question!

It is hard to say because the damage is probably more than the negation of rationalism and logic and it can easily be measured in the bonzai learning, which is the end result when religion dominates the curriculum.

The issue in the 1500s, as it is now, was that religion has to be taken on blind faith and religion cannot be reconciled with secular ideas, because that raises the question of justification and proof of evidence in support of an idea. When confronted with this dilemma, the usual tactic is for religion to "place a round peg in a square hole" in the sense that religion assumes a secular argument to support a thesis is essentially one of faith and when it does so, it puts itself at par with secular ideas and invites a comparsion and critique of its ideas, but is not willing to tolerate the criticism as much as it wants to dominate the debate on the basis of an assumed reverance to its ideology.

Secondly, religion in the ultimate sense is about power and religion will automatically resist those ideas, which it cannot refute because such ideas pose a direct challange to its own power. The power of a religion, over a people, comes from the acceptance of its ideas on blind unquestioning faith and when a particular faith is questioned, the institutional response is invaribly not to defend the faith, but to prevent the erosion of institutionalized power of the religion itself.

The greatest threat to a religion is marked by that moment, when people start to question its basic dogmas and the religion has no answer except rationalizations that do not reflect the realism of the reasons, which prompted the questions in the first place.

The European experience, in this regard hints towards three developments, which are starting to emerge in the Islamic world also. One, is that the failure to answer questions involves an added emphasis being placed on rituals and ceremonies and reliance on the hierarchies of clerical bureaucracies (priests, rabbis and mulvis etc)while at the same time, elements of hypocrisy start to enter the religious philosophies, whereby the acts and practices of a religion and its followers are at odds, with the message and the teachings of the religion itself.

Secondly, there is an increased practice of what might simply be called common piety by the people, when people disenchanted with message of a religion and finding it to be of no value in their daily lifes, start to assmilate religious ideas within their own social and cultural experiences and follow their own methods of worship at expense of worshipping in congreations in an organized manner as mandated by a particular religion or a church.

Third; when a religion is confronted with these developments, it will first seek to answer their questions by means of non-religious arguments; seeking to blend religion with the prevailing logic and if this fails, it will use brute force. The interesting aspect of the use of force, by any religion in defence of its doctrine, is not to force recantations upon the people, who have already left the fold, but to prevent those within in the religion, who might have doubts, from expressing those doubts in public.

The end game is to still retain the secular power of the religion over a people, because the religious bureaucracies are quite intelligent to realize that "power maintained is power retained".

Change will happen, when the people start to question the religious bureaucracies to explain, how their actions which are at odds, with tenets of a religion actually advance the cause of the religion itself and do not start to judge the answers on a religious reason, but on the reasons of proof and evidence of a secular nature.

It is generally the lack of answer to this question, which starts the process of a reformation in a religion. The present debate within Islam is not that different from the debate that was happening in Europe in the 1400s on the role of the church in politics and the role of the priests in the daily lives of the people.

The only difference in the Islamic world today and the Europe of 1400s/1500s, and a crucial one, is that arrival of the printing press and development of vernacular languages, was allowing for the translation of the Bible, which was in Latin, into the vernacular langages, whereby the people could actually read and understand the words of the Bible. Once people read the Bible and understood it, they realized that what the priest had been preaching them was a politically inspired version of the religion and that the vast majority of the priest had no knowledge of Latin itself, but had memorized certain Latin phrases, which they used in their sermons without even understanding what they had memorized.

It was for this reason that the Catholic Church did not allow for the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, because it knew that it would raise a host of questions, for which the answers would be problematic at the best and simply contradictory at the worst.

Hence, the greatest contribution of Martin Luther to the reformation of the religion, in Europe, was not the posting of the 95 Theses (demands for reform) but the translation of the Latin based Bible into German.

This is where the similarity ends between Europe of yesterday and the Islamic world of today.

Ciao

ferozk #52 You central point, namely that religion has in history been more about temporal power than about spiritual faith, is on the mark. I think the european experience that you describe, while accurate and relevant, is slightly different from the path we can expect muslim societies to follow.

That is:

1. The status of the maulvi in muslim society is considerably lower than that bishops, cardinals and even parish priests in european society (where they constituted the "third estate" after royalty and nobles). While the church in the 1500's was a vast, financially independent (due to the tithe) corporation, maulvis in muslim countries are more like "khokha shops", albeit with access to vast sums the past 10-20 years from Saudis and from the Pakistan government particularly under Zia.

2. Reformers in 1500's europe lived in a vastly different world compared to the world the muslim societies are in today. That is, today, the rest of the world has i. already progressed several steps ahead in terms of the rule of law and in terms of respect for scientific inquiry as opposed to mere superstitions; ii. knowledge of this situation outside muslim countries is freely disseminated via the tv, internet, and large scale emigrations and labor movements. Even in the most remote villages now, people are aware that there is a path - i.e. modern education - to a better life for their children. 1500 AD europeans on the other hand lived in a world where the lights went out at sundown and everyone knew his place in the social order.

Put these together, and I would suggest that we will find muslim societies breaking free from this mode of superstitions, as the saying goes, much faster than one expects. And without the kind of sacrifices paid by people like savanarola (burnt on the stake), or tyndale (translated the Bible into english from latin, thus taking away the priests bs and allowing the population to see for themselves what the Bible had to say).

There will probably always be some form of religion as long as humans are destined to die. We will probably see loudspeakers replaced with some kind of muslim televangelists in the years ahead. But they will probably not have any greater audience among muslims than christian televangelists do among christians in the US. There is already an egyptian fellow doing the rounds in the US who is clean-shaven, wears a business suit, talks about peace and brotherhood and interfaith harmony as being the Islamic message - and I understand he has gained vast audiences among arab muslims in the US. Perhaps this is the what we will see more and more of in the coming years. Stay tuned... :-)

re: tahmed32

Yes, and that was the final thought of post too.

The Muslim experience will be different, but the process which is underway seems to be more similar than it is different.

Ciao

dear pervez, you have mentioned higher education. i wish to comment on that.hec is replete with funds for research, and wants research to be nothing but high quality, and has taken adequate steps to ensure that. which is as it should be. even so, it seems to come down hard on the well established traditional institutes, by stopping the funds for ongoing research programs, because of the involvement of its faculty members in @plagiarism@. the most modern requirements for research have come in a little too quick, for some of the senior professors. their trying to keep step with and then go forward seem lopsided and a little awkward. one is reminded of the scene of annual sports day of ones college. when senior professors are asked to participate in popular events, and they do so amply exhibiting their sporting spirit, to set an example, to encourage the shy student to follow and take part in sports. such professors were cheered and lauded, although the spectators could not help being amused. now if suddenly the picture changes and these venerable people are accused of cheating, will it not stun and cast into gloom all cocerned?hec otta spare no effort, time and money to set the record straight. make the transition from the slow traditionist to quick ultra modern research more easy and acceptable. allow re-experiment, re-research and correction of statistics, and total excision of plagiarism, and replacement by genuine research terminology. the fair name of the senior saff should be cleared of all smear and they would be allowed to retire in grace and dignity.

Re: # 2

Good points.
Also, the good prof has not mentioned why any pakistani should pursue higher education? hes mainly talked about what initiatives the govt should take to promote it.

i think many pakis are confused and see no advantage watsoever to pursue higher education in the first place. all they are concerned with is getting a degree so they can get a job. it would be nice if mr. hoodhboy could give them a reason why.

my friend, clearly looks like uve been reading some philosophy from all ur blabbering abt SOK and other such technical terms.
the profs paper wasnt about philosophy, he put his ideas down in very simple words for everyone to understand.
u on the other hand have tried to use all these fancy terms and such and end up making no sense at all.

so please think twice before u start accusing ppl of being 'strongly anti religion and don’t miss any chance to let it and its followers let down even by producing this kind of shit'

respectfully offered.

Salam!
I think Dr. Pervez has given the exact pecture and his idias about the higher education in Pakistan, the only reson for that he himself is teaching in Pakistan and he know the Picture clearly.
He is now the chairman of Deptt.of Physics at QAU and we hope he will take some initiatives to bring his Deptt. to his level of thought.
Being a student I wish him best of luck!!!!!
Aqeel A. Zia

University education is not an isolation. The entire process of learning starts at family level and gradually matures in school, college and university. As per my understanding, moral upbringing and schooling has greater influence in shaping the life of a person than University. Change the society and moral value, the people will create good universities.

Is this guy the spokesperson for the progressive Pakistani??

tsk tsk .. he has got the stick from the wrong end .. we need educated people, we need Universities but before that we need work at the demand side, mate. All our nation cares about is how they can get the new nokia mobile and stuff like that.
We need a cultural revolution and the kind of University students he is talking about they wont be interested in such a revolution .. they fantasize about the greener pastures in the west ..
His understanding of social change is very elitist .. we need work at the grass roots .. we have the individuals but not the correct orientation towards civic responsibility.
... i think this is the modern desease .. more is better ..
If the western Universities were so adept at churning out revolutionaries all the pakis who go to them would not end up in anal professions: bankers, lawyers etc.
Anyways .. I have had enough of his progressive ideas.