Regarding the Stupid White Men

A sublime act

During my high school days in Bombay, I often walked home from my school. My home was in a Muslim quarter and the government school was in a crowded residential-cum-business area that was predominantly a Hindu neighbourhood. In this journey by foot, I swam through the

ceaseless flow of ethnically diverse human traffic that dashed in either direction, at a brisk pace. Occasionally, a freely roaminggauwa mata (mother cow) would stop her stride, raise her tail, and begin discharging

its urine.

As a young Muslim, I watched with a feeling of awe and surprise as the civilized, urbane Hindu men and women that were walking alongside me suddenly surged forward and placed their cupped hands under the elevated tail, to catch a spoonful or two of that fluid. These cultured, devout, high caste Hindus would then routinely raise their hands and release that sacred liquid into their wide open mouths. After chanting a few words and rubbing their wet palms on the back of that holy cow, these sophisticatedindividuals would resume their journey with joy at having caught that pious liquid in time. A mind that has developed in a

non-Hindu home can only try to comprehend, but can never fully understand the sacrosanctity of these acts or the feelingsof elation, gratification, and bliss that filled the hearts and minds of these pious

performers, who have dauntlessly followed the footsteps of their ancestors in this twentieth century.

re. #36

Urstruly wrote:

``Now before you start the article below, keep one thing in mind that we are “assuming” that “heaven” exists and it is extraterrestrial. Assumption is an authentic and recognized component of scientific procedure of investigation. e.g. Until the start of last century all physicists were carrying out their experimentation under the “assumption” that Ether exists.``

Urstruly: the ‘assuming’ that you suggest theoreticians indulge in is better known as hypothesizing, which simply means coming up with rational, elegant and PLAUSIBLE explanations for how or why something works, even if it cannot be proved in the conventional sense. The ‘assumption’ of heaven on the professor’s part is hardly a means to explain phenomena. On the contrary, it’s a bad application of a posteriori reasoning – fudging with the ‘knowns’ to ‘prove’ and unknown. Bad (use of) Science-- Worse of religion!

P.S. I found nothing in the article you posted suggesting ‘proof of heavens’ or its speed.

Rgds,

PM

re: AAmir # 45

Wow!!! I would love to see one of these Hindutva fanatics debate this Shastri!

re: RSaxena # 57

I know...the one certified genius we have on chowk ...even though Hamidm is no more a brother rat-worshipper, we outght to still nominate him for the first Chowk Pulitzer :)

hamidm

``.... not to change the subject, but i saw this documentary on national geographic explorer about the horrible hindoo`s obsession with rats - how disgusting ! .....since we pakis are always looking for ways to feel good about ourselves, i was absolutely delighted and promptly fell on my knees to thank my ancestors for converting to something a little less ridiculous ......nothing, and i repeat, nothing, in pakistan comes close to rat worship - not even the ``incoherent babbling of defective minds``, as dr hoodbhoy calls it ..........``

let me tell you a story (with no disrespect meant to anyone)...once upon a time two months or so ago, there was a 3 hour break between classes and i and some friends were getting bored so we decided to go visit a mandir close by that we had not managed to cover for a report we had submitted few weeks back...everyone spoke of that one mandir with much awe but we were unable to go because of time constraints..so off we went..with us was one hindu who repeatedly kept on telling me there were rats in there and he`d have my er.. neck if i created a scene and embarassed him...i thought, whats a rat or two hain? fazool ka fuss...we entered the mandir through these steps...underground mandir..it was very interesting and smelt kind off overpoweringly sweet and nice..just as i was about to go towards this woman by the statue at the head of the room, there passed by me this RAT..hamdim man, that was the biggest rat in the world..it was the size of a cat i swear..it was bloody huge..it was jst to big...my scream froze in my throat..i was convinced it was going to kill me or worse, eat up my bare toes..we had to take off our shoes before entering...literally ran up the stairs and i was shaking for 5 minutes...turns out the idiot forgot to mention they fed the rats almonds and milk 10 times a day and what i had seen was one of many many rats there...it was awesome..the rat was bloody big man..i cannot begin to tell you how huge it was..next time i had free time between class, i stuck to school :)

sadna

.. ouch and touche ! .... by the way, i agree with everything you said and then some ..... we pakis, have a lot to learn from rat-worshipers whan it comes to religious tolerance and divine science...... as disgusting as rat worship might sound, it does not come close to wahabism or whatever passes for religion in the god-crazed minds of the ummah .......

.... but even the white man gets in trouble when he tries to reconcile the silliness of the trinity and the parting of the red sea with reason and logic .....it took the pope five hundred years to forgive copernicus, and it will probably take him another thousand years to admit that trinity is simply a form of severe schizophrenia ..... inspite of everything, the white man has overcome dogma, religion, and a lack of pigmentation to give us everything that makes life worth living .........let`s be thankful and move on

..... the white man has nothing to be ashamed of - he has contributed more to civilization than all the browns, yellows and polka dots put together .... it has become fashionable and politically correct to down play the white man`s contributions and blame him for all the evils that plague the colored world ...... this blame game keeps farrakhan, sharpton and urstruly employed, but it doesn`t serve any purpose .....

Maharana #48 I read your post with interest. Are you a professional physicist? As an interested layman myself, I agree with your conclusion that ``Overall Dr. Bashir is stating what is known and interspersing it with his remarks, which is absolutely incredible for any scientist.``. Actually, Dr. Bashir is not only stating what can be found explained in countless children`s encyclopedias for over the past fifty years (i.e. the theory of the Big Bang, the expanding universe), his ``contribution`` in this is actually quite funny: What he did was to take the speed of light, factor in the religious tradition among many muslims that the Holy Prophet once visited heavens overnight, and thus come up with his determination of the speed at which heaven is receding from earth (if you are rolling on the floor with laughter at this one, I will not blame you). The story of the Prophet`s visit to heaven is incidentally not based on the Holy Quran, and is therefore merely another one of those stories cooked up by men through the ages that have distorted the simple message of Islam.

One could probably have better luck relating the statement in the Quran that God created the universe by saying ``Be`` and it was. This matches beautifully the Big Bang theory which indicates that the entire matter that exists in the universe came into being almost instantaneously. But even here we would have a problem, since the Quran also indicates that man cannot know everything there is to know, and thus indicates that attempts to mix religion and science will prove just as misleading as the mixing of religion and politics. Dr. Bashir and his ilk happily mix religion with politics, with science, and indeed with everything other than the one thing that religion is all about - personal life and character.

madani #41 ``Sister marry white all Pathans will not be happy and chase to kill them. Need some insight by EXPAKS. ``

You called? I present insight: many expak man is horror to find sister or daughter marry white (and even more horror, black) man...true life story I telling you: one expak gentleman I knowing have two white son-in-law and one brown son-in-law...brown son-in-law cannot get along and divorce with daughter, two white son-in-law ok dokey after many year and children. Still not mean that expak man is not horror when daughter say marry white boy. Never hear of yellow boy marry brown girl though, maybe because yellow boy mother is horror if son bring home not-yellow daughter-in-law. In few generations all good people on planet same, same, I say to you always. So please no fighting who good who bad and why kashmir is our. no problem in 100 year. You ask one insight, I give you three or four insight for same price. I hope you happy you come to chowk on sale day for insight.

progressive #39 That was an informative piece you posted, and certainly one to remind us that the Brits did not come to India in order to improve per capita incomes, build infrastructure and so on. They tried to do the same to English settlers in the new world, and that is why Gandhi`s march to the sea to protest the salt tax is mirrored by the Boston Tea Party to protest the tea act, both of which had the same purpose: to create a legal monopoly for British manufacturers at the expense of local producers. Indeed, in China they had the Opium War - at least in India and the New World the Brits were trying to dump something healthy on the locals, in China they forced opium on them to pay for the tea they bought...

Having said all this: does this translate into this anti-western or even anti-British mumbo-jumbo (which is exactly what it is) that one sometimes hears from people in pakistan and other countries who should know better? I dont think so. And the reason is provided in my earlier post to Asim Hayat: if we were to try balancing the ledger on who did what to whom and who gave what to whom in history, we would forever be trying to balance the debits and credits. And to what end?

(reposting)

Urstruly wrote in #36:

``Now before you start the article below, keep one thing in mind that we are “assuming” that “heaven” exists and it is extraterrestrial. Assumption is an authentic and recognized component of scientific procedure of investigation. e.g. Until the start of last century all physicists were carrying out their experimentation under the “assumption” that Ether exists.``

Urstruly: the ‘assuming’ that you suggest theoreticians indulge in is better known as hypothesizing, which simply means coming up with rational, elegant and PLAUSIBLE explanations for how or why something works, even if it cannot be proved in the conventional sense. The ‘assumption’ of heaven on the professor’s part is hardly a means to explain phenomena. On the contrary, it’s a bad application of a posteriori reasoning – fudging with the ‘knowns’ to ‘prove’ and unknown. Bad Science! Horrible religion too, if u ask me… (now, before you draw your sabre, I mean ‘use of religion’)

Maybe you should trade in your Discovers for some Russels, eh? ;)

P.S. I found nothing in the article you posted suggesting ‘proof of heavens’ or its speed.

Rgds,

PM

Tahmed # 67,

I`m not a professional physicist. I`m currently pursuing PhD in an engineering discipline. But my first love is theoretical Physics and more specifically Astrphysics.

Actually, the `paper` by Bashir cannot be called a paper as it lacks originality. Wonder how it got published as a paper.

On mixing religion with science, you can read quite a few books with interesting insights. For starters, ``The Tao of Physics`` is a good one.

It might interest you to know that only two cultures in the World showed a remarkable interest in cosmology leading many a scientists to speculate their methods of achieving such results. Mayans and Indians (from the sub-continent) imagined the Universe to be at least miilions of years old. Indians calcluated the age of the Universe to be around 14 biilion years, close to what modern cosmologists believe. But nobody knows their method of reaching such a conclusion (refer: ``cosmos`` by Carl Sagan and ``Bhagvad Puran``). Remember that it was during medieval times, that a famous christian preist announced that the birth of the Universe took place around 4004B.C. None during those days could stretch their imaginations beyond thousands (in numbers), hence the age of Universe calculated to be 14 biilion years is all the more intriguing.

As you say Quran states that everything cannot be known, its quite right actually. Remember Heisenberg`s uncertainity principle? If you wish to observe something (microscopic) accurately than the very act of observing disturbs the system. A similar thing is mentioned in Gita and many other Hindu scriptures viz. man`s intellect is not sufficient in grasping the ultimate truth, coz this understanding is beyond intellect, speech or any other cognitive method known to mankind. But then I guess we (mankind) still need to fight to prove who is better (religion). Is it not ironical, that people who fight to prove their religion to be better themselves have never experienced the truth!! How do they know if this path is beter than the other, if they have not reached the end of their journey using a given path. Well, I`m a believer in Gita, which states that no two paths are alike, and there can be as many paths as the number of people.

Sorry to have digressed towards philosophy, but I believe the study of Cosmology does eventually lead a human to question creation, life in the universe etc.

``Dr. Bashir and his ilk happily mix religion with politics, with science, and indeed with everything other than the one thing that religion is all about - personal life and character. ``

He is not alone in that. In Kansas, the Board of education decided to erase the theory of evolution from the school syllabus and teach creation as per Bible. Talk about nonsense galore. Actaully Dr. Bashir should apply for a position in Kansas board of education.

You are right in stating that religion is more about personal life and character. All of us humans, require a system of beliefs, whether acquired personally or through a given book. But the catch here is again in not taking that system of belief to be the only true one and negating the others.

Rest later

Adios

re: anNy # 71

anNy, you are lucky you are not in India :) Although I have not seen any but I am told there are temples infested with thousands of rats (guys, am I right here, or is it just hearsay?). We used to have a temple outside of our own village where whole colonies of monkeys roamed about freely as if they owned the bloody place. Unfortunately, those papa, mama, and baby monkeys are history, as the city swelled and gobbled up the village.

It seems Hinduism just kept whatever practices existed in every corner of India. But some of these things definitely ought to be eradicated with education (actually, such practices ARE rapidly disappearing, but not rapidly enough).

BTW, I was reading a travelogue, and this is what people had to say about India -

``No country I have visited treats visitors nearly as badly as India does. Of all the (over forty) countries we have visited, the one in which we encountered the highest proportion of pushy and rude people is India and no other country

comes even close.``

Don`t know if these gentlemen saw any monkey or rat temples!! :)

re: Progressive Pig # 65

LOL...this is too funny...and ironic. I came upon the book from which you have picked this junk, wondered if I should have some fun with it on Chowk....then decided against it because I didnt want to come across as making fun of someone from a religious background I respect.

And here you are....yourself displaying this monument to bigotry and mendacity with all the pride that only a fascist can muster.

Now that you have taken the plunge, let me give people some reference (as I can for almost all your puke on chowk but have neither time nor inclination to).

The delightful quote comes from the book ``A History of the Agakhani Ismailis`` written ``In the Name of Allah The Beneficient, The Compassionate`` (which sounds more and more like a joke when the phrase is used mindlessly by raving bigots), published in Canada and Pakistan.

The author claims to be an former Agakhani who believes his Ismaili and Shia traditions are all absurd, and that all Shias should turn into Sunnis.

The Enlightened One begins his book by arguing that he grew up believing all the nonsense that Ismailis and Shias are taught. Why, well, look at Hindus! They too believe all the absurd things they are taught...and what example he gives? He could well, and rightly, have spoken of the rat temple! That would have been funny enough :)

But he goes on to ``describe`` something about the land of his birth - Bombay. He describes, clearly indicating that he was witness to the scene -

``As a young Muslim, I watched with a feeling of awe and surprise as the civilized, urbane Hindu men and women that were walking alongside me suddenly surged forward and placed their cupped hands under the elevated tail, to catch a spoonful or two of that fluid. These cultured, devout, high caste Hindus would then routinely raise their hands and release that sacred liquid into their wide open mouths. After chanting a few words and rubbing their wet palms on the back of that holy cow, these sophisticatedindividuals would resume their journey with joy at having caught that pious liquid in time.``

The issue is why would a man making ``religious`` arguments feel the inescapable need to make things up, to resort to white lies? And what can one say about the religion such people preach?

It is not an issue limited to Islam or Sunnis. It is a problem for all religion. People lie to advance what they believe are religious causes...and then they seek to give their mendacious preachings stamps of divinity.

Are these people, people writing endless essays and spouting millions of words on paper and cyberspace better human beings or worse than the average person who lives an honest life, works hard, and attempts to get along with his or her fellow human beings?

A person like this Progressive Pig, IMO, reflects what is fundamentally wrong with Islam (and his counterparts in other religions represent what is wrong with those religions).

These people use a plethora of words spreading hate against others, lies about other religions, all at the same time calling upon others to the ``glories`` and ``wonders`` of their own religion. They are the scum of the earth, worse than those who merely abuse others` religions.

Ofcourse, another thought that shocked me was that here is Bombayite who has absolutely no scruples deliberately defaming the city of his birth and of his early life. It is a shocking thought because I have always felt that evey human being will have some sense of loyalty to the place of his birth, the place that brought him or her up. One can brutally criticise such a place but one will not deliberately defame it. But it is obvious that some people are sold more to fanatical ideologies than to the land of their birth.

Unless something really funny comes up, this would probably be my last response to anything posting by this Progressive Pig. If people find his (her?) postings useful, they should examine if there is an element of fascism hidden inside their own hearts.

Date Published: 22/11/2000

Author: Vandana Shiva

Rice, says Vandana Shiva, is more than just a foodstuff; it is an entire culture. And it’s under threat.

In india, rice is often called ‘Prana’ – the breath of life. In Japan, rice is a metaphor for the self. All over Asia, wherever rice is a food staple, such comparisons can be found, for rice is much more than a source of calories in Asian culture – it is also the basis of both biological and cultural diversity. Rice represents many things for the people of Asia, from culture, history, landscape, religious and social ideas.

In parts of India, on the first day of a new agricultural cycle, farmers exchange paddy seeds and offer them to the village deity. At harvest time, rice is worshipped as the goddess of wealth – Dhanalakshmi. The word for rice, gift and wealth is ‘dhana’. And because rice is the real wealth of the rice farmers of Asia, they have always defended it. After the great Bengal famine of 1942, which killed two million people, peasants refused to allow the British to take their rice. ‘We will give our lives, but not our rice’ was the call of the peasant uprising of the Trbhaga movement.

Rice, in other words, to many of the people of Asia, is life itself. And this is why the ongoing corporatisation of rice varieties is such a tragedy.

Rice evolved as a food source in Asia, in many and varied forms. Recently though, the globalisation and corporatisation of agriculture has had serious effects on that diversity. India, for example, had nearly 200,000 rice varieties until that rich genetic diversity was destroyed by the chemicals and machines of the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution’s scientists ‘built’ India new rice varieties to replace the thousands it destroyed; but in doing so, they also created 40 new insect pests and 12 new diseases for rice farmers to cope with. The net result; a worse life for farmers, and fewer varieties of rice.

As the Green Revolution miracle fades, the world’s technocrats are preparing its second wave: genetic modification. We have recently heard of vitamin A rice – or ‘Golden Rice’ – being proclaimed as a miracle cure for blindness. More than $100 million has been spent over 10 years to produce this transgenic rice at the Institute of Plant Sciences in Zurich. The Zurich team introduced three genes taken from daffodils and bacteria into a rice strain, to produce a yellow rice with high levels of beta-carotene, which is converted to Vitamin A within the body.

Now, plans have been drawn up for a transfer of Golden Rice to India. And for what? Vitamin A rice is likely to fail in preventing blindness, since it will meet less than 1 per cent of the required daily intake. Ninety-nine per cent of Vitamin A will still have to be provided from alternatives which already exist, such as green leafy vegetables and fruits – coriander leaves, curry leaves, drumstick leaves, amaranth leaves – staples of the Indian diet.

In fact, as ever with such ‘miracle’ technologies, Golden Rice is based on a false premise. The destruction of biodiversity by industrial agriculture is a primary cause of today’s Vitamin A deficiency across rural India, and it is only through rejuvenating biodiversity on our farms that we can solve problems of vitamin deficiency and malnutrition. In spite of all the hype about Golden Rice, it will not solve the Vitamin A deficiency problems.

Elsewhere, the colonisation of rice by powerful interests goes on unhindered – and one of its key weapons is the patent system. The most stunning example of cultural imperialism yet was when Rice-tee, a US-based corporation, claimed the famous Indian basmati to be its ‘invention’ – patent number 566484. Strong campaigns across India may be starting to force this corporation into a retreat, but it will not be the last such absurdity. Such acts are the appropriation of nature’s regeneration processes and the indigenous innovation by rice farmers of Asia over centuries. It is blatant biopiracy.

Today, those who care about the future of Asia must recognise the importance of rice in the formation of these societies – and in their future. And that rice must be owned and controlled by the small farmers – the people – and not by foreign corporations with no interest in or understanding of it. The cry must go up to liberate rice from corporate control through chemical-free, GM-free, patent-free rice farming. Thousands of farmers are already showing that growing rice organically can produce more food and nutrition, not just for humans but for all species who share our planet with us. It can be done.

Rice has always been a symbol of abundance. Now we must work to prevent it becoming a symbol of scarcity. That is why, in India, we have conserved and rejuvenated more than 2,000 rice varieties through our ‘Navdanya’ movement. As a result, the thapachui, the ghyasu, the shalnaj are once again prospering in farmers’ fields.

No corporation can reproduce the amazing diversity of rice that nature and peasants have evolved in partnership over millennia – rice that grows up to 18 feet to survive floods, rice that is salt- and drought-tolerant, rice that is aromatic and therapeutic. This diversity, and the knowledge and culture it embodies, is the real basis for future food security. We must fight to keep rice free – in all its amazing diversity. Because on the freedom of rice depends the freedom of millions of Third World farmers.

Vandana Shiva is director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, in New Delhi, India, and a prominent environmental activist.

Unfortunately, between the 18th century inventory of Malthus and the 20th century inventory of Fuller et al, the Malthusian philosophy had become the pragmatic working principle of the British ruling class, and a bulwark against French and American radicalism. Malthusianism-plus-Machiavellianism was then quickly learned by all ruling classes elsewhere which wished to compete with the British for world domination. This was frankly acknowledged by the ``classical`` political economists of that period, following Ricardo, which led to economics being dubbed ``the dismal science`` Benjamin Jowett, an old-fashioned humanist, voiced a normal man`s reaction to this dismal science: ``I have always felt a certain horror of political economists since I heard one of them say that he feared the famine of 1848 [in Ireland] would not kill more than a million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.`` In fact, the English rulers allowed the famine to continue until it killed more than two million.``

``In the 1920`s, Karl Haushofer studied Malthusian-Machiavellian political economy in England with Prof. H.J. Mackinder -- whose coldblooded global thinking coincidentally inspired Bucky fuller to begin thinking globally but more humanistically. Haushofer took the most amoral aspects of Makinder`s geopolitics, mingled them with Vrill Society occultism, and forged the philosophy of Realpolitik, which Hitler adopted as part of the official Nazi ideology. the horror of the Nazi regime was so extreme that few ruling classes dare express the Malthusian-Machiavellian philosophy openly anymore, although it is almost certainly the system within which they do their thinking.``

As expressed openly by British political economists in the 19th century, and maniacally by the Nazis, Realpolitik says roughly, ``Since there isn`t enough to go around, most people must starve. In this desperate situation, who deserves to survive and live in affluence? Only the genetically superior. We will now demonstrate that we are the genetically superior, because we are smart enough and bold enough to grab what we want at once.``

``Since the fall of Hitler, this combination of Malthus and Machiavelli is no longer acceptable to most people. A more plausible, less overtly vicious Malthusianism is needed to justify a system in which a few live in splendor and the majority are condemned to squalor.

...............................................................``When my grandparents left, Ireland`s history for almost the entire preceding millennium had been one of political and economic repression at the hands of Great Britain--of `her long, cursing, merciless tyranny to Ireland,` as one early 18th-century journalist put it. Britain first invaded Ireland in 1167 and finally conquered it in the 1600s. By the dawn of the 18th century, 85% of Ireland`s land had been seized from its owners and given to British subjects. Tens of thousands of Irish people were exiled to remote and infertile parts of the country. Then, in the early 1800s, the country was stricken by a series of famines, culminating in the Great Famine of 1845-49. Starvation, disease, and emigration drove the population from eight million, prefamine, to 6.5 million in 1851. Hopelessness took root. By the early 1900s, four million people, my grandparents among them, had fled--as many as were then living in Ireland. Net emigration remained a fact of life until 1996, with the exception of a few years in the 1970s when the economy began growing (an unsustainable expansion that relied on inflation and deficit spending)``.