Lessons From the Pearl Murder On Human Beings and Revenge:

Emotion is an irrational yet integral part of what humans are, and in one way it is a higher control mechanism then what exists in animals (i.e. the id). The main program (i.e. the primary function) dictating out existence is survival which we as humans share with the animals, but somehow our brains evolved into a much more complex control system (i.e. the ego).

Human Beings and animals are a result of their conditioning. A child is a clean slate when he enters this world, and family, society, education, they all scribble on this slate, to present the individual that exists. As a part of the society, the individual is conditioned to a particular value system, and since in this process he has had no other experiences (hence no other reality), he has little choice to be anything else (he has choice, but I will talk about that later). Hence to blame a person for his ``crimes`` against you is to blame yourself for ``crimes`` against him (in rational terms). Hence on this forum if an indian behaves the way he does and blames a pakistani and a pakistani blames the indian the way he does amounts to 2 seperate realities, one for each being defined by his value system. There is no universal truth which exists since our realities are shaped by our experiences.

By now you might be wondering how this is all linked to revenge. The link is quite simple. The ego is developed in a particular value system in which the ``good`` for the community/nation is held as an ultimate state of being, it is glorified, it is re-enforced through different mediums. Revenge starts at micro-level and gets to the macro level with increasing glory, i.e. the right to hold accountable the person(s) for their crimes against you -- your family -- your community -- your nation.

This post is in no way justifying any crimes; rather it is just explaining human behaviour, and this pertains to ourselves as well as to the killers. We are given the same slate to begin with, its just who writes on them that defines us.

As educated individuals, we can understand this subtle yet such an important distinction, and this is where our ``choice`` comes in. An educated individual has a choice to decide if he will remain a part of something that he is conditioned to, or will he rise above this conditioning, and have a better understanding. This is indeed the ultimate test of transcendance; i.e. how high can a human rise.

A Parable make yourselves some goals in life cuse you need to do something while you are here.... you may become the president or the murderer... its just something to pass your time while you are here... people may scorn you and people may be jealous.. but in the end we all go down the same way.. back to where we came from.

We, The Fake The pseudo-westernization of our society is quite deplorable. These people have no clue as to what the west is all about. The evolution of the western mind has had a different historical course then ours, and our realities are very different than theirs. And in the recent history, theirs has taken a completely accelerated mode.

To elaborate, I will give an example. In the west, at the moment, there is no struggle at the human survival level (ignoring the sep 11 incidents). This frees up a lot of time for people to indulge in other activities, for once you know that there is no external threat, the mind is idle... and you know what they say about idle minds.....

So for the west, it may have been the only logical path to take after years of struggle, their brains developed in a different way. They have a different history, and the modern development in science and logic has shaped their minds in ways that our different from ours as desis.

But ours has been a different history all together. Partly complexed by the west, partly indifference to the inhumanities around them, our upper/middle class new generations dont know any other way other than to imitate the west like baboons with a vicious edge; the edge coming from the fact that they belong to Pakistan. And if you cant be like the women on ``friends``, all cutsey wootsey, then you are a nobody, cuse whether you like it or not, hollywood rules the world, and guys only like jennifer aniston, cuse she is hot.

Infact I always thought that this was an american dilemma, but the porous boundaries of media flood all countries alike (unless you lock the gates).

And this may explain the reason of fakeness and other crimes of society, its the legacy the brits left behind. the first few generations were influenced by their western counterparts, but lately the west has take a turn for the ``worse`` if you can call it that, and our newer generations are flocking behind, with their vicious edges.... god save the queen

A Letter Home This article, although as true as it was about the feudal culture in PK, just doesnt hold together due to its generalizations about the entire ``east``. For crying out loud, Saddam is not a feudal, and the Arab culture is miles apart from the Sub continent. Neither is Vajpayee a feudal. Although India having tons of its own problems, has as far as a percentage of population, far less feudals, and hence it rules it out as the most dominant of problem (If compared to PK).

A Letter Home Farzana:

Please dont defend our treatment of our women in front the west. While they have not given respect to women by what they have become in the recent times, our treatment of women is far more demeaning.

there was far more incoherence in the article the about his perspective on the treatment of women.

A Letter Home hamidm:

Apparently you didnt read about the benifits of squatting and washing. Through the process of squatting, you clean your bowels a lot better than by sitting on an ``English Toilet``. Though I have to admit, squatting isnt as comfy as sitting, but as far as cleanliness is concerned, the east seems cleaner in the respect.

And that wiping the a$$ with toilet paper is really unhygenic.

A Decision to Regret Fuzair #14

``One of the reasons why we hate the Anglo-Saxons as much as we do is because we know that, at some level, they are better than us because they can still be shamed, eventually, into doing the right thing. ``

You think so??? only time will tell, and so far it hasnt been saying too many good things about shame and the white race......

Journalists or Americans? Slink, Sadna:

Poling is an art, and American polling within the US has been quite on the mark, for the elections for instance, the polls normally come within the 2% range. Polling consists of having an adequate sample size and enough samples from high variation groups so that an adequate result can be formed.

With the factors mentioned above, the first one the Newseek might have gotten adequately, but the other one is quite dependent how the population is represented within the counrty, and however good this data might be for the US, it may not meet the requirements in Pakistan.

So I would have a doubt on the newsweek polls, as it maybe 75-80% accurate, and 20% uncertainty is quite high to give a good prediction.

On the other hand, Slink, our views within a certain population cannot give us enough information atleast statistically to make a good prediction. Hence your assumption is quite unreliable.

As far as the LUMS poll is concerned, again you need to know what type of samples they took, to actually call it a good prediction.

Journalists or Americans? Al-Jazeera represents the CNN of the rest of the world. As CNN hides the ``truth`` from the people, and brings about self-righteousness in the population, so does AlJazeera. Obviously the western goverments find it threatening, just as the we Desi Americans/Canadians find sone of the reports on CNN threatening.

Sigh.... if only the world had either the intelligence to filter out the facts from both CNN and AlJazeera and form their own opinion, or if they both were merged (now wouldnt that be interesting)

Journalists or Americans? Note on the Statistics Post:

As far as my opinion is concerned regarding the % of Pakis supporting OBL, its hard to predict. Soft spot exists for OBL even in the most pro-american pakis. Now how america cleans up its act in Afghanistan will determine their final stance.

At the moment, maybe the majority supports America, but if America keeps on killing innocent Afghanis, there will be a reversal in opinion.

Journalists or Americans? As far as the false reports the the Taliban are ``claiming`` with respect to the number of civilian casualties according to America, Americans dont have a clue as to how many are klled. And even if we go with 50% of the figures quoted by Taliban (i.e. 450), it seems quite true looking at the Al-Jazeera videos. Even though Al-Jazeera is an Arab news channel, pictures dont lie, and American media (with the likes of American Government) is more likely to doctor footage and ``create`` more images (hollywood style), as suggested in ``wag the dog``.

On the other hand the Arab governments themselves are in hot water keeping their local hostile poplations in mind. If anything they would try to tone down the images, so as to appease their people. Although I doubt they have enough technology to create this. (though with the help of americans they could do a lot... hmm....)

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments Gowardhan:

Please do tell me who was killing the people of kashmir before 1988 for the past 41 years??

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments MaheshG:

I will ignore your insolence, and take it that you dont think the indian media is biased

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments Zahra, Sarwari:

During my time in karachi, one thing that I noticed was as critical as the Indian Media is about its internal government policy, it is vicious in its attack with respect to Pakistan and favours India`s Foriegn Policy.

One of them cooked up something like ``The hijackers demanded that the plane be taken to Lahore`` For crying out loud, there was not even one hijacker in the plane, how could they even come up with such a ``truth``.

All this goes to show you how biased indian media is, and how gullible the indian public is that it actually thinks this is objective reporting. This is worst than the American Media, atleast they only hide the truths.

Living in Pakistan, we ourselves are lied to by our politicians, but I hope that educated Pakistanis like us trust the government less, and takes other means of finding out what is going behind the ``purdah``, unlike our fellow indian educated chowkies, who might claim the ``freedom`` of press in India.

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments Joseph:

The ``War on Democracy`` is the creation of the media, not what the terorist planned. The US government wants to keep hidden from its public its foriegn policies, and hence to avoid the issue, it labels the attack as a ``war on democracy``.

If only the Americans knew what they not know now. They could bring about revolution within their own country on their foriegn policies, if they want the principles of democracy to be applied universally, and not just locally, or whenever it suits their purpose.

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments Urstruly:

A good article, except for a few contradictions pointed out by a few people. One particular one that I found interesting was that when islam was first brought to subcontinent through Mohammad bin Qasim, was it not alien at that time? I mean dont get me wrong, I donot like what the west did to us any more than you do. But from that reasoning, you can even say that Islam came as an outside influence, and wasnt an internal phenomenon.

Another thing, why did the muslims have to go on a conquering spree, which meant waging wars even against ahle-kitab. Now if the entire time they were doing it in their own defence then its correct, but if it was to obtain power, then it is incorrect according to your logic.

What you said about jihad seems quite logical. Unfortunately, the khalifas were not the most democratic rulers. And they have been known to carry out injustices against their political enemies.

There are quite a few flaws with the so called islamic governements of today. So unless they dont perfect the art of practicing proper Islamic political structure, they should not be allowed to come into power.