A Whiter Shade of Green Re #44:
Interesting response baaghiraja...but aren;t you missing the whole point of absolution of power denegrading individual freedom; see as an avid academic on the subject of political governance China seems to be a socialist car running on capitalistic wheels. Now, how long would it take for such a car to run would be determined by how long the Chinese hegemony is able to keep political revolutionism at bay; eventually the body has to be replaced. See the whole of point of economic freedom without individual liberty does not make sense as one often becomes the harbinger of the other. The fact being you cannot have people living in a quintessentially Hobbesian/Smithsonian environment, where the whole emphasis is laid on individual greed and egotistical thrust, and expect the political effects to be negligible. Plus, thought-control as often excercised on most individual CHinese (much similar to religous indoctrination in Pakistan) will not remain a suitable tool any longer, because the number of Chinese which are branching out into Western ideology and considering civil liberties as an essential part of human life (trust me on this one if you havent seen them at international universities).

Given that macro-economic factors have thrusted China into international recognition of its economic worth, but that is because they threw there copy of Das Kapital out the window and bit by bit opened their markets to trade and FDI (foreign direct investment). They did not do that overnight, however, first made sure of the stability of their internal system before opening it to the world at large. So, to me Chinese socialism looks like a decrepit ideology which will not give effectual governance solutions for the new age Chinese; as advances in communication technology mean you can no longer shield people from learning and absorbing new ideas. Give me one good reason why they wouldn`t want to break away from the invisible chains trampling their freedom. From my personal experience and conversations, no Chinese could ever give me one.

Bin Laden And Hiroshima I think physicist`s should stick to the profession that suits them best...physics (ain`t I captain obvious). The article shows sincere effort to make some sense of the chaotic international ruckus on the brink of explosion, but it lacks the strategic insight of someone who is trained and has worked on providing political theories. Merely posting obvious facts regarding US use of nuclear arsenal some 6 decades ago, and linking them up with the current fanatics running amock in our country does not form a cogent analysis of the world`s pathetic situation.

There are many more reasons for nucler proliferation such as iconoclastic nationalism, disconneted religious fanatacism, etc. As to whether the use of nuclear weaponry is permissible in state of conflict, I think the question knows its own end. The only problem of nuclear stupidity stems from idiocy of some dictators and mass-murderers. As far as state`s are concerned, the MAD principle even if not enunciated in legal contrtaction is known by most statesmen and their cronies; anything otherwise would be downright devastating for themselves even.

A Whiter Shade of Green i read a comment by baaghiraja abt some CHINESE PRAGMATISM...care to elaborate on that ...(seems like u still cant get away from yr commie metality)

A Whiter Shade of Green From a former self-proclaimed anarchist slash desecrated hippie, the admittance of a positive influence of a sucidal president seems too much to accept at first. The centrist view shown in this article has left me jaded, not because I do not agree with your mock ranting of the Zia regime, but because I am a delusory idiot expecting more from the extreme left. What makes for a balanced society is the potical antithesis shown by disparate parts of society. God knows (highly debatable) what happens to a country when it`s leftist/libertarians jump the bandwagon to cash in the cultural upheavel effused by unbound bourgeois illusions of fame (read fasion filth), and quantitative wealth. However, as with everyone in the Pakistani society such two-faced centrality should be expected not because there is something wrong with them, but rather the want of societal acceptance can be a strong influence on views.

The article analyses the liberties bestowed in the Musharraf regime with a very myopic sense of what freedom actually is. If we start engaging ourselves in assessing liberty by standards of how much of a woman`s hairline is exposed, the prospects of actual quantisation of freedom can become a harrowed and dead-end prospect. Actual liberty lies in the mind of people and what spiritual (if any) mechanisations influence their behavior; and I can confidently say that most people in Pakistan remain obdurately limited in their scope of political freedom, based on antiquated theologies. They may not like the mullas (due to recent international churning; before he was a much loved bestower of moral sanctity) but they would none the less want them as a major propogator of religous goodness, whatever kind of censorship or press freedom they may subscribe to. People wanting their children to be taught by such male butt-loving sexual predators often leaves me flabergasted. Yeah, as for Musharraf wanting to know why thsoe children in madarsahs were unhappy, it was because their posterior was in too much pain from witching hour violations. As long as people remain adamant in their mosque-government link there is nothing Musharraf or any other deluded benevolent dictator can do. The sanctity of religion leaves the people as herds, too easy to control through the use of a dog-like moral cleansing system. May the republic reign supreme.

Towards a shackled society, perhaps i do not know what kind of expansive fantasy land does dost-sahib reside in but i do persuade you to confine such thoughts to the hallowed walls of your neanderthal cave; i mean first of all telling people that the islamic way of life is the only justified and prudent way to live is not only introvertedly pedagogical but downright idiotic. The pathetic situation that Pakistani society has gotten itself into is because of this exclusive reverence towards an islamic way of life rigidly enforced by holier-than-thou buddhas and adhered to by the subservient sheep. For all those who follow a similar line of thought.... please pleaseeeee open your eyes and look around you; for all these pretentious mosque-hoppers are doing nothing but assmbling masses for intrepid control of the people and disseminating their deranged ideologies into them.

I myself have experienced this when a regular mid-day mosque visit morphed into a call for God`s duty bequeathed to me by gun-trotting, belly-scratching and oh-so-pious `mufti shujaat who has a penchant for young sindhi boys. Of course, he had to be taught by none other than maulana dost muhammad-famous for his transsexual exploits; all this while two armed gunmen at the door made sure that possible young recruits like me were compelled to listen to the absurd fanaticism. Fearing my life. and to a larger extent my butt, I got out of there after a couple of hours of brainwashing and vowed never to return until i had acquired a big enough gun to kill all such wretched influences on our society.

SO get out of your misguided conception that there is such a thing as a perfectly islamic society (or state; although i think both are mutually exclusive) optimally modrenized for progressive muslims; reading your posts i highly doubt there is even a stint of progression in your political thinking. Ideas and philosophies about political organisation have flourished since the 6th century and would do us all good if you were to read them. Any exclusively islamic society may have made sense in the 7th or 8th centuries but now it just seems plain stupid.

As for oq it is good to know that yr $40k a year education is being put to good use. It is nice that we have at least we have some people battling against the antiquated notions of these gray-haired devotees ...and yeah next time I will definitely read the footnote.

Towards a shackled society, perhaps wow...reading a lot of these posts, I feel like any intellectual discourse in Pakistan is like banging your head against the wall; having sat through your economics classes (if you are who I think you are) I can feel your frustration with some of these less-informed imbeciles. However, I genuinely appreciate the article and the authors effort to explain to the `fat of the land` of the horrible consequences of any further Islamization of governance in Pakistan.

My general understanding is that many Pakistani people have been forced into accepting Islam as their philosophical foundation and many will go to great lengths in order to preserve that which they have toiled their lives believing; not out of the precieved worth of their beliefs but rather due to their arrogant obdurance which compels them to fight for their antiquated notions. The fact of the mater remains that a lot of Pakistanis, and I am grossly stereotyping, never challanege their philosophical understandings due to limited availability of any such authorship which would give them the freedom to excercise their right to religous or spiritual opinion; which will lead to eventual secularity.

A lot of the so-called religous people in Pakistan aggressively propose Islamic laws and shariat bills while going to any `unislamic` (i prefer immoral and unethical) lengths to satisfy their own appetency for welath and power. Any proposal for such laws only enforces absolution of power in a few hands and that in itself is the pitfall that Pakistani society should strive to avoid. A lot of people will now cry out that Hitler and his cronies were in fact democratically elected; I propose they first read through descartes and james hamilton and all the limits to democracy and then come up with a better argument against electoral governments.

I hope to see many such articles in the future. I have a question for oq though; why dont such articles get published in the mainstream media? I know journalism in Pakistan has its constraints but I am sure that you can go under the radar by saying at least a few things against the general apathy and misinformation.

Illiteracy After Education - Part I I sincerely think that although you meant well by a giving a scathing social critique but your limited command of the english language does not serve your purpose well. Sentences like
``that put me to deep thought`` verily exhibit your limits. I think you should take your article of meandering and disconnected anecdotes and try to conjure up something more concrete and academically refined which tries to comment on the social stratum rather than just make everyday observations. I am not trying to be overtly critical but just imparting some advice that I have gathered through my own experience as a writer.