Noor e Madinah

what is it to be in love?

2008-12-24T13:51:00.001+11:00

Do you remember Rosalind ? Do you remember, when Jacques said “The worst fault you have is to be in love”, Orlando replied “It is a fault I will not change for your best virtue”. For it is this fault which makes possible the discarding of the “life of painted pomp”.

What is it to be in love? As Silvis said
“It is to be made of all sighs and sorrows.
It is to be made of all faith and service.
All adoration, duty and observance
All humbleness, all patience …
All purity, all trial …”.

To be in love is to participate in Rosalind’s existence by feeling for her. Psychology is a (failed) attempt to subject feelings to rational analysis. The psychologists regard feelings as a disturbing element which deflects thought from its rational norm. But feelings are an independent source for the validation of knowledge – the heart has its own reasons. Feelings are a way of appreciating the whole through participation in truth – a way not accessible to discursive thought for its appreciation of truth is always from the ‘outside’, always as an ‘observer’, always partial. Discursive thought can never provide the insights that participationing reality can.

Immisering monetary policy

2008-01-24T02:14:00.001+11:00

THE State Bank’s annual report 2007 shows that SBP Governor Dr Shamshad Akhtar is following in the foot steps of Dr Ishrat Hussain, who is primarily responsible for the institutionalisation of the market-based monetary policy. The SBP has taken no new policy initiatives and its continued inefficiency is reflected in areas such as mismanaged foreign reserve transactions.

full article is here

A summary of Rorty’s achieving our country

2007-05-27T23:02:00.000+10:00

Achieving our country : leftist thought in twentieth-century America / Richard Rorty. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1998. In the following summary all references are to this item.

A concern with social solidarity is also central to Rorty. This in his view can be built only on the basis of a renewed “national pride”. Such national pride must emphatically reject the view that democracy has become a farce. The “traditional left” had national pride in Rorty’s view – they were agents of social change not mere spectators. They believed that “our country, its democratic system and its prosperous future are beyond suspicion” (Rorty 1998 p 10). They cherished the American myth and “there is no non mythological, non ideological way of telling a country's story for objectivity is of little use when one is trying to decide what sort of power or nation to be. There are no neutral objective criteria dictating (this) choice” (Rorty 1998 p 13).

The modern left seems to Rorty to have no vision for America. It must endorse Dewey and Whitman's de christianizing secularism. Rorty quotes Whitman.

“And I call to mankind.
Be not curious about God.
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God”.
(Leaves of Grass p. 16).

Americans should “spend the energy past nations spent on discovering God’s desire on discovering one another’s desire” (Rorty p.16). Hegel taught Dewey and his followers “to look forward not upward” (Rorty p.19) and “to purge oneself of orthodox Christianity” (Rorty 1998 p. 20). “America is the first nation state with nobody but itself to please – not even God. We are the greatest power because we put ourselves in the place of God … we redefine God as own future selves” (Rorty p.22). Also “Christ can tell us nothing about the ultimate significance of human life” (Rorty 1998 p. 24).

1. Rorty stresses the need “to treat evaluative terms such as “true”, “right” not as signifying a relation to some antecedently existing thing (That is to regard truth and rightness as having objective value) but as “expressions of satisfactions” (Rorty p 26). We “should abandon the question; why should we prefer democracy to obedience in favour of the question given the preference we Americans have what should we say about truth, knowledge, reason, virtue” (Rorty p.27-28). The preference for self-creation and rejecting God’s authority needs no justification. In Rorty, this commitment to democracy justifies national crimes such as the whole scale massacre of the Red Indians and the slaughter of the Vietnamese (Rorty 1998 p. 32). Rorty follows Dewey in rejecting the possibility of sin (Rorty p. 33). Here Rorty notes the similarity between Dewey on the one hand and Neitzsche, Derrida and Heidegger on the other “for all these philosophers objectivity is a matter of inter subjective consensus among human beings not of accurate representations of something non-human” (p. 35).
Social democracy must return to the pragmatism and secularism of Dewey and Whitman and use democratic institutions to serve the cause of “social justice”. The “cultural Left” should return to social democracy and abandon “the politics of difference”. It should think less about stigma and more about money, “more about laws that need to be passed” (Rorty p. 78), “combining political freedom with centralized economic decision making” (Rorty p. 79). Social democrats should target growing economic inequality and economic insecurity. Rorty sees possibilities of populist revolt in the “prolitarianisation of the Americans bourgeoisie.” (Rorty p. 83).

Rorty believes that “things will get much worse much faster … The world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no sense of community with any workers anywhere” (Rorty p 85). Rorty also deplores America’s growing dependence on foreign capital (Rorty p 86) and increased free trade (Rorty p 88). He sees a conspiracy “of the super rich to keep the minds of the population elsewhere - to keep the bottom 75 percent of Americans busy with ethnic and religious hostilities” (Rorty p 88) and fears that fascism may be America's future (Rorty p. 89). “ The non suburban electorate will decide that the system has failed” (Rorty p. 91). Social democrats should counter this by (a) putting a moratorium on theory - forgetting the awkward questions raised by Lacan, Leyotard and Derida about the multiple incoherences characteristic of this type of vulgar communitarianism (b) mobilise national pride in being American (c) “ give both religion and philosophy a pass” (Rorty 1990 p. 95) and reaffirm faith in the projects of the old fashioned reformist liberals and (d) concentrate political attention within the context of the nation state and “construct inspiring images of the country” (Rorty 1999 p. 99). This should provide a basis for a people’s charter and an alliance with the trade unions. Social democrats should recognize that participatory democracy is an illusion and that there is no alternative to capitalism. . “The public sensibly has no interest in getting rid of capitalism nor should it be interested in participatory democracy (1998 p104). Piecemeal reform within the framework of a market economy should be the main concern of social democracy.

Islanders defeat UK over right to return

2007-05-24T13:59:00.000+10:00

"People thrown off their Indian Ocean islands by Britain 40 years ago to make way for a US military base have won their legal battle for the right to return home."

Click here for the article.

The Appeal Court in London has upheld the previous High Court declaration that the expulsion of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean by the British government was "repugnant, illegal and irrational". The Chagos Islanders are now free to return to their homeland.

(From here at 24/5/07)

Diego Garcia is America’s biggest military base in the world, outside the US. There are more than 4,000 troops, two bomber runways, thirty warships and a satellite spy station. The Pentagon calls it an “indispensable platform” for policing the world.

Before the Americans came, more than 2,000 people lived on the islands, many with roots back to the late 18th century. There were thriving villages, a school, a hospital, a church, a railway and an undisturbed way of life. The islands were, and still are, a British crown colony.

In the 1960s, the government of Harold Wilson struck a secret deal with the United States to hand over Diego Garcia. The Americans demanded that the islands be “swept” and “sanitised”. Unknown to Parliament and to the US Congress, the British government plotted with Washington to expel the entire population – in secrecy and in breach of the United Nations Charter.

(From Stealing a Nation)

Skill Formation Strategies for Sustaining 'The Drive to Maturity' in Pakistan

2007-05-22T17:56:00.000+10:00

Muhammad Zahid Siddique and Javed Akbar Ansari

Abstract: This paper outlines some problems in the articulation of a national skill formation strategy seeking to sustain ‘the drive to maturity’ of the Pakistan economy. We examine the thought of two economists—Adam Smith and Amartya Sen—to identify market-, society-, and state-related skills that they theorise as necessary for sustaining an economy’s ‘drive to maturity’. We then briefly outline Michel Foucault’s social theory to contextualise these skill formation paradigms within the institutional structure characteristic of mature capitalism. We argue that integration within global capitalist order leaves little room for the articulation of such a skill formation national strategy. Pakistan is therefore likely to share the fate of the majority of the under-developed countries which are experiencing de-skilling and detechonolgising.

The Pakistan Development Review, 2005, vol. 44, issue 4, pages 541-566

download from here

An intensifying civil war will be a tragedy for Iraq, but . . .not for America!

2007-05-08T21:50:00.000+10:00

"An intensifying civil war will be a tragedy for Iraq, but it is not the worst outcome from a U.S. standpoint to have a number of bitterly anti-American groups duking it out among themselves.

Civil wars eventually come to an end when one side wins (unlikely, in this case) or when the parties exhaust themselves and drop their maximalist aims."

Beating an Orderly Retreat

Islamism's failure, Islamists' future

2007-05-08T21:26:00.000+10:00

"Second, such activists are (almost by definition) now entering the political scene through processes of democratisation. True, there is room for debate about how practical and real the change among Islamist parties and movements has been. In Turkey, for example, many secularists (including many people in the army) consider that Erdoğan didn't truly abandon the idea of building an Islamic state in Turkey, that he retains a "hidden agenda".

But the Turkish example makes the point that "sincerity" is not the issue - for it is not a political concept. It is democratisation itself that matters: the fact that these movements are entering the political scene through making alliances with others, pledging to accept election results, and seeking to go beyond their constituency."

full here

A note on conceptual confusions

2007-05-08T19:51:00.001+10:00

It is almost a truism to say that Islam is a balancing act, a balanced way and a system of life based on moderation. Of course Islam is the religion of justice and moderation. But what does this mean? What is the conceptual and logical status of terms such as ‘moderation,’ ‘balancing acts,’ and ‘justice?’

When Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) calls His religion and deen a balanced act and a path of moderation, He does this on the basis of His all-encompassing knowledge and on the basis that He is the creator of the criterion (Al-furqan) according to which we distinguish between what is a balancing act and what is not, what is moderation and what is extreme.

Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) revealed the criterion through His messengers and through His books to us so that we can guide our life according to the revealed criterion. The criterion is preserved in its purest and final form in the teachings of Islam, in the Quran and in the life and sayings of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him) and the Ijma of the Ulema of this Ummah.

Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) revealed the criterion to differentiate between good and evil, moderation and extreme, because it is impossible to discover the criterion through human efforts, through senses, reason and intuition. The senses, reason and intuition has no bearing on the question. This is the basis of the need for the prophethood and divine guidance. If one does not accept that senses, reason and intuition are unable to discover the ultimate truths one in fact denies the need for prophethood and guidance.

Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle believed (for example) that the ultimate criterion to distinguish between justice and injustice can be discovered through reason. Aristotle famously held that a right act was ‘mean’ between two extremes and that ‘mean’ can be discovered through a combination of theoretical and practical intellect.

The Christian and Muslim disciples of Plato and Aristotle had great difficulty in reconciling the Platonic and Aristotelian views about the self sufficiency of human intellect with their religious views about the need for prophethood and guidance. In the end they were compelled to propose an arbitrary compromise according to which both philosophers and prophets teach the same truth. The difference however is that the way of messengers is “easy” and open/accessible to the masses while the way of philosophers is difficult and hard to understand for most people. That is how St. Augustine, Aquinas, Al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina claim to reconcile the teachings of the Greek philosophers with Christianity and Islam respectively.

Now our master the Hujjah of Islam Imam Ghazali totally rejected this so called reconciliation. He showed the incoherence (Tahafa) of any such claims. He established beyond doubt that reason was incapable of discovering the criterion (Al-furqan) of what is right and wrong, just and unjust, moderate and extreme. To accept the absurd claims of philosophers is in fact to deny the essence of prophethood and the most basic human need i.e. the need for guidance.

In the light of above it should be clear that Islam is the sole criterion through which we can distinguish between what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, what is just and unjust. This is implied by a universally agreed upon belief among the Ahlussunna wal jamaah that Islam is the truth (Al-Haq). There can be no value neutral criterion to judge whether Islam is just or not, moderate or extreme, because Islam itself defines what is just and unjust, what is moderate and extreme, what is balanced or not, in the first place.

There is no difference of opinion among Ahlussunna wal jamaah on the above in that, unlike Mutazilah (and Shia), they unanimously reject that justice can be defined in any value neutral terms. It is for this reason that Ahlussuna wal jamaah (unlike Mutazilah and Shia) has never included justice among the basic pillars of Islam.

If the above is correct then something like the following can be interpreted in two different ways of which only one can be correct:

A)Islam is the religion of moderation and a balancing act
B)Justice and balance are from the greatest goals of the Shariah.
C)Our scholars have stated that the Shariah came with justice and balance in every way.

The statements above and countless other statements like this are correct if understood within the limit of what we have said above as meaning that the Shariah came to establish balance, justice and moderation in the life of people and that the Shariah itself defines what is just, unjust, balance, etc.

However the above statements are wrong when they are presented as independent principles (Usul) to derive Ahkam, simply because Shariah itself defines what is moderate and what is not and so moderation cannot possibly be a principle of deriving Ahkam (simple logic would suffice to understand it).

If the Shariah itself defines what is moderation and what is not then it is simply nonsense to use the concepts of balance, moderation or justice as independent principles to establish the permissibility or impermissibility of a certain act. If justice means acting according to the will of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He), if balance means choosing the way Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He)has prescribed for us and His beloved (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him) has lived for us then how on earth can the concepts of justice and balance be treated as principles to establish Ahkam?? Imbalance means deviating from the way of the beloved of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon him), injustice means not obeying the Will of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He). That is why Islam is the justice and the balance and Kufr is injustice and imbalance par excellence.

However it is not just simple nonsense to treat justice, moderation and balance as independent concepts, it is rather a dangerous ploy as well (intentional or unintentional) to distort the very meaning of Shariah and the deen of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He). The very fact that a third term is employed in discussing issues rather than establishing the religious edict in a direct way itself points towards the fact that something is fundamentally wrong with this strategy.

Invoking a third term is a dangerous ploy because it imperceptibly and gradually tries to establish the value neutral meaning of justice, balance and moderation and hence changes the very meaning of these terms as they are understood in the religion of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He). It gradually reinterprets the Shariah of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) in the light of these supposedly value neutral concepts.

It should be remembered that the concepts which I have referred to as value neutral are in fact never value neutral. The content of these concepts if not derived from the consensually established meaning of Shariah is filled by the meaning of the term which is prevalent. Considering which civilisation is dominant today, epistemologically and politically, the whole process can only be described as modernization and Westernisation of Islam. The process is part of the campaign to create a moderate Islam (thus intended or not).

The above mentioned danger is not an abstract or empty danger. This is precisely what happened with Christianity and this is God forbid what could happen to Islam if the trend spreads.

It is ironic that in the forefront of the movement leading this are those who claim to hold the banner of traditionalism. But in fact there is no deeper irony here since traditionalism is the flipside of Modernity and Modernity has always used traditionalists to their advantage.

Modernity can only be resisted and eventually overcome on the basis of the principles of Ahlussunna wal jamaah who combine emphasis on tradition and continuity with equal or more emphasis on the transcendent character of Quran, Sunnah, and the Ijma of the best period in the history of Islam (i.e. the Ijma of the first century of Islamic era).

The Genesis and Telos of the Social Sciences: A Summary

2007-05-08T19:17:00.000+10:00

•Social science methodologies are teleological – not value neutral. Their essential purpose is to legitimate and provide the technologies of governance for creating and sustaining capitalist order.

•Social sciences presume the validity of the central proposition of Kantian mechanism and empiricism / utilitarianism.

•Social sciences are committed to a secular conception of being and the world. Man is a (n actual or potential) creator of the world and the purpose of practical reason is to establish man’s mastery over the world.

•Social sciences presume the universe to be a self contained self regulating dynamic mechanism the laws of motion of which are to be discovered /determined by self reflection. Knowledge is a product of the self understanding of the self which imposes its order on the world. The self itself cannot be known for it is the condition of knowledge. Reason is a means for practicing the universalisable commands of the (unknowable) self.

•The social sciences are committed to freedom – the unlimited right of the self is to will its ends. Belief in the self legislating self eliminates the need for seeking any moral authority for granting the self this unlimited right.

•The social sciences are an unreserved and total endorsement of the beliefs underlying mechanism and utilitarianism. The social sciences are means for the realization of Enlightenment ends – self fulfillment and progress. There is therefore no room in the social sciences for the recognition of God as sustainer (Rabb) as there is in Newtonian physics.

•The social sciences recognize reason as a slave of the passions. All individual acts and institutions are to be judged on the basis of the felicific calculus. Wealth not virtue is an end in itself. Man is recognized as sovereign in the basic sense that he is the sole legitimate possessor of his body. The social sciences are committed to the elimination not of vice but of poverty and to the promotion of the passion for money making.

•Capitalism is the universalization of this passion – the universalization of avarice and covetousness. The social sciences legitimate and provide technologies of governance for operationalizing the rule of capital in the market and in the state.

2007-05-07T16:34:00.000+10:00

Washington in shock as madam testifies

2007-05-07T16:26:00.000+10:00

Afghan soldier kills two US troops

No Dialogue with Mullahs

2007-05-04T17:42:00.000+10:00

"There was no dialogue between the philosophes and the Vatican in the eighteenth century, and there is not going to be one between the mullahs of the Islamic world and the demo¬cratic West. The Vatican in the eighteenth century had its own best interests in mind, and the mullahs have theirs. They no more want to be displaced from their positions of power than the Catholic hierarchy did (or does). With luck, the educated middle class of the Islamic countries will bring about an Islamic Enlightenment, but this enlightenment will not have anything much to do with a “dialogue with Islam.”

A dialogue between American State philosopher Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo from page 72 Columbia University Press, New York.

Tenet Tries to Shift the Blame. Don't Buy It.

2007-04-30T20:17:00.000+10:00

"To be fair, Tenet and I had differences about how best to act against bin Laden. (In the book, he plays down my recommendations as those of "an analyst not trained in conducting paramilitary operations.") The hard fact remains that each time we acquired actionable intelligence about bin Laden's whereabouts, I argued for preemptive action. By May 1998, after all, al-Qaeda had hit or helped to hit five U.S. targets, and bin Laden had twice declared war on America. I did not -- and do not -- care about collateral casualties in such situations, as most of the nearby civilians would be the families that bin Laden's men had brought to a war zone. But Tenet did care. "You can't kill everyone," he would say. That's an admirable humanitarian concern in the abstract, but it does nothing to protect the United States. Indeed, thousands of American families would not be mourning today had there been more ferocity and less sentimentality among the Clinton team."

full here

Lebanon: Political Loyalties Being Rebuilt

2007-04-27T20:06:00.000+10:00

Political Loyalties Being Rebuilt
Dahr Jamail

AITA ECH CHAAB, Apr 26 (IPS) - People in this southern Lebanese village are rebuilding their destroyed houses with renewed vigour. And, with renewed loyalties to a combination of Hezbollah, Qatar and Iran.

Full article here.

grand game of grand shaytan!

2007-04-21T20:09:00.000+10:00

"Hezbollah officials in Beirut told Asia Times Online that the party is very much aware that Bush, Bandar Bush and Israel are working to unleash fitna - doubt, anger, the implosion of Islam. They say the US wants a partition not only of Iraq, but also of Syria and Lebanon. Hezbollah is doing all it can to prevent a regional Sunni-Shi'ite war - which would start by a partition of Iraq.

This is exactly what we hear from Iraqi refugees in Damascus: the US wants Sunnis and Shi'ites to kill each other instead of US occupation soldiers. And this is also what Syrian intelligence hears from these same Iraqi refugees, whether they come from Baghdad, Hilla and Najaf or from Fallujah and Ramadi."

client regimes....

2007-04-21T20:05:00.000+10:00

"It all boils down to the same game: smashing any true nationalist resistance movement, whatever it takes, to the benefit of easily pliable client regimes. Thus the Nuri al-Maliki client regime in Iraq killing Sunnis (and, as much as possible, also Sadrists); the Abbas client regime in Palestine against Hamas; the Siniora client regime in Lebanon attacking Hezbollah. In appropriate newspeak the surge for a region-wide Sunni-Shi'ite war is then labeled as "support for democracy" and spun on pliant corporate media. The repressive, retrograde House of Saud couldn't be a better partner in this "peace process" - as it sees nationalists such as Nasrallah, Muqtada and Hamas leader Khalid Meshal as the plague."

Obviously only Islamic resistance can be a "true nationalist resistance" in the Islamic lands!!

read the article in full here

The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency

2007-04-20T19:50:00.000+10:00

"The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?

The most powerful mobilisation in New York City is in relation to Darfur, not Iraq. One would expect the reverse, for no other reason than that most New Yorkers are American citizens and so should feel directly responsible for the violence in occupied Iraq. But Iraq is a messy place in the American imagination, a place with messy politics. Americans worry about what their government should do in Iraq. Should it withdraw? What would happen if it did? In contrast, there is nothing messy about Darfur. It is a place without history and without politics; simply a site where perpetrators clearly identifiable as ‘Arabs’ confront victims clearly identifiable as ‘Africans’."

Read the article in full

A Critique of Islamic Sociology

2007-04-16T17:02:00.000+10:00

This paper discusses the work of Dr. Ali Shariati a committed Islamic revolutionary trained as a sociologist at the University of Paris during the early 1960s, Shariati applied sociological theories – specially based on the works of Marx, Fanon, Toynbee, Uzgan and the authors of the French analytical and critical school of sociology – to Islamic themes. He conceives of Islam as “a median school” intermediate between capitalism and socialism (Algar 1978 p19).

Shariati was also deeply influenced by his father. Aqai Taqi Shariati who sought to develop a “scientific and progressive” approach to theological questions and wrote a modern tafseer (Tafsir Naveen) challenging the interpretations of the traditionalist ulema. Ali Shariati inherited this approach and developed it into a third wordlist quasi Marxist interpretation of Islamic social thought and practice. It is this insistence on Marxist themes which has enabled the Mujahideen-I-khalq to accept Shariati as their most important theoretician.

Shariati rejects Islamic history, consensus (ijmah) and theology as a source of Islamic social thought and practice. Shariati writes “we still do not know our religion … we have not written a single worthwhile book concerning Ali and his companions … after fourteen centuries Ali has been made known to us by a Christian. Georges Jourdaq” (1979 p3). Shariati advocates a rejection of the entire corpus of Islamic knowledge accumulated through the centuries “we must begin by knowing our religion (through a new interpretation of the Quran) which (enabled me) to extract from the Qura’an a whole series of new…..themes relating to …. sociology and the new sciences. A philosophical theory and a theory of sociology and history opened themselves before me and when I checked them against sociology and history I found them to be fully correct” (1979-p6) – the Qura’an, according to Shariati, fully endorses modern sociological methodologies. “Though applying the special terms of the Quran it is possible to discover several new topics …. in sociology” (1979 p7) for the Quran endorses doxological methodology.

..........

Shariati misunderstands capitalism. Capitalism’s ontological presuppositions are Kantian / Humean. It seeks transcendence in this world through freedom, Shariati’s conception of tauheed ultimately denies the possibility of the finititude of this world by postulating the “unity” of this world and the hereafter and the similarity of the nature of man and God. Shariati denies man’s servitude and thus necessarily endorses freedom / capital Shariati’s is a this worldly spirituality which sees religion as merely a means for the achievement of freedom.

Shariati fails to understand that accumulation of capital requires the abolishing of private property. Liberalism accomplish this through the financial markets and socialism through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Citizens of communist states are as free and equal as stakeholders (shareholders and bank depositors) in a market economy. Both these forms of capitalist organization prioritize freedom / accumulation of capital, Shariati’s revolution is merely the substitution of one form of capitalist organization (despotism of the market) by another (democratic proletarian dictatorship). By promoting freedom in both these forms capitalism necessarily seeks the destruction of Islamic individuality and order, an individuality and on order explicitly rejecting freedom / capital and celebrating, servitude (abdiyat) to Allah under the authority and guidance (hidayat) of the ulema, the guardians of Islamic tradition (Sunnah) and consensus (ijma).

It is no wonder that Shariati’s most devoted followers – the Mujahideen-I-Khaliq – have always been the bitterest opponents of the ulema and the Islamic state. They – and the communist parties of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and the Central Asian Republics – are enthusiastic agents of American imperialism, for America is their natural ally. America and the communists stand together for the universalization of freedom and for the destruction of Islamic individuality and Islamic order (abdiyat and hidayat).

It is acceptance of the value neutrality claims of sociological, methodology and theory which led a sincere Islamic revolutionary to commit such serious errors of analysis. We must reject the presuppositions, methodologies and policies of the social sciences and attempt to address contemporary issues on the basis of orthodox Islamic traditions authenticated by ijmah and silsilah.

We pray to Allah to forgive and overlook Allama Shariati’s errors and mistakes. These errors were made with all sincerity by a scholar from a pious and noble family. Allama Shariati sacrificed his life for Islam. He had great love for the Prophet (Sallal Allah-o-alahai wa salam) his companions and the holy Ahl-i-Bait. He sought to promote unity between Shias and Sunnis. May Allah reward him and assign to him a high station in heaven.

keep reading

for a summary of the article go here

===

initially posted on 09/12/04.

Neocons and nepotism? Sex, money & the fall of Wolfowitz

2007-04-11T21:32:00.000+10:00

The man affectionately known as 'Wolfie' by George Bush has struggled to make friends in his new job as the head of the World Bank. Now his staff are accusing him of lavishing promotions and pay rises on his girlfriend

Read the article

Related posts:

World Bank advice on how to harness equity for capitalist exploitation

Robert Fisk: Divide and rule - America's plan for Baghdad

2007-04-11T21:19:00.000+10:00

Revealed: a new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq?

Read the article

A FEW WORDS TO THE ARAB PEOPLE

2007-04-10T20:49:00.000+10:00

May your land prosper till eternity!

who raised the cry: no Caesars and Chosroes?

In this world of near and far, fast and slow,

who was the first to read the Qur’an?

who was taught the secret of la ilah?

where was this lamp (of knowledge) lighted?

From whom did the world gain knowledge?

for whom is the (Qur’anic) verse revealed: “You became” ?[1]

It was due to the bounty of the one called Ummi [referring to the prphet]

that tulips grew out of the sandy desert of Arabia.

Freedom (as a concept) developed under his care,

that is, the “today” of the peoples is from his “yesterday”

he put a “heart” into the body of Adam

and removed the veil from his face,

he broke all the ancient gods ;

every old twig, through his breath, grew a flower.

The excitement of the battles of Badr and Hunain,

Haidar, Siddiq, Faruq and Husain,

the grandeur of the call to prayer,

the recitation of the Qur’anic Surat al-Saffat, in the battlefield,

the sword of Ayyubi and the look of Bayazid,

the keys to the treasures of both the worlds,

reason and heart intoxicated with one cup of wine,

a mixture of dhikr and fikr of Rum and Rayy;

knowledge and science, Shari’ah and religion, administration of State;

ever-dissatisfied hearts within the breast,

al-Hamra and the Taj, of world-consuming beauty,

that win tributes from the celestial beings-

all these are moments of his time,

a single lustre of his manifold manifestations.

All these heart-pleasing phenomena are his outward aspects,

his inward aspect is still hidden from the gnostics.

“Limitless praise be to the Holy Prophet,

who gave to this handful of dust true belief in God.”

God made you sharper than the sword:

Lie made the camel-driver the rider of destiny.

Your takbir, your prayer and your war:

on these depend the fate of East and West.

How good this dedication and selfless devotion.

Alas! for this grievous affliction and melancholy!

The nations of the world are promoting their interests,

you are unaware of the value of your desert ;

you were a single nation, you have become now several nations,

you have broken up your society yourself.

He who loosened himself from the bonds of self-awareness,

and merged himself in others, met certain death.

Nobody else ever did what you have done to yourself.

The soul of Mustafa was grieved by it.

O you who are unaware of the Frankish magic,

see the mischiefs hidden in his sleeves.

If you wish to escape his deceits,

turn away his camels from your ponds.

His diplomacy has weakened every nation

and broken the unity of the Arabs.

Ever since the Arabs fell into its snares,

not for one moment have they enjoyed peace.

O man of insight, look at your times,

recreate in your body the soul of ‘Umar.

Power lies in the unity of the true religion,.

religion is strong will, sincerity and faith.

As his heart knows the secrets of Nature,

the man of the desert is Nature’s protector.

He is simple, and his nature is the touchstone of right and wrong,

his rise means setting of a hundred thousand stars.

Leave aside these deserts, mountains and valleys,

pitch your tent in your own being.

Whetting your nature on the desert wind

set your dromedary onto the battlefield.

The modern age was born out of your achievements;

its intoxication is the result of your rose-red wine.

You have been the expositor of its secrets,

and the first builder of its edifice.

Since the West adopted it as its own,

it has grown into a coquette, with no sense of honour.

Although she is sweet and pleasant,

yet she is crooked, saucy and irreligious.

O man of the desert, make what is unripe mature

and refashion the world according to your touchstone

====
[1] “You became.” Reference is to the Qur’anic verse, iii. 102: “And remember Allah’s favour to you when you were enemies ; then He united your hearts, so by His favour you became brethren.”

Iqbal

Governing the Labor Market: The Impossibility of Corporatist Reforms

2007-04-09T21:45:00.001+10:00

Muhammad Zahid Siddique, Javed Akbar Ansari and Qazi Mohammad Salman

The principal propose of labor market regulation is the production and sustenance of capitalist individuality—an individuality committed to the maximization of utility and profit. In the post war era two distinct regulatory regimes have been articulated to achieve this end. During the first phase (roughly 1945 to the early 1980s) ‘corporatism’ was institutionalized with an explicit recognition of labor’s collective rights in the appropriation of capitalist property. Since the early 1980s these regulatory regimes have been dismantled in many countries and capitalist individuation of labor is being promoted through the disempowerment of unions and the development of human resource management systems at the enterprise level. Labor’s collective participation in capitalist state decision making structures has been delegitimized.

This ‘post Fordist’ regulatory regime has been criticized by social democrats as it exacerbates income and power inequalities and alienates the worker from capitalist (civil) society. A partial resurrection of corporatist labor market governance structures is being contemplated in several Latin American countries—Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay etc. Pakistani social democrats will also press a future populist government to modify “post Fordist” labor governance structures (e.g. repeal IRO 2002).
This paper argues that a return to corporatist governance structures is impossible in Pakistan. Sec 1 outlines labor market regulation rationalities presented by three neo classical economists. Section II compares and contrasts Fordist and post Fordist modes of labor market regulation and section III seeks to establish the impossibility of institutionalizing corporatist governance structures in the labor markets of Pakistan.

Read the paper in full (pdf)

A search for an optimum currency area partners for Pakistan

2007-03-31T11:31:00.000+10:00

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the existence of a common trend between the exchange
rates of Pakistan and five regional countries Bangladesh, India, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and the UAE with two of their major trading partners, the United States and Japan as base countries. Results from Johansen co integrating analysis show that the strongest evidence points to the existence of common stochastic trends between the Pakistani rupees on the one hand and the Bangladeshi Taka and the Sri Lankan rupee on the other hand. There is no strong evidence for the existence of such a common stochastic trend between the Pakistani rupee and the currencies of India and the Gulf economies. Optimum Currency Area (OCA) theory seems to justify the formation of a currency union between Pakistan,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The case of a currency union between Bangladesh and Pakistan is strengthened by a shared political past and a shared history of financial institutional development. The immediate impact of the formation of a currency union on Pakistan’s GDP growth will however be insignificant.

A search for an optimum currency area partners for Pakistan

Priests to purify site after Bush visit

2007-03-10T18:04:00.000+11:00

"Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Read the full story

Relation between Kant’s moral/political philosophy and his metaphysics

2007-03-08T23:25:00.000+11:00

Short notes based on my reading of the relevant portions of F. Beiser's Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790-1800:

•In Kant Morality (and hence political philosophy) grounds Metaphysics and not the other way round. Or to put it more precisely Kant ushers in a new kind of Metaphysics, a metaphysics that revolves not around God and Cosmos but around man.

•A major step in this direction was Kant’s redefinitions of Morality. Kant redefines Morality in terms of autonomy and freedom. Before Kant Morality was either defined with reference to natural law or religion. In both cases the essence of Morality was to obey certain higher order, be that order a religious one or secular one based on natural law.

•Thus if Kant bases Metaphysics on his conception of Morality, it follows that he founds his Metaphysics on the basis of the concepts of autonomy and freedom.

•Furthermore, Kant relates concept of freedom and autonomy to he concept of human will.

•For Natural law tradition source of value is not human will but the providential order.

•For Kant source of value is human will (and the source of epistemology is human understanding).

•Rousseau’s idea of general will is important in this context. The crux of the idea is that people are obliged to obey only laws of their own making.

•Based on this idea Kant claims that the subjugation of one person to the will of another is the greatest evil (thus surrendering your will to the will of God would be an evil act). We cannot and should not suffer the humiliation of the dictation from another will.

•The basic fault of the traditional Metaphysics is that it “alienate human autonomy.” (Beiser, 1992, 31). It follows fro this that we need an alternative Metaphysics that does not alienate human autonomy. We need a Metaphysics (or lack therefore) that legitimates human autonomy.

•This is the basis of Kant’s humanism, the religion based on the worship of man and not that of God.

•This humanism provides legitimation for republicanism of Kant.

•Kant’s criticism of traditional Metaphysics is based on the idea that it is useless. The focus, says Kant, should be on what is useful for humanity and not on the useless speculations of Metaphysics.

•By this Kant effectively adopts a utilitarian conception of truth.

•Reason should subordinate itself to practical ends. The end which is useful for human beings is “not happiness but the freedom of humanity.” (Beiser, 1992, 29).

•The fundamental purpose of philosophy is not to discover truth but to “defend the inalienable rights of man.” (Besier, 1992, 29).

•The above provided the basis of Kant’s critique of traditional Metaphysics. It is “useless” to the man.

•To make it useful for the man, we should consider the ideas of reason (God, Self, Cosmos) as “regulative” and not “constitutive” in the manner of traditional Metaphysics.

•To consider the ideas of reason regulative implies two things: a) Kingdom of God is not a provident order but something which we humans create. Modern. welfarism and capitalism takes this idea in the realm of actualisation. b) The “highest good” is not the object of belief but a “goal for action.” (Besier, 1992, 32).

•It is freedom alone that gives unconditional worth to human being. The question immediately arises where does this “right” to freedom comes from?

•The answer must be sought in the new Metaphysics, the metaphysics based on the divinity of the man.

•This Metaphysics provide the foundation not only to the Kantian Morality but also to his politics of democracy and republicanism as well as his constitutional liberalism.

•Thus it is more appropriate to say that Kant’s Moral doctrine gives us clue to his new Metaphysics rather than providing foundation for it.

===
A few relevant quotes from Besier:

"The whole motivation for metaphysics, Kant now believed, is misguided. We do not need it to provide a foundation for morality and religion, which are based on a good heart and will, and certainly not on any subtle demonstrations of the existence of God, Providence, and immortality. Instead of basing morality on metaphysics, we should base metaphysics on morality, for it is only our moral duty that justifies our attempt to know the supersensible. Kant now began to rethink the very purpose of metaphysics. It could be legitimate if it were not speculation about transcendent entities but "a science of the limits of human reason." Its task should be to prevent reason from transcending experience, so that it devotes itself to inquiries useful to the conduct of life." (Beiser 1992, 29).

"[The Natural law] tradition places the source of moral value not in the human will but in the providential order. The law of nature is the end appropriate to a thing, the purpose God intended for it. To know our moral obligations, then, we need to know "the vocation of man," our place in the Creation or role in the divine design. Although Pufendorf and Wolff maintained that natural law can be justified by natural reason alone, they never ceased to regard God as its creator and enforcer. Compared to this tradition, Kant's new ethics are revolutionary. The source of moral value is the rational will inside us, not the providential order outside us. Here lies the real depth and impact of Kant's Copernican revolution. This took place not only in epistemology but also in ethics. Just as the natural world depends on the laws of the understanding, so the moral world depends on the laws of the will. Both ethics and epistemology had become anthropocentric." (Beiser 1992, 31).

"Thanks to his new ethics, Kant gained a deeper insight into the problems of traditional metaphysics. The fundamental defect of traditional metaphysics, he now realized, is that it alienates human autonomy. Rather than recognizing the human will as the source of moral laws, it hypostatizes these laws, as if they are part of the providential order designed by God. People had therefore enslaved themselves to laws of their own making. Such hypostasis was the source of Rousseau's famous paradox, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." As early as the autumn of 1765, Kant foresaw a problem that would later haunt Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx: alienation." (Beiser 1992, 31).