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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (42997)	7/13/2002 11:37:40 PM
From: bob oserin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Hmm, change the word "EDUCATED" to "LANDED," and you have the 1790 U.S. elctorate! At least this brings Pakistan's electorate into the 19th century ( And the Wahabi infestation).

To: greenspirit who wrote (42997)	7/14/2002 9:10:00 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

The recent court ruling prohibiting anyone who is not an undergraduate to seek public office is a kind of obstacle that has been created to flunk those leaders who have been, since 1947, running for offices as part of their God-given birth right. These fiefdoms have destroyed any chance of Pakistan having true democracy; not that I have any realistic hope that any Islamic country can have "true democracy" since democracy is not a part of Islam. Consensus building is the last that they can go up to but consensus building is not a last mile solution for nations to make road maps for cohabitation in this connected world. The other day I made this point to Sir Peter Ustinov, when I stated that it is the birth pangs of fusion of cultures due to our connectivity that is causing so much of apparent commotion within our human family. I believe that it is a step forward! Despite all the greed, destruction and the corruption of the educated class, an educated mind is culturally a literate mind. Cultural literacy is vital for existence n this world for any nation. Cultural literacy is knowing comparative systems of governance. Cultural literacy brings acceptance of other people's beliefs and ideals. Cultural literacy helps us open our minds to the strengths of others and our inherent weaknesses. There are some cardinal principals that one needs to follow and those principles within a family, tribe, clan, city and a nation. It is a well known fact that the human development index of nations is dependent on three key factors for any nation. The most important of them is education; I'll invite to look at the list of nations that are at the bottom rung of the human development cycle Yr1995-2002. You will find that nations with primary enrolments are the nations that have been devastated by the internecine wars and self-destruction, Chad, Somalia, and Afghanistan etc. These nations form the list of lowest 10 nations with regards to primary enrolments. Pakistan happens to be one of them too. The two correlations between low education and extinction of the nation as a viable state are very interrelated. We can see that the technicals of Somalia were the kids who were denied by the conflict of the Cold war that destroyed Somalia and created the permanent instability that led to war lords. A 15 year old mind who is uneducated and has no interaction with a foreign culture, once has got hold of the gun has got very little respect for human life and its innate ability to live in a structured administration, that is what is termed a state. Failed state is a state that denies education to its people and intellectual curiosity one up-man ship aside on the disadvantages of educated elite but lets be honest across the board to have illiterates running a country would be akin to systems like Afghanistan. All extremists have similar traits, that is they believe that no other word exists that is better then what has been revealed to them. The reason that we have so many extremists in Islamic society and even educated Osama could not cross that Rubicon was the fact that the indoctrination of Islamic thinking is so acute that any other knowledge is considered to be inferior to what has been revealed to them. Literal meaning brings a lot of destruction and to see into Osama's mind or Mullah Omar's mind is very simple. They literally believe what is in their scriptures so our best bet would be to introduce parallel education where these minds can be convinced of the advantages of contemporary knowledge and history. The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity of mankind. Here we are not trying to say that Pakistan is going to go through the ushering of the new era as soon as graduates take over. Usually the educated graduates if still convinced of the indoctrinated holy teaching can be very dangerous enemies and foes look at Aiyman, he's a doctor or Atta, the main culprit who was an engineer but we are hoping that we'll make the odds in our favour. Much as Musharraf is detested by everyone around, one thing has no doubt changed the destiny of my nation under his leadership is to break the Gordian knot that connected Pakistan with extremism. I always believe that twenty years of war with USSR as a US proxy against "commies" in support of Taliban, who are the biggest fascists, was a gross intellectual error. Illiterates inspired by holy writ of God, like the Talibans became the instrument of terror. I think that university educated Karzai and present leadership of Afghanistan is quite moderate although they have the same ethnic credentials but the change of direction is so obvious, 50,000 girls in Kabul alone that is big breaking of chains in which Afghani female society was shackled. I truly believe in spite of political objectives of USA, this act of America will change the direction of Afghanistan in the next 10 years. IRA and Serbs were also educated and ethnic cleansing of Muslims was carried out by the Serbs with the zeal & effort that only an educated mind can achieve however the accountability part of it was also very educational. The Serbs refused to back Milosevich to continue the subjugation of Kosovo again USA played an important role in saving the skins of he Muslims in Albania, Bosnia and even in Kosovo but one thing is very clear that once the fringe element was removed the educated culturally literate populace elected leadership that was moderate and that leadership has been able to establish in Belgrade. Look at Ireland finally they are part of the peace process since they are not looking at intervention of God who will help them win their battles. So educated mind can be destructive and a they can be terrorists but as a general rule the odds are in your favour since an educated minds like to coexist, cohabit and is more open to negotiations & negotiated settlements, which is the art of survival of humanity in this world. We have wars and we do have treaties. In case of Islamic extremism, these lines are quite blurred and education has not really helped in eradication of that belief of connectivity to God and license to kill from God. This license to kill as a holy writ is root cause of sickness and pyschopathism that leads to like of Osama, Saddam & Haffez al Assad & Arafat. This streak of self-righteousness and under estimation of their counter party resolve to obtain political objectives through coercion is a trait that connects these minds and their lack of education or I would say their lack of cultural literacy. Third world down trodden nations like mine and people like us have no other better expectations but to ask for leadership that is at least possibly ready to open its minds to the world. I have written several times on this pages that hundreds of convent and missionaries schools in Pakistan helped mould hundreds of thousands of minds who are Muslims but have accepted that God has not given the license to kill because someone doesn't seem to agree with them. Coercive actions to cow others would not pay any dividends and this is the kind of education we are looking to impart to our leadership. First the privacy of ideological belief, disconnection of global vision of conquer of ideology with realistic goals of domestic nation building is the challenge that our nation wants to achieve through introducing these hurdles. I always believe that nation building is like a painstaking phenomenon that our parents to build families much as it is important within our families to educate and build likewise it is collective responsibility of a nation to urge and raise the bar of its leadership to know the world become culturally literate and become tolerant with opposite ideas. Saudi Arabia and most of the Arabian peninsula has a hard time and a similarly bigger challenge to encourage their society to open up and stop believing their God-given right of puritanical supremacy and gain the understanding of the fact that their oil wealth has made them bunch of nations due to its closeness, becoming an oasis of idle failed thinking. Osama and Omar type of characteristics are symptomatic of Saudi Wahabi society that Bob Oserin refers to in answer to your post. Sometime education does not work but mass education will do wonders because mass education helps fringe elements to be thrown out of the mainstream and their logics & their arguments fall on deaf ears in an educated society that is culturally literate and ready to cohabit with the world. The challenge for any Islamic nation is to firstly open the society make primary education compulsory then step up to train its leadership to a higher pedestal of undergraduate, postgraduate studies that leads to better understanding and finally incorporate the value that we are all fluid in this world and our ideas are not final & we should have an open mind to correct ourselves and construct a better mutual future.

To: greenspirit who wrote (42997)	7/14/2002 1:30:16 PM
From: BubbaFred	Respond to of 50167

The bachelor's degree requirement is the most convenient and easiest way to implement a new class of politicians that will guide Pakistan's future. It is one way to bring forth broader minded people to the nation's leadership. It is very costly to get rid of the primarily religious schools where children learns an extremely narrow scope of life and the one and only subject learned is Islam and Koran. The old ruling parties (the large landowners and the Islam clerics) had taken advantage of this traditional system because it is the source of peons or low labor as long as they remain passive and would not cause any stir to the establishment and was always counted to perpetuate the status quo Parliament consisting of landowners and Islam clerics. Unfortunately the traditional system has been the source of peons for the Islamic extremists as well. It is a society where who you know is much more important than what you know, and family status carries greater significance than smarts or knowledge. Present day Pakistan is a bit peculiar. Rather than society demanding changes, it is Musharaff's policies that will cause and implement changes in Pakistan. Musharaff is the voice of the silent majority comprised of both the educated and the merchant class. He draws from national pride and patriotism to bring about the changes. Islam and religion would much prefer traditional status quo. Islam, in particular, tends to use (not serve) the populace. In many other societies, on the other hand, religions serve and guide the behavior of society. The Pakistan-India rife occurs at a time when it is most needed to help bring about the transformation.

To: greenspirit who wrote (42997)	7/14/2002 2:34:50 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

<After all, Osama was well educated wasn't he? Notice I chose was? I believe he's dead, but we may never know since he's probabably buried under 100 tons of rubble in the remote Tora Bora region of Afghanistan.> The head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency said in an interview published Saturday that he believes Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites) is still alive and hiding along the border between Afghanistan ( news - web sites) and Pakistan. Reuters Photo August Hanning, the head of the Federal Intelligence Service, also estimated that more than 5,000 supporters of al-Qaida and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia remain in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, while many others have returned to their homelands. "They are preparing attacks from their new locations — they will try everything to strike again," he was quoted as saying in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "We must be prepared for that." He referred to no specific plans.