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

To: arun gera who wrote (43295)	9/14/2002 6:00:42 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Please read this...I have tackled this earlier.. <<What is the relevance of a Graduate Degree?>> Your question..off the bat I will start with... The difference between 'Mullah Omar' and a Muslim Musharraf is St. Patrick School graduation. Within Islamic societies unlike other societies the need of cultural literacy due to overpowering strength of religion within individual life is of utmost important. Graduation would eliminate the extremists elements from the parliament, although it is an extreme step deliberate disenfranchisement of a certain section of society which is fringe and lunatic but will help the country ot move forward. It is assumed that in our medieval society people who have some knowledge of the world should perform better, a graduate is expected to fare better than a medieval mullah, the bar has been raised for good reasons for the safety and welfare of the country so that reigns of power by any chance due to lack of education may not come in the hands of uneducated, people like Mullah Omar who expected the gods Army to save him from wrath of USA. Now if that is the measure of a qualified guy it is safe to assume that Mush requirements of an educated graduate at least would hinder someone like Omar or Osama to get to the power centre, the very reason that we want graduates symbolise the shambles we are in, it is a clear requirement and illiterate people of nation has been in forefront to have this requirement constitutionalised they want to break the savagery of the tribalism and feudalism. They were fed up to see uneducated members of parliament with birthrights to govern being elected to offices. This requirement will bring fresh faces to the NEW HOUSE. I wrote htis too, I thought this may be helpful to understand unique situation of my country.... To:Michael D. Cummings who wrote (42997) From: IQBAL LATIF Sunday, Jul 14, 2002 9:10 AM View Replies (1) \| Respond to of 43297 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, nearly 500,000 (EDITED)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 co-exist, co-habit 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 thread 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.