Newspaper Articles (mostly)
Dr. Asad Zaman
email:
A collection of brief articles, meant for, and mostly published in, newspapers
1. The Dark Side of the Enlightenment Project
2. Failures of Modernization Theories
3. The Ways of the Eagles
4. European Transition to Secular Thought
5. The Pursuit of Wealth
6. The War Against the Poor
7. Our Traditional Educational Systems
8. Thoughts on Education and Character Building
1. The Dark Side of the Enlightenment Project
An extremely important element in the current thinking and psychology of Europeans is the “Enlightenment Project” undertaken by large numbers of European intellectuals. Achievements of Newton, Galileo, and many other prominent scientists created a dramatic impact on the mindset of Europe. A few simple laws could lay bare the secrets of the movements of the stars, and a few observations could upset centuries of belief in the central place of man (and his planet) in universe. Imagine what progress would be possible if these principles of utilizing observations and fact, and building upon them in the light of reason, were applied on a much larger scale. Enlightenment thinkers were inspired by fantastic achievements of science, and technology. They thought that application of the scientific method in all areas of human thought would lead to a radical improvement in the human condition. All social problems such was wars, famines, disease, misery were due to traditions and superstition (that is, Christianity). Opposing tradition, establishment, encouraging fresh and innovative ways of thinking, and subjecting all ideas to the iron test of reason would lead to the improvement of the human race, and to 'moral progress'.
The first and second world wars came as a shock to believers in the Enlightenment project. The scale of violence, barbarism, and cruelty of Europeans to others was easily equal to the worst happenings in the ‘dark’ and unenlightened times before the triumph of reason. Centuries of diligent study and application of scientific methods to shape minds and construct societies did not appear to have improved human beings judged as humans. Blind faith in progress through application of science was tempered by a dark dose of reality. Warnings that the Enlightenment project might not turn out so well on the human front had been present all along, but the few naysayers had been ignored by the enthusiastic mainstream. Hume had clearly stated that moral values could not be discovered or established by the scientific method. Everyone saw that morals, integrity and honesty were necessary for civilization. Religion, custom and tradition form the basis for morality. Enlightenment thinkers felt confident that they could find alternative bases for a superior morality on the solid foundations of facts and reason. The far-sighted Nietzsche saw much more clearly than his contemporaries the implications of the rejection of religion as superstition, and the magnitude of the task facing the Europeans in constructing an alternative basis for morality, and human behavior. He described this in the parable of the madman who claimed that “We have killed God” – meaning that we Europeans have lost faith in God. He goes on to say the this tremendous news has not yet reached the ears of men, even though they did the deed themselves. That is, the full implications of loss of faith have not been absorbed by European intellectuals, who continue to believe that rational foundations for morality can be found. The implications of living without any basis for morality have not been absorbed.
The twentieth century can be viewed as a report card for the Enlightenment project. As recorded by philosopher and ethicist Jonathan Glover in his Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, the report is not good. Violence, murders, atrocities, destruction of entire cities, and large masses of innocent people using deliberately cruel methods, has been done on a scale never before seen in the annals of history. Glover writes that the challenge of Nietzsche, to find an alternative basis for morality, has not been met, although he continues to be optimistic that a solution may be found. Many authors have written books and articles on the decline of morals in the West, which has been extremely rapid in the last fifty years. As a small but significant illustrative example, consider the affair of Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Only twenty years prior to this event, similar scandals could and did bring down governments and terminate political careers. However, with the erosion of moral values, this affair was dismissed as a personal quirk which was so widespread in the society that it would be hypocritical to chastise the leader too severely for it. According to contemporary conceptions of morality, this is a trivial personal matter, and to take it seriously is the sign of a narrow minded prude. Clinton’s affair is the butt of many jokes and limericks it would be improper to cite here in a public forum. Nonetheless, there is a very serious dimension to this affair. If the wives of leaders of the Western world cannot trust them to keep their promises, and to not deceive them, then who can trust them? Surely it is not the case that a person is compartmentalized so as to behave with integrity in public affairs, and not in his personal affairs.
For us living in the Muslim world, there are some very important lessons to be learned from this history of the Enlightenment project. Those of us who have absorbed the lessons of the West have learned to consider tradition and religion as inferior to reason and observation – this lesson permeates all Western thinking, literature, and other media. The fact is that the science and religion occupy different spheres, and experience shows that science offers no guidance on moral affairs. Physics can lead to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also provide atomic power. Biology is capable of genetic manipulation of crops to enrich multinationals at the expense of the masses, and equally capable of providing substantial increases in production to feed the starving. We are living in a world which has lost its moral bearings, at least partly as an outcome of commitment to Enlightenment principles. The law of the jungle prevails in the international arena. Any country with sufficient power can invade, capture, occupy, and kill innocents and large numbers without even the pretext of a moral justification. Our Islamic tradition offers strong moral guidance, which is becoming more and more a desperate need of the times.
2. Failures of Modernization Theories
Pride resulting from global dominance and spectacular scientific and technological developments led Europeans to believe that the West was the most advanced and developed of all societies. Other societies were primitive and under-developed. As these other societies matured and grew, they would follow the same stages that were followed by the West, and eventually become like modern Western societies. Early thinkers like Comte described the stages in growth from primitive society to modern ones in a ‘logical’ sequence. The enterprise of colonizing the non-European world was painted in bright terms as being part of the “White Man’s burden” of bringing enlightenment, good government, science, technology and other benefits of Western civilization to the rest of the world. Until the 60’s modernization theorists, like Parsons and Rostow echoed these sentiments, regarding Westernization as a desirable and inevitable process for the rest of the world. The goal of this article is to discuss some of the difficulties which led to substantial reconsideration of these naïve views. Current views (for example, Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen) are much more complex and diverse, and generally more respectful of other ancient civilizations in the world.
The first problem with the modernization theories is the deeply racist worldview embedded in them. The Dred-Scott decision in the USA declared that blacks were "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Australian aborigines were hunted like animals by the British. Lord Cecil Rhodes declared that "I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings; what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence ... " He became the richest man in the world at the time by fully exploiting those ‘despicable specimens of human beings’ in the British colonies.While explicit and open racism has largely been abandoned in modern times, remnants of these racist views still persist. There is debate at the highest levels in the USA as to whether or not Muslims can self-govern! See “Bush Cites Racism in Remarks On Iraq” in Washington Post, Saturday, May 1, 2004. Nobel Prize winner Watson has suggested that differences in development levels may be explained by genetic endowments. Harvard professor Bell maintains that non-white races have lower IQ than whites.
A second problem with modernization theories is that it has become abundantly clear that high sounding moral ideas have served as a cover for very low and despicable purposes. In King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild documents the extremely cruel, oppressive and exploitative treatment meted out to Africans which resulted in the death of 4 to 8 million in the Belgian Congo alone.In the name of bringing them the benefits of European civilization, King Leopold's officials used extremely harsh methods to force the locals to collect rubber. To teach the locals Western work ethics, the Belgians took wives and children hostage and kept them in subhuman conditions until their African husbands fulfilled their quotas. Soldiers would torture, chop off hands, or kill the inhabitants if they faltered in their work. All of these policies were promoted and advertised as Christian charity for the benefit of the natives. Similar policies are also currently in operation. According to testimony of high-placed officials like Paul O’Neill, Alan Greenspan, and Henry Kissinger, the Iraq war was planned for the control of the vast oil resources of Iraq. However, the White House vehemently denies this view, and alleges high motives like the desire to bring democracy to Iraq. While every US soldier killed is counted, no one counts the millions of inferior lives destroyed by the Iraq war. The vast amount of torture, arbitrary killings of civilians, destruction of Iraqi infrastructure and entire cities, and the resulting miseries of the populace, has surfaced in alternative media, but only occasionally breaks through to the mainstream media in USA.
A third problem with modernization theories is that they have failed to deliver results. All across the world, “structural adjustment programs” (SAPs) were designed and implemented by expert economists to help improve economic performance. Even proponents from IMF and World Bank now widely acknowledgethat these policies have been failures. Critics, including Nobel Laureate Stiglitz, claim that these SAP’s are a major cause of poverty all over the world. Under General Pinochet, the Chilean economy was turned into a laboratory experiment in free market economics by the “Chicago boys.” Advice from Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman followed strictly for several years resulted only in lackluster growth and continued high unemployment. Faith in the miracles of the free market led only to disappointment and failure when “shock treatment” was applied to the Russian economy. Pressure by US economists for financial liberalization led directly to the East Asian crisis. Throughout the world, numerous vigorously pursued programs for modernization and development along Western models have only led to chaos, cultural conflicts, and confusion.
The idea that Western models are perfect in all areas, including social, cultural and economic, leads to the dominant role of foreign expert advisors in development. These experts need to know nothing about local conditions, customs, traditions, because all of these are just obstacles in the path to progress. They come to a country knowing the solutions in advance, and give advice on how to move from existing patterns to Western ones in the shortest possible time. The havoc wrecked by this disregard and ignorance of local issues has been very well documented by Mitchell in The Rule of Experts. Studies of successful models for development (post-war Germany, Japan, communist Russia, East Asian Tigers) show that the strategies used there were often in oppositions to those recommended by conventional economics. World Bank economists writing about The East Asian Miracle admit that in most of these economies, the government intervened systematically, through multiple channels, to foster development. Despite these systematic violations of neoclassical prescriptions for development,these countries achieved the highest rates of productivity growth and fastest development seen at that time in the historical record.
Lessons from studies of successful development strategies are abundantly clear. Each such country has developed by disregarding foreign advice, and developing their own strategies. Self reliance, self confidence, trust, cooperation and methods adapted to local conditions and culture have been crucial to success.Slavish imitation of Western models and an inferiority complex are the biggest obstacles to progress. Cultural conflicts due to modernization, created by one segment of society opting for Western ways and another holding to traditions, have prevented the social harmony and unity necessary for progress.
3. The Ways of the Eagles
[This is the full length version of essay 4: European Transition to Secular Thought]
Wo faraib khorda shaheen, jo pala hay kargason mein – usay kya khabar ke kya hai, raho rasme shahbazi
Suppose that Iraqi children learnt the story of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in schools run by Americans. They would learn of the heroism and bravery of the US troops, who made great sacrifices to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. They gave their lives, and spent trillions in order to educate and civilize the savage terrorists who lived in Iraq. They would learn to admire the US for their humanity, civilization, and technology, and hate their ancestors for their barbarism, terrorist ways, lack of education, and most of all, lack of appreciation for the American culture. They would reject as enemy propaganda stories of US destruction of millions of lives and billions worth of infrastructure in their greedy quest for control of the rich oil resources of Iraq.
Growing up in Pakistan, we receive an education designed (by Macaulay and followers) to create a class of people who would be the intermediaries between the British rulers and the ruled natives. They are indoctrinated through an education system to be “Indians” only in appearance -- they have complete belief in the good intentions of British rule and the philosophy of 'the white man's burden', thus making the task of ruling this vast country easier. They would, without question, believe that the British were there for the upliftment of the Indian people from centuries of ignorance and backwardness. Over a period of time, they would associate all things British with superiority -- their physical appearance, their attire, their language, their culture, their religion. This beautifully designed system was to be self-perpetuating – the indoctrinated would be the rulers, and would control the education system to create more people like themselves.
While we have achieved independence in form, mentally we are still enslaved by a deeply ingrained inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West. To cure this, we must develop and tell our own history. In bits and pieces this process has begun, as in the replacement of the term “Mutiny of 1857” by the War of Independence. The dramatic change of point of view required for this change of terminology is one that needs to applied on a much larger scale. This essay is an attempt to continue this healing process. It would be impossible to do justice to this project in this short space. I intend only to outline and sketch the dimensions along which we need to reconstruct our history. The stories we tell about our past are extraordinarily important in shaping our identities and in determining the goals worth striving for.
India was looted, not developed, by the British Raj: Tales of the fabulously wealthy India attracted explorers (like Columbus) from all over the world. India had well developed institutions for the provision of justice, education, health, and social security. Indian textiles and other industrial products were exported to many destinations all over the world. Taxation was not burdensome, and recognized by the citizens as necessary for peace and security. Both citizens and rulers had a clear understanding of their mutual responsibilities towards each other. Localized institutions functioned effectively without reference to central government, and kings were well aware that their wealth was tied to the prosperity of their citizens. As a result, the average citizen was not much concerned about the fortunes of the kings and empires. The populace failed to resist or unite against British invaders, under the mistaken impression that they would be essentially benevolent like other kings. Subsequently, many people from many walks of life wrote letters of appeal in vain to British Queens and Kings. Unfortunately, unlike previous kings who had supported the public against cruel and corrupt administration, the British were firmly on the side of the “Raj,” and had no concern for the welfare of the public.