It is strange to find majority of Pakistanis sympathizing with the Taliban and their strange ideology. In judging Taliban, their critical faculties always fail them. Let alone the illiterate countryside, the city dwellers too, who live far away from the theater of war, tend to take a romantic view of these militants and nourish views and opinions totally divorced from reality. For example: it is stated that Taliban are holy worriers of Islam and Pakistani government and its military is waging a proxy war against them at the behest of America; Pakistani government in the name of War on Terror is doing the dirty work of killing its own citizens; and that it should stop fighting Taliban and its army leave the war zone of Pakistan “Wild West” to the militants ; Suicide bombings and the horrific acts of beheadings of captives are no work of the Muslims and so Taliban cant do it. When it comes to Taliban targeting Pakistani security forces or their acts of sabotage and terrorism against government infrastructure, even the one’s for public utility like girl’s schools, bridges, electricity installations, the force of twisted logic again absolves the Taliban of these insane acts. Shadow of blame then falls on foreign secret agencies or on the government which itself orchestrates these acts to show it target of domestic terrorism to win foreign aid. Some political parties of Pakistan are known to retain a soft corner for the Taliban and talk of negotiating with them.
Most of Pakistanis unfortunately don’t see the real face of the Taliban and always come up with such bizarre conspiracy theories, a make believe world of fallacious ideas and arguments, to implicate the government in the wave of terrorism and suicide bombing. Now the time has finally arrived to disburden ourselves of these false notions. The fact must now be admitted that it is not foreign hostile powers but our own Pakistani Taliban who are destabilizing Pakistan and are very much behind today’s terrible mess of suicide bombings, terrorism, and internal displacement of people.
The Taliban own a perverted Ideology based on rural, tribal Pashtoon culture mixed with a version of Islam of their own choosing, running counter to present day modern world and its way of life. The Taliban don’t feel themselves handicapped by modern concepts of international boundaries, international relations and rules of diplomacy. Their concept of Pan Islamic fraternity militates against the concept of nation state. It is Pakistani Taliban who cross Pak Afghan border and launch raids on the Allied troops, putting Pakistan government in worst embarrassment which denies such cross border attacks from its soil or it comes with the excuse that the boarder is too porous to govern. Taliban’s rash acts of evicting foreign troops out of Afghanistan using Pakistan as base take the country to the brink of disaster and international isolation. Pakistan is then suspected for being in secret liaison with the Taliban or lacking the will to take on the militants. Pakistan’s position as a sovereign nation further stands undermined as American Predator drones violate Pakistani air space with impunity and Pakistan does nothing except registering a verbal protest. But still the Taliban don’t realize Pakistan predicament and the price it has to pay for their adventures.
For the Taliban lines of right and wrong have been clearly drawn, there is no ambiguity or confusion on any point. Crossing Durand and engaging foreign troops in combat is Jihad and so of greater consequence than Pakistan’s geo political problems. For Taliban, all their acts have their justification and sanction in Islam. A Talib, if argued with, by citing Quran and Hadis will justify, for example, the attempt of blowing up Kohat tunnel, Marriott hotel , beheading of army personals or of “ American spies”, the destruction of government or public infrastructure. People in the West might wonder why Taliban blow up the girls schools and not those for boys. But there is method in the madness. Girls’ school according to Taliban teach girls promiscuity, same goes for vaccinations of the infants, a conspiracy of West to inflict the Muslim children with deadly diseases. In the name of Taliban the forces of destruction and obscurantalism have been let loose all over the tribal areas and Pakistan proper. Even a Pathan’s traditional fascination for Islam has been worked up and exploited by the Taliban for the deadly purpose of raising up a cadre of deadlier suicide bombers who are every ready to blow them up at the commands. In the hands of Taliban human life has been rendered very cheap.
In their misplaced pursuit of bringing back the purity of Islam the Taliban are rolling back all progress man has achieved so far and taking us back to the Stone Ages. For the Taliban time has stood still. Thousands of years of human progress in science, technology and the great advances in the world of ideas haven’t affected them at all. There are a few signs of modern world around a Talib gaining his acceptance like telephone or loudspeaker of mosque but the rest of the world is for him a totally unintelligible, alien world whose working he cant understand.. He makes a rapid selection, few aspects of modern life are accepted and the rest is dubbed as un Islamic and hence fit to be obliterated and annihilated. Strange irony is this all goes on in the name of Islam, a religion which has the ability to adjust itself according to modern times. But the Taliban’s version of Islam makes no allowance for the forces of modernity and present Islam as incompatible with progress. Now the question is how we reclaim back our lands and Islam, both held in bondage by the Taliban and quell this insurgency laying waste our county?
Recently there is emerging a thinking in Britain and the US that Taliban cant be defeated militarily and there is need to have them engaged in dialogue for finding permanent peace. This line of reasoning in naïve and doesn’t take into account main reasons of Taliban insurgency and militancy. Pakistani government already tried with various fruitless peace accords with the Taliban. The Taliban used the accords only to regroup and launch cross boarder attacks on Afghan soil with renewed vigor. The vacuum created by the withdrawal of army was filled by the Taliban and gave them more strength to enforce their writ in the areas under their control. The authority of Pakistanis government was further eroded by these accords.
.No peace accord would convince the Taliban to lay down their weapons in Pakistan or in Afghanistan or stop them from continuing attacks on NATO troops. The presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan fuels the passions of Taliban and provides them main impetus and thrust. This is not an ordinary gorilla war for the Taliban but Jihad, an important article of faith and so non negotiable. Taliban Jihad will continue and so will America’s was on terror.
But Taliban movement may not keep the momentum over time, at least in Pakistan. They are loosing sympathies of the tribes on whom they relied mainly for support and sanctuaries. Bold efforts of Salarzai tribes in Bajaur in driving the Taliban out of their area have exploded the myth of Taliban’s invincibility , the elders from Bajaur Agency’s are now not in favour of dialogue with the Taliban. Tribes in Dara Adam Khel are up in arms against them. This pretty much sums up the mood in rest of NWFP. Realization is dawning now in worst hit areas that Taliban are basically trouble makers and their presence invites further trouble. In addition people are getting fed up with the Taliban’s tyrannical rule stifling human nature, forcing people to live unnatural lives.
The blood soaked Taliban movement, with its tradition of gory acts of public beheading, suicide bombings and acts of terrorism, abductions, intimidation and vandalism is rapidly unmasking the Taliban in NWFP and swinging public opinion against them . Rest of Pakistan must realize that it is one thing to sing praises of Taliban from a distance but quite another to taste them closer at hand.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The lure of the Unknown By Sikander Salahuddin
Man has always, since his beginning, been haunted by the phenomenon of unknown. Then, there was much in his life that was mysterious, dark and strange, there were things which forced him to think and enquire .Time and again he had to grapple with the forces of unknown and to reduce them to an intelligible pattern. Most of the time his efforts were thwarted and foiled, but he didn’t deter. Unlike the rest of animals he had an irresistible curiosity and sense of speculation; and he continued with his crude efforts to decipher the nature of reality all way down from the prehistoric times till the history began
This was humanity’s dream time and element of mystery gave the world beauty. There was mystery in not knowing what lay across the mountains, the seas and vast oceans, mystery remained in the unexplained riddle of the sun, the moon and the cosmos and mystery surrounded man’s every day existence, in things happening around him in the natural world. He, in short, stood face to face with the vast region of unknown which he couldn’t probe and penetrate at this stage of his mental development. But here came imagination to assist man in his endeavors and it lent him help in conjuring up images of his own contraction, peopling the earth and the cosmos with mythological figures. In his own life he also saw things defying his thinking ability, he saw diseases and sickness and again he couldn’t solve the riddle of how diseases were caused and he came up with theories of demons and other supernatural agencies causing the diseases.
On physical level man’s experiences were restricted to his own surroundings or regions of closer proximity and he led mostly an isolated existence. And this remained true not only in ancient times but also in past not too distant when humanity saw the birth of civilizations. For pretty much longer period of time he didn’t know if the earth was round or flat. There were few who ventured on long journeys to distant places. And vast majority made a faint picture of these far off lands. The picture was made more romantic and given more mystiques owing to vast distances involved .Even the people shaping great civilizations in Asia and Europe didn’t travel much. For the Greeks the world ended beyond the Pillars of Hercules, modern day Straits of Gibraltar, and their traveling experiences led them to some parts of Asia and North Africa only. And the Romans of 2nd century too knew only Europe, the North African coastline, Arabia and the Indian Ocean.
But then came the Renaissance, a time when man began to make serious inroads into the vast inaccessible domain of the unknown. It was Renaissance that vastly increased the threshold of human knowledge and paved the way for clearing up man’s ideas and conceptions about things hitherto unknown and indefinite. And exploration of the physical world was one of the dominant concerns of Renaissance. In the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe there were many false travel stories about the fabled and exotic East. Account of many of these travels was fabulous and work of pure fiction, Like those of Sir John Mandeville published between 1357 -1371, highly fantastically and in accurate. Still these accounts showed a desire to explore the unknown, fulfilling a natural craving in human heart to make the unknown familiar. There was also Marco polo who gave an account of his journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295 in which he described being a guest at the court of Kublai khan, the Mongol king of China.
During the Renaissance quests and expeditions were launched for discovering the world. In the process, Europeans met people and saw lands previously unknown to them. Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, the land virtually unknown to man till this time. The dark continent of Africa and its interior were explored till the late 19th century. Europeans launched themselves into the region of Asia pacific. Lieutenant James cook led and expedition in HM Endeavour and reached New Zealand and then reached the south eastern corner of Australia. The discovery of the world wasn’t yet complete, till the expeditions were launched to the South Pole and it was finally conquered and reached at the start of the 20th century.
A moment arrived in human history when the veils of mystery were finally uplifted and the physical world stood in naked reality, all explored, all discovered. At the speedy onrush of real exploration, myths and romance began to recede. The beauty of the unknown and unseen which excited human imagination to new heights, the sense which gave birth to the stories of Sindhbad and Gulliver, all begin to vanish and cease to exist.
And high on heels of exploration in physical world came newer and newer discoveries in the realm of science explaining the natural causes of things happening around. There was no longer any need of any intricate web of mythology to explain the working of natural phenomenon. Science replaced myths and gods and goddess went tumbling down. Man’s imaginative attempt at explaining the unknown, what he couldn’t understand in the natural world received a crushing blow at the hands of science. Unraveling mysteries, of making unknown familiar, science started its unchallenged march and shaped the world as we see it today.
Shorn of mystery and its deep romance and mystique, the world today doesn’t look as much beautiful as it did in the past. It is all because science and geographical exploration have landed us in the broad day light of naked reality, and left no scope for human imagination to work on. But all is not lost; there is still some consolation left.
Man’s voyages of discovery in the physical world, his splendid achievements in the field of science in unearthing the secrets of the heaven and earth are major milestone. But still even today there is much that remains unknown and undiscovered, and many mysteries that stand yet to be unraveled. These are the mysteries of life and death, the mystery of God and the mystery of the Cosmos.
At the tail end of the Milky Way we live on planet earth, in a universe so vast which human mind fails to encompass. We are only intelligent and self conscious specie sharing planet earth along with other millions of life forms. Humans haven’t yet found any other intelligence anywhere else in the universe. No scientist can give explanation of why we are here or make clear the purpose of life. Except devoutly religious no one can tell what happens after death or truly penetrate the phenomenon of death.
Looking more imaginatively and bit more poetically we find the mists of the forces of unknown enveloping man, his earth and his entire universe. Human mind has led man to achieve great wonders. From the dense jungles of ignorance and superstitions he came and erected the grand edifice of human civilization and intellect, but there is a limit to every thing and there is limit to the power of human intellect. And some mysteries will for ever remain mysteries, and there will be much there will remain unknown for all times and for ever.
This was humanity’s dream time and element of mystery gave the world beauty. There was mystery in not knowing what lay across the mountains, the seas and vast oceans, mystery remained in the unexplained riddle of the sun, the moon and the cosmos and mystery surrounded man’s every day existence, in things happening around him in the natural world. He, in short, stood face to face with the vast region of unknown which he couldn’t probe and penetrate at this stage of his mental development. But here came imagination to assist man in his endeavors and it lent him help in conjuring up images of his own contraction, peopling the earth and the cosmos with mythological figures. In his own life he also saw things defying his thinking ability, he saw diseases and sickness and again he couldn’t solve the riddle of how diseases were caused and he came up with theories of demons and other supernatural agencies causing the diseases.
On physical level man’s experiences were restricted to his own surroundings or regions of closer proximity and he led mostly an isolated existence. And this remained true not only in ancient times but also in past not too distant when humanity saw the birth of civilizations. For pretty much longer period of time he didn’t know if the earth was round or flat. There were few who ventured on long journeys to distant places. And vast majority made a faint picture of these far off lands. The picture was made more romantic and given more mystiques owing to vast distances involved .Even the people shaping great civilizations in Asia and Europe didn’t travel much. For the Greeks the world ended beyond the Pillars of Hercules, modern day Straits of Gibraltar, and their traveling experiences led them to some parts of Asia and North Africa only. And the Romans of 2nd century too knew only Europe, the North African coastline, Arabia and the Indian Ocean.
But then came the Renaissance, a time when man began to make serious inroads into the vast inaccessible domain of the unknown. It was Renaissance that vastly increased the threshold of human knowledge and paved the way for clearing up man’s ideas and conceptions about things hitherto unknown and indefinite. And exploration of the physical world was one of the dominant concerns of Renaissance. In the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe there were many false travel stories about the fabled and exotic East. Account of many of these travels was fabulous and work of pure fiction, Like those of Sir John Mandeville published between 1357 -1371, highly fantastically and in accurate. Still these accounts showed a desire to explore the unknown, fulfilling a natural craving in human heart to make the unknown familiar. There was also Marco polo who gave an account of his journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295 in which he described being a guest at the court of Kublai khan, the Mongol king of China.
During the Renaissance quests and expeditions were launched for discovering the world. In the process, Europeans met people and saw lands previously unknown to them. Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, the land virtually unknown to man till this time. The dark continent of Africa and its interior were explored till the late 19th century. Europeans launched themselves into the region of Asia pacific. Lieutenant James cook led and expedition in HM Endeavour and reached New Zealand and then reached the south eastern corner of Australia. The discovery of the world wasn’t yet complete, till the expeditions were launched to the South Pole and it was finally conquered and reached at the start of the 20th century.
A moment arrived in human history when the veils of mystery were finally uplifted and the physical world stood in naked reality, all explored, all discovered. At the speedy onrush of real exploration, myths and romance began to recede. The beauty of the unknown and unseen which excited human imagination to new heights, the sense which gave birth to the stories of Sindhbad and Gulliver, all begin to vanish and cease to exist.
And high on heels of exploration in physical world came newer and newer discoveries in the realm of science explaining the natural causes of things happening around. There was no longer any need of any intricate web of mythology to explain the working of natural phenomenon. Science replaced myths and gods and goddess went tumbling down. Man’s imaginative attempt at explaining the unknown, what he couldn’t understand in the natural world received a crushing blow at the hands of science. Unraveling mysteries, of making unknown familiar, science started its unchallenged march and shaped the world as we see it today.
Shorn of mystery and its deep romance and mystique, the world today doesn’t look as much beautiful as it did in the past. It is all because science and geographical exploration have landed us in the broad day light of naked reality, and left no scope for human imagination to work on. But all is not lost; there is still some consolation left.
Man’s voyages of discovery in the physical world, his splendid achievements in the field of science in unearthing the secrets of the heaven and earth are major milestone. But still even today there is much that remains unknown and undiscovered, and many mysteries that stand yet to be unraveled. These are the mysteries of life and death, the mystery of God and the mystery of the Cosmos.
At the tail end of the Milky Way we live on planet earth, in a universe so vast which human mind fails to encompass. We are only intelligent and self conscious specie sharing planet earth along with other millions of life forms. Humans haven’t yet found any other intelligence anywhere else in the universe. No scientist can give explanation of why we are here or make clear the purpose of life. Except devoutly religious no one can tell what happens after death or truly penetrate the phenomenon of death.
Looking more imaginatively and bit more poetically we find the mists of the forces of unknown enveloping man, his earth and his entire universe. Human mind has led man to achieve great wonders. From the dense jungles of ignorance and superstitions he came and erected the grand edifice of human civilization and intellect, but there is a limit to every thing and there is limit to the power of human intellect. And some mysteries will for ever remain mysteries, and there will be much there will remain unknown for all times and for ever.
The Dangerous Ideologies by Sikander Salahuddin
Mind of man is a double-edged sword. If it, on the one hand, enabled man to live a civilized life, then it also led him to untold miseries and troubles. Animals live by instincts and though their lives in some cases are marked by violence but they live an even and smooth life since the beginning. Kinds of massive upheavals and murderous strife witnessed in human history are totally absent in their lives, and though animals don’t have spectacular achievement to their credit but then they also don’t show the darker streak seen only in man. The thing that creates this vital difference between animal kingdom and the world of man is thinking ability, only man’s prerogative and privilege.
The same thinking ability shapes the contours of human societies, and of larger units like states. At social level men live and act according to a definite code they mutually agree upon. This code of conduct, social ethos, and belief or ideology whether divinely inspired or man made becomes the binding force and identity of that community. All this leads to some positive ends but then some trouble also begins to brew up. People outside the system are considered wayward, errants and are denied full acceptance. The class leading the community become the self-righteous guardians and is always on the look out for possible signs of subversion threading the system. People following an ideology set themselves at a high pedestal, consider themselves better human beings and with a proselytizing zeal try to convert others outside the system.
If the states are founded on ideologies then the scope of potential danger coming out of it magnifies manifold because state is after all a far bigger an entity than a social unit. Such an ideological state gains an aura of infallibility and has an uneasy relationship with the differing views and ideologies. In past states were dynastic or some were formed on the basis of religion but in 17th century modern nation state system began to take shape. The Western countries by a slow growth came to believe in liberal democracy as the ultimate panacea for mankind and saw their form of government ultimately challenged at the start of the 20th century by other competing ideologies. The clashes between competing ideologies gave birth to conflicts, both external and eternal and could have led further to cataclysmic wars of global proportions. These dangerous ideologies from the west’s point of view were communism, Nazism and Fascism and since their emergence the resources energies and manpower of the Western world began to be consumed in annihilating these creeds and their supporting state systems.
Soviet Union embodying the idea of Marxist ideology was founded in 1917. But prior to that the Western powers tried unsuccessfully to subvert founding of the Soviet state by organizing resistance against the Communists. But the Communists defeating the White armies established the Communist state. There was no love lost between the Soviet government and the Western powers. Lenin stated, “We don’t need any parliamentary republic; we don’t need any bourgeois democracy. We don’t need any government except the Soviet of workers, soldiers and farmhand’s deputies”. Soviet state was a Dictatorship of the proletariat and hence incompatible with the Western democratic model and added to that Soviet state showed interest to spread communism through revolutions across the globe. Lenin anticipated socialist revolution overtaking Europe and destroying its capitalist system. In 1919 in preparation of world revolution the Comintern was created as an association of the Communist parties of all lands.
But then the real danger to the West for the time being didn’t come from Soviet Union but from other creeds and ideologies originating from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Both Nazism and Fascism with their totalitarianism and rejection of the Western liberal democracy, individualism etc repudiated Western way of life and its political ideology. Mussolini predicted” a Fascist Europe drawing inspiration for its institutions from the doctrine and practice of Fascism.” “Fascism is bund to become the standard type of civilization of our century for Europe—the forerunner of European Renaissance.” Similarly Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich, supposed to last for a thousand years, with its racism, anti Semitism and its dream of world domination posed serious threat to the Western powers and things at last came to such a pass that the war machinery of the entire the Western powers in a “strange alliance” with the Soviet Union were geared up to defeat the Fascist threat and Fascist ideology. World war 2nd was fought and the allied won and Axis powers lost.
Fascist powers lay defeated but the old foe Soviet Union was still there and in the wake of 2nd world war was rapidly bringing Eastern Europe in her sphere of influence. Sensing the Soviet threat Churchill sounded the warning at Fulton, Missouri on 3 March 1946 in words that have become immortal, “From Stetting on the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across continent.” Churchill wasn’t off the mark about the impending danger and soon the world saw the advent of the Cold war
The cold war was an era of ideological confrontation between the two Super Powers and both tried to outmaneuver each other in gaining worldwide influence and their rivalry and competitions took them even to space race. In this struggle for gaining world wide military and political dominance both the sides resorted to massive propaganda. Soviet Union was dubbed as evil empire. But at last cold war came to an end in late 1980’s and Soviet empire crumbled and curtain finally fell on East West conflict.
Now The West led by the United States enjoys worldwide military and political dominance but its obsession and fear of dangerous ideologies hasn’t faded. The West’s political ideal of liberal democracy is the final destination of mankind as Francis Fukuyama in his book "The End of History?" argues"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold war or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of The Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
However, rest of the world is lagging behind the Western model and hasn’t yet arrived at the liberal democracy as the final frontier and those parts of the world might be carrying some ideology in conflict with that of the West. But the threat to the West could also come from within .It is common in the West to see right wing political parties and politicians voicing extreme views but such elements always encounter serious opposition from the Western governments and media. In Australia Pauline Hanson who founded One Nation party was hushed up as she started gaining serious attention for her anti immigration and racist views. Jorg Haider, ,a right wing Austrian politician met similar fate at the hands of the Western media and governments when he praised Hitler’s employment policy. Haider died recently in a car accident
But the West has found a threat much larger than the one posed by the fringe of right wing within the Western society and an ideology far more dangerous than the dead ideologies of Fascism, Nazism and communism: It is the threat of militant and radical Islam fighting and challenging the Western dominance and hegemony. Various terrorist attacks on the Western military targets and tourist culminating in 9/11 convinced the West of the inevitability of the conflict. To counter the threat the battle lines were again drawn and West launched war on terror. The war isn’t against Islam as a religion because the West can co exists with Islam as a religion. Millions of Muslims live in the Western countries and practice their faith, even buy churches and convert them into mosques. Rather it is the militant radical Islam establishing its foothold in the Muslim word and targeting the Western troops and interests that worries the West. But again the West doesn’t want and allow Islamic parties wining elections and establishing governments in whole of the country or in some of its parts. The example of Algeria, a part of Malaysia governed by an Islamic party , Somalia, Nigeria and Palestinian territory of Gaza will prove this point quite well. Such type of popular democracy is an anathema to the West. Quite recently Hamas led Gaza strip was bombed by Israeli air force and later invaded by IDF though Hamas was popularly elected into power.
The West is waging this war on militant Islam with military means but to wean the larger Muslim populations from the message of radical Islam it is resorting to more subtle means. West always supports liberal and the Westernized sections of the Muslim populations. It is attempting to win the hearts and minds of Muslims. Just as during the cold war it had radio stations like Radio Free Europe targeting the Eastern Europe, now it has radio and other means of propaganda targeting Muslims, mostly young people of countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East. This is an attempt to inculcate in the young Muslims the taste for the Western culture and the Western values. Any young reared on such values will be definitely closer to the West and further away from radical Islam and perhaps from Islam too.
What will be the outcome of The West’s obsession with radical Islam and its ideology of radicalism and militancy? But it will be unlike the West’s earlier wars with other dangerous ideologies and their supporting systems. At that time the enemy was visible and the battle was mostly external. The hostile ideologies came to an end once their supporting system was annihilated. But this time the targets are not clearly defined. Enemy is invisible and illusive and the ideology standing up to the West has its root in God and religion. The next epic battle between the West and the hostile ideology of radical Islam will be fought on plains, hills and mountains but also its battlefront will be the mind of man.
The same thinking ability shapes the contours of human societies, and of larger units like states. At social level men live and act according to a definite code they mutually agree upon. This code of conduct, social ethos, and belief or ideology whether divinely inspired or man made becomes the binding force and identity of that community. All this leads to some positive ends but then some trouble also begins to brew up. People outside the system are considered wayward, errants and are denied full acceptance. The class leading the community become the self-righteous guardians and is always on the look out for possible signs of subversion threading the system. People following an ideology set themselves at a high pedestal, consider themselves better human beings and with a proselytizing zeal try to convert others outside the system.
If the states are founded on ideologies then the scope of potential danger coming out of it magnifies manifold because state is after all a far bigger an entity than a social unit. Such an ideological state gains an aura of infallibility and has an uneasy relationship with the differing views and ideologies. In past states were dynastic or some were formed on the basis of religion but in 17th century modern nation state system began to take shape. The Western countries by a slow growth came to believe in liberal democracy as the ultimate panacea for mankind and saw their form of government ultimately challenged at the start of the 20th century by other competing ideologies. The clashes between competing ideologies gave birth to conflicts, both external and eternal and could have led further to cataclysmic wars of global proportions. These dangerous ideologies from the west’s point of view were communism, Nazism and Fascism and since their emergence the resources energies and manpower of the Western world began to be consumed in annihilating these creeds and their supporting state systems.
Soviet Union embodying the idea of Marxist ideology was founded in 1917. But prior to that the Western powers tried unsuccessfully to subvert founding of the Soviet state by organizing resistance against the Communists. But the Communists defeating the White armies established the Communist state. There was no love lost between the Soviet government and the Western powers. Lenin stated, “We don’t need any parliamentary republic; we don’t need any bourgeois democracy. We don’t need any government except the Soviet of workers, soldiers and farmhand’s deputies”. Soviet state was a Dictatorship of the proletariat and hence incompatible with the Western democratic model and added to that Soviet state showed interest to spread communism through revolutions across the globe. Lenin anticipated socialist revolution overtaking Europe and destroying its capitalist system. In 1919 in preparation of world revolution the Comintern was created as an association of the Communist parties of all lands.
But then the real danger to the West for the time being didn’t come from Soviet Union but from other creeds and ideologies originating from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Both Nazism and Fascism with their totalitarianism and rejection of the Western liberal democracy, individualism etc repudiated Western way of life and its political ideology. Mussolini predicted” a Fascist Europe drawing inspiration for its institutions from the doctrine and practice of Fascism.” “Fascism is bund to become the standard type of civilization of our century for Europe—the forerunner of European Renaissance.” Similarly Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich, supposed to last for a thousand years, with its racism, anti Semitism and its dream of world domination posed serious threat to the Western powers and things at last came to such a pass that the war machinery of the entire the Western powers in a “strange alliance” with the Soviet Union were geared up to defeat the Fascist threat and Fascist ideology. World war 2nd was fought and the allied won and Axis powers lost.
Fascist powers lay defeated but the old foe Soviet Union was still there and in the wake of 2nd world war was rapidly bringing Eastern Europe in her sphere of influence. Sensing the Soviet threat Churchill sounded the warning at Fulton, Missouri on 3 March 1946 in words that have become immortal, “From Stetting on the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across continent.” Churchill wasn’t off the mark about the impending danger and soon the world saw the advent of the Cold war
The cold war was an era of ideological confrontation between the two Super Powers and both tried to outmaneuver each other in gaining worldwide influence and their rivalry and competitions took them even to space race. In this struggle for gaining world wide military and political dominance both the sides resorted to massive propaganda. Soviet Union was dubbed as evil empire. But at last cold war came to an end in late 1980’s and Soviet empire crumbled and curtain finally fell on East West conflict.
Now The West led by the United States enjoys worldwide military and political dominance but its obsession and fear of dangerous ideologies hasn’t faded. The West’s political ideal of liberal democracy is the final destination of mankind as Francis Fukuyama in his book "The End of History?" argues"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold war or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of The Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
However, rest of the world is lagging behind the Western model and hasn’t yet arrived at the liberal democracy as the final frontier and those parts of the world might be carrying some ideology in conflict with that of the West. But the threat to the West could also come from within .It is common in the West to see right wing political parties and politicians voicing extreme views but such elements always encounter serious opposition from the Western governments and media. In Australia Pauline Hanson who founded One Nation party was hushed up as she started gaining serious attention for her anti immigration and racist views. Jorg Haider, ,a right wing Austrian politician met similar fate at the hands of the Western media and governments when he praised Hitler’s employment policy. Haider died recently in a car accident
But the West has found a threat much larger than the one posed by the fringe of right wing within the Western society and an ideology far more dangerous than the dead ideologies of Fascism, Nazism and communism: It is the threat of militant and radical Islam fighting and challenging the Western dominance and hegemony. Various terrorist attacks on the Western military targets and tourist culminating in 9/11 convinced the West of the inevitability of the conflict. To counter the threat the battle lines were again drawn and West launched war on terror. The war isn’t against Islam as a religion because the West can co exists with Islam as a religion. Millions of Muslims live in the Western countries and practice their faith, even buy churches and convert them into mosques. Rather it is the militant radical Islam establishing its foothold in the Muslim word and targeting the Western troops and interests that worries the West. But again the West doesn’t want and allow Islamic parties wining elections and establishing governments in whole of the country or in some of its parts. The example of Algeria, a part of Malaysia governed by an Islamic party , Somalia, Nigeria and Palestinian territory of Gaza will prove this point quite well. Such type of popular democracy is an anathema to the West. Quite recently Hamas led Gaza strip was bombed by Israeli air force and later invaded by IDF though Hamas was popularly elected into power.
The West is waging this war on militant Islam with military means but to wean the larger Muslim populations from the message of radical Islam it is resorting to more subtle means. West always supports liberal and the Westernized sections of the Muslim populations. It is attempting to win the hearts and minds of Muslims. Just as during the cold war it had radio stations like Radio Free Europe targeting the Eastern Europe, now it has radio and other means of propaganda targeting Muslims, mostly young people of countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East. This is an attempt to inculcate in the young Muslims the taste for the Western culture and the Western values. Any young reared on such values will be definitely closer to the West and further away from radical Islam and perhaps from Islam too.
What will be the outcome of The West’s obsession with radical Islam and its ideology of radicalism and militancy? But it will be unlike the West’s earlier wars with other dangerous ideologies and their supporting systems. At that time the enemy was visible and the battle was mostly external. The hostile ideologies came to an end once their supporting system was annihilated. But this time the targets are not clearly defined. Enemy is invisible and illusive and the ideology standing up to the West has its root in God and religion. The next epic battle between the West and the hostile ideology of radical Islam will be fought on plains, hills and mountains but also its battlefront will be the mind of man.
Discovering Takht-i-Sulaiman By Sikander Salahuddin and Ivan Mannheim
Takht-i-Sulaiman, the highest peak of the Sulaiman range is shrouded in myth and mystery. Named after Solomon, the wise Jewish prophet, the peak, on account of its perceived association with the prophet, is believed to possess a strange healing quality.
People in Damaan also believe that Prophet Sulaiman, by exercising his miraculous power, had confined those mischievous Jinns inside it who had refused to obey his command. The evil-spirited Jinns are supposed to remain imprisoned almost all the year, and in Safar, the second month of the Islamic calendar, they are allowed to go free for a while. During this month, after darkness falls over the region, mothers restrict their children within their homes as a precaution against the evil effects of these Jinns.
Takht-i-Sulaiman rises to a height of 3382 meters above sea level. A trip to the mountain is undertaken mostly in summer, and in winter heavy snowfall makes it difficult to approach it from late November until March. Animal sacrifice is an essential feature of a visit to Sulaiman. The locals believe that infertile women can be blessed with fertility when they visit Takht-i-Sulaiman.
Religious connotations apart, Takht-i-Sulaiman is an area of outstanding natural beauty, boasting spectacular mountains, which offer endless opportunities of trekking and climbing. It can be reached either through Balochistan or NWFP. It is advised, for convenience’s sake, to start the journey from D.I. Khan. Draban Kalan, a town 40 miles off to the west, offers a convenient approach to it. Public transport heading up the Ragha Sar, the base of Sulaiman is available here.
Last summer, a few of us with our friend Ivan Mannheim boarded the local bus and headed westwards. The bus crossed the wide stony plain, part of Damaan which stretches for about 120km between D.I. Khan and D.G. Khan, sandwiched between the Sulaiman mountains to the west and Indus River to the east. The road then cut through a ridge of low hill and took us to Drazinda, the Tehsil headquarter. After a brief stop here, the bus drove forward winding its way through the mountains. Then turning west from the main D.I. Khan-Zhob road, the track followed the right bank of a gorge and led to the village of Ragasar.
Ragasar is a village at the head of the gorge. Stone and mud huts show that the modern aspects of civilization have not reached this village. In is inhabited by the friendly and hospitable Sherani tribe. Hostility is reserved within the tribe only. Bloods feuds are common, confirmed by the sight of the guns hanging over the shoulders of many people. After on overnight stay here, the next morning our journey to Takht-i-Sulaiman began. We set out with the necessary provisions and the valuable guidance of Sultan Khan, our friend and host. Shortly afterwards, the track forked right to descent and a swift flowing, foamy white stream could be seen flowing down with a roaring sound.
The narrow track along the stream was pretty strenuous to travel on as there were many small boulders and pointed stones. Precipitous walls of the mountain were on either side. The track cutting its way through sheer rock mountain led us into an open area with the magnificent mountain all around. The four-hour track from Ragasar came to an abrupt end as we climbed up a nearby hill to undergo the next stage of another strenuous journey to reach the next village.
Perched on a hilltop is Tora Tisha, a cluster of four or five stone huts, surrounded by a spectacular mountain amphitheatre. After half a day’s journey on a demanding track from Ragasar, Tora Tisha mosque made an ideal place for relaxation, food and prayer. The path then headed up from the village and crossed a small bridge of tree planks and twigs, built over a narrow gorge. Deep down, water seemed gushing forth at tremendous speed. We proceeded further on and were asked to perform the formidable task of making an ascent up a sheer rock wall, the track on it zigzagging its way up to its top. But our apprehension melted down as the track was comfortably wide for us.
When the tack finally ended, the scenery before us was breathtaking as we could see for miles below us due to the elevation we were at. We could see the slopes of the mighty Thakt-i-Sulaiman, which were covered with green forests, making the sight appear spectacular. We were supposed to make our way through them before completing the first leg of our journey for that day. A smooth climb over a mountain nearby led us straight to those pine forests. We were immediately impressed by lush green landscape that looked enchanting. Chilgoza and Nashtar trees could be seen growing in abundance.
The track, now smooth and straight, was splashed with brilliant patches of beauty. It led us forth to Poonga, a small village. It was the end of our first day’s journey as we would be staying there overnight. Poonga spills down the mountainside. It offers a panoramic view of the landscape. Lush green mountains covered with tall trees and lots of flowers could also be seen growing in the wild. There was a distinctive silence that is peculiar to mountainous countryside.
The next morning we took up the tack to the north of the village. The track is a long, hard uphill slog, notwithstanding its share of picturesque scenery. Further ahead, however, the track turns smooth with an easy stroll that runs along the flank of the mountain, with a large rock overhang. Either side of the track is carpeted with wild flowers. The track then starts to turn and ascend, and at one point it crosses the mountain.
The view on the other side was simply breathtaking. The vast landscape was characterized by lush green pastures and dense Chalghoza forest. Impressed by the beauty of the valley, a decision was made in favour of making a detour from the main track and visiting the valley. It was an idyllic place with a dazzling array of wild flowers. The track passed a pine forest as well as a meadow, surrounded by trees all around. A visit to Takht-i-Sulaiman is not complete without a brief foray into this beautiful region.
We rejoined the main track and reached Kalkarai at dusk. After an overnight stay there, the next morning we took a path to the right, which led steeply to the peak. In sheer contrast to the landscape below, the region around the top has been a victim to intense logging. There is even a camel route for the transportation of timber to Zhobe. The top, which once had plenty of pine trees, now wears a somewhat desolate look.
On the top, we observed many things. A stone-built room came into view. Those who intend to have an overnight stay make use of it. Rainfall fills up a water pool to be used by visitors. Under a shady tree, there is a grave of unusually large size. Qaisa Abdul Rasheed is said to have been buried here. The locals believe him to be an ancestor of the Pakhtoons. A small clean place near the end of the mountain was used as a mosque, said to mark the point where Prophet Sulaiman would land. Towards its end were few stones firmly fixed in the ground. Holding them in hands we were to climb down for about 10 feet on the side of the mountain to the Takht. It is a small stone slab with barely enough space for a man to stand or sit. Two of its corners were fixed in the mountainside, the rest in open air. Holding the stones in hand, a pilgrim is supposed to descend down to Takht to offer his prayer.
From the top, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the surrounding area. Far away, the huge expanse of Damaan was also visible. To the north was Waziristan, and to the west was a chain of mountains that marked the region of Balochistan.
Takht-i-Sulaiman is a region of unimaginable beauty, but local loggers pose a serious environmental threat to its very existence. It is time that the concerned authorities take some serious actions to preserve its ecosystem. The government has so far been totally apathetic to this tragedy. It has imposed a ban on the export of the timber from Sulaiman Mountains, but there are more than one ways of smuggling it. Western slops of the range provide an easy access to loggers to Zhob, Balochistan. The government must also pay heed to the genuine problems of Sherani tribal area, and should take concrete measures to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and backwardness from the area.
People in Damaan also believe that Prophet Sulaiman, by exercising his miraculous power, had confined those mischievous Jinns inside it who had refused to obey his command. The evil-spirited Jinns are supposed to remain imprisoned almost all the year, and in Safar, the second month of the Islamic calendar, they are allowed to go free for a while. During this month, after darkness falls over the region, mothers restrict their children within their homes as a precaution against the evil effects of these Jinns.
Takht-i-Sulaiman rises to a height of 3382 meters above sea level. A trip to the mountain is undertaken mostly in summer, and in winter heavy snowfall makes it difficult to approach it from late November until March. Animal sacrifice is an essential feature of a visit to Sulaiman. The locals believe that infertile women can be blessed with fertility when they visit Takht-i-Sulaiman.
Religious connotations apart, Takht-i-Sulaiman is an area of outstanding natural beauty, boasting spectacular mountains, which offer endless opportunities of trekking and climbing. It can be reached either through Balochistan or NWFP. It is advised, for convenience’s sake, to start the journey from D.I. Khan. Draban Kalan, a town 40 miles off to the west, offers a convenient approach to it. Public transport heading up the Ragha Sar, the base of Sulaiman is available here.
Last summer, a few of us with our friend Ivan Mannheim boarded the local bus and headed westwards. The bus crossed the wide stony plain, part of Damaan which stretches for about 120km between D.I. Khan and D.G. Khan, sandwiched between the Sulaiman mountains to the west and Indus River to the east. The road then cut through a ridge of low hill and took us to Drazinda, the Tehsil headquarter. After a brief stop here, the bus drove forward winding its way through the mountains. Then turning west from the main D.I. Khan-Zhob road, the track followed the right bank of a gorge and led to the village of Ragasar.
Ragasar is a village at the head of the gorge. Stone and mud huts show that the modern aspects of civilization have not reached this village. In is inhabited by the friendly and hospitable Sherani tribe. Hostility is reserved within the tribe only. Bloods feuds are common, confirmed by the sight of the guns hanging over the shoulders of many people. After on overnight stay here, the next morning our journey to Takht-i-Sulaiman began. We set out with the necessary provisions and the valuable guidance of Sultan Khan, our friend and host. Shortly afterwards, the track forked right to descent and a swift flowing, foamy white stream could be seen flowing down with a roaring sound.
The narrow track along the stream was pretty strenuous to travel on as there were many small boulders and pointed stones. Precipitous walls of the mountain were on either side. The track cutting its way through sheer rock mountain led us into an open area with the magnificent mountain all around. The four-hour track from Ragasar came to an abrupt end as we climbed up a nearby hill to undergo the next stage of another strenuous journey to reach the next village.
Perched on a hilltop is Tora Tisha, a cluster of four or five stone huts, surrounded by a spectacular mountain amphitheatre. After half a day’s journey on a demanding track from Ragasar, Tora Tisha mosque made an ideal place for relaxation, food and prayer. The path then headed up from the village and crossed a small bridge of tree planks and twigs, built over a narrow gorge. Deep down, water seemed gushing forth at tremendous speed. We proceeded further on and were asked to perform the formidable task of making an ascent up a sheer rock wall, the track on it zigzagging its way up to its top. But our apprehension melted down as the track was comfortably wide for us.
When the tack finally ended, the scenery before us was breathtaking as we could see for miles below us due to the elevation we were at. We could see the slopes of the mighty Thakt-i-Sulaiman, which were covered with green forests, making the sight appear spectacular. We were supposed to make our way through them before completing the first leg of our journey for that day. A smooth climb over a mountain nearby led us straight to those pine forests. We were immediately impressed by lush green landscape that looked enchanting. Chilgoza and Nashtar trees could be seen growing in abundance.
The track, now smooth and straight, was splashed with brilliant patches of beauty. It led us forth to Poonga, a small village. It was the end of our first day’s journey as we would be staying there overnight. Poonga spills down the mountainside. It offers a panoramic view of the landscape. Lush green mountains covered with tall trees and lots of flowers could also be seen growing in the wild. There was a distinctive silence that is peculiar to mountainous countryside.
The next morning we took up the tack to the north of the village. The track is a long, hard uphill slog, notwithstanding its share of picturesque scenery. Further ahead, however, the track turns smooth with an easy stroll that runs along the flank of the mountain, with a large rock overhang. Either side of the track is carpeted with wild flowers. The track then starts to turn and ascend, and at one point it crosses the mountain.
The view on the other side was simply breathtaking. The vast landscape was characterized by lush green pastures and dense Chalghoza forest. Impressed by the beauty of the valley, a decision was made in favour of making a detour from the main track and visiting the valley. It was an idyllic place with a dazzling array of wild flowers. The track passed a pine forest as well as a meadow, surrounded by trees all around. A visit to Takht-i-Sulaiman is not complete without a brief foray into this beautiful region.
We rejoined the main track and reached Kalkarai at dusk. After an overnight stay there, the next morning we took a path to the right, which led steeply to the peak. In sheer contrast to the landscape below, the region around the top has been a victim to intense logging. There is even a camel route for the transportation of timber to Zhobe. The top, which once had plenty of pine trees, now wears a somewhat desolate look.
On the top, we observed many things. A stone-built room came into view. Those who intend to have an overnight stay make use of it. Rainfall fills up a water pool to be used by visitors. Under a shady tree, there is a grave of unusually large size. Qaisa Abdul Rasheed is said to have been buried here. The locals believe him to be an ancestor of the Pakhtoons. A small clean place near the end of the mountain was used as a mosque, said to mark the point where Prophet Sulaiman would land. Towards its end were few stones firmly fixed in the ground. Holding them in hands we were to climb down for about 10 feet on the side of the mountain to the Takht. It is a small stone slab with barely enough space for a man to stand or sit. Two of its corners were fixed in the mountainside, the rest in open air. Holding the stones in hand, a pilgrim is supposed to descend down to Takht to offer his prayer.
From the top, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the surrounding area. Far away, the huge expanse of Damaan was also visible. To the north was Waziristan, and to the west was a chain of mountains that marked the region of Balochistan.
Takht-i-Sulaiman is a region of unimaginable beauty, but local loggers pose a serious environmental threat to its very existence. It is time that the concerned authorities take some serious actions to preserve its ecosystem. The government has so far been totally apathetic to this tragedy. It has imposed a ban on the export of the timber from Sulaiman Mountains, but there are more than one ways of smuggling it. Western slops of the range provide an easy access to loggers to Zhob, Balochistan. The government must also pay heed to the genuine problems of Sherani tribal area, and should take concrete measures to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and backwardness from the area.
Man: the Machine
Man: the Machine
By Sikander Salahuddin
Mystery surrounds human origins. Creation stories of Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions speak of him being created by God and placed on planet earth. Scientists have a different story to tell: Man is the product of stardust. He has humble beginnings and evolved through gradual progression from primates nearly 40 thousand years ago.
Keeping these mind-boggling speculations apart, if we focus on present day man then he appears a spectacular life form, a wonderful biological organism. But he is definitely not made of ethereal or angelic stuff. The elements that shaped his body are scattered throughout the universe. “The composition of tiny lumps of impure carbon and water of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties give birth to man”, as Bertrand Russell puts it. For a moment dismiss man as we subjectively conceive him and consider him briefly as a biological machine or a robot and he will definitely appear as such. Laced with vision, hearing sensors and above all with a powerful computer fitted in his skull he is capable of performing thousands of marvelous tasks. A comparison between him and a piece of machinery, for example, a car will bring out these similarities more forcefully.
A car needs fuel for its operations. Man needs food for carrying out numerous physical and mental assignments. Car has an engine; man has various systems for the smooth functioning of its healthy working. A car has headlights facilitating its movements in darkness; we on the other hand have eyes enabling us to see things. Car has got exhaust pipes emitting redundant material; man has excretory system expelling waster material, a result of metabolism.
When car breaks down it is taken to a mechanic, we on falling ill end up in a hospital. When humans die they are dumped into a graveyard with lots of ceremony and hopes of resurrection, but old useless cars end up in junk shops, or are parked in desolate corners and are left to their own fate. Man’s comparison with the cars is apt and interesting. But he is not he only biological machine, our earth abounds with so many of them. The animal kingdom exhibits craftsmanship of the highest degree. These biological machines, the animals find their echoes and parallels in man’s world. Trucks, tractors, are man’s ingenious efforts in replicating our dear beasts of burden, the camels, the donkeys , the mules and the bullocks.
Of course it is logical to question very basis and premise of the theory by pointing out that man and every member of the animal kingdom is endowed with a self will, unlike man made machines which cant get operational without man’s control. But the fact is that these biological machines have an inbuilt computer in shape of mind which enables them to become masters of their own selves. Mind gives them the self-drive ability. But sometimes it happens that a newly created machine, a new born human child for example is born with a dysfunctional computer and logically its self drive ability is also impaired and so such child is left entirely at the care of others all their lives.
So here we come. Our world having two kinds of machines, one biological in structure, the other man made and mostly mechanical and electronic in structure, but the distinction of biological and mechanical basis of making machines is fast blurring. 21st century man is playing God; rapid advances in the field of biology and genetic engineering are taking man to the realm of creation. Scientist in the US created first virus, cloning created Dolly the sheep and many other animals , and cloning of human beings is technical possible today.
Here this comparison or equation between man and a mechanical machine like a car raises another interesting and important question: the question of perpetuation and replication Man and other living organisms are busy in reproduction since the day one. But cars lack this vital capacity. But in spite of this roads are full of them. Where do these cars come from and why? The plain answer is that cars come from factories and that man is manufacturing them but again a question comes why man makes cars?
The answer lies in profit, a motive powerful enough to turn cars by millions out of a factory. When the factory owner is engaged in the task of manufacturing a car, profit is at the very top of his mind. Though the first man who invented a car may not have been motivated by profit motive, he would have been more like a painter who paints a picture to satisfy his aesthetic sense only. But today’s mass production of the cars is very much driven by profit. But man, the machine in replicating and reproducing himself not by profit motive, though again an exception could be made in case of Pakistan where some men reproduce to have male offspring to have greater man power and influence in their Biradri. Some religious minded people here in reproducing have a profit motive of another kind in minds i.e. to make Muslims greater in number to counter the power and influence of the West. But these two examples are slight exceptions. The thing that drives most of men in reproduction is the wild drive of mating, the desire to have physical communion with the opposite partner. This is really the reason why the process of regeneration and reproduction takes place. As a matter of fact, lust is such an overwhelming and overpowering passion that during mating the idea of children as its by product is rarely in the mind of mating partners. But this is what simply happens.
Man, woman working together brings into play the equation of factory and the laborer. Man assumes the function and role of a laborer and woman becomes a factory. Man puts into action all his energy and wild power in manufacturing another machine, another copy of himself. And thus man and women through their joint effort and enterprise bring into the world another self driven machine, the human child.
This obsession, the wild desire of mating drives the engine of life. This is a common thread that runs through our past, present and the future. Birds, animals and man, strange life patterns with origins unknown become perfect machines with self drive ability. A genetical clock determines their life span. Before they are dissolved back into the elements, of which they are composed and compounded, they transmit their genes, the blueprint and the basic design of their structure into their coming generations. The cycle of birth and death continues but life goes on. The motive for reproducing copies of one’s own species never comes to an end and the same ensures the continuity and perpetuity of all living species on planet earth.
Once back in the countryside, sitting on a long muddy wall of a dilapidated house, I saw birds flying and crying against the background of the vast expanse of the sky. I was fascinated. I don’t know for what purpose they are here, the life forms with the power of flight. Living a brief span of life, transmitting their genes to their children and then dissolving back to their elements. Still I hailed them as great symbols of life. Life is a mystery but it forms a grand and beautiful pattern. Animals and birds, prisoners of their own instincts of self preservation and perpetuation are an essential part of it, but we the human beings, have the added gift of contemplating the beauties of this grand mosaic, that we call life.
By Sikander Salahuddin
Mystery surrounds human origins. Creation stories of Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions speak of him being created by God and placed on planet earth. Scientists have a different story to tell: Man is the product of stardust. He has humble beginnings and evolved through gradual progression from primates nearly 40 thousand years ago.
Keeping these mind-boggling speculations apart, if we focus on present day man then he appears a spectacular life form, a wonderful biological organism. But he is definitely not made of ethereal or angelic stuff. The elements that shaped his body are scattered throughout the universe. “The composition of tiny lumps of impure carbon and water of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties give birth to man”, as Bertrand Russell puts it. For a moment dismiss man as we subjectively conceive him and consider him briefly as a biological machine or a robot and he will definitely appear as such. Laced with vision, hearing sensors and above all with a powerful computer fitted in his skull he is capable of performing thousands of marvelous tasks. A comparison between him and a piece of machinery, for example, a car will bring out these similarities more forcefully.
A car needs fuel for its operations. Man needs food for carrying out numerous physical and mental assignments. Car has an engine; man has various systems for the smooth functioning of its healthy working. A car has headlights facilitating its movements in darkness; we on the other hand have eyes enabling us to see things. Car has got exhaust pipes emitting redundant material; man has excretory system expelling waster material, a result of metabolism.
When car breaks down it is taken to a mechanic, we on falling ill end up in a hospital. When humans die they are dumped into a graveyard with lots of ceremony and hopes of resurrection, but old useless cars end up in junk shops, or are parked in desolate corners and are left to their own fate. Man’s comparison with the cars is apt and interesting. But he is not he only biological machine, our earth abounds with so many of them. The animal kingdom exhibits craftsmanship of the highest degree. These biological machines, the animals find their echoes and parallels in man’s world. Trucks, tractors, are man’s ingenious efforts in replicating our dear beasts of burden, the camels, the donkeys , the mules and the bullocks.
Of course it is logical to question very basis and premise of the theory by pointing out that man and every member of the animal kingdom is endowed with a self will, unlike man made machines which cant get operational without man’s control. But the fact is that these biological machines have an inbuilt computer in shape of mind which enables them to become masters of their own selves. Mind gives them the self-drive ability. But sometimes it happens that a newly created machine, a new born human child for example is born with a dysfunctional computer and logically its self drive ability is also impaired and so such child is left entirely at the care of others all their lives.
So here we come. Our world having two kinds of machines, one biological in structure, the other man made and mostly mechanical and electronic in structure, but the distinction of biological and mechanical basis of making machines is fast blurring. 21st century man is playing God; rapid advances in the field of biology and genetic engineering are taking man to the realm of creation. Scientist in the US created first virus, cloning created Dolly the sheep and many other animals , and cloning of human beings is technical possible today.
Here this comparison or equation between man and a mechanical machine like a car raises another interesting and important question: the question of perpetuation and replication Man and other living organisms are busy in reproduction since the day one. But cars lack this vital capacity. But in spite of this roads are full of them. Where do these cars come from and why? The plain answer is that cars come from factories and that man is manufacturing them but again a question comes why man makes cars?
The answer lies in profit, a motive powerful enough to turn cars by millions out of a factory. When the factory owner is engaged in the task of manufacturing a car, profit is at the very top of his mind. Though the first man who invented a car may not have been motivated by profit motive, he would have been more like a painter who paints a picture to satisfy his aesthetic sense only. But today’s mass production of the cars is very much driven by profit. But man, the machine in replicating and reproducing himself not by profit motive, though again an exception could be made in case of Pakistan where some men reproduce to have male offspring to have greater man power and influence in their Biradri. Some religious minded people here in reproducing have a profit motive of another kind in minds i.e. to make Muslims greater in number to counter the power and influence of the West. But these two examples are slight exceptions. The thing that drives most of men in reproduction is the wild drive of mating, the desire to have physical communion with the opposite partner. This is really the reason why the process of regeneration and reproduction takes place. As a matter of fact, lust is such an overwhelming and overpowering passion that during mating the idea of children as its by product is rarely in the mind of mating partners. But this is what simply happens.
Man, woman working together brings into play the equation of factory and the laborer. Man assumes the function and role of a laborer and woman becomes a factory. Man puts into action all his energy and wild power in manufacturing another machine, another copy of himself. And thus man and women through their joint effort and enterprise bring into the world another self driven machine, the human child.
This obsession, the wild desire of mating drives the engine of life. This is a common thread that runs through our past, present and the future. Birds, animals and man, strange life patterns with origins unknown become perfect machines with self drive ability. A genetical clock determines their life span. Before they are dissolved back into the elements, of which they are composed and compounded, they transmit their genes, the blueprint and the basic design of their structure into their coming generations. The cycle of birth and death continues but life goes on. The motive for reproducing copies of one’s own species never comes to an end and the same ensures the continuity and perpetuity of all living species on planet earth.
Once back in the countryside, sitting on a long muddy wall of a dilapidated house, I saw birds flying and crying against the background of the vast expanse of the sky. I was fascinated. I don’t know for what purpose they are here, the life forms with the power of flight. Living a brief span of life, transmitting their genes to their children and then dissolving back to their elements. Still I hailed them as great symbols of life. Life is a mystery but it forms a grand and beautiful pattern. Animals and birds, prisoners of their own instincts of self preservation and perpetuation are an essential part of it, but we the human beings, have the added gift of contemplating the beauties of this grand mosaic, that we call life.
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