Philanthropy or agenda?by Aziz Ali Dad

The following article  “Philanthropy or agenda?”  by Aziz Ali Dad, source “The News, April 28, 2011”.

The controversy about the authenticity of projects undertaken by Greg Mortenson through his Central Asian Institute (CAI) in northern Afghanistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and the financial irregularities in CAI has created a furore in the international media. In the ensuing debate arguments of his votaries and detractors have focused only on Mortenson’s personality. Indeed, the controversy surrounding his philanthropic initiatives is a manifestation of global philanthropy and its discontents, which are a product of broader power relations and of the economic structure of the world dominated by a neo-liberal political and economic regime.

Mortenson’s book Three Cups of Tea is a New York Times bestseller. The author is accused of fabricating “some of the most dramatic and inspiring stories” in Three Cups of Tea and committing irregularities in the finances of the CAI. The impression he gives in the book is that he brought civilisation to the region of Gilgit-Baltistan to ward off the pernicious effects of Taliban ideology through education. Interestingly, the region, especially Baltistan, where he claimed to have set up schools, does not even have Taliban supporters, let alone the Taliban themselves.

Mortenson gives the impression that nobody had worked in this field before in the areas where he operated, and that he remained undeterred despite all odds and threats. That is why his representation of the region reeks of condescension. Amidst illiteracy and darkness the protagonist appears to be an emissary of civilisation who is bringing light to the dark spots of the earth. Philanthropic activities appear to be humanitarian, but there is a colonial mindset behind them. Mortenson reminds you of Western scholars who provided moral justification for their countries’ interventions in foreign countries during the colonial period.

There is no denying the fact that philanthropic interventions through soft initiatives can be used to defeat the scourge of terrorism, violence, ignorance and extremism. Unfortunately, the “soft” component of the counterterrorism strategy has become embedded within disaster capitalism. That is why initiatives of the soft component in development attract development professionals in droves to reap the benefits from reconstruction project in the aftermath of a war or disaster. No one can object to the opening of girls’ schools, but the question is: why it is always necessary to declare an area of intervention as being a land of obscurantism and ignorance, where the society is necessarily uncivilised? It is to provide a justification for the wiping out of all vestiges of the indigenous system and turning the society into a clean slate so that a neo-liberal economic script can be written with philanthropy used as an excuse.

For more details: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=43936&Cat=9

 

 

Unthought thoughts by Aziz Ali Dad

The following article  “Unthought thoughts”  by Aziz Ali Dad, source “The News, April 3, 2011”.

 

Killing on personal whims reveals the violent mentality that lurks beneath the calm veneer of silent majority in the Pakistani society.

The elevation of Salmaan Taseer’s assassin to the status of a hero and justification of the murder by a vast section of society show a mindset that is totally out of sync with modern times. When a society relapses into primitive state of nature, it paves the way for its own demise. Moreover, it clearly shows the descent of our society into an anarchic state where the only rule is the law of jungle.

In the state of nature, individual will remains dominant and the collective will does not emerge. In such a state, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, “man is a wolf on a fellow man, a state of war of everyone against everyone.” To end the uncertainty and insecurity of life in the state of nature, humankind entered into a social contract, in which the individual surrendered its will to form a collective will. The collective will played a pivotal role in the emergence of society, culture, state, religion, law, industry and vocations of different kinds.

With the advent of modernity, nature of the state underwent drastic changes. Through rationalisation of institutions and other spheres of life, the state was able to hold the monopoly on violence by empowering only one organisation to commit violent acts legitimately.

This idea is basically a manifestation of the collective will that enables people to progress and make life secure from the dangers of allowing the individual will and devolution of violence to its citizenry.

A study of the Pakistani society clearly shows the signs of withering away of rationality and disintegration of society. It is a society where the individual will dominates the collective will and the state fails to hold its monopoly on violence.

Salmaan Taseer’s murder is symptomatic of an obscurantist mind that is bent on removing the last vestiges of modernity to create more space for a golden past that never existed. Taseer’s assassination has clearly opened the deeper fissures within our society. Also, it has revealed the violent mentality that lurks beneath the calm veneer of silent majority.

Qadri’s elevation to the status of a hero clearly manifests a clash between tradition and modernity, because it is against the basic principles of modernity to decide about the fate of a person on a personal whim. Only institutions of the state are entitled to decide about the crime of a person and award punishment. If everyone is given a license to kill, the civil war in Pakistan is well nigh.

Those who are celebrating Qadri as a hero are not only eroding the fabric of society by turning it into a state akin to the life of nature. It is impossible to keep the edifice of state, religion, culture and values intact when the very foundation of the society is destroyed.

The clergy in Pakistan failed to understand the dialectics of modernity. Instead of tackling modernity on its own turf, the priest, in a bad faith, tries to cast our minds in medieval mould. This has created a cognitive dissonance or gap, for we are trying to make sense of the modern order of things with a paradigm that was evolved in response to centuries old issues.

Late professor Mohammed Arkoun of Sorbonne University termed this gap ‘unthought’ in Islamic thought. According to Arkoun the unthought in Islamic thought has been accumulating since the 16th century. He finds the causes of contemporary semantic disorder of thought in Islamic societies and its failure ‘to contribute to the great open debate on a world scale’ in the lacuna created by unthoughts.

This intellectual lacuna can be filled only by acquainting ourselves with modern discourses of social sciences and humanities. It will enable us to avoid anachronism in our worldview and objective realities on the one hand, and help us to deal with some of the intractable issues of our society with relevant sociological imagination.

Modernity demands rationalisation of different spheres of life and progressive vision of religion, but our priestly class has organised itself around issues that are always divisive and mostly violent. Their myopic version of religion reduces the status of God into hangman. The managers of the sacred have turned sacred institutions into an instrument of their political agenda. The priests are misfit to assume the charge of defining an entity like God.

On the other hand, religious discourse has remained ‘unthought’ for liberal/secular intelligentsia. As modernity is ‘unthought’ to religious class, religious discourse has remained unthought for seculars.

For more details: http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2011-weekly/nos-03-04-2011/dia.htm#4

 

Where do we stand? by Salman Abid

The following article  “Where do we stand?  by Salman Abid, source “The News, April 3, 2011”.

According to dictionary, sovereignty is “the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which an independent state is governed and from which all specific political powers are derived; the intentional independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign interference.” Sovereignty and democracy are, of course, inter-linked. 

The talk of the town these days among the political intelligentsia is the task of strengthening democracy in Pakistan. In comparison with other systems of government, democracy is proved to be the best system of governance the world over.

Throughout the world, democratic forces have distinguished between true democracy in comparison with the so-called controlled democracy at the hands of non-democratic forces.

The situation of developing countries like Pakistan is the lingering threat from external forces. Somehow superpowers have successfully managed to streamline their power-based interests and, in some cases, stopped the real democratic process.

It would not be an over-simplification to say that international power players, US at the top of them, always managed the kind of democratic model in the third world that aimed to serve foreign agenda.

It is interesting to note how local and international establishments went against the norms of democracy. Pakistan, it is said, happens to be the real test case of clash between democratic and undemocratic forces.

We need to have supremacy of the parliament and the rule of law. Democracy is based on the concept of popular sovereignty. Representative democracies allow transfer of the exercise of sovereignty from the people to the parliament.

There is an impression that the international power brokers are aligned with Pakistan’s military institutions and accept their role in country’s politics. And how does that translate into action? General Pervez Musharraf’s is a case in point. He went Scott free, enjoying free passage.

According to one analysis, international power players have become completely engaged in decision-making process. Can we hope to see the democratic set-up getting strength and stability, at least in economic terms?  The bitter reality for the common man is that the World Bank and IMF are dictating the finance ministry.

The fault lies with us not with the others. We are internally weak since day one and our institutions have failed. True, Pakistan’s democratic process is still in transitional mode but it would be about time to re-evaluate our political roadmap and put it on the right track.

For more details: http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2011-weekly/nos-03-04-2011/pol1.htm#7