Understanding Islamic Culture -3

Continued from the Part 1, 2 -

Islam is the answer to most of the Muslims for a wide range of questions, whether they're social, or political, or personal, or spiritual. Within the sphere of people who have that view, and it's a large number of people in the Muslim world who disagree with bin Laden in his application, but agree that Islam is the answer. Islam represents a way of engaging the world through which one can achieve certain desirable goals. And the goals from the perspective of Muslims are, in principle, peace, justice and equality, but on terms that correspond to traditional Muslim teachings.  I am proceeding on 3rd part of essay series to understand the reason behind such views with these three interviews of the leading reformers in Islamic society ;

1- Q & A with Shereen El Feki: A glimpse of Arab society in a globalizing world :- Shereen El Feki is based in Cairo, where she works on issues related to health and social welfare in the Arab region. In the whole discussions, two paragraphs struck me too much (In Underlines).

Largely, the model in the West in society is the autonomous individual. The individual is almost like the atom of society. It’s the unit of society. And that’s how Western society has developed over the past few centuries. It’s very different in the Arab region. People don’t necessarily conceive of themselves as individuals. They really don’t see their place in society in that way. They see themselves as part of a collective. And that has really interesting implications on a number of levels, but it is also one of these really big differences between the West and the Arab world.

While she has worked in regional media, as a presenter with the Al Jazeera Network, and continues to write on social issues in the Arab world, her passion lies in the many projects in which she is involved which aim to better understand, and surmount, the social challenges facing Arabs, particularly young people.

It is interesting if you look at the Arab region, the majority of the population is young, as I mentioned, but most of the people who actually call the shots are much older and so they’re actually not part of an Internet generation. So for them, often when they react to the Internet or there are forms of censorship, it’s often because you’re talking about a generation that doesn’t get the net, that doesn’t adapt easily.

2- Interview with Hamid Dabashi : "Islam Is an Abstraction"

The US-Iranian intellectual Hamid Dabashi is among the most highly respected scholars of Islam in the US. In this interview with Lewis Gropp, he explains how Islam in Europe will change as a result of the influence of European culture and European Muslims.

"If in Europe, you have a – not secular but – cosmopolitan context, it is not out of the goodness of the heart of Christianity, but it is because the social context that has created an organic environment – particularly during the era of Enlightenment – forced Christianity to accommodate non-religious sentiments. The same holds true for Judaism, and a fortiori for Islam.

When people ask whether Islam is compatible with modernity, they have an entirely essentialist concept – not a historical, not a material conception – of Islam. If you leave it to Muslim theologians, the Muslim jurists, the clergy, the Mullahs – of course they want the whole world according to their vision. But the same is with the Christian clergy and the Jewish rabbis! " says Dabashi.

According to Dabashi, Islam in Europe will be transformed not by Muslim intellectuals like Tariq Ramadan, but by social forces. I was thinking about abstract concept of Islam that will adapt to the Europe and will still be promoting concept of diversity.

In my conception of religion, which is Durkheimian, religion is an expression of a collective consciousness. You have a group of people here, and whatever it is they believe – metaphysically, religiously, and in terms of what is "sacred" to them – constitutes the religion. So forget about Europe for now – if you go to India and go to Saudi Arabia and go to Morocco and go to China you have four different kinds of Islam. Islam is not quintessential. It is a sacred language spoken in different dialects by people living different lives. So by the same logic when Muslims come to Europe, they will redefine Islam. And there is nobody on planet earth who can tell them, what you're doing is not Islamic, you're losing your religion. The successive generations will redefine Islam.

3- How to become a real Muslim- A media reliant on scandal has colluded with self-promoting but marginal Muslim clerics to create a cycle of self-reinforcing myths around the Mohammed cartoons, writes Kenan Malik. The fear of causing offence has helped undermine progressive trends in Islam and strengthened the hand of religious bigots.

G for Government

When the state is ruled by a mob, good lives are at risk. That's where a government is born in the state. A government is the organization, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects. I am always amazed by the working nature of the government and its obsession with the authority and power.

Mikhail Bakunin, the 19th-century Russian anarchist, put it best : “A very grave danger to a person’s moral life is the habit of giving orders.” That habit of giving order and following it without questioning is trade mark of our governmental organization. Myth : The old structures are simply untouchable. This is the one of myths that prevail in our government corridors for outsiders.Even Lord Curzon has complained, "Round and Round like the .... revolutions of the earth goes file after file in the bureacratic daily dance, staely, solemn, sure and slow".

Regarding South Asians obsession with governmental power and aspiring feudal as a role model, Pakistani bureaucrat Irfan Hussian expalins : The essence of the feudal ethos is the conviction that he is always right and that he has a God-given right to lord it over his tenants. This attitude has seeped into much of our society to such an extent that when somebody is promoted to head a state organisation, he immediately flexes his authority and reminds everybody who’s boss, quickly forgetting his own days as an unappreciated subordinate.

A government is always personified form of all the people in the nation. So is ours Indian government. Indians have old mindset of scarcity and risk aversion. We accumulate huge foreign reserve and emphasizing stock piles in food grains. We have an obsession with government jobs that give access to social security without any accountability. Our public issue has been focused on privatization and reservations; No one talk about efficiency or accountability here.

The outmoded bureaucracies are incapable of identifying creative solutions. There is simply no alternative to information flow and dismantling the iron curtain.  The essential culture of government is always pervasive, new incentives or not. Much of dynamism and the risk taking is there because there had no set example to follow.

Change is always painful and hard won if it comes through public debate. A people driven transformation of a country holds a particular power; it is irreversible. Idea of making government transparent in processes has been inserted in common mind. It is happening slowly in India through RTI and huge media coverage.

Clean water, good schools, libraries, theatres, cafés, parks and public transport are clearly public goods – and the planet and its people need more of them. Yet no country has ever pursued an economic policy informed by this concept of maximizing public good while eliminating ‘positional goods’. Nothing happens in the world until people involved wanted it to happen.

My Role: I want to give a voice to society, to take up people's emotions and desires and make them resound in sublime form. This idea can prove explosive as soon as society rises up as a unified force. The collective consciousness as the voice of a deeply rooted, suppressed and yet lively humanism always exist in the background of all noises. Among the many insights Bakunin has left us with, here is a gem I have come to hold at the centre of my personal belief system: “To govern is to exploit.”

FootNote : Those who want to know about Indian bureaucrat, there is a blog: babus of India. About The Blogger (Self Description): Its A journalist with over 15 years of experience in covering economics and politics of India, babu blogger passionately follows every lead in India's Raisina Hills. He is now aided by an enthusiastic team from Indian Admin House, a non-profit trust, created to document various facets of Indian administration. A follower of white ambassadors 24X7, he spends quality time in power corridors of Delhi and elsewhere.

The Importance of Unbelief

It is easy to blame individuals without tracking down the institutional, historical and analytical manner of his/her brainwash. IHM pointed out our default problem solving approach : we seems to think we can solve problems while we cherish and protect what’s causing them.

When it is said that terrorist has no religion, speakers are grossly wrong. Most of the terrorist activities are done in the faith and name of religious supremacy. Each religion has to necessarily take the blame for its extremist. And same bunch of speakers also believe their religion slightly better than others. This attitude has come from the upbringing in a religious environment that even if individual gives space to other religion, never treats them equal. Roots of activities of Terry Jones and Osama bin Laden are hidden in their religion only.

Tolerance is lacking in religion in terms of tradition and they are intolerant enough in raising wars. There will be attacks on physical structures and cultural fabrics will be blown out slowly and slowly. We are bound to get only ruins and ashes in this religious wars. Attacking somebody else because of his or her convictions and faith would be a betrayal of what we stand for: Value of our own life. So I believe very strongly in co-existence with rationality and love. It is high time to question what we believe or to be blown away by wars based on religious differences.

Religious insanities are the logical outcome of the faith. Religions are institutions that demand loyalty and justifies each wrong deed by quoting dark ages scriptures. Follower fails to investigate due to iron curtain of faith. Institutional thinking harm humans as its hinders uniqueness in him for homogeneity through hegemony.

At last, we work together in the same space, the same world, breathe the same air, hopefully dream the same dreams. It's about the common weakness that makes us susceptible not just to any bigotry but to political polarization: our propensity to see one another as members of groups rather than as individuals. Human rights, rational thinking and secular principles have evolved through lot of public debate. And it should not be compromised for bleak and violent past based on religious hatred.

Let me explain religion through an analogy of Economic Rent .

In the early 19th century, David Ricardo postulated that a society expands more land is cultivated to support it. However, since the best land gets used first, the owners of that terrain earn excess profit. This is the essence of economic rent.

Brands are, in truth, an attempt to extract economic rents. That’s why Internet start-ups invested billions in the 90’s in the hope of gaining enough “eyeballs” to achieve a sustainable advantage. The idea was that once you have enough people devoted to your brand, network effects will kick in and you will have a dedicated market for your product or service.

Many believe that is what is going on today. Companies like Apple and Facebook have attracted such a large and dedicated following that they can earn rents from the rest of the Internet. Moreover, they will wall themselves off in order to extract maximum value from their powerful position. [Source]

Replace facebook and Apple with the religions that have new consumers (followers) by the virtue of default( birth ). When some one start small group of product boycott (atheism), one is not welcomed in the market. Even if the product is harmful in long usage, the stickiness and loyalty factor comes as hindrance. And even it has positive virtue for short time like drugs. Fanboys of the product act as soldiers of their religion in quite violent way. Fanboys (extremist) arguing to use product in most older and faulted versions are wrong as they even don't care about the ultimate sanctity and value of a human life. A product (religion) should evolve to remove vulnerabilities rather than covering up the issue by quoting high number of current users.

“Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure.” – Harvard Lamphoon

Questions of Identity & Caste

Questions of Identity, Caste & State has bothered me from long time. This article is mine stand at present moment on these issues. I will start this article on the caste matters with the opinion of two prominent bloggers.

1- My friend Apocryphal pointed correctly about mentality of upper caste Hindus: For them, Caste is passe. That is no longer a problem, the problem of course is ‘reservation’. All problems radiate from ‘reservation’ playing it out through ‘vote bank politics’.

2- Namit Sir on famous Shunya blog was telling his experience on this issue : An upper caste friend recently complained that reservations are socially divisive and instigate disharmony. I had to laugh. Isn't the caste hierarchy all about social division? Caste identities have been strong for ages, since folks marry within their own. If caste now also shapes political consciousness, it is because, in part, its members share a common experience of discrimination and inherited disadvantage. If the db level in society has gone up, it's because the lower castes are unwilling to put up with the "harmonious" arrangements of the past. They want a greater share of the opportunities and resources they think is their due, and the primary tactic open to them is via political alliances and lobbying for favorable government policies. So it's easy to understand why caste politics has gained prominence in India.

Dignity comes from choice and recognition in the society. It is the reason of emergence of caste identities and their relation with honour. Every leader of independence has been reduced into mere representative of their caste group - ex Sardar Patel or B R Ambedkar. A breaking away from the past in the search of new identity had began and now, each caste based community is outraged by any reference to the downtrodden past. Shyam Benegal pointed out this phenomena very poignantly:

In the process of dismantling caste equations, some of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Dalit communities give themselves identities that no longer associate them with their traditional professions. The new identity requires a reworking of community histories and mythology. Any reference to the old identity can only seem offensive. As part of the mainstream, they are likely to lose their special identity.

It is largely for this reason that it becomes important for them to adopt dominant forms of expression so that others may hear or understand their points of view. Even more important for them is to establish their view as the last word. Any expression that they perceive as an attack on their identity is responded to with considerable vehemence.

Take the case of caste census. There is huge uproar in liberal minded higher caste Indians to ignore census based on caste and put their identity as Indians only. They are already privileged part of society and don't need caste labels for their growth in any field. I feel data is needed to see through caste based system arrangement in vast country like India. The national census is the only source of primary and credible data in India and is used not just to formulate government policies but also by private sectors. Groups will always raise their voice for the sake of stake in the reservation and trail towards more caste based society. There is dire need of the restructuring of society and informed stats will be more helpful in the era of vote bank politics and social engineering. We need to count caste in this census to annihilate it.
 
Prof. Kancha Ilaiah has explained this in his article: Who’s afraid of caste census?
 
"Caste culture is all around us. In the dalit-bahujan discourse, the upper castes are being shown as constituting less than 15 per cent. This could be totally wrong. Even within the lower castes there are several false claims about numbers. Every caste claims that it is numerically the strongest and keeps asking for its “rightful” share. How to tell them that their claims are wrong? When caste has become such an important category of day-to-day reckoning it is important to have proper data at hand to tell communities that they constitute this much and cannot ask for more than their share.

It is true that we cannot distribute everything based on caste. But caste census is the right basis for statistics such as literacy rate and issues like the proportion of representation. Once we cite the Census data there cannot be any authentic opposition to that evidence. The upper caste intelligentsia is afraid that once detailed data on number of people in lower castes is available it would become a major ground for asking for accurate proportional representation in certain sectors, such as education and employment. "
 
George Orwell's warning that a corrupt system will if unchanged, stay corrupt even if power shifts hands from its tryants to its past victims - and soon enough, as he wrote, ' it's impossible to tell which is which ' ; When a long abuse of power is corrected, it is generally replaced by an opposite violence. In the new dispensations, all that was good in what went before is tarred indiscriminately with the bad. Those who have to face political or social persecution become highly polarized.

Power shifted from the hands of the Brahmins to low caste will have bad affects till few decades. It is bound to happen and politics of revenge than cooperation will prevail for few decades. Slowly, caste will take back seat and new identites based on new parameters will emerge in the society. This help me to understand importance of democratic & political model in this upheaval of Hindu society. Democracy was never meant for electoral representation of all, it was there to annihilate the destructive and violent outbursts of groups against each other through people consensus. It's about the common weakness that makes us susceptible not just to any bigotry but to political polarization: our propensity to see one another as members of groups rather than as individuals.

Daniel Everette’s Deconversion

This video confirmed my trust in the lectures of Osho on Tao. Daniel Everette 's deconversion from chiristianity to tribal way of life is quite heartful. Influenced by the Pirahã's concept of truth, his belief in Christianity slowly diminished and he became an atheist.

I don't subscribe to the theology of the westerners. There theology like culture is so limiting and binary –its always a choice between atheism or faith. Issues of epistemological justification are outcomes of theological pursuit of truths in eastern religions, that is completely missing in the western religious discourses. Here, there are remarkable quantity of intellectual theories and philosophies like world view concepts of Dharma, Karma, Nirvana and ideas of reality.

A true religion teaches man to aspire to that which is “higher” in him. Buddhism emphasizes individual “willing” to the “better” in man and does not rely on grace of God, prophet or any scripture. It believes in transforming the mind and using it to explore itself and other phenomena. For Easterners however, there are transcendentant principles without believing in the supernatural –this is the difference.

I will say today a valuable lesson learned by me on the path to discover about faith : Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.