N-risk reduction pact

THE ministerial-level talks in New Delhi have ended on a positive note, with the two sides signing an agreement on nuclear risk reduction, besides reaching an understanding on a number of issues to carry the peace process forward. The outcome of the talks between foreign ministers Khursheed Mahmud Kasuri and Pranab Mukherjee shows that Pakistan and India have not allowed the Samjhota Express tragedy to derail the peace process. The agreement on nuclear risk reduction is one of the many accords the two countries have previously signed with a view to avoiding situations where accidents in nuclear installations could cause problems for either side. The importance of the agreement, which comes into force immediately, lies in the context of the radioactive fallout from a possible accident involving nuclear weapons. The accord makes it mandatory for the two governments to inform the other side immediately in such events, especially if this could lead to an accidental nuclear war.

The agreement is in addition to the December 1988 accord that bound the two sides not to attack each other’s nuclear installations and to refrain from any action or participate in any action that may cause damage to or destruction of any nuclear installations in either country. That agreement also provided for exchanging lists of nuclear facilities and their locations. Since then Islamabad and New Delhi have been regularly exchanging such lists, and even at the height of the tension in 2002, the two governments abided by the agreement. The last such list was exchanged in January last. Also signed in January 2006 was an agreement on a prior notification of missile tests. On the whole, the various agreements on nuclear reductions and avoiding an accidental nuclear war constitute major confidence-building measures and should help consolidate the peace process. Other issues taken up for consideration on Thursday were a review of the overall peace process, progress on the Kashmir issue and the joint survey of Sir Creek. No decision has yet been taken with regard to a final settlement of the Siachen issue. However, the foreign ministers agreed that fresh talks should be held on a troop withdrawal from the glacier, and the two directors-general of military operations are to meet, though a date has not yet been fixed. Somehow the breakthrough predicted on Siachen continues to elude us. Even though it is no more the icy battlefield it used to be, the glacier is still a source of irritation for Pakistan and India, besides being a costly enterprise for both sides in terms of military casualties and logistics. A joint reduction of troops followed by a mutually agreed demarcation line will be a major achievement and have a healthy influence on the Kashmir issue.

One must here regret India’s refusal to share intelligence with Pakistan and agree to a joint probe into the act of terrorism involving the Samjhota Express. Mr Mukherjee’s argument was that the tragedy occurred on Indian soil, and therefore the investigation of the crime would be according to “the law of the land”. While he is technically correct, such a stance goes against the spirit of the détente and the joint anti-terrorism mechanism to which President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed in Havana last year. One hopes that the anti-terrorism panel’s meeting on March 6 in Islamabad will prove fruitful and the two sides will be able to work together to unmask the elements behind the carnage.

History: an obscurantist view

GIVEN the MMA’s aversion to laws and trends that promote liberal and humanistic thinking in society, it should really come as no surprise that the religious alliance created a rumpus in the National Assembly the other day over the teaching of Pakistan’s pre-Islamic history in schools. Angered by a parliamentarian’s defence of the inclusion of chapters in textbooks on the era predating Islam’s advent in the subcontinent, the MMA staged a walkout with one legislator shouting “That may be your history…our history [starts] from Makkah and Madina.” This kind of attitude is ridiculous. For not only does it mean a rejection of the process of continuity and all that has shaped our evolution as a society and nation, it also smacks of the kind of obscurant ideology that is being zealously promoted by the religious orthodoxy. Such an attitude is the result of the dogmatic interpretation of religion and is largely responsible for the growing divisions among the people. Under these circumstances, the repudiation of the past does little to instil a sense of collective pride in and ownership of one’s historical heritage and antecedents — something that could have transcended divisions and helped promote national unity.

There is no doubt that the story of Islam in the subcontinent is an interesting one. There is testimony to that in Sufi literature and music and in the several architectural gems, including mosques, mausoleums and forts, that are found all over the country. But should this obscure the equally fascinating ups and downs and phases of history before the advent of Islam? Should the dust be allowed to settle forever on Moenjodaro, Taxila and Mehrgarh? Are we to draw no lessons from the tolerance of the Buddhist king Asoka whose edicts are carved in stone? Are the glories of Gandharan sculptures, the product of an age that combined the best in Grecian and Indian art, to be shunned as un-Islamic? Our clerics have only to look at other Muslim countries to understand that a pre-Islamic heritage can easily be reconciled with today’s faith. Modern-day Egypt with its Pharanoic past is just one example. The government must stand its ground on allowing lessons in Pakistan’s pre-Islamic past and not give in to the MMA’s ludicrous demand.

Fighting polio on two fronts

THE MMA government in the NWFP has to step in and stop certain clerics’ drivel on the polio vaccination or run the risk of facing a serious health crisis they may find difficult to deal with. Already their inaction has cost lives — 39 polio cases were reported last year in the province. But the incidence of the disease cannot be brought down without dealing with the vicious campaign of falsehood and canard being carried out by a section of the clerics bent on frustrating the anti-polio drive. Having access to illegal radio stations to spew their venom, such elements are determined to go to any extent to stop the spread of what they call the “infidel vaccine”. The killing of a doctor earlier this week in Bajaur is proof of their viciousness. And now a cleric in a village in Swat is preaching that Islam prohibits finding a cure for a disease before its outbreak in the form of an epidemic and that those who die in an outbreak are martyrs. Such ludicrous claims have produced expected results: during an anti-polio campaign on Wednesday and Thursday in Swat, some refused to have their children vaccinated. It is difficult to reason with such illiterate fanatics but the government will have to find a way to win over support in favour of an enlightened view of things. As it is, health officials in certain areas have postponed the anti-polio campaign for security reasons after the doctor’s death in Bajaur. If put off indefinitely, this could have disastrous effects.

The authorities cannot allow clerics to hijack a public campaign and jeopardise children’s health and well-being in the process. They have a responsibility to contain the polio virus and must press ahead with the goal of a polio-free Pakistan. Each time a polio case is detected, it is a reminder of the government’s failure to implement a comprehensive strategy to wipe out the disease. A more effective approach is needed to achieve the goal.

Friday feature: Wrong perception of Islam

MISCONCEPTION of Islam in the West is the most disturbing phenomenon of the 21st century. With bigotry, bias and confrontation this phenomenon has grown to unmanageable proportions in recent years. A high degree of hate has been exhibited against the Muslims in particular since 9/11.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been sacrificed at the altar of the twin towers without ascertaining the causes and analysing the situation. Neoconservatism and Islamophobic distortions have penetrated deep into the fabric of western psyche. The whole mindset seems to have assumed the features which are not compatible with rational thought and the enlightenment that the West is believed to have conceived over the past centuries.

Hostility between Islam and the West has been given new direction and misleading theories like the clash of civilisations have been evolved to sanction attacks, both verbal and physical, against the Muslims. This has created reinforced barriers which have been made impregnable by the growing wave of fundamentalism. Instead of bringing down the barriers the adventurist steps as taken by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan have further destabilised the normal life that is now causing all the problems. The barriers have been rising and perceptions have been polluted to further contaminate the environments. The western readers have not been able to understand the teachings of Islam and the Muslim dogmatists have preferred to keep aloof from the streams of modern thought.

Conspicuous damage has been done to Islam as Muslims have been deficient in defending themselves. With hardly any technology and defence mechanism and lack of economic and political potential Muslims have been drifting continually from the apex to the abyss. The past centuries have been the centuries of decline for Muslims. Even in contemporary age Muslims are out of tune with the modern streams of thought and hardly feel comfortable in the environment of modernism. Modernism is an anathema to them and modernity a means of perverting their conceptions. Orthodoxy and extremism are the dominating themes of their culture.

The Muslim fundamentalists at the same time have spotted a kind of fatalism in the ultraconservatives' responses to western attacks and natural disasters. Events in the Middle East are the early warning signs of worse to come. With Iran emerging as a new nuclear power the West is flirting with the idea of creating new disasters. Hence there is an imminent need of challenging this intransigence on both sides and making it clear that distorted perceptions and wrong decisions are the sure recipe for disaster.

As a result of growing gulf between the two sides the rhetoric of confrontation has to be reined in to reduce the quantum of disaster which might endanger the future of the planet. Muslims have been accused of extremism, terrorism and almost all evils prevailing in the world communities. The "monumental struggle" between the forces of moderation and extremism has been largely attributed to the Muslims.

The West does not accuse the Jews and Americans for their blatant policies and their hostile violation of the genuine Muslim rights in the Middle East. The Jews are supported in spite of their brutal attacks against the Palestinians and the US policies remain diametrically opposed to the basic interests of Muslims in Palestine. Since the Jews and the US occupy a large bulk of human and physical resources and manipulate situations to their advantage, they remain unscathed in the corridors of world media and politics.

The rhetoric of confrontation goes on expanding its tentacles to further pollute the environments and continually damage the spirit of understanding and cooperation between the two sides. Islam remains the most misunderstood religion in the world and the West persists in treating it with bias and phobias. Borrowing its perception from the Crusades the West continues to approach Islam without any objectivity. W. Montgomery Watt, a western scholar, observing this trend, says:

"Among the world's major religions it is certainly Islam that the West has the most difficulty in approaching objectively. The reasons for this are rooted in past history. Because of the crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries many people in the West wanted the religion of Islam to be better known. But the image they portrayed of Islam can be quite accurately qualified as "distorted". Western opinion about Islam and Muslims was based for centuries on the distorted image."

Western intellectual and literary circles in particular from the medieval period onwards have been influenced largely by episodes which were produced largely to propagate hostility towards Islam. Some of the best known works of western literature are the epic poems such as the songs of Roland and ElCid. In recent years they have been supplemented with cartoons, caricatures which have had a serious impact on polluting the environment. The results of such works appeared not only in faulty representations of Islam but in actual brutal attacks against Muslims across the western world and in particular in the US and Britain.

Many of these attacks, both physical and political, have led to inflaming the feelings on both sides and creating convulsive connotations especially of Islam in the West. Muslims have been made the focal target of attack and both religious and political leaders have entered the terrain of telling people how dangerous and violent the religion of Islam is. This has been done despite the fact that Muslims have restrained from condemning Christianity as a religion and Jesus Christ as a Prophet.

Hence what disturbs the Muslims in particular is the kind of attacks launched against Islam and its Prophet. These attacks are seen to have covered an extensive range of literary, political and ideological onslaughts both in the past and present epoch. They have extended from Dante's Divine Comedy to the Danish cartoonists and from Denmark to the Pope's Vatican. The Pope Benedict XVI at the Regensburg speech in Germany condemned Islam as a violent religion which spread its message with the force of sword.

Pope Paul II was the pontiff who had invited all the parties to a conference at Assisi in Turkey to thrash out the differences and reach a consensus on the major conflicting issues. His purpose was to bring down the barriers and create new avenues of understanding. This is what we need today to halt the process of misunderstandings and misconceptions in order to create positivist perception for better interaction and mutual respect.

In a world of mass communications in which the western media dominate it will be extremely damaging if the western critics continue to propagate views which are distorted and pernicious. They will have to be careful in writing and uttering statements which are based on bias and hatred. Absorbing the spirit of ancient prejudices and thousand years’ old rivalry will not be a positive contribution towards creating mutually respectful environments.

The West needs to be informed that the acts of a few fanatics cannot be cited to justify the claims of the neocons in Washington and London. The West has to study the history of Islam which is based on love and humanity and whatever the ivory tower theologians in the West transmit does not represent the realities of religion. Prince Charles of Britain seems to have acknowledged this fact when he delivered a lecture on the Contributions of Islam at a recent event in Oxford University.

He said: “If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straitjacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as an enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history."

Muslims are also accused of the lack of knowledge particularly of modern sciences, but these areas of learning have not been alien to them since their history reveals a number of contributions made in natural and social sciences. Sir Thomas Arnold in "The Legacy of Islam" decries the distorted perception of Europeans and says: "those who accuse the Muslim scholars of lack of originality and of intellectual decadence, have never read Aveross or looked into albut have adopted second hand judgments.”

The Western culture and Islamic civilisation may be like two boats sailing in two different directions as some ideologues maintain, but still an attempt has to be made to bring the two sides together to mutually understand each other's point of view and reduce the quantum of dichotomy that persists in perverting the process of perception. Discreet perception is the real thing we are concerned with and this is what we are trying to accomplish. All we have at our disposal is the language and its representation of reality. All we have done is the affirmation of reality and denial of distortions.