From: jawad@ecst.csuchico.edu (Jawad Ali)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Ayodhya:  Symptoms, Malice + the Holy Grail + NordicTrack
Date: 19 Dec 92 22:01:28 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu


Salam alaikum all,

I am continuing the discussion with Saad and Ali on the lessons of Ayodhya.

>Thank you for your interesting and articulate dissent regarding my ideas
>about Ayodhya.  My main thesis is that the problem is economic and not
>religious.

I do strongly disagree with this thesis.

>If and when the peoples of India and Pakistan are sufficiently
>well off (i.e. equal to Western standard of living), these conflicts
>will automatically be minimized.

I certainly hope so.  Sadly, however, I pointed to plenty of evidence
that points in the opposite direction.  Intolerance cruelty is by no
means a lower class phenomenon.

>So the basic question is how to get
>rich, not whether to get rich.  I am not sure you accept this premise
>but it seems to me you do with the footnote that it is not the complete
>solution (I agree, but it is a major component of *any* effective
>solution).  Your disagreement, then, is with my simplistic notions of
>how to make India & Pakistan rich (in my view, but please correct me).

I do think things will improve as we put more bread on the table,
provided we take care of a few other things as well at the same time.
I think our coutries need economic development, and I fully intend to
make my contribution in this regard some day.  My problem with your
line of reasoning is that economic development is only a minor and
distant variable in the tolerance equation.  Think back about what
you (rightly) said about our intelligensia and their embracing of
democracy as a cure-all.  My response is identical in this case.
I would also like to see a larger participation in the political
process.  I believe in this enough, once again, to comit myself to 
a personal effert.  The same is true about some notions of socialism.
Many of us also chose technical fields, often at very early ages,
partly because we believed that technology would help our people,
as indeed it will.  Yet not one of these alone will do the job.

Any meaningful solution will have to be far more comprehensive.
It is a commany fallacy of reasoning to take one componenet of
a complex interrelated system and employ it to reduce everything
to a single dimention.  Here is an example from "infomercials"

	If you by the Nordictrack home ski machine (for $999 :)
	it will not only provide you the following health
	benifits [long list deleted] but increase your life
	expectancy.  Studies have shown that good physical
	heath leads to a good mental health [long list of
	mental health benefits; higer IQ, concentration,
	better memeory etc, all deleted]. And we all know
	that healthier and smarter people make more mony,
	are happier, and have more rewarding sex lives.
	etc. etc. on and on.... ...

Not one of those claims (and many more left out) is untrue.  There are
indeed very few things in this universe that the Nordictrack machine
cannot be shown to positively impact.  :)  Industrial expansion,
democracy, socialism etc, are all NordicTrack machines of national
development in this sense.  Secularism seems to be the most fashionable
one these days, atleast on scp.

Think about this: if could just get EVERY Pakistani to do the Jane Fonda
20 minute workout every morning, many of the demons of Ayodhya will
be exotcised.

Here is one that i actually believe in: If we would only stop beating
out little children so much :( I can make a reasonable argument that
everything will change.

The idea is to be able to see the problem in its entire complexity.
I have come to the realization that Islam is the perfect tool for
such analysis, and fully acknowledge that others may not see it that
way (we'll keep that for a seperate discussion).  As long as we 
see the interconnected role of these components, we can pick the one
that we feel the most comfortable with and get to work.  Any one of 
Ali Minai's five point adgenda would be a good start.  I will add
to this list as our polite discussion continues.

>I cannot speak with much sophistication on an economic strategy for
>making Third World nations prosperous since my formal knowledge of
>economics is next to zero. 

Yes, but that has not stoped others from suggesting increased
pork production as the perfect solution.:) [ Cheers Mirza Sahib, insert
your gali galoch here]

>the question now becomes how to get industrialized
>and not whether to.  What is wrong with simply trying to emulate
>the examples of industrial success as seen in the West and the
>Pacific rim ?  It should have been done long ago, but leaders in
>the subcontinent have long been enamoured of left-of-center
>economic policies, to our detriment, :-(.

Many things are wrong with borrowing wholesale solutions from 
elsewhere, but that's also another discussion.  Barring the brief
hatchet job by Z.A. Bhutto, we have almost been exclusively right-wing
in this department for most of our existance (not that the right-left
terminolgy makes much sense, especially in the case of Pakistan)

To be continued later,

With peace,
jawad
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian