From: aam9n@honi1.acc.Virginia.EDU (Ali Ahmad Minai)
Subject: Re: Pakistan
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 09:12:05 GMT

In article <lj40jfINNt4t@pageboy.cs.utexas.edu> hyder@cs.utexas.edu (Syed Irfan Hyder) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.070314.29028@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> aam9n@helga1.acc.Virginia.EDU (Ali Ahmad Minai) writes:
>
>>
>:As for what happened after Partition, you might argue that Pakistan's ills are
>:due to our irresponsible behaviour rather than the failure of the Two Nation
>:Theory. My reply would be that a good theory takes *prior* account of those who
>:will put it into practice. By arguing as you do, you are, in effect, saying that
>:those who led the movement for Pakistan failed to anticipate the weaknesses of
>:their followers --- us. That does not absolve us of responsibility, but don't
>:you think that it is a major failure of leadership? Shouldn't the idealism
>:of an effective leadership be tempered by realism? If the actual Muslims of
>
>You are absolutely right. See my reply to Mr. Javed's other posting where
>I do say that the only "fault" of the founding fathers was to repose
>confidence in us.
>
>The only problem with this type of crticism that I have, is that it provides no
>line of action for the future, provides no optimism, and is simply pointless
>the way arguments like the following are:
>	Had Hitler not send his armies towards Kiev, and instead would have send his
>        armies directly to Stalingrad, the failure of the panzers would not have
>        been the same. The circular route lost him the prceious summer months....
>
>There is another weakness in the admission like "the only "fault" of the founding
> fathers was to repose confidence in us". The only lesson it gives me
>is to never repose confidence in my son. A lesson that is of no practical value:

Note that *I* never said reposing confidence in us was the "only fault" of
our founding fathers. I think their whole premiss was a mistake. My argument
above was that *even if* the premiss of two nations were theoretically
justified, 1) Partition was not the best course of action, and 2) our leaders'
failure to realize this was a weakness.

Further, you might think that analyses of this sort are sterile; I don't. It
is through analysing past situations that we learn to avoid mistakes in the
future --- unless you believe Hegel when he says, "The only thing history
teaches is that people have never learnt anything from it". I think that the
historian who analyses the past critically (i.e., without hero-worship or
jingoism) makes a valuable contribution to the *understanding* of a peoples'
psyche --- even by themselves --- and such understanding can sometimes change
the course of history itself. As for explicit action, I agree that someone needs
to do that as well, but to diagnose the problem is the beginning of appropriate
action, is it not?

>If you had raised a child (I have
>a son of 18 months), you would know that in order to instil confidence in
>a child you have to first repose confidence in him! The child can only
>achieve confidence by making mistakes. You let the child fall in order
>to instil in him the confidence that comes from self dependence and knowing
>that one has to learn THE HARD WAY how to stand on one's feet.
>
>If you never let your son fall, he will never learn to walk.
>Of course, you make sure that he only falls on soft ground, that
>he does not fall down the stairs, does not fall in a ravine etc. etc.
>Unfortunately, we were orphaned within one year of our birth. But,
>even orphans have achieved greatness, albeit with very hard experiences!
>That is the situation we are in. We have fallen enough times. It is
>now time to create our own reality, not with pessimism about the past,
>but about optimism about the future.

First, I am not comfortable with your child analogy. I feel we sometimes
make too much of such extended metaphors. Without meaning to be harsh, let
me say that such argument is too simplistic --- even quaint --- to be
convincing. This is not to deny that you do have a point --- nations do
gain strength from their troubles --- but that the point only goes so far.
Indeed, one must have confidence in a child if (s)he is to learn, but only
if the child a) exists, and b) is at least apparently capable of dealing with
the task at hand. One cannot invent a child through a theory, though one can
invent a nation (or a temporary simulation of one). Second, if there is a
child but he has no legs, the parents should be able to see this *before* they
leave him to follow them up the stairway. You will agree that there is a point
where optimism shades into foolishness.

However, all this is beside the point as far as I am concerned, and I should not
let you draw me into these analogies :-):-). Groups of people are not children
with genetically determined abilities and coherent information processing
mechanisms. Nor are they spoiled brats or any other person. A group of hundreds
of millions of people is a very complex system with an extremely large number
of *wilful* agents. To try and understand it on the basis of child psychology
is practically useless. As for "khaas hai tarkeeb mayN qaum-e rasool-e hashimi",
members of all significant groups claim that. Remember the "White Man's Burden",
or the incessant harping of American politicians and journalists on the special
nature of American society. I do not disagree with Iqbal's complete verse

   apni millat par qayaas aqvaam-e maghrib say na kar
   khaas hai tarkeeb mayN qaum-e rasool-e hashimi

Indeed, the Muslim nations are not like Western nations, but that is not a
profound insight, just an appropriate admonition to our Westernized elite who
see the panacea for everything in blindly following the West. The larger point,
which Iqbal was reluctant to accept for ideological reasons, is that, even 
though there is some fellow-feeling among Muslims, they do not constitute
one nation. If I remember correctly, he *did* partly concede that point in
his Madras Lectures, but I could be wrong.

Regards,

Ali Minai

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