Kamra Airbase Attack.Time to End the Double Game

Within hours of the operation to secure the Kamra Minhas Airbase, the elite military commandos had killed all the militants and readily identified them as foreigners. The identification procedure has not been provided. But looking at the pictures it is my proposition that it looks like they belong to the Punjab and southern KPK regions. But that is just a conjecture and nothing else. So let’s leave it.

dead body of the militant at Kamra Airbase. Courtesy Saach.tv

However, one thing about the attackers that caught my eye was their apparent physique. All of them seem well built and their beards wouldn’t have looked out of place in a professional SSG unit. I am not implying that they were rogue SSG commandos but they seem to have this ‘military man’ look about them.

Factor in their brazen but well coordinated attack on the base, their target intentions and you might suspect that it was an inside job. I am just theorizing, nothing else.

Kamra Airbase is an alleged nuclear installation or at least the base where aircraft can be fitted with nuclear devices before such a strike. Also, it is the home to the prized JF-17s and AWACS airplanes and is supposed to be under the maximum security that the military can offer. Yet, the militants attacked the base even after issuing a threat.

Now here one must observe that although the military’s efforts have been lauded and much has been made about their preparedness and the level of security employed, the real intent of the militant strike has been left untouched.

How determined can one’s enemy be when it openly issues a threat that it’s coming at you and then attacks your premier military installation.  The level of determination and the sophistication of the attack needs to be considered by our analysts, because this attack was doomed to fail once the threat to attack a PAF base was made public . But then maybe it was originally planned as a secret operation but after the intelligence report, it was re designed to be that way.  May be it was used to send a message that they know our military installations and they can attack it and breach the security parameter at any time and which is precisely what they did.

The attack also raises some questions about the level of preparedness and the counter intelligence efforts of ISI and the Army. Why wasn’t this group of attackers intercepted and traced before the attack? How did the attackers breach the security parameters, so much, so that they managed to damage one airplane, which the military has not elaborated much on.

Mehran Airbase Attack

Certainly, the military needs to come out open and clean in its explanation but of course, it never will. The Mehran Airbase attack should have opened the military eyes and one might have been led to believe that the military might have learnt lessons from that debacle but it didn’t.

As is now widely held to be extremely plausible by many experts, the Mehran Airbase was an inside job, led by TTP with coordination from disgruntled naval officers. When a journalist ‘Saleem Shehzad’ published an investigative report on the Army Al-Qaida link and the involvement of its own officers with Al-Qaida , he was promptly abducted and tortured to death ‘allegedly’ by ISI.

Even before the Mehran Airbase, the army had convicted five officers for their links with banned Hizb-ut-Tehreer (HT).  This conviction came after the attack on GHQ where a similar breach of security parameters was carried out.

Our military and intelligence agencies should worry about terrorist infiltration within its ranks because quite frankly the Zia era has left our armed forces quite changed with fundamentalist tendencies and terrorist organizations like HT, Al-Qaida, and TTP find eager supporters inside the army camps. The assassination attempt by army officers, with terrorist links, on Musharraf was one of the early signs of internal strife within the army. This strife is directly linked to the Army and Intelligence’s double game in matters of crackdown against terrorist network and their back channel support. They get confused when they are ordered to attack those same people that they were told sometime back were mujahedeen and defenders of Islam.

The army has to come clear and define once and for all, who its enemies are and who its supporters are. Taking Allied Support Funds, propping up the Haqqani Network and now back stabbing them with an operation in North Waziristan would leave many people, including its own soldiers, asking questions. And as an Army Officer, you do not want your soldiers questioning your orders.

The Great Speech

In this blog post, I am not going to say much, but present to you the text from Mr. Jinnah's speech of 11th August 1947, which in my view is one of the greatest speeches ever in the history of Pakistan's existence and probably of the world. Before reading it just keep in mind that by the time Mr. Jinnah stood up to deliver the speech, almost 1 million people had died on both sides of the border. Many Pakistanis died because they believed in an idea, an idea that was Pakistan, a tolerant, safe and just Pakistan. And as Mr. Jinnah delivered his speech, imagine how much it would have meant to him and all those in the assembly that had devoted their lives to a great cause. This is a landmark speech that espoused the principles of democracy, tolerance and long forgotten Islamic values. This speech presented the idea of a Pakistan that Mr. Jinnah and all those who had died in the struggle had imagined. It is therefore very important to us to read and re read this speech and  try to re construct a Pakistan based on the guidelines that Mr. Jinnah presented to us. Here's the speech:

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I cordially thank you, with the utmost sincerity, for the honour you have conferred upon me – the greatest honour that is possible to confer – by electing me as your first President. I also thank those leaders who have spoken in appreciation of my services and their personal references to me. I sincerely hope that with your support and your co-operation we shall make this Constituent Assembly an example to the world. The Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform. The first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing the future constitution of Pakistan and the second of functioning as a full and complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. We have to do the best we can in adopting a provisional constitution for the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. You know really that not only we ourselves are wondering but, I think, the whole world is wondering at this unprecedented cyclonic revolution which has brought about the clan of creating and establishing two independent sovereign Dominions in this sub-continent. As it is, it has been unprecedented; there is no parallel in the history of the world. This mighty sub-continent with all kinds of inhabitants has been brought under a plan which is titanic, unknown, unparalleled. And what is very important with regards to it is that we have achieved it peacefully and by means of an evolution of the greatest possible character.

Dealing with our first function in this Assembly, I cannot make any well-considered pronouncement at this moment, but I shall say a few things as they occur to me. The first and the foremost thing that I would like to emphasize is this: remember that you are now a sovereign legislative body and you have got all the powers. It, therefore, places on you the gravest responsibility as to how you should take your decisions. The first observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.

The second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering – I do not say that other countries are free from it, but, I think our condition is much worse – is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this Assembly to do so.

Black-marketing is another curse. Well, I know that blackmarketeers are frequently caught and punished. Judicial sentences are passed or sometimes fines only are imposed. Now you have to tackle this monster, which today is a colossal crime against society, in our distressed conditions, when we constantly face shortage of food and other essential commodities of life. A citizen who does black-marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than the biggest and most grievous of crimes. These blackmarketeers are really knowing, intelligent and ordinarily responsible people, and when they indulge in black-marketing, I think they ought to be very severely punished, because the entire system of control and regulation of foodstuffs and essential commodities, and cause wholesale starvation and want and even death.

The next thing that strikes me is this: Here again it is a legacy which has been passed on to us. Along with many other things, good and bad, has arrived this great evil, the evil of nepotism and jobbery. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any any influence directly of indirectly brought to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it.

I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it, but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of everyone of us to loyally abide by it and honourably act according to the agreement which is now final and binding on all. But you must remember, as I have said, that this mighty revolution that has taken place is unprecedented. One can quite understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has been done, A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may not like it, but in my judgement there was no other solution and I am sure future history will record is verdict in favour of it. And what is more, it will be proved by actual experience as we go on that was the only solution of India’s constitutional problem. Any idea of a united India could never have worked and in my judgement it would have led us to terrific disaster. Maybe that view is correct; maybe it is not; that remains to be seen. All the same, in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being in one Dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make.

I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation.

Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.

Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time and thank you again for the honour you have done to me. I shall always be guided by the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the political language, prejudice or ill-will, in other words, partiality or favouritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality, and I am sure that with your support and co-operation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world.

I have received a message from the United States of America addressed to me. It reads:I have the honour to communicate to you, in Your Excellency’s capacity as President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, the following message which I have just received from the Secretary of State of the United States:On the occasion of of the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for Pakistan, I extend to you and to the members of the Assembly, the best wishes of the Government and the people of the United States for the successful conclusion of the great work you are about to undertake.

14th August Rant

It is a mad bad world. It really is. There is nothing wrong and nothing right in this world. It is only so if we think of it as something good or bad. Similarly, nations are neither good nor bad. They strive to achieve some objectives, which may or may not be in the interests of other nations. Certainly, their actions might raise humanitarian alarm bells but nations do what other nations do; act out of national interests.

The Seljuks conquered Constantinople not because of some ancient prophecy but due to the power and prestige attached to city and how its subjugation could bring prosperity to the nomadic Seljuks and Turks. USA attacked Iraq and Afghanistan only out of national interests. It’s nothing personal or religious.  The same goes for the Israeli settlers on the west bank who backed by apartheid laws can encroach on Palestinian lands with impunity. And the same goes for the Palestinians who shoot and bomb those same settlers so that they can keep their lands safe. National Interest.

History is often murky and dark with facts that are often distorted, but that’s the reality. History is always written by the victor.

In the same way, Pakistan may have had its share of dark secrets, secrets that are better left untouched, disguised and classified. It is up to us that we build upon them and raise a Pakistan that can stand high in the comity of nations.

I find many people criticizing Pakistan, but critique of Pakistan must be allowed to some extent, not like the criticism hurled by our liberals and feminists. And, why this criticism should be curtailed? Because if the criticism reaches a level that is damaging to the national interests, then yes, it should be stopped. There is nothing wrong nor anything bad in putting curbs on free media. National Interests.

I said it earlier somewhere and I am going to say it again. Peace is nothing but a half time in the games of war that have been played ever since Abel and Cain’s fight and have been continuing ever since.  Yes, war is a good thing but not against fellow citizens. When it comes to your fellow citizens, engage in dialogue, dialogue, dialogue and only dialogue. Only if the citizen is anti-Pakistan then you might kick him in the jail for 30 years but don’t kill, he is still a fellow citizen. We should strive to make holding this state’s ID card a privilege. We really should.

Do you know why liberal always lose in this country? Because they are always smug, obnoxious, aloof from national affairs and highly unlike the normal populace. They are always arguing about bringing peace with India and neighboring countries but they always forget that nations always require an ‘evil’ entity that is against a nation’s existence. The presence of that evil ‘nation’ helps us to continue and give meaning to our survival in this large conglomeration of nations on the planet.

 These liberals always talk about concepts, which are very alien to an average Pakistani. Hence, I don’t think that liberals and feminists can bring a great change to this country. Change will be brought by moderates and conservatives, as traditionally, these two camps have always written history of this world, I don’t ever recount reading about a liberal changing the course of history.

Hence, we should learn to respect this great nation of ours. Be proud of it. It might have faults in it, but do remember that before America became a world power, it too was a land of robbers, had a great civil war in which more than 650000 people died, and its greatest city, New York, was more politically divided than Karachi and had more presidents shot before 1945 than Pakistan during its entire existence. So be proud of who you are. Doesn’t matter what you stand for or from where you belong, as long as you stand by what you say. And you say, with me that you are nothing else but a Pakistani. A Pakistani who is free to go to his/her temples, mosques or any place of worship.  Who believes in the rule of law and not political dictatorship!  The time to bring a change to this morbid status quo is upon us now. It is now or NEVER.

Aliens, Earthlings and the Universe

The next time you find yourself walking in the dark (power outage, grid down, headed towards robbing a house, escaping a rapist, running from the police etc) under the night sky, give a moment or two (depending on the time you have) to the sky above you and observe the shimmering points of light we call stars. Look at the moon and feel it’s cool light.  Look up and you might be unaware that you are looking through the window of planet earth’s sky, into the vast and eerily quiet universe, breathtaking in its beauty and menacingly destructive in its power. 

Before you look up, look down, feel the night breeze, hear the distant bark of a dog, meow of a cat, caw of a crow, sound of a truck trundling by, rustling of the leaves, feel the earth in motion around you, this conglomeration of ‘Beliebers’, neo Nazis, Muslims, Christians, Giants Fans, rocks, gases and liquids is a rocky planet, one of the two billion rocky planets which scientists estimate, are similar to ours. In the universe containing up 100 billion galaxies (and counting) the figure of earth like planet goes to trillions.

Now look up and think before resuming your walk that, there are a trillion or so planets out there, wouldn’t it be stupidly naïve to think that we are the only living beings who possess cognitive intelligence?  What if somebody out there, may be your age, might be looking up, at you, in the same way you are looking up at the night sky, in a random direction, may be that extra terrestrial ( alien) lies in that direction, both of you divided by the barriers of time and space. What if one day, one of those beings from another galaxy, got smart enough and devised a smart way to reach your planet. Then what would happen? What would befall your beliefs, which tell you about man being in the centre of the universe? The alien that will visit you might or might not believe in a higher deity at all. Its technology would be far far…I mean...far superior than ours and probably would be something that our minds can’t even come to grips with. Why?  Because it takes a civilization of an unimaginable power, intelligence to cross the vast intergalactic distances. It takes the light 2 million years from the nearest Andromeda galaxy to reach our planet Earth. 2 million years. 2 million years ago, the first species of apes from which us humans were to evolve appeared. So if you look up again turn your head to the north east of the sky and observe a certain compressed W pattern, the faint smudge of light on the right of the upper half of the W is your Andromeda  galaxy ( if you can’t find it , then don’t worry, most cant!).  But, bear this in mind, the light that is entering your eyes from that faint smudge of light is already two million years old, when the first of your ancestors were roaming the plains of Africa, shirtless, pant-less, headphones-less and iPod-less. Distances are vast; time is limitless, always ticking.

Coming back to our alien civilization and its assumed power, we would find this alien civilization doing scientific investigations on us in the same we do experiments on guinea pigs, rats and monkeys. The explanation of their behavior lies in our perception of whether it’s ok to conduct gruesome experiments on other living beings or not. May be the aliens who are visiting us regard us in the same way; we regard the ants or cock roaches. Perspective.

Now look around, you see that old woman, feeble on her legs, slowly crossing the road, see that unshaven 40-year-old man heading back home, bills and children’s fees on his mind, take a look at the coolly dressed teen heading to a friend’s house. Imagine how an alien arrival would affect them. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492 to Americas, the resulting visitation of Europeans nearly wiped off the native American-Indian tribes whose bodies didn’t have any sort of protection against the diseases that the Europeans carried with them, e.g. small pox. What diseases, what plagues would an alien visitation bring on earthlings? Ever wondered about that?

Now look at yourself and place yourself in the grand order of the universe. The ant eats a grain, the chicken eats the ant, you eat the chicken, you die, you become part of the soil, on which the grain grows and the whole process repeats itself until a giant asteroid smashes into earth and  strips it of all things living. Or what if an alien spaceship comes across our earth and destroys it not unlike ourselves destroying ant mounds or bird’s nests for no apparent reason other than fun. And all of this is just a minute event in the trillion of events happening in the universe. Nothing is special in this universe. Only if we are able to control the movements of the atoms, the spin of a galaxy, the explosion of a supernova, the movement of giant clusters of galaxies, then we can say that we might be something special. Might be.

But here we are, engaged in petty battles and schemes when we should be engaging in exploring the universe.  The modern age owes its existence to Columbus and his peer’s dedication to exploration.  And until and unless we find a way to restrain our incessant plotting and scheming against each other and set out to explore the worlds beyond our planet, then we might just usher ourselves into a new age of exploration an age of new scientific understanding, reason and cultural revolution.

Creating a Knowledge Sharing Environment in Pakistan

George Bernard Shaw once said:

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas”

Knowledge sharing is one of those concepts in action today that are changing the traditional structures of firms and organizations. Gone are the days when accumulating bundles of knowledge was enough to increase a person’s value in an organization. The world economy is now driven by increased communication and collaboration. The rapid rise of social media is an indicator of this global cultural shift. Knowledge Sharing and consequently the effective management of accumulated knowledge is now necessary in global companies.  The concept of a junior and a senior employee is now dependent on how much knowledge a person has and how “effectively” a person is communicating this knowledge. Also, the growth of this knowledge sharing culture has given rise to a new form of capital called Knowledge Capital. It is an intangible asset, which now carries more value than other commonly recognized tangible assets.

Pakistan is an interesting country with regards to knowledge management. Traditionally, we have not been a knowledge sharing culture. The teacher-disciple concept is still prevalent and new employees are generally discouraged from sharing knowledge and opinion. Although this does not imply that these traditional structures are not changing at all, but the need for change has to be highlighted. In a paper written by Peter Mikulecky and Mohammed Saeed Lodhi, the authors emphasized the need for our burgeoning private educational sector especially the universities to take a lead in promoting knowledge management in Pakistan since these universities are developing the managers and leaders of tomorrow therefore to instill knowledge management principles in them is vital to a productive and efficient Pakistani economy. Also the role of information technology in disseminating knowledge is an important one and Pakistan’s software industry is more than capable of meeting this challenge but unless knowledge sharing and its management  is not appreciated by our companies then we will consequently lag behind other developing nations.

Pakistan can take a leaf out of Japan’s economic concept which promotes the idea of strong corporate networks i.e. keiretsu. Companies can work together to achieve common goals. This concept apart from being applied in Japan also has been applied in west as well where AOL has been known to work very closely with SUN Micro. This effective concept can be applied in Pakistan too under the supervision of government; the industries can collaborate with each other and share knowledge through knowledge portals or other mechanisms but that requires the heads of our institutions to take the matter seriously. Nepotism, ineffective economic planning, an environment of distrust and resistance to change the traditional power structures has led to an inefficient Pakistani economy that is finding hard to catch up with the pace of other growing economies. This inefficient economy then leads to a brain drain in which its professionals leave the country for greener pastures.

The problem with Pakistan is that no one is serious in taking steps to improve our economy, an economy that is anything but built on collaboration and knowledge sharing. The problem lies not only with its institutional heads but it is intrinsic to our culture. Let us call spade a spade and accept the fact that there are aspects of our culture that are hampering our growth.  Educational institutions might have increased tenfold in number, the number of PhD’s might have mushroomed but has that resulted in an efficient economy?   In order to keep pace with the global changes we have to shed certain aspects of our culture. The repressive environment and colonial ethics must now be thrown out of the window. In that regards knowledge sharing can only thrive if the hanging swords of unemployment, demotion and ridicule are removed from an employee’s mind. Change has to happen and it should start from the top. 

The WaterKit Bashing Contest - A crazy "Invention Given Undue Attention"‏

I am going to jump the bandwagon here and write the customary lines- that are now probably a prerequisite to being called an educated and reasonable person these days- Yes, Agha Waqar's “Waaater Kit” is a sham, the scientific equivalent of a cheeseburger genetically programmed to sing Frank Sinatra. Yes, it is absurd but does this absurdity really deserve the media limelight? Does it really deserve the attention of the brightest scientific minds in Pakistan? Let us explore this territory to find out where both the rational and irrational minds went wrong.

The case of the water kit sham is so atrociously irrational that Willy O Coyote might have used it to run after the roadrunner. But, the worrying point is not the support shown by some elements of the media but the constant coverage and attention shown by those social and electronic media outlets that are against such unscientific thoughts. So much attention was shown by these flag bearers of rationality that people like me began to wonder what grievous crime had Agha Waqar committed, the enormity of which was so much that it inspired more blogs and media discussions than PMLN’s attack on Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital. Every major blog and news outlet has been discussing about this water kit and that to me is a total waste of time.

It might be possible to jolt your memories (no pun intended) to remember a similar claim made by anengineer (Rehan Aziz Farooqi)  from  Swat who also claimed to run a generator from water using the electrolysis technique and that method too flew in the face of the accepted laws of thermodynamics but the question that arises here is that why didn’t that self-taught engineer get as much attention as Agha Waqar? Probably Agha Waqar happened to be more eloquent in presenting his invention or maybe he just got lucky and attracted the attention of both pro and con groups of the media and the scientific circles. It is incredible to see that how fiercely the rationals clashed with the irrationals, how the enthusiastically debated on issue that was a non issue as soon as it was reported; and how they lamented (non-stop) on the decrepitude of Pakistani scientific educational system, when they themselves have done so much for our educational system that today we have to watch ‘inventor’s like Agha Waqar on TV. An argument can be made that the ‘rational section’ of our media and society were vociferously  attacking Agha Waqar because they thought that the Pakistan’s ‘Awam’ would be tricked into believing in Mr. Agha’s ‘Hoax’ and that would be a cause of  embarrassment for the whole nation. It is indeed a noble cause but in my view totally pointless. Why do I utter such blasphemy? Because even if we assume that the Pakistani  populace is lead to somehow believe that the water kit car functions really well, then do we seriously expect that industrialists and scientists would be flocking en masse to Agha Waqar and production would actually begin on it? If that’s a rational thought then our rationality is at par with Agha Waqar’s scientific grounding.

But perhaps we as a nation are looking out for someone to vent out our frustrations upon. Even though those ‘bright minds’ have pronounced the ‘water kit’ as a sham but they haven’t come up with their own brilliant plan as well.  All everyone cares about is how well can they ridicule this person as if Agha Bashing was a point scoring contest. In the light of current Agha Bashing contest, I am inclined to believe that the Water Kit Sham was once against exploited by our media and given undue attention for what? Dare I suggest ratings?  It would be worthwhile for our media (both liberal and conservative) to focus on the achievements of Pakistanis that have been acclaimed for example, how much attention was given to a team of Pakistani students winning a debate competition in Mexico? At least it was much less than Agha Waqar’s miracle kit. It is my humble suggestion that we should be promoting success stories of Pakistan’s ‘real achievers’ in the same way that we are promoting Agha Waqar’s sham. If media attention was not given to this quackery, then it would have faded away quickly, but then unfortunately that doesn't make up a good spicy read does it?

Neither Can Live While the Other Survives

Brian Greene in his book, The Fabric of Cosmos, while explaining about the Principle of Equivalence to the layman, writes,

  “Right now you feel gravity’s influence. If you are standing, your feet feel the floor supporting your weight. If you are sitting, you feel the support somewhere else. And unless you are reading in a plane or a car, you probably also think that you are stationary-that you are not accelerating or even moving at all. But according to Einstein, you are actually accelerating. Since you’re sitting still this sounds a little silly, but don’t forget to the usual question: 

 Accelerating according to what benchmark? Accelerating from whose viewpoint? "

According to Einstein, absolute space provides a benchmark. Now you might wonder why I am boring you with some obscure physics principles, here’s the reason why.

The reason I mentioned this obscure and murky scientific principle was to draw a comparison to the human society. How do we judge a society’s moral values? What benchmark do we have to declare that such and such activity in a society is wrong or unjustified? Take the case of wine for example. In one culture (to be precise a religion) drinking wine is forbidden while in another wine is allowed. They both have their own benchmarks to judge their values against and both claim that they are right. But how does a person like me who is neither here nor there choose between the two? That is what I am stuck on. What absolute benchmark should I choose to define belief, my moral values, the way I live life. Or should I be my own boss.

 Religion is something that I believe should be avoided in creating a benchmark to judge anyone or anything? Why? Because there are a gazillion other religions out here and each professes that, it is right and divinely inspired. So many religions. So many followers, all vying for the coveted position of being close to the Lord. One claims that the Messiah hasn’t come yet, another says that the Messiah came , got crucified and caught a flight to Heaven and will come back soon to fight evil doers, while the last one basically says that the Messiah will come at the end of times but he would just be a subordinate of its own Prophet, who was the last in the long and illustrious line of Prophets.

 Every religion is contradicting each other that thus creates a need for an absolute benchmark, which can be used to judge and choose between right and wrong, and one that can be accepted by all. But here’s the catch. The human society does not work this way. There is no singular universally agreed guidebook that we earthlings have, that we can use for guidance and to distinguish between what right and what wrong. And the reason why they are not yet in existence is because of a small little code in our DNA.

Since man is nothing but the pinnacle of biological, evolution that has taken several billion years, it is thus a fact that we are the best version of a genetic program that has undergone an untold number of revisions , one particular code in this program pertains to survival. Humans didn’t build houses or discover fire for scientific or aesthetic purposes, they built and discovered for survival, i.e. survival of their species. It s a code that stretches back to the days when we were primitive bacteria swimming in earth’s primeval oceans.

 But this code actually has transcended mere body protection to the active defense of ideas and beliefs. These ideas and beliefs are the reason for a community’s survival and war is a tool of protection for its survival and continuation of its values. Different beliefs thus co-existing is a feel-good thought but one that is just a mirage. It is like the prophecy about Harry Potter and Voldemort which says “Neither can live while the other survives” why? Because the expansion of one belief system would come at the cost of contraction of another. And that’s where our survival code kicks in.

USA didn’t kick out Soviet communism because it was evil? It fought against it because the expansion of Soviet bloc would undermine the progress of USA and its capitalist allies.

A Nuclear Armageddon

 Even the religions are not immune to the effects of this evolutionary code. The concept of Armageddon, which is so widespread in the Abrahamic religions actually says that peace will only be created when all the earthlings are converted to one faith only . Just One Faith. There is no room in the scripture for diverse faiths. Yes, you can co-exist for a while but when the Messiah comes, you have no choice but to submit to his faith otherwise you are on the highway to hell.

 So try judging that against a benchmark!

There will be no benchmark to judge these actions unless one is actually decided unanimously by the earthlings, which leaves no room for dissent. And to leave no room for dissent means destroying the opposing ideas and belief. It’s a sinister aspect of life, but one with which we have to live with.