The 'Other' Heresies

Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer is as renowned for his powerful and provocative photographs as he is for his pioneering work with digital imaging. Meyer’s photographs consistently test the limits of truth, fiction and reality. With the advent of digital photography in the early 1990s, Meyer evolved from a documentary photographer who created so-called “straight photographs” into a digital-documentarian who often combines photographic elements from disparate times and places to arrive at a different or higher truth. Pedro's oft-expressed contention that all photographs — digitally manipulated or not — are equally “true” and “untrue” has been labeled “heretical” in the orthodox documentary photography community.

While fellow Apple-user Pedro Meyer (one of the first to adopt this platform and launch the very first intearactive CD-ROM!) may have his exhibition - Heresies - opening in 60 museums in almost as many countries (we are thrilled that T2F, where the exhibition opens on 21st October, has been selected as the Pakistani venue) there are others, like me, whose photographs have also made it to some of the greatest (virtual!) halls in the world. Here are just 4 examples.

"Happy viewing", as the Senator said!

;-)

Nuzhat

Ragni

Jehan Ara

Sabeen

See you at the real Heresies, where a selection of large original museum quality prints of Pedro's works will be displayed and changed almost weekly!

Please do keep checking out the schedule at T2F's website for the exciting related events, like workshops, talks, discussions, and presentations during the weeks that this unique exhibition is on, unless you're on FB and already visit T2F Pages for updates.

Oh ... did you know that you can also subscribe to T2F's Events RSS Feed so you get the news automatically? And, as the icing on the cake, sign up for SMS alerts and get timely reminders too. This saves you the task of 'remembering to remember' to go to the website and saves me answering calls - usually when an event is actually happening - Maddy, please note ;-) - about when and what time it's happening.

Sheer Magic

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

The Saturday T2F session by Jahanzeb Sherwani was a bit like its Science Ka Adda evenings. Despite the apparent geekishness of the topic, the non-techs who were there - because they owned an iPhone or iPod Touch - enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks to the lucid, layperson-friendly, informal style of the presenter who understood something most do not: he - not the Powerpoint or Keynote thing on the screen behind him - was the presentation.

The story of the development of Jaadu, the first iPhone/iPod application by a Pakistani, was almost as magical as the software itself. The timeline from the first 'proof of concept' to what it now is - an application that was selected by Apple for its What's Hot section at the App Store - was amazingly short. Equally fascinating was the way the business itself developed for his company - Jugaari. 

I really wish that more young people would realize what Jahanzeb did: You could be sitting in any remote corner of the world today and, like him, and many others - singly or in very small groups - have access to the markets of the world. All the opportunities are there and, generally, barring the cost of a computer, they are all FREE (rhymes with "Wheeeeee!"): Free wifi and a working table with an electrical outlet nearby { if you are in Karachi, come to T2F :-) }, free access to information, free-of-postage email, free voice calls and video conferences via iChat or Skype, free access to other developers and techie support groups ... what more can you ask for? And remember, developing a product with a coffeehouse space as your 'office' has some advantages: Caffeine Boosts Creativity ;-) as Delicious Library shows.

On the geekier side, of interest to many was the comparison between the development platforms under different OSs. Jahanzeb had been using Windows for a long while and even developed the first versions of his iPhone application using that environment but has now switched to a Mac ... so his comments on the development and usage sides for both platforms was informative.

The discussion on comparative use of Apple's App Store to market an application versus direct sales to the consumer was interesting, too, since most had felt that Apple retaining 30% of the sale price and giving the developer only 70% was a bit unfair. The argument for it, as enunciated by Jahanzeb - who made the switch to Apple's way after being on the other side (distributing the precursors to Jaadu through other sources) - rested on the number of people Apple gave him exposure to. Everyone with the iPhone or an iPod Touch was certain to visit the App Store, making for an outreach to several million potential customers. The fact that Apple also took care of several other factors that indie developers would rather not have to bothered by was a bonus. We also learnt from a member of the audience who had the experience of developing for two other mobile phone brands, that the others paid developers a much lesser %age because they had a larger market share.

Thank you, Jahanzeb, for a lovely evening. Hope to see more apps from you soon.

And now hear this ...

A couple of years ago a visiting friend (who has asked to remain anonymous) played me a 'boot-leg' copy of a speech. As far as I could make out - the recording was an excerpt that was missing the beginning an the ending - the theme was was Liberal Education . It was a delightful lecture and I always wished we could have heard the whole thing. Unfortunately, we knew not where the speech was given nor, even more of a plight, who the speaker was ... such is the tragedy of poorly pirated material ;-) I even took a sentence or two from the speech, at random, and tried to Google it ... but nothing was found at that time.

Last week I was gifted "The Philosophy of Religion", a course recorded by Professor John Hall for The Teaching Company (TTC). Impressed by the simple lucidity and tone of the very first of the 36 lectures), I searched for him on the internet and was delighted to be led to his homepage, which, in turn, led me to the Convocation Address delivered by him at The University of Richmond in 2005. And that's the one we'd heard!

While I suggest that you download and read the entire lecture (it's only 3 pages long), along with the Collegian piece, I would like to quote one of its sections here with permission from Professor Hall.

Liberal Education and Impracticality

One of the hallmarks of liberal education is that it is does not have immediate applications, results, or investment returns. This is what people mean when they say that it is impractical. But is liberal education really impractical?

If the desired outcome of schooling is job-skill, then Strayer would be the model school. My wrestling with the ambiguities of Ionesco, studying the complexities of natural selection, trying to figure out what the American Civil War was really about, and exploring the mathematics of musical key transposition, are not likely to increase the GNP or lower the CPI overnight, if at all. On the other hand, my learning to keyboard data into a computer, take accurate telephone messages, keep a double-entry ledger, and figure profit margins, might. Indeed, I could measurably increase my disposable income simply by addressing envelopes at home in my spare time. (Many matchbook covers tell me so, and I believe them.) But who will write the programs for me to keyboard? Who will leave a message worth my taking down? Who will create the business that needs me to keep its books? Who will invent a product that will generate profits for me to calculate? Indeed, who will create something worthwhile to put in the envelopes I address?

For individuals and their communities to thrive, people need to know more than the answers to familiar questions. They need to know what questions to ask, and that means that they need to be inventive enough to come up with new ones. They need to be able to make judgments without bright-line criteria, and that means that they must be able to wrestle with ambiguity without having a panic attack. They need to be able to make informed political decisions, and that means that they need to understand historical connections and the difference between appearance and reality. And they need to be able to function in a complex society that divides its labor, which means that they need to have some understanding of what everyone else is doing, even if they don’t have to do everything everyone else does themselves.

And this is where a liberal education is most liberating. By freeing us from the expectation of an immediate payoff for each thing we learn or do, it opens us up to learn and do things that, while they may lack an immediate payoff, may have long-term potentials that we cannot even imagine in advance. This is why a highly placed corporate officer once told me “when we want worker bees, send us trained technicians; but when we want leadership send us people who have studied history and literature and science. We can train new hires to run the machinery if we need to; but we are not equipped to teach them how to use their minds.” So the “impracticality” of liberal education is not necessarily impractical at all. By allowing students to go beyond job training, it encourages them to stretch themselves to the absolute limit of their potentials and, unhampered by external or artificial constraints, to be flexible and to grow.

[I am not sure if the good professor will be willing to talk to a T2F audience in far away Pakistan via Skype - but I'd love for him to spend a few minutes with us during a Science Ka Adda evening on another topic he enjoys: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.]

I had, very recently, finished listening on my iPod - overflowing with several audiobooks and brilliant podcasts - to Professor Esposito delivering his balanced and very informative TTC lectures on Islam (as a part of The World's Great Religions series). The Philosophy of Religion course promises to be an even more enjoyable learning experience.

The range of subjects that TTC courses cover is extremely vast. I wish Dr Atta ur Rahman (HEC) or Dr Naveed Malik (VU) would strike a deal with those guys and make several of these courses available locally at subsidized rates. I'd be willing to enroll, even at my age (and with the way I feel about educational institutions), in a college to take advantage of such a deal, if it was required.

Postscript: Lest some of you worry, no, I am not about to be 'born again'. Religion has always been a subject of great interest to me and the current revival (in its worst forms, I might add) and its political impact, globally, has just re-kindled that. But next on my course list - if I can raise the money (HEC/VU are unlikely to even consider this one) - is Professor Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. 48 lectures of 45 minutes each. I can't stop drooling.

The Twain Meet

Waiting for Professor Aslam Farrukhi to show up for what became, in his delightful retelling, a grand - almost visual - tour of Karachi, 1947, I was fortunate to be to be at the same table as Yusufi Sahab, who, with just 4 books pubished, is arguably the finest writer of Urdu prose today. 

Apologizing for a really pita hua question, I asked him whom he read and was influenced by. I am not sure what name[s] I expected ... but without a moment's pause he surprised me by saying "Mark Twain", which - in retrospect - doesn't seem so odd. He also went on (with almost childish awe) to describe his recent visit to Twain's hometown and the house he lived in.

I hope that T2F will, one day, be honoured by an evening of Yusufi Sahab's readings. How we'll accommodate the hundreds that will turn up, I don't know. Guess that's reason enough to increase the space, Sab ;-)

As a possible result of our colonization, older readers in this part of the world were traditionally more familiar with writers from Britain, as compared to those from the USA, a legacy they passed on via textbooks and home libraries to their young. Over the years, the one good thing to emerge from the Americanization of Everything, is that we have all become familiar with several new and powerful authors from the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, one has to look really hard for good British, non-desi authors in our bookshops!

However, Samuel Longhorn Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is still not as commonly read in this part of the world as he should be. Here's a piece by him that is as relevant today (and to us) as when it was first published as part of a short story.

O Lord, Our Father

by Mark Twain

O Lord, our father, 

Our young patriots, idols of our hearts, 

Go forth to battle - be Thou near them! 

With them, in spirit, we also go forth 

From the sweet peace of our beloved firesides

To smite the foe.

O Lord, our God, 

Help us to tear their soldiers 

To bloody shreds with our shells; 

Help us to cover their smiling fields 

With the pale forms of their patriot dead;

Help us to drown the thunder of the guns

With the shrieks of their wounded, 

Writhing in pain.

Help us to lay waste their humble homes 

With a hurricane of fire; 

Help us to wring the hearts of their 

Unoffending widows with unavailing grief;

Help us to turn them out roofless 

With their little children to wander unfriended

The wastes of their desolated land 

In rags and hunger and thirst, 

Sports of the sun flames of summer 

And the icy winds of winter, 

Burdened in spirit, worn with travail, 

Imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, 

Blast their hopes, 

Blight their lives, 

Protract their bitter pilgrimage, 

Make heavy their steps, 

Water their way with their tears, 

Stain the white snow with the blood 

Of their wounded feet!

We ask it in the spirit of love - 

Of Him who is the source of love, 

And Who is the ever-faithful 

Refuge and Friend of all that are sore beset

And seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen!

Biting Apple Back

The Apple-Microsoft wars are, now, nothing but infotainment ... or, at least until very recently, were just that. They helped sell magazines (Steve Jobs had only to sneeze to be on the covers of Time, Newsweek, Fortune, even The Maori Tribal News!), newspapers, books, TV spots. Even a movie or two. (Watch out for the September Screenings at T2F!) Let's face it: how could there be a real fight among a 2% market-share holder and someone that, once, all but held the remaining? (Yes, there were other OSs around, too, guys, like the OS2 ... just like there are Linux and others today).

Some, of course, found in this unequal battle the symbolism of David slaying Goliath ... an image that Apple's 1984 SuperBowl Ad (Thank you, Lee Clow!) planted by equating IBM with Big Brother. Others continue to see it as the battle of two young hippie kids in a garage taking on a big corporation despite the fact that Apple, itself, has become one. No surprise there, for - in any battle, large or small - you eventually become what your enemy is.

The "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads were satirical, hilarious, even lovable. OK ... that's how most Mac lovers felt. To many, and not PC users alone, they were 'rude'. But that's a matter of taste, I guess. I love irreverence and black comedy, grew up on sick jokes, chuckled at the macabre cartoons of the totally brilliant Gahan Wilson and still rotfl (admittedly with an occasional wince) at the grotesqueness of JoeCartoon.

Did I say 'were'? Once I used to download every one of them as soon as they aired. I admired the fact that they didn't resort to outright lies ... but then why would they? One could never run out of material while poking fun at the real flaws in Windoze. Lately, though, I don't even click to view most of them with anything remotely resembling my past urgency. In fact, I am sure I've missed watching many. No, they haven't lost on quality, or humour, judging by those I have peeked at ... but, in terms of quantity, there have been just far too many of them! Why didn't anyone at Apple say "Enuff already!" ... ? (Of course, those who know Steve Jobs know why.)

"All is fair in Love and War" goes the cliche ... and Business, now, is War! So the Apple ads got noisier and noisier and more and more aggressive and while Bill Gates poohpoohed and chastised them for their attitude and Microsoft turned up its collective nose at them, the strategy made waves. The brilliantly simple iPods and the simply brilliant much-in-demand iPhones (13000 orders per second in the UK alone today!), working in tandem with these ads in a 3-pronged attack, have helped Apple's market share grow beyond the industry norm.

[Click image to enlarge]

Finally, the company I love to hate for its awful OS and bloatware (but thank, genuinely, for having made computing accessible to millions) has taken notice.

As a lover of humour, a keen follower of the art and science of Advertising, someone who spends a lot of time with technology ... and a dedicated Mac user (until something better for my way of life comes along), I am excitedly looking forward to this counter-campaign. Let's hope it's as funny as the early Mac/PC ads were.

Let the games begin ...

An unforgettable hour

Events at The Second Floor have featured many well-known and some not-so-well-known but exciting personalities. However, some very out-of-the-ordinary people drop in for coffee and conversation on non-event days, too. Ardeshir Cowasjee, Tina Sani, Asif Farrukhi, Attiya Dawood, Sheema Kermani, along with several popular young musicians, writers and artists are frequent visitors. Seated at other tables, the many students who gather here to prepare for their exams and take advantage of the air-conditioning and free wi-fi, get a surprise opportunity to interact more closely with such luminaries than they could at large gatherings.

Yesterday, however, was a really unforgettable treat for me when Asif Farrukhi turned up with Mushtaq Ahmad Yusufi Sahab and Zehra (Nigah) Apa for an hour-long chat over coffee.

My association with the latter (Zehra Apa, not Coffee!) goes way back to my childhood when she was a teenager. This young girl had just exploded into the universe of Mushaeraas, with her scintillating ghazals, coupled with a tarannüm that became the talk of the town. "She has upset many poets who, at her age, used to get their ustaads to write for them ... and especially those who still do", said my father once, naming 2 poets as examples. But I shall disappoint you and refrain from such gossip ...

Zehra Apa has promised not one, but two sessions at T2F ... so, if you have not yet subscribed to its mailing list, the time to do it is now! The first - scheduled for the 18th of June - will focus upon her own works and life. For many it may well be the first experience to enjoy her delightful retelling of anecdotes. The second - at a date to be announced later, when she returns from her trip abroad - will have her reading and reciting her favourite pieces of Urdu prose and poetry, paying homage to works of others - including her contemporaries - something she does with a style all her own. Anyone who has heard her recite Faiz Sahab's Heart Attack on my Aaj Kay Naam CD-ROM, or her stunning unforgettable rendition of Nasir Kazmi's poignant '... kidhar say aaya kidhar gayaa voh', recited to a thoughtful sitar accompaniment by Ustad Kabir Khan  - a far cry from the mauling of recitations by other similar efforts - will vouch for the fact that these examples remain unsurpassed.

Yesterday's hour was spent with Asif, Sabeen and I in guffaws as we heard stories about Saqi Farooqui, Jaun Elia and others and enjoyed the barbed wit of arguably the greatest satirist Urdu prose has ever had. Here's a page of timeless prose from Aabé Güm describing Pakistan's politics. Penned years ago (and sent to me only last week by fellow sea-farer, ANL, from the UAE), this could well have been written today.

While discussing people who 'read' well, the conversation moved to examples of great readers (Gielgud, Guinness, Burton). When I pitched in with my criticism of someone who, generally a brilliant and respected performer, often imbues pieces with unnecessary drama, Yusufi sahab agreed and added: Achchha pa∂hnay kay liyay laazmi hae keh mazmoon iss tarah pa∂ha jaae jaesay müsalmaan Qurãn pa∂htay haeñ ... yaani baghaer samjhay! ("Good reading requires one to recite texts, like Muslims recite the Qurãn: Without understanding!").

Let me end by sharing one anecdote about Jaun Elia that was new for the 3 of us in the 'audience' and embodied that unique man completely (requiring no embellishment on the part of either Zehra Apa or Yusufi Sahab). Sorry about not translating the punch-line ... it just would not work in anything but Urdu:

At the airport, Jaun sahab raised his little finger and excused himself, promising to return in 2 minutes. When he arrived, more than 15 minutes later, a worried friend asked him if all was well and what the cause of the delay was. "Bhai maeñ do minat mayñ aa jaata, laykin vahaañ Urdu Qadamchah daykha to ekhlaaqan küchh dayr aur baeth gayaa", replied the inimitable Jaun.

Looking Back / Looking Ahead

Prof. Niaz Zaman (of Dhaka) and the multifaceted Asif Farrukhi (of Karachi) have jointly edited Fault Lines, a book of excellent short stories centred around 1971. Many of these stories were translated from Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu into English for this publication from Bangladesh, now available at T2F courtesy OUP.

Along with respected Urdu writer Intizar Husain - flown in from Lahore by T2F to attend the launch of the book in Pakistan and a later evening to be devoted to his writings, alone - both Editors, whose own stories also appear in the collection, were present on the evening of the 11th May for an event that was the first of a series of happenings to celebrate T2F's birthday. 

Reading Fault Lines was not easy for me, partly because it brought back so much to mind. Actually, the very first time I opened it to a page at random, I was confronted by a few lines that made me put the book down, numbed.

"Baby, there's blood on your finger. Did you hurt yourself?"

"No ... I did not hurt myself", the little girl says.

"Okay, but let me wash it away."

"NO! I won't let you wash it! It's my mother's blood."

It took me a few days to muster enough courage to start reading it again. And those opening lines from Masood Ashar's Versions of Truth still haunt me.

While Bangladeshi writing is full of references, in works of fact and fiction, to those horrible days Pakistani prose has been very skimpy on the subject - with the occasional story sometimes being treated allegorically (e.g., Forklift 352 by Asad Mohammad Khan - included in this book and read out in the original Urdu by him at the launch). Admittedly, references in poetry from Faiz, Jalib, Faraz and others have been more direct.

The question that is often asked - and was brought up again that evening - is how/why did people in 'West' Pakistan "let it happen" and "not raise a voice". The stock answer has been "We did not know..." (an answer that was also partly supported by Shuja Nawaz during my interview of him about his intriguing book, more about which later in this post). So, Muneeza Shamsie's statement "We knew - and said so to others. But nobody wanted to hear..." came as a twist that led to numerous discussions within smaller groups after the event. (One of many interesting discussions on 1971 by today's youth has been also triggered through Jamash's coverage of the launch.)

There were, as was to be expected, conflicting views. While most of the audience generally felt that the Army had been brutal, there were still a few - including a conscientious objector from the armed forces who had refused to fight and returned to 'West' Pakistan - who believed that events before the 'army action' (what a mild euphemism for a bloody genocide!) had reached a pinnacle with the merciless killings of Biharis (someone suggesting a figure of ten thousand in a single incident). It was this, they held, that had resulted in the violent (though regrettable) reaction of the Army. Khalid Ahmad, of stage and TV fame, was not willing to buy this and countered with an argument: If the lives of Biharis were so important, why has Pakistan not ever considered accepting their repatriation? The reasons, he felt, were entirely different and pre-planned. This view was partially reinforced when Prof. Niaz - a Punjabi who lives in Dhaka with her Bengali husband and, thus, with access to the thinking of both sides - said that contacts in the army had told her, well before that tragic March, that war was on the cards and preparation were in full swing.

•

Will the truth ever be known? The question falsely assumes that there is one single truth. There are, always, several truths - and glimpses of them are found in books safely labeled as Fiction. Truths are rarely, if ever, found in History, which, as Will Durant (and who can be considered more qualified to make a statement on the subject?) says, is 9/10th conjecture and 1/10th bias.

•

Having very close contacts in the army is one of the advantages that Shuja Nawaz holds over many others. His easy access to the military top brass adds dimensions to his research generally not found in other analyses.

A seasoned journalist and member of several Think Tanks in the USA, where he lives, Shuja Nawaz has recently authored Crossed Swords — Pakistan, its Army and the Wars Within, a book that is making waves everywhere even before the launch. Internationally, leading publications are showing exceptional interest in talking to him and in reprinting extracts from the book. A big launch is scheduled in Delhi soon. In Pakistan, the media is battling for time with him to conduct one-to-one interviews during the 2 days he is in Karachi.

OUP is holding a large launch on the 15th - which is also T2F's birthday and where we hope you'll join us on one or more of the sessions scheduled - but, for a more intimate (albeit brief) conversation with Shuja, you can come to T2F on the 16th. If you buy a copy of the book at T2F you will also get a free Audio CD of an interview I conducted with him over Skype.

I am not usually interested in reading books about the Army but, I admit, I couldn't put this one down. The breadth of its scope is matched by its depth - a rare occurrence, indeed. To younger readers I would certainly recommend it strongly since it spans the entire history of the country and is filled with 'inner' anecdotes. You can hear two clips from the interview here: One deals with the MQM and General Asif Nawaz (Shuja's brother, whose controversial death - or was it murder? - is also dealt with in the book). The other shows his current state of optimism.

Excerpts from my interview on other topics, including Kargil, can be heard on the OUP website. Such additions make the book much more interesting than the drab text books that turn Pakistan Studies into an almost detestable subject for many.

On a related note, Shuja Nawaz has been following the dynamic blogging community in Pakistan and has expressed a desire to meet some of its members during his visit. So, fellow Karachi bloggers, do come! 16th / 7 PM. Be on time ... he only has an hour in his very hectic schedule.

Absolut Joy!

You deserve a really big round of

SABEEN

§

Also, a big

THANK YOU

to

EVERYONE

who helped

make it happen.

A great leap forward

When my daughter, Ragni, screened her very first short film (Bindiya Chamkay Gee) - during one of T2F's Cinema for Change sessions - the star of the documentary was also the star of the evening, answering questions and countering comments (some rather accusatory) with a confidence that many had not expected. But then they had never met a Hij∂a like Bindiya!


Among the post-event post-Q&A discussions that followed within small groups (and the place was buzzing) there was one recurring thought: Given the scale, number, and variety of problems developing countries face, it was a wild fantasy for Bindiya or her supporters to imagine that the difficulties encountered by such a small subset of the population would even be on the radar of the governments of any of the countries in the majority world (to use Shahidul Alam's term of choice). Some felt that the vote-bank was not large enough for any politician to try and woo. Others, that any decent politician (yes, it is possible, though admittedly rare) who truly wished to support such a cause would be mocked so much that he would lose his general credibility.

It was a joy, then, to see this news item from our 'neighbouring country' (a euphemism that our state media uses for India, lest the invocation of the actual name result in that evil genie materialising and devouring us).

DISCRIMINATED AGAINST and forced to live in secluded communities, India’s hijras have always had to fight for basic entitlements. Two weeks ago, however, a major victory was achieved when Tamil Nadu added a third gender to ration cards. Hijras may now enter a ‘T’ (for transgender) in place of a ‘M’ or ‘F’ on ration cards. The move makes Tamil Nadu the first Indian state to officially recognise its hijra citizens.

Incidentally, the article is by Morgan Harrington, who was at Hampshire College with Ragni. Read the whole story

John Shelby Spong Re-Visited

I have frequently (including very recently) circulated, among friends, sections from the writings of Bishop Spong whom I hold in extremely high regard not only for the lucidity of his writing, but also for his analytical skills, sincerity, courage of conviction, and genuine compassion.

His bestselling "Jesus for the Non-Religious" requires some basic familiarity with The Bible. Its Audible edition has found a permanent space on my iPod along with Dawkins's "The God Delusion". While one would be inclined to think that a Bishop and an Atheist would make for odd neighbours, even in an iPod, read what Spong once had to say about Dawkins:

I think Professor Dawkins is both brilliant and an incredible communicator. The definition of God that he rejects is the same one I reject. The difference being that he thinks the God he rejects is the western God of Christianity and I believe that deity is a distortion of who and what God is. The Christian Church has made such incredulous claims about who God is and who God hates and how God acts that it is always on the defensive when new learning that challenges old definitions appears.

Traditional Christianity has been buffeted by the insights of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Freud and many others. They have destroyed the credibility of much of our God talk. Richard Dawkins points that out in powerful ways, feeding his conclusion that God is a harmful delusion that ought to be dismissed. I agree that God is in fact a delusion and ought to be dismissed. We disagree on the question of whether that God is the God encountered in Jesus of Nazareth or a gross distortion. I believe it is a distortion.

I met Richard Dawkins some years ago when I gave a lecture at New College, Oxford. I had just that day read his incisive book The Selfish Gene in the Bodleian Library at Oxford so I was pleased to find myself seated next to him at the High Table for dinner.

From among Spong's many shorter pieces, the following paragraphs taken from On Faith (a wonderful Newsweek / Washington Post series) probably explain his amazing qualities and convictions best.

Obsessed with Sex, not Morality

This nation has a strange fetish with sexual sins. The press obsessed on President Clinton’s tawdry sexual behavior, but seems to regard the Bush administration’s distortion of truth about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify its military adventure in that land to be of lesser significance. Even the intelligence report on Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons reveals that this administration was caught once again in what can only be called deliberate acts of misinformation. President Clinton’s actions, distasteful as they were, did not cost the lives of some 4,000 American military personnel and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet the Congress wasted time and money in impeachment procedures on the Lewinsky affair. The far greater, but not sexual, nature of this administration’s crimes has not had a similar response.

We live in a time of changing sexual standards. Premarital sex is almost a universal practice in the developed world against which an “abstinence campaign” is laughably ineffective. The reasons for this are not that we have become an immoral generation, as ecclesiastical leaders like to presume. Rather, it is caused by the fact that we have created a 10-to-15-year gap between puberty and marriage. That is not a reality that contemporary moralists seem to notice. Better health practices have lowered the age of puberty in girls, while the opening of the doors to higher education and thus for career opportunities for young women has postponed the age of marriage to new and more mature age levels. In the Middle Ages when life expectancy was much shorter, females tended to marry within 12 to 18 months of puberty. Today marriage in the late twenties for young women is commonplace. In the past the double standard that governed sexual activity meant that the male was not expected to be chaste until his marriage. Today, not only has that double standard disappeared, but so has the rigid chaperone system we once employed to protect the virginity of upper class females.

Is sex outside of marriage a sin? That is the way religious people still pose the issue, but that question does not address reality. As a pastor I have confronted issues where sex inside marriage was sinful. I have known rape to occur inside marriage. I have seen sex inside marriage used as a weapon in marital disputes. It is not marriage that makes sex holy and good; it is the quality of the relationship. So before answering that question we need to face these facts. Only then can we move on to the question at hand.

Are young people who live together prior to marriage sinful? If they love each other, if they are committed to that relationship and if their life together makes both of them more whole and more deeply human, then I do not think so. If they are merely using each other, then they have turned that relationship into an act of personal diminishment. A relationship that diminishes one or the other of the partners can never be called holy.

I have know post-married people, either divorced or widowed, who have formed bonded and sexually active relationships, some times in old age that are both beautiful and life-giving, though neither person ever planned to get married. I have known gay and lesbian couples whose fidelity to each other is wonderful to behold, but who are told by church and state alike that there is something defective and even evil about their relationships. I find that deeply prejudiced, life-denying and simply wrong [...] The issue is not about sex, either inside or outside marriage, it is about the quality of the relationship [...]

It is God’s business, not the state’s or the church’s, to determine whether any act is forgivable or not. Private morality does not seem to me to be the state’s business unless it compromises the public welfare. The sexual debates that go on in the public arena are to me little more than diversionary attempts to keep the public attention away from the great moral issues of our day such as war and peace, the corruption and exploitation that takes place in business, the environmental degradation that occurs in the name of the bottom line and the manipulation of the market place for private greed. Until the state and church pay attention to these moral issues, their credibility on matters of sexual ethics will have little about it that is worthy of much attention.

Vaah!

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NOTE 1: I had blogged about him earlier, too, and received some flak offline and via email for daring to suggest that we need Muslim Clerics (see note below) with similar skills of analysis and communication. Around the same time, several anti-Spong pieces by Muslims also appeared on the 'Net, egged on particularly because of an NPR program in which he was praised by Irshad Manji, an almost certain way to gain unpopularity among the Ummah.

NOTE 2: While not clerics, two scholars do offer cool and clear views that, in general, differ from the views proffered my most hardliners (such as Dr Israr Ahmad) and many accepted historians. One is Dr. Ghamdi - now often seen on TV and the subject of fatvaas, hatemail and threats. The other, the lesser-known Professor Ziauddin Kirmani, whose book ("The Last Messenger with a Lasting Message"), has now been reprinted and is available at T2F. For several people, this rather unconventional study has been a source of great inspiration, while annoying many others for what Kirmani sahab referred to as "the clearing of cobwebs" around Islamic History. (Another Zia - the General - wanted to present him the Seerat of the Year Award, provided he would alter/delete certain parts but he refused to compromise his years of research.)

International Women's Day @ T2F

From 2 PM to midnight, T2F had loads of acivities, long and short, with intervals for coffee and change of audience (many were rushing between the numerous other events marking the day in the city).

The afternoon started with the screening of the 2001 telefilm, When Billie Beat Bobby. A turning point in the business side of tennis and a delightful strike for feminism, the match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs was termed The Battle of the Sexes.

The film is often repeated on TV channels and is well worth watching, if you have not seen it already. Billie is played by Holly Hunter, whom many will recall from her Oscar-winning performance in The Piano and also for her role, the same year, in The Firm.

The next session, Sex Sells, was well-attended and attracted many media & advertising personalities and feminists (some were all three!) discussing the exploitation and stereo-typing of women in ads. A short excerpt from Jean Kilbourne's Killing Me Softly 3 (short clips from which can be seen on YouTube) was followed by a few local tv commercials. Fair & Lovely ads seemed to be the most reviled by those present, almost everyone finding the 'fairness meter' a really obnoxious idea. On the other hand, senior ad execs told us that the product was the largest selling one. Not only did it respond to the inner desires of the majority of our females - as discovered by various focus groups - it's biggest buyers are those not seen recently, by many, as being Fair or Lovely: The Pakistan Army! No, no, these guys are not cross-dressers or make-up freaks. The product, apparently, is also an effective sun-block cream.

The session covered many aspects of the MNC/Advertising/Media approach as a whole, rather than focus just on the women's issues, since the latter is part of a greater malaise.

(For more on how ads use 'sex associations', watch a couple of Psychology with Sandy segments on the subject. Also, read this blog entry from South India for other misappropriate elements, such as - in this case - subtle elements of racism, in ads by even the most powerful vendors.)

War Against Rape - one of the most commendable NGOs in Karachi, with chapters in other cities - held a session, next, to introduce its work. What made this session powerful and different from the usual presentations was the presence of Medical and Legal experts discussing the difficulties in supporting the victims. We learnt of the numerous hurdles, irregularities, and prejudices that make justice or help near impossible. The in-house lawyer at WAR has received death-threats as well as being told that she would soon face the same fate her client-victim had to undergo.

The audience sat spellbound, some moved beyond tears, while listening to a brave poor couple who had come to share with us the difficulties they have encountered since the rape of their 8-year old daughter two years ago and the child's continuing ordeal. As expected, the various authorities, bribed by the rapist's side, have made the case proceedings difficult. Far worse, the neighbours have pushed the family out of the area because they are ashamed by the victim's presence! The fact that the rapist lived in their neighbourhood has not been a source of anger or shame. The couple's parents and other members of the family have also cut off ties with them as they feel that the family name has been brought to shame by their reporting the case to the police and making it public. How does one change such mindsets? Where does one begin? How does one tackle the combined effects of feudalism, superstition, false sense of honour and shame, corruption, poverty, unbelievably stupid laws and rules, male-bonding and chauvinism - all of which are at work in such instances?

The mother of the child has suffered a heart attack and minor attacks of paralysis, depleting all the funds that the family had gathered. Her husband has lost his job - the employers held that they were unable to deal with his frequent leave-taking to attend courts. He has been living on an occasional day-wage stint and, mentally, becoming less able by the day to cope with this state. He is hoping to collect the grand sum of Rs 30,000 as a down-payment for an auto-rickshaw that he can use to earn. He knows that that path, too, will be paved with extortion money, police corruption and more, but says he has no other choices.

Next: Sheema Kermani - activist, feminist, dancer, actor - presented a very brief video and then joined two members of her theatrical team in presenting the enjoyable Voh Naak Say Boltay Haeñ, a short one-act play.

Wow!

The next session was a 10-minute reading by Nuzhat. She chose Bayvah - a story about widowhood - written by my father in the late 1920s. While his story is set among a Hindu home, where the traditional attitudes about widowhood were extraordinarly bad, the fact is that a number of Muslims in India, perhaps because of their Hindu ancestry, share almost the same negative views, thankfully stopping short of suttee - the cruel practice of burning widows at the husband's funeral pyre, of which a recent example can be seen in Anand Patwardhan's superb must-see documentary, Father, Son & Holy War.

The story was a great preamble to the screening of Shaali by its author - well-known feminist poet Attiya Dawood.  The story of a tragic child marriage, sadly still a common practice in our villages, had everyone in tears at the end. The young Director, who has treated the subject with great sensitivity, was there to talk about how moved he was during the making and had often wept. The irrepressible little star of the film whose appearance in each scene won the audience's heart afresh, is Attiya and Abro's daughter, Suhaee. She was there, too, and deserved the thunderous applause she received. The tele-film is part of a Hum TV series, Aseer Shahzadi, based on stories by Attiya on women's issues.

The session was followed by a long break, during which, at the request of some audience members, Nuzhat read two of Kishwar Naheed's poems from Beyond Belief - ASR's excellent bi-lingual (Urdu, with English translations) anthology of feminist poetry. (C'mon, ASR, we are waiting for reprints ... but please, please, please skip the crazy Urdu formatting, it's a strain to read.)

After the break the final session of the evening ended on a celebratory note with a gentle musical performance that seemed apt after a day filled with so much. Tp, you have a lovely voice! Hope to keep having you back at T2F often!

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Slightly unrelated footnote: An organization called Ladies Fund held an event at Karachi's Mohatta Palace to award some women for their diverse contributions to society. This is to congratulate the three I know well: Tehrik-e-Niswan's Sheema Kermani, School of Leadership's Shireen Naqvi (who, to celebrate, brought me freshly baked bread from Bakerei, an initiative for the deaf and dumb that she has helped set up in Karachi), and PeaceNiche/T2F's very own Sabeen Mahmud :-)

Voting: A Right or A Duty?

"There is no Compulsion in Religion", says the Qur'an ... so should there be one in Voting?

One reason why I have waited until the end of the Election Day to write this is that the responses, if any, will hopefully not be emotionally charged after the event. Another is that the matter has been already discussed in several other fora, including the popular ATP.

Well, I did not vote!

There. I've said it. And with no idiots screaming at me without even listening to my views. (Yes, I do have a point of view!). As I write down my thoughts on the subject, I am aware that some are probably a little more than loud-thinking. A few are well-formed; others continue to hang before me as questions that, perhaps, some of you will help me answer. So, please do comment. A request: Don't just tell me I am wrong, tell me why and where.

The first problem I faced when trying to make up my mind about voting or not was to understand why I was voting. I mean it's not an act in itself that has to be done (unlike defecating) but what the process leads to, na?

So I needed to analyse what the criteria would be for my giving my vote to someone, if I were to cast it at all. It was obvious that it was not the person whose picture appeared on the posters: after all in the case of some of the images on the banners, they were not even of the people who were standing ... for example, MQM's Altaf Hussain ... or PPP's Benazir ... or PML(N)'s Nawaz Sharif).

This meant that I would eventually be casting my vote for the symbol that was assigned to a party or to an independent candidate. Naturally it did not depend upon whether I liked the Icon, itself, but what the party stood for. In other words, I needed to check out their manisfestos. Never mind whether they stood by these in practice; that's another track. At least I wasn't going to vote for someone whose very vision of Pakistan or the shrinking world was the antithesis of mine! So the manifestos, specially in some of the key areas - and on issues important to me - had to be clearly different among the parties.

(When buying a house, one tries to choose the one that most closely meets one's needs ... which is not the same as 'choosing the lesser of the evils', a really stupid idea that seems to have been promoted by idiots! You can alter the house to some extent, later, but what do you do to the corrupt political rep you've placed in power? To use another analogy, when you marry, do you choose a person because s/he is the lesser evil or the best possible match? Is there no difference?)

The manifestos (not all were easily available or, when found, even readable) had to be abandoned for another reason: They were being abandoned by the parties themselves! While coalitions between parties that think somewhat alike are fairly normal in politics, to see almost all the parties align themselves with any and everyone is nothing if not making a mockery of the voters. The PPP strikes a deal with PML(N) nationwide, but supports a PML(Q) candidate in Karachi. PML(N) - despite the ads put into newspapers today by PML(Q)'s Dirty Tricks Department - has decided to go with PPP, but how far? Asif Z has shown his willingness to work with Musharraf (who has been pointed more than one PPP finger at for possible complicity in Benazir's murder) and is anathema to Nawaz and company.

Even more confusing was the course MQM took: Having conveyed the impression, only a couple of days earlier, that they could be allied to the PPP - that's how the press interpreted the MQM statement that it could strike a deal with any secular party - chose to team up with Maulana Fazl-or-Rahman and his obviously secularly named Jamiaté Ulemaé Islam. So whose manifesto would I be voting for, regardless of which candidate I chose? A secular, working, middle class party or a Taleban-supporting mulla and his insatiable greed?

(Somewhere along the line my mind wandered off and I began wondering how supporters of Jamaaté Islami and Tehreeké Insaaf were supposed to perform their duty to vote, if their parties were boycotting the elections. And, if it is the citizens' duty to vote, shouldn't - by extension - boycotting the election also be considered dereliction of duty by a party?)

The biggest source of grief to me is seeing the ease with which the term "free and fair elections' has become acceptable to people. The election of a candidate, to me, implies a whole process and not just the transaction that takes place on the Election Day in a booth. As Muneer Malik explained clearly to his T2F audience, just yesterday, this involves the right people in positions of relevance (EC and other related institutions), an unbiased government, fair acceptance/rejection of candidates, easy and non-coercive access to voting, correct transmission of untampered ballot-boxes to the counting team, an honest count and announcement of results, and a just response to any objections that opponents may raise. If any of these processes are disrupted by someone with vested interests, it would be done with the intent of placing soeone else in the victor's seat than the person the voters had chosen. So, if the process is not 'free and fair', how is it an 'election', at all, and not a 'selection'?

An observation: Contrary to a view that seems to be popular among many, I believe that Elections are not the pre-cursor to Democracy. Elections have been held here before, and elsewhere, by Dictators and Despots ... with no sign of resulting Democracy except for a sham. It is Democracy that creates an environment which, in turn, makes Elections the method by which to place people's representatives at the helm of affairs.

Finally, I come back to the aspect of Voting being a Duty (Farz). Even assuming it is, there's something else to consider: Do the choices (of candidates) being offered really provide you the opportunity to make a satisfactory and sensible decision? Think: If you had to choose a travel companion and all you had to choose between were a murderer and a dacoit, would you not consider postponing the trip?

When duties are assigned, they are not unconditional. They are expected to be performed only if the conditions necessary for their performance are present ... or they can be safely ignored. After all, this applies even to duties assigned in the Qur'an: Surah 5 Ayat 6, for example, assigns Muslims the 'duty' of washing their 'hands' before prayers. Surely a man without arms (or with just one hand) would not be shunning his duties in not following it to the letter. 

Hmmm.

"There is no Compulsion in Religion", says the Qur'an ... so should there be one in Voting?

The Jalib Session at T2F

The Habib Jalib evening at T2F was not quite what I'd expected it to be. No, it wasn't bad. Everyone else seems to have enjoyed it a lot, with many people discovering him anew and suddenly wanting to get hold of ATJ (to use Adil Najam's tarkeeb).

The kulliyaat has been ordered by some, and everyone wants a CD or two with his recitations (the CDs will be available at T2F after Eed, folks!) ... Surprisingly, many have also asked for a copy of the video that was shown that evening.

From my point of view there were two problems: I felt a bit unsatiated at the end - since very little was really said about him that we did not all know: He was honest. He was committed. He recited well. He had a lovely voice. The few anecdotes that were recounted were the best part and provided greater insight into the man who was - though in a very different manner - the avaamiest poet after Nazeer Akbarabaadi.

The crowd, too, was not as large as it usually is at such events - but that's because NAPA (Is the 'K' silent?) was staging a play, there were two political meetings the same evening, and APMC was screening Dilli-based Yusuf Saeed's Khayal Darpan --- a well-made documentary on Pakistan's Classical Music performers.

I wish a representative of WAF had been there to talk about his strong and encouraging presence at the protests in Lahore during the dark Zia days.

Despite the fact that everyone wanted a copy, it was the video really put me off. The TV channel 'edit' that the co-host, Mujahid Barelvi, had brought along must be among the worst examples of editing I have seen lately. The DVD contained all the broadcast material (badvertisements and that overwhelming Mujahid bit that appears far too frequently in his Doosra Pehlu) - with (aaaargh!) the permissions to FF or REW removed. The main documentary shows extracts from Faris Kermani's documentary, made for BBC's Channel 4 TV. Aitzaz Ahsan and Tariq Ali are among those who appear in it. (I have seen the Faris film, before it was hacked into this gruesome shape. Titled 'Habib Jalib - Poetry of Defiance', it is well worth seeing and appears in various net searches.)

To be fair, the 'mauled' video does feature a sprinkling of choice Jalib pieces recorded at a London gathering, with Zehra [Nigah] Apa presiding. Reciting to a theatre-style seated audience was not Jalib's style. It seemed too formal and incongruous to those of us who have heard him at his best when he recited at the Karachi Press Club, or at mushaeraas and protests that had thousands of attendees, many only coming to the event because he was going to be there.

One of my favourite pieces, Musheer, is included in the video - but I much prefer his very first recitation of it at a mushaaerah held in remembrance of poet Nazar Hyderabadi, with Faiz sahab presiding, while Ayub Khan was lording over Pakistan. My recording, made at that event - on a small portable spool recorder (remember those?) - may not be as good in quality as the professionally recorded version in London, but it does capture the electric atmosphere that Jalib always created with his presence. Incidently, the musheer in question is none other than Ayub's adviser (and author of our National Anthem), poet Hafeez Jalandhari - a loathsome man - who had threatened to 'report' Jalib to the authorities if he did not stop his critical writings against that Dictator-President.

The session ended with Shaeri's answer to Zakir Naik - Wajid Jawad, blogger Jamash (left), and myself reciting selections.

Come March 2008 I will organize another event around Habib Jalib's death anniversary at T2F. If any of you knew him well and can be present to share some insights and stories (or even email them to me - with a short audio/video bit, if possible - it'd be just great!).

Meanwhile, if you wish to hear another great Jalib piece - one that is probably the nazm he was most asked to recite - visit an earlier post of mine where I have begun to add the promised links for some of the poets mentioned in it.