Taliban : An Analysis

Banjaara sahib----179.

(ghalibun aap tariq ali kay board sey yahaan uchak aayay)

Bhaee yunh bujhharatain naa bujhhvayiyay.Kuchh to utaa putaa bataayiyay.Vallah hamaaree samajh mein to kuchh bhee naheen aa rahaaa.

Kis kaafir mehboob e nazar kaa zikr ho rahaa hai yahaan?kis kumbukht ko mehboob e nazar mil gayaa?kyoon voh hazraat qabron mein baychainee sey krvatainn lay rahai hongay?

Bhaee zaraa to khul key likhaa karain....chowk key mohtsib ko jul dainay kay kaee tareequay hain.

tavajoh dain.

Afaqui Sahib/12 head,

I see you are slinking away from the challenge....again, both of you spew the virtues of the Muslim Woman in hijab or burqa, so why not experience life as a Muslim Woman in burqa or hijab for two weeks? Why mouth off when you don`t have the courage to live by your convictions?

Hobbyty, you are all over the map except tackling the core issues raised in the article - less likelihood of chowkwallas yawning than the Pandora box you have opened with stampeding through largely academic and unintelligible technique of going in circles. Reading through your posts, not just defending cognitive, aesthetic and abstract but actually making the case of their superiority over all other modes of acquiring knowledge, enlightening oneself, thinking and acting rationally and plain old common sense, which resulted through evolution of society in-line with survival instincts of humans. The only thing I envy after going through your posts is the time you have to think and respond in great details.

I wish I could respond to in detail to match yours so that all chowkwallas begin to yawn once again and hitting the scroll bar. Unfortunately, I can not afford any more time today than responding to your comments about derogation of cognitive and missing or ignoring the comparison of religions portion from your responses about the importance of religions.

You asked me if I have read Bellah, Berger,…….. I did not but I can also give you even more impressive list and ask the same question. Have you read Graham, Wells, Dawkins, Huxley, Wilson, Sagan, Campbell, Hamidm,…….? Similarly in addition to Dostoyevesky, Neitzche,………and making a case of differentiating between nature and good, have you read a large number of Chinese, Japanese and Indian philosophers making a case for living and respecting at peace and by nature ? – An extension of Taoism.

When a person climbs up Mount sinai, sits there for 40 days and bring back common sense like “you should love your neighbor”, the question comes to mind is: Why did he goes into seclusion? Wasn’t loving neighbor exhibited in private, public and even among neighboring states existed? It did. It is because he wanted his stamp on morals through an imaginary higher power. It is damn smart strategy to share the credit with the help of higher power, if things go well from there on. If they don’t, you stand exonerated because they are higher power’s commands and you claim to be just a messenger. He made his common sense, though same as others, superior to others by associating it with god.

Religions are like a string of beads with beads representing god, moral codes, ethics, history, myths, rationality, irrationality, reflection of the said period in terms of history and culture, inspiration, immortality, common sense and so on. Some of them are strong steel beads evolved and fortified through evolution of social behavior and others are fragile like soda glass. The problem is that if just one bead falls, whole string falls to the ground, smashing all the fragile ones, leaving with common sense only. The Judaic, Christian and Islamic scriptures is that many portions are just too mythical, magical (miracles) and contradict the history known from other sources. What will be left of these religions if the word Jew is never found in the heap of now decoded Egyptian hieroglyphics? The very doubtful existence of the major figures, the unbelievable myths, not to mention the concept of god make a very strong case against literally believing the scriptures. Why should all this be considered superior and overwriting to all other forms of knowledge and common sense? Religions should have been more like Al-Qaida network; different independent cells where fall of one concept does not kill the whole body. An individual could have been then selective in pick and choose sense. Eastern religions are like that. They are open-ended and most people accept it partially, of their liking. It makes them superior to all eggs in one basket or a string of tightly netted beads where one has to accept all of it - to be perfect in religious sense.

The derogation of cognitive is the direct result of arrogance of the cognitive. It is simply a third law of Physics. The abstract, aesthetic or cognitive can be beautiful as well as ugly. They may be good or bad. It all depends upon induction. An irrational induction would lead to irrational cognition and a rational induction to rational cognition. The induced cognition resulting from a feed process described very nicely by Hamidm in one of his post (how indoctrination from early on in Muslims families in USA is leading to kids ending up as Kamran Bhai and Imran Bhai of Muslim Student Associations – becoming isolationists, angry, retards, introverts, zealots etc.

Organized religions have no part to play in individual and personal cognition. When shia and sunnis kill each other or Christians and Muslims at each other’s throat, it is each others’ irrational cognition which are irreconcilable because they have been resulted due to irrational induction. Religion based deeper convictions ought to remain private. For example arrogant conviction of Islam being the best religion and has a role in public largely Islamic states will be met with arrogance or derogation by those who disagree with it, resulting in highly polarized charged atmosphere. A pebble is looked upon differently by different people. It might be a source of focus by a Buddhist, an example of natural beauty by Taoist, a creation by god by a Muslims, a mixture of mostly silicon and Aluminium compounds by a Chemist, a source of algae and moulds underneath this pebble by a Biologist and laws of erosion by a Geologist. There is no conciliance of all disciplines of knowledge. What you seem to be suggesting is that religious cognition is a wisdom that is the superior and source of all disciplines of knowledge and hence a consiliance of all forms of knowledge. Not just nations and society but each individual is breathing and living pebble. There are various aspects, avenues and modes of knowledge. The cognitive is neither superior nor panacea. It is a source of identification with self, or society for some and snake oil for others.

Yawn, yawn, yawn…………..the derogation of induced and arrogant cognitive must continue. The process of reducing the perfectly normal human beings to a flock of lambs through induction of the reflections of another time, another place as the only mode of thinking and acting must be challenged. Secular Humanism is one such challenge. It is open ended/ dynamic and based on natural selection through evolution of society. Most of all, it is not gender-specific.

When a nation’s preoccupation is reduced to Hudood Ordinance, Blasphemy law, murtids, munafiqs, non-Muslims and kafirs, the walls around jealously protected narrow literal interpretations and fat body of rituals thickens; the cognition is limited to the level of frog in the well.

semi:

``..good lord, what is this damn obsession about my age?....i`ve never mentioned it before but just to set your `mind` to rest, i`m 21....there...satisfed?....``

nahin nahin pls nahin. :(

Hobbyty,

I find that it is helpful to focus on specific aspects and interpretations of theories in order to map out their various meanings and subtleties before bringing in the larger themes. It is also apparent that your reading and understandings of these interpretations are in service to an agenda that I do not agree with. Therefore, I think it would be beneficial to try to stop convincing each other of our respective positions.

In terms of Foucault, I am fascinated by his work on the state imposition of controlling systems of order particularly in institutions like hospitals, prisons, heterosexual definitions of sexuality. (I am thinking of his essay ``Discipline and Punish``. And yes, the result is an inherent tension that results in this collision of singular, homogenizing, impositions and the disruptive, plural of many different realities and experiences. In my opinion, this condition is not limited to the ``modern`` world.

``...the body is directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold on it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs. The political investment of the body is bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with its economic use; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with the relations of power and domination; but, on the other hand, its constitution labor power is possible only if it is caught up in a system of subjection....``

regards

An interesting piece for those who try hard to know the truth -

http://www.dailynewslosangeles.com/socal/terrorist/0102/04/terror12.asp#

Friday, January 4, 2002

US government takes liberties with facts

By David Pace

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is taking liberties with the facts in two high profile documents appealing for help in locating terrorists.

A State Department ad offering millions in rewards contains inaccurate information about hijacking ringleader Mohammed Atta, while a Pentagon leaflet dropped in Afghanistan includes a photo purporting to be Osama bin Laden in Western clothing without a beard.

State Department officials acknowledged the reward money ad running across the United States gives apparent details about Atta that actually were borrowed from other terrorism suspects, or were inaccurate.

The ad`s creators ``took some liberties with some of the content,`` said a State Department official, who asked not to be identified.

Separately, the Pentagon released copies of the leaflets but could not immediately say who was in the picture, whether it was bin Laden or whether it was intended to deceive people into thinking bin Laden had abandoned his religious beliefs and had shaved his beard. The government acknowledged the leaflets are being dropped by U.S. planes.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he wasn`t aware of the leaflet with the questionable photo. But he said, ``The whole premise of bin Laden`s activities in the world are premised on lies.``

Muslim Americans said playing loose with the facts hurts the government`s already damaged image in the Muslim world.

``All of this hide-and-seek attitude really cuts into the credibility of our story, which is the strongest story,`` said Shaker Elsayed, secretary general of the Muslim American Society. ``We have a great case to make. We are hurt by not speaking straightforward.``

The State Department ad, part of the ``Rewards for Justice`` program, is being run in newspapers across the country. The text surrounding Atta`s picture says he ``wanted to learn to fly but didn`t need to take off and land.`` That statement has never been attributed to Atta.

It was widely attributed to Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in connection with the attacks, in the weeks after Sept. 11. But FBI Director Robert Mueller told federal prosecutors in November that Moussaoui had aroused suspicions by saying just the opposite, that he only wanted to learn to take off and land.

The ad also suggests that Atta ``was interested in crop dusting an obviously risky behavior when he couldn`t even get a plane off the ground.`` Atta did make inquiries about crop dusting in Florida, but he had a commercial pilot`s license and rented and flew small planes several times in Florida and Georgia.

Charlotte Beers, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said when the ad campaign was unveiled last month that ``we`re talking about clues that might have led you to spot someone like Mohammed Atta.``

The State Department official who commented Thursday said Atta`s picture was used because he was the most well known of the hijackers, but the ad`s text included a composite of activities from several hijackers and Moussaoui.

Stephen Hess, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, called the ad a mistake and said it could hurt U.S. credibility in the Muslim world.

``There`s no mystery that we are held suspect in large parts of the world,`` he said. ``For just that reason, the U.S. government must be sure that everything it does can bear scrutiny. Frankly, this is sloppy.``

One leaflet being dropped by U.S. planes shows bin Laden with turban and beard and says he ``laughs at you because you don`t know he has sent you to your death.``

The other shows what appears to be a clean-shaven bin Laden, wearing short hair and a Western suit and tie an image that might offend followers of his and the Taliban` strict version of Islam. There have been rumors among Afghans that bin Laden has shaved or used a disguise to slip out of the country.

``Osama bin Laden the murderer and coward has abandoned you,`` the leaflet says.

There have been accusations that the U.S. altered the videotape it released last month in which bin Laden was talking about planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rumsfeld was asked at Thursday`s press briefing if people might see the leaflet photo as proof that America doctors or fabricates things.

``That is a possibility that people will say something that`s not true,`` Rumsfeld replied. ``There`s nothing much we can do about it. We live in the world, we get up in the morning, we go about and do our business as best we can.``

Bijli # 168

``Afaqui Saheb

Plz Continue ,i think your post whether extempore or reproduced are very rational than75% of worthless verbal diarhoea & intellectual constipation that i have to endure .``

hamzad afaqui,

Meer Taqi Meer,Meer Anees and Faiz Ahmed Faiz must

be turning in their graves at your mehboob-e-nazar.BTW here is a new angle on the same verse.

arz kiya hai:

voh tau voh hai,tumhe ho jaigi nafrat mujh se

tum aik nazar mera mehboob-e-nazar tau dekho

Regards.

tahmed;

Sir, you do a great disservice to yourself by chasing around jay responding to his every post. Nothing you will ever say or argue against him will make him temper his thoughts. So forget about him. Use the scroll button whenever you see his name. Thats what I do, when I see the names of certain contributors.

It is like the Indians who take umbrage at the Pakistanis who like to squeal their hatred of the infidels. Ignore them, or better still, see the humour in them. See the humour of grown men, probably suffering from erectile dysfunction, discharging their failures and insecurities over a computer keyboard. Now that really is pathetic, and funny too.

:)

jay # 174

Mohajirs controlled the army? It doesn`t seem to have been as simple as that...

Can some knowledgeable Pakistani (sameerjb, tahmed321, fuzair, hamidm, rajanjua, or others?) trace the evolving relationship among the three main groups of power-brokers in Pakistan -

1. Mohajir dominated urban intelligentsia (comprising secularists, jihadi ``secularists`` who want to keep Pakistan secular but promote the use of religion as a weapon of war; and pan-islamist religious fundamentalists)

2. Punjabi dominated military (is ISI - which is part of Pakistani military - also Punjabi dominated?)

3. Local autonomous power centers labelled by Mohajirs as ``feudals.``

Even a rudimentary analysis must attend to at least two phases: before and after the ``period of mohajarization`` of Pakistan - when the ideology of jihadi ``secularists`` and religious fundamentalist mohajirs became the dominant, overarching ideology of Pakistan, taken-for-granted by generations of even many non-mohajirs.

Like all classifications, these categories don`t capture the complexity of as large and diverse a country as Pakistan. For example, the term ``mohajarization`` does grave injustice to secular mohajirs, but then these good people seem to have become so rare, and their national influence so minimal that we are not very far off the mark here. Also, Many of the most intelligent Pakistanis on chowk are all non mohajirs; Zia was a Mohajir as well as a Punjabi; and ``feudal`` Bhuttos repeatedly played to the hilt dangerous games whose rules were etched in stone by Mohajir jihadi ``secularists`` and Punjabi dominated military.

It will also be fascinating to investigate recent movements to ``de-mohajarize`` the country - to begin to think of Pakistan`s native cultures, histories, traditions; to conceptualize Pakistan independent of any other country; the call to meet obligations to Pakistani people first. Ironically, should these very positive attempts succeed, they would have gathered momentum on the watch of another Mohajir, General Musharraf.

jay #174 Your write ``I do believe that the mohajirs who controlled the army and the political process initiated the jihadic movement, which obviously could only recruit the poor non mohajirs. When their numbers increased to a critical mass the feudal siezed this as an opportunity to counteract the mohajir influence.``

You live in your own fantasy world. The above statement indicates just how far removed from reality you are. Combine this with your chronic hatred and obsession with everything Pakistani, and you qualify to become a specimen in ``Ripley`s Believe it Or Not: Special Edition on Bizarre Psychiatric Cases.``

Ref hydra-head Deepika #: 163

[He cares least whether India flloded bangladesh by Farraka Dam(Barrage) waters or U.S.A. failed to prevent India from doing that.He cares only for himself -Republican]

I believe that the Farraka Barrage is located in India. It is a simple matter of fact that water backs up BEHIND a dam, not in FRONT of it. Thus, the only areas inundated by the Farraka Barrage would be in India, not in Bangladesh.

In fact, Bangladesh was afraid that India would not release sufficient water from the Barrage during the dry season to enable navigation of the river in Bangladesh.

But then, why should I care about facts when you don`t.

Hamidm,

I do believe that the mohajirs who controlled the army and the political process initiated the jihadic movement, which obviously could only recruit the poor non mohajirs. When their numbers increased to a critical mass the feudal siezed this as an opportunity to counteract the mohajir influence.

At present the greatest supporters of the jihadists are the feudals, who prevent non madrassa education by converting the schools to cattle sheds.

At present it is a stand off betweemn the jihadists along with the feudals and the pak military, and peace will come only when the jihadists take over the military. There is no way that musheraff can contain the jihadists, the military itself has a high number of jihadists in their midst.

The so called moderates are only slowing the progress of pakistan into a truly islamic republic.

PAKISTAN IS READY FOR DEMOCRACY,

In the last fornight, the great general has gone to china three times to take orders. At last he seem to be ready to take orders from some one else, like any military man. He would prefer the boss to look like a chinese, a little short in stature, not loud mouthed. Mrs Bhutto could fit the bill.

How Pakistan is still in grips of the feudals - when will we be free of the feudals? will a revolutionary movement kill every feudal, their wives, childrens,private armies, extended families, cats, dogs - so that there will never again be feudals in Pakistan?? is anybody listening out there? Do you realize what you are doing to the rest us? If Bugti can hold a gun to your head, why can`t somebody else? How much longer are the rest us to carry you blood suckers on our backs?

``Deal signed for oil, gas search in Balochistan

DAWN

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Jan 6: The federal government has signed an agreement with Nawab Akbar Bugti according to which he would ensure security of oil and gas exploration activities in Balochistan as well as protection to the existing oil and gas installations.

This is the first stage in the efforts for bringing to an end a long period of uncertainty and inactivity as regards the exploration of oil and gas in the province.

Around 20 local and foreign petroleum exploration and development companies had declared `political force majeure` - a term used to hold in abeyance the work programme required under the agreement due to political and security reasons beyond investors` control - and exploration work had come to a standstill.

The agreement envisages that no more would the country`s two largest gas producing fields - Sui and Uch - come under rocket attacks in future and the Bugti tribesmen would also facilitate exploration activities, official sources told Dawn.

In return, the state-owned exploration and production companies, Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), would recruit as many as 150 Bugtis at Uch and Sui gas fields.

The federal government has now asked the Nawab to despatch a list of candidates he wanted to recruited so that it could be passed on to companies for appointment orders.

Besides, all other social welfare and uplift projects would be routed through Nawab Akbar Bugti. However, no cash transaction would be involved. The government would reconstruct a road from Uch to Sui which had been destroyed over the years and also stand guarantor to the agreement between the companies and the Nawab.

The agreement was signed in Quetta before Eidul Fitr last month by director-general petroleum concessions (DGPC) G. A. Sabri, heads of OGDCL and PPL from the government side and a representative of Nawab Akbar Bugti. The low profile signing ceremony, sources said, was also witnessed by the Nawab himself and secretary petroleum M. Abdullah Yusuf.

For the second and final stage, Quetta Corps Commander Lt-Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch has been assigned to conclude details of similar agreement with the representatives of Sardar Attaullah Mengal and Sardar Khair Bakhsh Marri without further delay.

The corps commander was given a three-hour presentation at a meeting on Thursday in Quetta by DGPC and secretary petroleum about the details of `Bugti Agreement` and similar concessions the government had already discussed with Sardar Mengal in London.

Under the original plan, the sources said, an agreement with Sardar attaullah Mengal was to be signed in London where is in self-exile but now both sides have agreed to sign it in Quetta.

On Sept 11 last, President General Pervez Musharraf, while presiding over a meeting in Quetta, had given Sept 30 as a deadline to the relevant authorities to lift the ``force majeure.`` ``The deadline could not be met due to unavoidable circumstances but the job has been accomplished,`` official sources said.

Private local and foreign companies had already indicated to support social sector projects provided they were given security assurances. About 12 exploration blocks in Marri, Bugti and Mengal areas had been granted to local and foreign companies but no progress could be made.

The sources admitted that none of the demands from Baloch sardars was unjustified but public sector companies, OGDCL and PPL, had created ``a credibility gap by dishonouring their agreements in the past.``

The government had received a secret report in early September that rocket attacks on gas installations in Balochistan had three reasons: resentment of the local population for non-initiation of a welfare package, reliance of the companies on levies for protection instead of frontier constabulary and ignoring the provincial government/local civil administration in matters regarding security and survey``

Rajanjua

that was entirely unconstructive, Nevertheless, please feel free to empty your bowels anywhere other than on Chowk (my monopoly dontcha know). What kind of an example to you set when you seek not to offer argument but react with fear? - Argument, reason and restraint these are guides we can trust, I`m sure even you, think so.

SaminaShah

`` Your post raised some interesting issues in terms of the need for millions of humans to impose some meaning and order on their lives...I must say I couldn`t quite follow the connections you were making in terms of Nietzche, Foucault and Levi-Stauss...viz Foucault, if you are referring to his deconstruction of the dehumanizing systems of order imposed on society,

Thank you for the interest - I was making connections between ``art``, the ``modern`` and using Neitzche, Levi-Strauss and Foucault to express a continuum in Aestheticism.

I find your use of language fascinating, especially ``impose order`` - the very essence of ``modern`` - the rebellion in it - against order and reason. Dionysias lives, rages!

Yes I am talking about a ``dehumanizing`` philosophy.

the ``modern`` (itself an art term and idea) is the derogation, the annulment of reality. (see ``Laocoon:An Essay upon the limits of Pianting and Poetry`` - G.E. lessing also see

``The idea of the Modern`` - I. Howe) and this idea finds full play in aestheticism, as does the notion of the artist as superior to all others.

(refer to my quotes of Nietzche)

the annulment of reality (what hope reason?) but why is this theme important? as Nietzche says ``We have art so we may not perish of the truth`` but where does this lead us: - a disorientation of sense and to the consciousness of the SELF (think meaning or is it nothingness, is that why, ``Only as an esthetic product can the world be justified to all eternity``) recall at this stage the ``esthetic product`` has rebelled against ``the tryanny of God`` (hamidm) in art - that is church art is over as the only object and source of inspiration - indeed, Nietzsche`s call ``...no longer the artist, he has himself become a work of art.`` - the declaration of autonomy, of the breaking free of moral law, indeed everything. truly ``beyond``.

``The only gain of civilization for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations - and absolutely nothing more. And through this development of this many sidedness man may come to finding enjoyment in bloddshed. In fact this has already happened to him. have you noticed that it is the most civilized gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers?`` Dostoevski

To find himself, man must return to nature and become the Dionysian man. ``Here archetypal amn was cleansed of the illusion of culture and what revealed itself was authentic man, the bearded satyr jubilantly greeting god. Beofre him cultured man dwindled to a false cartoon`` Nietzche.

But what implications for meaning : indeed, the idea of the rose growing out of the dung heap - so what if life is dung heap, so long as a rose is produced. If morality is suspended (as in so judgemental) then everything is possible, cruelty, torture, debauchery, genocide and all manner of perversions - such exquisite sensibilities? Art, illusion, artist, illusion makers - have we no better guides??? can we, shouldn`t we think in terms of realms of specialization, not necessarily separate, but specialzed.

On another board Mr. Veeresh Malik decrying the lack of evolution of Pakistan society, while triumphal about the evolution of Indian society (women can be seen in the streets - there is deeper meaning to this) expresses a sentiment familiar in light of the above quotes, a sentiment that equates nature with the good. Human society, being human, he suggests is not about ``ought`` but ``is``. What can be more dehumanizing?? has it not been the mission of humanity to acknowledge nature and even while doing so, to elevate humanity above it??? Meaning??

Order does not begin with it`s ``imposition`` but by it`s conception - ``Madness and Civilization`` is but a continuation of levi-strauss`s equation of the primitive and the advanced or the abstract and the cognitive as methodologies to access reality, similarly Freud posits normalcy as a statistical ``imposition`` - here in we may begin to understand the implications of Dostoevski`s ``many sidedness`` human and of the nature of reality itself - We can say with assurance that the ``modern`` is our reality, what hope reason, how tortuous the search for meaning. Is it any wonder kierkegaard calls the seeker to be a ``knight of faith``, for who but a Rustam would even contemplate a search for meaning.

Samina, the starting point for any sense of understanding of the seach for meaning is not in human culture or history, or in the derogation of reality, or in nothingness - it is in the human condition, the human predicament: Man is thrown into the world (I safely assume you did not ask to be born) and becomes aware of his situation, begins to ask questions like ``who am I?``, ``why am here?``, ``what does it all mean?`` `what`s my life mean?``

In all cultures in all time, this is what unites us - this is our predicament - this why we understand the lives of our ancestors, this why we connect with them, with all humanity - The answers to these questions are posited in creedal form - significant to the adherents, creating BONDS - creating meaning, fixing man in a cosmology that unites him with the natural and the supernatural. it creates reality, it dimishes the polymorph, the ``diversity of worlds``. The ``modern`` strikes at the very heart of this construct - it deforms, annuls this reality, this construct of meaning. yet meaning has been remarkably resilent, it will never end, for man is cannot but be, forever aware of his predicament.

``yes secular humanism is a form of spritual connection, and I don`t see it as an unreasonable response to the growing diversity of our worlds...``

Indeed, It is a dehumanizing, totalitarian, anti human and anti-traditional religion, religion. It supplants God with the State/community, it criminalizes the belief in God, and regards the human as a primarily a biological creature. It too is very ``modern``. So long as it is kept in balance, in check, so long as it does not become prime or does not seek to counter morality, it serves to create an awareness of elements of tradition that have outlived their relevance and are percieved as oppressive. ``Not an unreasonable response to the growing diversity of our worlds`` would you say a one child only policy is an unreasonable resonse to the growing diversity and over population of the world?? what else may be ``unreasonable``? - No, I encourage you to think about this in greater detail. I also encourage you to avail yourself of the works of Peter Berger, Robert Bellah and Daniel Bell for a deeper discussion of secularism and profanation. But I also agree that secular humanism, devoid of it`s hostility toward God, traditional religion, and it`s adherents may have a useful and sincere role in the public realm.

``Mezekiel was interesting because he comes from a part of the developing world that will deal with the conflicts of fundamentalism, has an Islamic population and is in desparate economic straits.``

As if to suggest that we in America do not deal with varieties of ``fundamentalism``?

``conflicts of fundamentalism``? is ``fundamentalism`` the same as ``extremism`` - A pillar of secular humanist holds that the belief in God and traditional religions is an obstacle to the ``progress`` of ``humanity`` - would you agree that this is an extreme position?

It is my conviction that God exists, that there is no God but God, that He is omniscient, I am His creature and he has sent Guidance to his creatures! is that ``fundamentalism`` or ``extremism``?

Muslims are being advised that there sense of morlaity and ethics may enjoy no public expression - do you think this an extreme position? What if a similar position were to effect secular humanism - that is to say that it may not enjoy any public space - wouldn`t that be extreme?? You can be secular humanist in your home, in private, in your heart!

``I agree that his comments could have encompassed class, development, etc. issues, but remember that he was addressing an audience of writers...``

But I do remember - and object to his pretension of offering wisdom, of wanting to shape opinions, and I do object that after describing is deep sense of communist mission - he refuses to acknowledge that communist rule and consequences and reaction - for which accepts no personal responsibility - and again, in keeping with aetheticism and deriving authenticity from experience, he suggests he ``knows``, he`s ``seen`` it, ``experienced`` it - that is the authenticity of his wisdom. (this response is a bit too long, but you may be interested in the following work: ``Sincerety and Autheticity`` Lionel Trilling - you will find it fascinating)

``I find it interesting that his book will interrogate/imagine the Christian involvement in

the Crusades, which is a feat of imagination.``

Please be cautious you with regard to imagery and imagination, please be conscious that it is illusion, sensation, please be careful of consuming sensations. I look forward to reading your thinking, especially with regard to aetheticism and the idea of the ``modern``. By the way did you ever get a chance to read ``Worlds of Pain`` by Lillian Rubin?

re: hydra-that-keeps-on-going-and-going-and-going...

``SPM

Yes specially when caught lying about revealing your young age on board.``

What was that for to seperate the virgins from the married or the more alluring than the some house wives?

It didnt matter whether you were 6 or 11 in 93 question is how else could i have known?

...good lord, what is this damn obsession about my age?....i`ve never mentioned it before but just to set your `mind` to rest, i`m 21....there...satisfed?....

``You have the chuptzah to lie to your friends just b/c he missed resding it ,that you never did.``

....eek...the hydra accusing me of having the chutzpah (not chuptzah, einstein) to lie....what is this world coming to?....

``Why lie being muslim.You fall ``below Contempt `` in my eyes for such behaviour``

...and that is where you pay me the biggest compliment....