Strategic Depth at Home

Dear Fuzair

``Brothers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! Male liberation now!

Fuzair, founder of the Chowk ``Male Liberation League.``

While I was going through your post, the voice of male conscience inside me snapped, ``Who are you``. I started mulling whether I am an Indian, a bhindian, a Hindian, a roachistani, a harami hindu, a kafir, a ``true`` believer etcetera etcetera. Then in a blinding flash of (obvious)enlightenment, it dawned upon me that I am first and foremest a male and then anything else:-). At that moment I decided to join the ``Male Liberation league`` with the conviction that I have found the path of ``truth``. Count me in.

PS Surely you dont belive in Urstruly and his fallacious assertions about the ``womyn`` leaders. Well Hitler, PolPot and Stalin were not ``womyn``. Still I liked your experiences with ``womyn`` in USA.

Some good news from India. Finally our forex reserves have crossed the milestone of $50 bn.

http://www.business-standard.com/today/news.asp?Menu67

Forex reserves breach $50 billion mark (1400 hrs)

The foreign exchange reserves rose $442 million to $50.208 billion in the week ended February 15, 2002 when compared with $49.766 billion in the previous week, according to the weekly supplement released by the RBI on Saturday.

Foreign currency assets were up $437 million to $47.285 billion in the period under review.

While the gold reserves were unchanged at $2.913 billion, SDRs were up $5 million to $10 million.

Thanks for the websites, Sadna. I had heard about the 30% figure before. Its also a known fact that an X% increase in the income of poor households makes a statistically significant difference in family social welfare indicators (infant mortality, education, nutrition, immunization, etc) depending upon if this income increase was earned by men or by women. Women are much more likely to spend all they earn on their children, while male earners keep a fair bit aside for alcohol, tobacco, gambling, etc.

If you spend enough time in academia, you come across a large number of extremely low-IQ feminists. I used to think that women were definitely more intelligent, on average, than men until I went to grad school and found out that while women may well still be more intelligent than men, womyn (and difference feminists) ranked somewhat about the same level as sea-slugs, and not particularly intelligent sea slugs at that.

Nasah:

Please note the distinction in spelling: womyn vs. women. You`ve missed the point of what I was saying. I have nothing at all against ``women`` or even most ``pod`` feminists. Women have had a long and painful uphill slog against terrible odds. I have noting but admiration for the early generation of feminists who made it in spite of the unified hostility of the male establishment. Three cheers for them. Its the hardcore ``womyn`` and difference feminists that I object to.

Heres another bit of womynist stupidity. I showed up early at a talk given by Douglass North (wanted to get a good seat) and happened to sit behind a woman who had been pointed out to me by a friend as the rising young star of her department (Soc, I think). She was talking to a male colleague and I overheard part of their conversation. She had apparently been telling him how science, especially physics, was so completely dominated by male scientists and their antagonistic (I think thats the term she used, not sure exactly what it means) research methodology that it merely served to perpetuate and reproduce the existing patriarchal system. In short, all of the natural sciences, but especially physics, were really no more than a patriarchal social construct designed to reinforce the status quo, etc. etc. etc. If womyn were in charge of the natural sciences, we would soon see a kinder gentler approach to nature, etc. etc. etc. This poor slob of a colleague of hers made the mistake of saying something to the effect of, ``Hmmm. Thats very interesting. I had never thought of it that way before. I wonder how one would formulate this as a testable hypothesis?`` At which point she exploded. She pointed out that the very fact that he saw things in terms of testable hypotheses and objective facts and the antagonistic, male-oriented, testosterone driven black-white, right-wrong, superior-inferior blah blah blah, way was proof that he was completely brainwashed by the existing discourse, etc., etc. etc. She only stopped her little diatribe when it became apparent that people were starting to stare and wonder if they should call campus security.

Its obvious that this prize fruitcake had never heard of the Sokol Hoax and the stupidity of imagining that physics, or any other hard science, was a social construct. Are there biased, bigoted misogynists in physics? Of course there are. Does it mean that we can automatically disregard their findings? Of course it doesn`t. The truly sad thing is that the last I heard, she was an Assistant Professor somewhere or the other, poisoning the minds of future generations.

My friends, you can`t make this stuff up. The womynists give us more than enough real stuff every day.

So, relax. I only acutely dislike womyn, not women. Whats the difference? Simple. Women just want to succeed in the real world and want a fair chance at proving their competence--which, btw, they already have in the US. Womyn want to dismantle things like capitalism, a patriarchal tool for repressing womyn and (approved) ethnic and sexual minorities, and replace it with gibberish such as Gaia worship or some other touchy feely, New Age pap.

Regards.

Fuzair,
I sympathize, but cheer up. Those are not the women Sameer and Samina (and you) are interested in. Its women like these:

http://www.wedo.org/fact_sheet_2.htm
Women making a difference

``.. Numbers are a necessary but not sufficient condition for women’s full, equal, active and informed participation in economic, social and political decision-making. There is evidence however, that when there is a critical mass (at least 30%) of women in policy-making bodies, not only are women’s issues prioritized in the policy-agenda but they are more likely to be acted upon by policy-makers...``

(the whole web page is worth reading, its a short and concise summary of a few countries` experiences with women in government)

On womens reservations in local government(as opposed to in national government also as Sameer suggests), India has had a 33% reservation policy for Panchayats since 1993. On how its working out:

http://www.undp.org/dpa/choices/2000/march/pg20.htm
Empowering women from Grassroots up
Some case studies from Indian Panchayats

http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/transitions/panwomen.html
A summary article on Women in Indian Panchayats

For a more detailed look at the issue:
http://magnet.undp.org/events/gender/india/VYASULU3.htm

For my dear friend bhai tahmed sahib.

```` Pakistan Warns Foreigners of Safety

By STEVEN GUTKIN

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan has warned U.S. and other foreign diplomatic missions and businesses to boost their security, fearing that the slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl may signal a wider plan to thwart President Pervez Musharraf`s drive against extremism.````

Dear Fuz:

Don`t forget your reverend mother when you write stuff like that -- ``Lets end this male bashing and lets have some stuff on the stupidity of womyn!````

She must have been very brilliant to bring up a brilliant son like you -- if I may be excused for saying this.

Fuzair

Labbaik.

I sincerely, think this idea of women leadership is non-sense. The list of spectacular failure of zanana leadership spans the globe. lets check our inventory here:

Margaret Thatcher

Incompetent, Was kicked out of the office. Brought the country to near bankruptcy.

Benazir

Incompetent, was kicked out of office, twice. Corrupt par excellence. Less said the better.

Indira Gandhi

Genocidal maniac. Incited genocide in East Pakistan. Destroyed sikh places of worship. Killed sikhs by thousands. Castrated 100s of thousands of men and women from Muslim minority. Was finally put to sleep as humane a way as possible.

Bandra Naikays of Sri Lanka.

The country is on the verge of collapse.

Aquinos/Amelda

Reduced the countries to banana republics.

Begum Abida Hussain

Petty thief. Was caught red-handed stealin electricity.

Haseena Wajid

A rabid incompetent psycopath

Khalida Zia

Incompetent.

Begum Nasim Wali Khan

Was caught stealing underwear at herodes.

BTW, does anyone else want to add their own run-in-with-feminists horror stories? I`d be interested in hearing more about the stupidities of a certain type of womyn. We could fill the cyber-pages of Chowk with nothing but how-stupid-men-are stories but I say fair is fair. Lets end this male bashing and lets have some stuff on the stupidity of womyn!

Brothers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! Male liberation now!

Fuzair, founder of the Chowk ``Male Liberation League.``

My dear bhai tahmed sahib:

Excuse me for saying this -- sometimes your interpretation of people’s postings are so skewed – one has a hard time believing you are the same -- understanding perceptive moderate wise man from Pakistan -- you seems to be

You write:

“”nasah #155 on Pearl`s murder you write ``Another black eye for Pakistan. ``

I think it is pathetic that you, like so many Indian posters on chowk, are so obsessed with Pakistan that even a tragic death like that of Mr. Pearl elicits comments only in terms of what it does for Pakistan`s image. Dont worry about image so much, images are hard to define, are easily overshadowed by realities, and change overnight.

Worry about the lack of humanity one shows when the personal tragedy of this death is overshadowed by this nationalistic perspective””.

My dear friend if you think my post was “so obsessed with Pakistan” -- showing “lack of humanity -- overshadowed by nationalistic perspective” -- you should read what your ``redeemer`` said:

President Gen Pervez Musharraf said on Friday that he and all Pakistanis were grieved over the death of United States journalist Daniel Pearl and that

``the murder has not only defamed Pakistan but also the religion of Islam.``

My friend -- image is money – you should be worried about Pakistan`s image -- especially when its own government tells foreigners and foreign investors -- come BUT BE CARFUL -- BEWARE of Pakistanis in Pakistan.!!

TAhmed:

``If you restrict your criticism to the actions of the government, I would have no problem. When someone extends this to condemn all Pakistanis then I have a problem -``

Obviously, your point is justified. Too many Indians seem to forget that there is a Pakistan beyond Musharaff, Jinnah, ISI, etc etc. I hope we can have more articles on culture, food, society, things that we enjoy as human beings, rather than the geo-political ``facts`` we fight over.

Pakistan is a country, the Paki establishment is at best peripheral to it`s culture and people. Too often, we seem to forget that fact.

Re: Shah #204,

As far as the dearth of womyn interactors on this particurlar topic are concerned, theres an old saying about how if you can`t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.... Oops, shouldn`t have used a kitchen metaphor here, just adding insult to injury!

Honestly though, I don`t bother reading most of the replies, especially the long ones, since they are usually interminably boring, badly written, lack any internal coherence or logic or insert-criticism-of-choice-here. You are probably correct, though, about the level of `discivility` in much of the Chowk discussion. We are a rowdy lot of cyber-warriors, safely hiding behind our nom-de-guerres, and if some wants to enter the kitchen, oooooops, there I go again!

Yup, you are correct about the ``womyn`` spelling. Can`t stand difference feminazis and truly abhor the militant butch-dykes who seem to dominate the feminist `discourse`--if you can call this hysterical ranting and raving a discourse.

I made the mistake once a few years ago of wandering into a graduate seminar class on ``The Political Economy of Development in the Third World`` and, boy--errr, girl, persyn, errrr, whatever--was it an eye-opener in some ways. I had the dubious pleasure of listening to a very intelligent woman actually apologize for ``thinking like a man`` (no, am not kiding here) because she liked it when things were laid out logically and rationally: you know, stuff like ``If I add one plus one together, I get two.`` One of the femi-nazi grad students there was gracious enough to forgive her for this, saying to her, with all of us (12 female--wait, that has ``male`` in it--OK, womyn and 4 men) present, ``Its not your fault. Its the way this patriarchal society has conditioned you to think.``

I should have realized how this seminar would turn out when the (female) professor asked us to go around the table introducing ourselves and saying what we thought was meant by ``economic development.`` I answered, ``Sustained and long-term sustainable GDP growth along with improved income distribution and better social-welfare indicators.`` One or two of the ones after me made it a point of commenting loudly how sick and tired they were of hearing about GDP growth and having men dominate the development discourse! All this on the first day and my never having met any of the female seminar participants before (all outside my home department)!

After one or two more incidents like this, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and every time (i.e, whenever they opened their mouths) some of these grad students said something particularly stupid, I made sure to point out why they were wrong. Had a few fun moments with them and found out that almost invariably their arguments/logic/reasons would boil down to ``Its WRONG because I say it is. I don`t need to defend my conclusions and generalizations. They are self-obvious to any intelligent person.`` Ouch. Now thats a telling intellectual argument.

The professor in charge of the seminar asked me, privately, to back off a bit since, and here I quote, ``Its no use asking them to be reasonable`` and we have to get on with the seminar. It was also gratifying that a few of the other women (note no ``y``) told me, again privately, that they were glad that I would challenge the loud-mouths since, while they disagreed with them, they had to live with them in the same department.

Anyway, this has turned into a much longer post than I meant it to be so I`ll end it with one last comment. I found out later that these obnoxious witches had actually complained to the professor and the department chair that I was creating a hostile atmosphere demeaning to womyn in that seminar and that, perhaps, future seminars should not be open to hostile males! Aah yes, ``seminars.`` Maybe we should go the Murphy Brown route (actually she was against it) and call them ``ovulars?``

Again, sorry for the long rant on my part.

Regards.

Romair # 187

``Forex reserves touch record $5 billion mark”

This is a great achievement for Pakistan. But this amount includes private savings by Pakistani’s in Pakistani banks. Even then it’s not a small achievement. Another thing to note that the Pakistani international debt has risen by just .5 % in the last two years. The only bad thing about it is that it’s been achieved by creative debt management, not economic growth. Pakistan has transferred its debt to its future generations.

Regards,

Faruk

tvarad #183 I agree that the Pakistan government was absolutely and totally wrong in letting the hijackers of the Indian plane enter Pakistan. They should have been arrested and sent back to India - if for no other reason, who the hell wants these violent criminals roaming free in Pakistan? And of course the brutal murder of Rupan Katyal who was on a honeymoon trip on this flight by these sub-humans was as shocking at that time as the murder of Pearl is today. If you restrict your criticism to the actions of the government, I would have no problem. When someone extends this to condemn all Pakistanis then I have a problem - as I would if someone were to condemn all Indians for what I consider the wrong actions of the Indian government in Kashmir, or all Japanese for the bayoneting of POWs and other terrible brutalities of WWII. India gave the world Gandhi, but on chowk all we get are the Arjuns and the Ranashers!! (actually we get the Prems and Shankars and Hapreets too, but this post is written in anger and frustration and I will overlook the many fine Indian contributors on chowk for now).

tahmed #168:

``I think it is pathetic that you, like so many Indian posters on chowk, are so obsessed with Pakistan that even a tragic death like that of Mr. Pearl elicits comments only in terms of what it does for Pakistan`s image. Dont worry about image so much, images are hard to define, are easily overshadowed by realities, and change overnight. Worry about the lack of humanity one shows when the personal tragedy of this death is overshadowed by this nationalistic perspective.``

Well said.

shankar #164:

I am surprised at you. What is your patient going to say if she finds you are telling her story (Without names of course) over the Net? What kind of shrink are you?!

Fuzair,

re:``Ms. Shah, I do not recall seeing any posts saying that womyn were barred from this debate. If it is only men who are participating in it, it is because for (reasons of their own) the Chowk womyn have declined to participate. Scout, Sarwari, and co., want to jump in here and make Ms. Shah happy?

Great! For what reasons have men largely seeme to direct this debate on the political status of women? Why do you think most women have declined to participate? I can`t and won`t answer for everybody; feedback from women interactors in offering answers would be much appreciated.

Btw, the point was not to make me happy, but to foster a fully represented dialogue about the political voice of half the population in Pakistan by people of that half. Also, did notice your spelling of ``womyn``; satiric stroke?



Zeemax

Sameer did a wonderful job in bringing this topic up and I have no doubt that his intentions are genuine. I expect nothing less from progressive men. However in terms of what has emerged from the responses to his article:

Isn`t it instructive to understand/know why a discussions take place in the manner that they do? Why not be self aware of what happens in a discussion that is approaching subject/object dimensions?

This reminds me of the Foucault theory that, reductively, critiques the power imbalance between those who look/discuss and those who are looked at/discussed. How might that dynamic be applied to this board?

Also what your perceive as ``a chip on my shoulder`` is just good old intelligent observation. What would compel you to perceive my observations as such?

regards

samina

“Do you not see the outrageous irony in this? I am sure that this irony has passed the minds of the majority of female interactors on Chowk”

…it has :)…

“Hopefully some female Pakistani interactors will join this forum, and the male interactors will have the decency to be silent for once and listen.”

….being politically inept as i am, i don’t think my $0.02 cents are worth much…but here goes…the state of most women in pak is pathetic….no 2 ways about it….deep-rooted cultural/social attitudes account for much of the quagmire they’re in….abuse is rampant, and bigoted mind-sets the norm…sometimes i think the women are partly to blame….for accepting and tolerating with the bs thrown their way….most do it for their kids, but don’t realize what kind of detrimental impact it has on the very children’s minds they’re out to shield when they see this abuse going on….but then there are very limited options for these women to avail….yes, there are some very good women’s shelters, eg dar-ul-sakoon, but these too are scarce…and if they actually muster up the courage to runaway and report the abuse, they’ll be told to go back and stick it out…mostly uneducated, and unskilled they’ll either go back or get into another abusive relationship….getting to the point (finally), the main thing lacking is education and empowerment…once these women are educated and imbibed in with a sense of self-worth/confidence, they’ll realize they no longer need to put up with exploitation anymore….how does this happen?….well, granting 33% seats to women in the na is a very good launch….hopefully, these women will set up grassroots shelters/ngo’s etc in their home constituencies, fight to have honor killings declared a capital crime, stress/fund girls’ education and we may be onto smt….

…..ps this is in no way to imply that the this is the state of affairs for all women….far from it…..i know many successful, outgoing women ensconced with a sense of self-worth who rock…..but, the main discrepancy lies in them being educated and having SUPPORTIVE family units….