February 10 , 2006

Cultural Weaknesses

A little while back I had an interesting conversation with Lord Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir Ali who nearly became the Archbishop of Canterbury, England’s premier religious position.
The cerebral Michael Nazir Ali, who originally hailed from Pakistan, told me that the central weakness in Pakistani culture is the pursuit of paisa. In contrast, he said that Europe’s principal cultural weakness is its preoccupation with sex. Michael Nazir Ali has a point.
Indeed, greed for grabbing gobs of money quickly through shortcuts and over-clever schemes has been the downfall of many powerful persons in Pakistan. It is the money-driven culture which, in effect, converts many elections into auctions and makes the ‘dikhava’ of democracy merely a tool for the rich to rule.
Visitors to Europe often are stunned to see commuters on subways and trains openly perusing porn magazines and by the predominance at “news” kiosks of sexually explicit tabloids, magazines, books and videos. This saturation in erotica is further reinforced by the Internet through which many males are hooked and addicted to porn.
Looking at India, one sees that India’s bane has been its Brahmin culture. Mirza Nasiruddin Masud, formerly private secretary to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and UNESCO Mission Chief to Indonesia, and married to Atiya Begum, the great-great-granddaughter of Sir Syed, wrote a book on India entitled “Caste or Democracy”. Mirza Masud starkly framed the choice facing India – either persist with the caste culture or opt for genuine democracy. Former Indian Prime Minister I. K. Gujral wrote the foreword to the book and endorsed its main point.
Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, framer of India’s constitution, was an untouchable Hindu from Dalit community. Dr. Ambedkar, exclaiming that “untouchability is another appellation for slavery” and that “what is tragedy for the Untouchables is the crime of the Hindus”, ultimately was so disgusted by his mistreatment that he converted to Buddhism before his death.
The June 2003 issue of the prestigious American magazine, “National Geographic”, vividly depicted the horrors that the 160-million strong untouchable community undergoes at the hands of upper-caste Hindus. CNN’s Chief International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, did a special documentary in 1999 on the plight of the Dalit for CBS News’ award-winning TV program “60 Minutes”, capturing on film the extent of the inhumane degradation which India’s Dalit community suffer in the world’s largest so-called democracy.
America’s Achilles’ heel is its Israel connection. The great guru of US foreign policy, George Ball, wrote a book in 1992 called “The Passionate Attachment: America’s Involvement with Israel.” The book’s title was derived from the 1796 farewell address of America’s first president, Gen. George Washington, who warned that, in shaping its international relations, America should avoid forming any ‘passionate attachment’ to or ‘inveterate hatred’ of any other nation.
In the US, the entire issue of Israel is permeated with hypocrisy, throttling genuine discussion and debate and distorting realities. However, when it mattered, the Jews during the Nazi period were allowed to sink. For example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1939 refused to let the ship “St. Louis” – crammed with Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany – dock in Miami. The ship returned to Europe and many of its passengers were incinerated by Hitler’s Germany. Only in the post-war era, as the American Jewish community gradually gained influence and power, did the tables turn and American politicians and right-wing Christians change gears and become apologists for Zionism.
All of the above indicates that if weaknesses within are not corrected or curbed they cause considerable damage.