Toxic Effects of Inferiority Complex in Pakistan (III)

Read part I and part II.

In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen million native people, and it has never occurred to a single black to consider himself superior to a member of the white minority.

– Frantz Fanon

The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior.

– Frantz Fanon

(First quote of Fanon really shook our spines to the core. This thought has never occurred to us! We must confess. Ask yourself. The second one is a ‘proven’ psychological fact.)

There’s an undeniable existence of self-hatred, self-pity and total disregard for our Way (cultural and above all religious) present in many of us, especially those dazzled by all things ‘western’. Another term for this disease is Occidentosis. Speaking of which Jalal Al-i Ahmed writes in his famous Occidentosis: A Plague from West:

“Under [occidentosis] we are like strangers to ourselves, in our food and dress, our homes, our manners, our publications, and, most dangerous, our culture. We try to educate ourselves in the European style and strive to solve every problem as the Europeans would.”

Jalal has comprehensively summarized negative effects of westernization in various aspects of our individual and collectives lives which we’ll attempt to examine as following.

Read full article here.

Is this World a mere Accidental Product?

Let's suppose following statement is true:

"A chance hiccup in the tranquillity of being, so it is posited, produced a big bang in the cosmic nothingness and created everything; time, matter, energy, life, consciousness, morality!" (Source.)

For argument's sake we agree that the hiccup was a mere accident - that the striking of all those variables at the right time produced the world, in itself a statistical miracle - and that it was unplanned.

We cannot deny then that there was something in the things or in the nature of things that had the 'blue-print' to give birth to 'everything'. That even if no one was in control, who wrote that code or made that seed which burst forth all of its secrets into living realities? To deny the creator or to say who created the Creator is like solving the mystery of a ball of thread which has no head! Hence, the most optimal solution to this problem can only be affirming existence of One God.

Theory of accidentalism would have been fine if it remained neutral, but its following claims are more illogical and abdicate the very theory:

"The universe is thus devoid of any goal, meaning and purpose save that created by man. Man’s humanity, his morality, art and science, are nothing but gifts of the biological struggle, chance benefits of man’s effort and genius. For his genesis and existence, therefore, man need be grateful to no one but himself because it is Man not God who is the creator of man’s humanity!" (Source.)

Inferiority Complex & 'the Disease known as Civilization' (I)

I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully injected with fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement. —Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme 

 The independence movements in colonies and protectorates came into being, not through a return to indigenous values on the part of those concerned, but through the absorption of occidental ideas and ideologies, liberal or revolutionary … the process of modernization – a euphemism for Westernization – far from being halted by the withdrawal, was in fact accelerated. The enthusiasm of the new rulers for everything ‘modern’ was not restrained, as had been the enthusiasm of their former masters, by any element of self-doubt. 

 —Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man 

 The celebrated Algerian psychologist freedom fighter of blacks, Franz Fanon, saw only two parties in the battle between the colonialists and colonized: white and black. We, the brown, had pretty benign colonizers, who did not like to butcher millions or harass indiscriminately 24/7. We have no idea about the mass murdering of Central Asian Muslims and Africans by imperial powers of 19th/20th century. Our colonization was far less brutal and far more subtle, which left us unsettled, undiscovered, and even unwelcomed in both clubs, of whites and blacks. Our body was not tortured as much as we’re brainwashed and deluded through education and social-engineering by the “generous” colonizers.

Read full article here.

Modern Science & Beauty?

The morning dew is a source of freshness and is a proof of God too (at least for a saint). Unfortunately, those who worship modern science and technology whole day, do not realize that from its standpoint everything is nothing but matter, with no vertical dimension and causality to it. Divine Imprint is the source of all meaningful beauty.

This mechanistic and materialistic view of nature, that modern science possesses, is also the cause of so much destruction of environment. Because from its view, there's no sacred element to material world, hence it's there to be captured according to free market forces. They realized it later that destruction of nature creates imbalance (too obvious to us though). We must salute from heart all native cultures that are disgusted by the idol of indefinite economic progress. Yet, many muslims who're envious of worldly power and resources have fallen to the same trap seculars did.

Blasphemy Laws: A Rationale

Muslims - by the virtue of the Prophet - still have a sense of Sacred. This is why they so emotionally and intellectually react to any desecration of Sacred. It is their civilizational right & duty to defend the rights of God, his prophets & his idyaan. West fails to understand that, perhaps.

 In USA, if you curse God or Prophet Jesus, nobody would even care, they won't even look at you and pass by. But if you curse someone's color, race or even nose, you'll get sued for 100k dollars or even worse.* This is because they've lost that sense of Sacred. It is against this aggression towards the rights of God that blasphemy laws exist.

Last para example is taken from an audio clip on Salman Rushdie Affair by Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr.http://mac.abc.se/home/onesr/af/_audio/A065e_SH.Nasr_Sh.Tantawi_19.mp3

Pursuit of Satisfaction

For some time recently, I've been perplexed by self-projections and how i should judge my myself. Should i judge myself from my professional (ie academic) achievements, or the quantitative influence of my work (though I'm yet to produce a single thing)? This all sounded egoistic afterwards, as soon as i tried to reduce the anxiety by little introspection from a spiritual point of view. But. Even this spiritual understanding of my ambitions didn't solve the conundrum. I got the answer from iqbal's persian poem.

(English trans by me from Urdu)

Laazt e sair ast maqsood e safar.
Gar nigah bar aashiyan dari mapar.

Purpose of journey is in its pleasure.
If you aim at your destination/home, don't fly

***
Zindagi juz lazzat e parwaz neest

Ashiyan ba fitrat e Oo saaz neest

Life is nothing but taste of flight.
Ashiyana (home) is not nourishing for his nature

I've moved to old blog: Umer Toor Blog I

In Jan 2010, my first blog, Umer Toor Blog, was hacked. Very recently i discovered the hacker, and he agreed to return it.

I will be blogging to that place. I've transferred all posts to that blog. Hope to see you there :)

Get smarter & better effortlessely

Interact with those who're smarter than you are, who're don't have any feelings of adulation for you, and who're ruthless in giving critical feedback to you.

Why Hope is like Hair or Nails?

I friend of mine sent an SMS, "Our hopes are like hair and nails. No matter how many time you cut it, they grow up again." Provided a person is not suffering from some kind of biological disease that don't allow these to grow at all.

What can justify such an analogy? Freedom movements. Our rising up from falls or failures. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Night's being darkest just before the sunrise. Yes the last 2 sentences are merely poetic and not arguments, but no matter what they do testify that humans do not fail to be hopeful. Perhaps only this explains existence and constant invocation of such idioms.

What do Modern Muslims Love?

Of Levantines' historical roles and professions, son of Levant/Lebanon Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in The Black Swan:

"The Arabs, who seemed interested only in warfare (and poetry) and, later, the Ottomon Turks, who seemed only concerned with warfare (and pleasures), left to us the uninteresting pursuit of commerce and the less dangerous one of scholarship (like the translation of the Aramaic and Greek texts)."

Source.

History remembers the Arabs, the Turks, and Levantines for their individual, independent and original pursuits. They were true to themselves and realized their own potentials without imitating anyone. History remembers those with a vocation and an essence. What about those who are too dazzled by the enslaving, ruling 'decepticons'? Despite the fact that modern Muslims belong to warrior races, they turn their backs on political and territorial independence, succumbing to the pressures to every bullying new super power. And above all, in all aspects of life and thought, only love to be second-best copies of "enlightened" Western men. For what will history remember them, for being parrots trying to mimic voice of a superior species?

What do Pakistanis love? They love to be front-line foot soldiers of Amerikanos with all F 16s and a mercenary Army, for sure... And few franchises of junk food chains, few concrete roads, few ugly huge plazas, few modernized educational instituitions, few mass destructive gadgets, and a an English accent that puts Englishmen to shame.