Pakistan Press on National Curriculum and Intra-Afghan Peace Talks: New Age Islam's Selection, 1 October 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
1 October
2020
• Let Us Have Faith in Our Children and Give
Them a Chance to Develop Into Intelligent Human Beings Leading
By Anjum Altaf
• The Sociology of Intra-Afghan Peace Talks
By Inam Ul Haque
• The Alchemist in the White House
By Imran Jan
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Let Us Have Faith in Our Children and Give Them
a Chance to Develop Into Intelligent Human Beings Leading
By Anjum Altaf
October 1,
2020
The Single
National Curriculum has some very laudable objectives including raising good
human beings and promoting inclusiveness and tolerance. It has decided on a
methodology to achieve these aims. For the sake of discussion, I am suggesting
an alternative to the proposed methodology.
The chosen
methodology leans heavily on religion as the vehicle for raising good human
beings. Muslim children will be introduced to Ahadees, Ayaat and Quranic
injunctions in support of habits that include speaking the truth, respecting
one’s elders, being kind to fellow humans and animals; and of beliefs that all
citizens have an equal standing in society regardless of religion, ethnicity,
language, gender and colour.
Muslim
children will be learning these good things by memorizing the relevant Ahadees,
Ayaat, and Quranic injunctions – and will be tested on them. While Muslim
children are attending the class on their religion, all non-Muslim students
would leave and go to segregated classes, separate for all religions, where
they would be taught exactly the same good habits drawing from their own
scriptures.
Religion
can be a very good vehicle for teaching these basic lessons but dividing
children, who might otherwise be very close friends, into separate groups every
day may not be the best of ideas. Young children would inevitably ask why some
of them have to leave the class and would have to be told that it is so because
they are different. The consciousness of difference would be ingrained from day
one. The aim of inclusiveness would be compromised and that of tolerance would
be strained.
Could
exactly the same goals be achieved without sacrificing inclusion and incurring
the negative psychic costs of physical separation? How about experimenting with
the following alternative: All children stay together and learn together. This
is possible because all controversial material has already been sensibly
removed from the SNC. Thus, if the lesson is about speaking the truth, the
relevant messages from all religions can be listed on the blackboard.
Similarly, for lessons pertaining to respecting elders, treating others with
kindness, etc.
It is hard
to imagine that any religion would have messages contrary to the essential
traits of good conduct. It would be a huge gain if by going through such a
collective exercise, children learn in a convivial environment about other
religions and also that all religions emphasise similar good things – they are
different roads leading to the same destination.
These
collective exercises could be extended by exploring what the places of worship
of different religions look like, on what date the new year begins for
different religions and how it is celebrated, what are the different rituals at
birth, marriage, death, etc. At a certain stage, students can be taken on
visits to different places of worship and encouraged to engage with the
caretakers to satisfy their queries.
Such an
approach would encourage curiosity, prompt students to ask questions, and
promote mutual understanding in a positive and non-artificial manner. It would
also obviate the need to memorize anything. Anyone who has been close to
education knows that memorization, especially of material that cannot be
imagined, is detrimental in every way. It stunts the intellectual development
of children.
Good habits
pertain not just to conduct. Good mental habits are equally important and they
cannot be inculcated by memorization. In fact, excessive memorization of
normative content dulls mental capacity by taking away agency and replacing
behaviour based on intelligence by that based on fear of punishment. And why
persist with a failed approach in any case?
Educationists
who have kept up with the subject also know that children learn in very
different ways – some respond more to aural stimuli, others to visual cues, and
yet others to tactile inputs. Some love to put things together, others to take
them apart. If allowed the freedom, children gravitate to what excites them
most. Instead of regimenting all children into a standard format and boring
most of them to tears, the first few years are the time when a teacher observes
and groups children by how they learn best. Once their learning ability is
unleashed, they progress much faster than children raised in the equivalent of
chicken coops or cattle stalls.
Let us have
faith in our children and give them a chance to develop into intelligent human
beings leading fulfilling lives. Yes, they will ask questions but what kind of
an adult is afraid of questions children might ask?
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Anjum Altaf is a former dean of the School of
Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/722634-a-better-way-to-teach
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The Sociology Of Intra-Afghan Peace Talks
By Inam Ul Haque
September
30, 2020
Last week,
in this space, some ‘constants’ from Afghan sociology were distilled following
an inter-disciplinary approach. This column would discuss the sociology of the
intra-Afghan dialogue that is underway in Doha.
Following
on from the Taliban/Pashtun sociology, peace talks with the United States took
almost a year’s painstaking efforts to iron-out the February 29, 2020 peace
agreement. Contrary to belief, the Afghan is a tough negotiator; and had there
been no Afghans like Zalmay Khalilzad on the US side, this process would have
faltered. The Afghan government was cleverly side-stepped. Now expecting a
degraded Afghan conflict resolution mechanism (CRM) to take on and resolve the
nagging issues amongst the Afghans is wishful. Since at least one party — the Afghan
government — is looking over their shoulder to their foreign backers — the US.
The Taliban willingness to share the table with them stems from the compromise,
wherein they see the Afghan government as an extension of the US.
The
intra-Afghan dialogue is actually an Afghan Jirga. The Taliban, the dominant
party, would have clear talking points and positions, conceding only marginally
to negotiate the bigger issues. And the bigger issues are the nature of the
Afghan state, power-sharing between the stakeholders, a ceasefire, sustenance
of the future of Afghanistan’s government, and other minor issues like the
status of women/minorities, freedoms and the Afghan Constitution, etc.
First, the
nature of the Afghan state. The Taliban movement has Islam as its stated
ideology and Sharia as the operative framework to run the affairs of the state.
It is well-nigh impossible for them to agree to any other form or format of
government. It is interesting to note that the almost month-long dialogue is
stuck on issues such as the Taliban calling their fight against the Amreeki
forces a jihad — holy war. And the Afghan government seems to be at a loss to
give this war a name. Agreeing it to be a jihad would render those opposing it
culpable. It would be interesting to see how this issue is resolved.
The Taliban
subscribe predominantly to the Hanafi School of Islamic theology. However,
Hanafi jurisprudence to be the basis of their governance would be challenging
in a multi-faith Afghan society. Countries like Saudi Arabia stick to one fiqah
as state theology. The possibility of separate fiqahs side by side, like
Fiqah-e-Jafferia for populations like the Hazara Shias, remains a possible way
out.
Second,
power-sharing by far remains the most complex issue. For Taliban interlocutors
agreeing to a power-sharing arrangement without a lion’s share for the Taliban
is an extremely low probability. As in that case, their rank and file, who gave
their sweat, blood, life and limbs for two decades fighting the occupation
forces and their local backers, would be up in arms.
Sociologically,
almost two Afghan generations came of age during the endemic violence, knowing
nothing else. The Taliban movement has internalised violence and has learned to
live with it. For the Taliban field cadre to accept anything other than a
complete victory or its appearance thereof, would be a very tough call. Any
perceived appeasement would split the Taliban movement. And their Doha
interlocutors know it very well. The miniscule Kabul elite is a non-representative,
directionless and Westernised microcosm in a vast ocean of rural, pro-Taliban
and battle-hardened Afghans.
Third, the
future sustenance of the Afghan government. The rough annual financial outlay
for the Afghan government including the cost of the war and Afghan National
Security Forces (ANSF), including police, is close to $10 billion. Most of this
is provided for by the international community, as agreed to in the Bonn
Agreement in 2001. The Taliban are likely to claim this continued support as reparations
for the death and destruction wrought in by more than 50 countries over the
last 20 years.
Fourth, as
far as the ceasefire goes, it is not in the Taliban’s priority list, hence the
fighting and talking. However, they commit to a future ceasefire hoping for an
end to war. It was emphasised in this space that any ceasefire — without the
Taliban “actually controlling the levers of power,” and their rank and file
absorbed in the power structure is risky for the movement. Such a ceasefire is
being strongly opposed by their field commanders, therefore not expected. A
partial ceasefire is practicable and may be offered as a confidence building
measure. A Taliban negotiating team member told NBC News in Doha, “If we stop
fighting, then what does there remain to talk about?” Khalilzad considers the
current negotiations as the best way of reducing the violence.
Fifth, as
far as the auxiliary issues like the Afghan Constitution, minority/women’s
rights and freedoms are concerned, the two sides would be poles apart in their
aspirations for the country. Whereas the Afghan government team is trying to
safeguard the Constitution and all the rights that women, minorities, and
others have gained in the last 20 years; the Taliban want to define all rights
according to the Sharia. This, for them, makes the Constitution and all the
cited aspects superfluous.
The Taliban
are hostile to an imposed value system, in particular a Western one. Agreeing
to a value system they fought for so many years, is not knowing sociology of
the movement, which is rural and Pakhtun. The Taliban, however, would concede
some aspects like women’s education and employment, as a departure from their
hardline policies of the 1990s. As the younger generation of Taliban leaders is
more flexible, thanks to the global influences of social media.
And the
Taliban have repeatedly shown that they can be both ideological and pragmatic,
in line with their social underpinning. As previously mentioned, in any
conflict with riwaj (tradition) and Islam; riwaj generally wins. Likewise, if
presented with sufficiently compelling reasons, the Taliban can interpret even
the religious injunctions in accordance with the ground realities. However,
such deviation is short-term, transient and religiously sanctioned.
Surprisingly,
the biggest challenge to the intra-Afghan talks is from the internal divisions
among the Afghan political factions. The composition of the High Council for
National Reconciliation, the body overseeing the negotiations with the Taliban,
is not yet final. Most Ashraf Ghani appointees were rejected by his political
rival and the council’s head, Abdullah Abdullah. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (former
warlord-politician) is openly calling for separate, divided negotiations with
the Taliban, representing a trend wherein a much larger number of Afghan
leaders are quietly interacting with the Taliban in a typical Afghan hedging
game.
So the
Kabul team is pitted against a well-organised and united Taliban negotiating
team. The Afghan government would further erode its leverage after the
withdrawal of all US forces. Both President Donald Trump and his election rival
former vice-president Joe Biden want to see the US forces leave Afghanistan.
The
February 29 peace deal enabled the start of the peace talks; the Taliban would
conclude these.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2266388/the-sociology-of-intra-afghan-peace-talks
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The Alchemist in the White House
By Imran Jan
September
30, 2020
Back in the
day, people around the world had great and charismatic leaders because that is
what people valued. Charismatic not as in The Apprentice, or Pakistani morning
shows, but charismatic as in leaders who read and wrote books and inspired
people with their wisdom. People frequenting libraries seems centuries ago if
you ask me. Libraries are replaced by shopping malls, book reading has been
invaded by binge watching, family time is infected with phone screen time.
When we
were kids, our parents were angry at us for playing outside all day. Today, we
literally have to yell at children to quit their gaming console and go out and
play. Before, parents used to stop their children from eating soil. Today’s
parents have to stop children from eating McDonald’s. I’m confident the soil
eating was less harmful.
In the
book, The Alchemist, by Paolo Coelho, the boy (Santiago) travels enormous
distances and faces gruelling hardships to find the truth about alchemy. He
eventually finds that it was possible to make gold, and the man who knew
alchemy (the alchemist) was a pious man in the story. The alchemist reminds the
boy that while it was possible to make gold, it was not supposed to be the
ultimate aim of life.
This week
the ever hungry-for-a-scoop investigative journalists of The New York Times
found President Trump’s tax return. Turns out Trump is the alchemist of our
times. This alchemist does not live in the oasis nearby an Arab Bedouin camp,
but rather in the White House. Trump’s alchemy is made of con artistry instead
of piety and knowledge. He is the master of tax alchemy. He made his empire of
billions but displayed losses to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to avoid
paying taxes. His public bragging of calling himself being “really rich” gave
him celebrity status and eventually even the White House while the private
claims of failing businesses allowed him to avoid paying any taxes. He truly
had it both ways.
The
revelation by The Times also further solidifies the long held belief that Trump
did not run for president in 2016 to win. He rather wanted to inject life into
his fading brand. The fame that comes with running for president helps many
candidates land book contracts and so forth. Trump never expected — and as
mindboggling as it may sound — never wanted to win. Michael Wolff, in his book,
Fire and Fury, had quoted Trump’s son, Trump Jr, saying that his father “looked
as if he had seen a ghost”, on the night of the 2016 election when it became
clear that Trump had won. Melania Trump was “in tears — and not of joy”.
While the
real alchemist stopped living for gold after he achieved the mastery of
alchemy, the con artist-cum-tax alchemist in the White House wanted even the
presidency for money.
But given
people’s values in today’s day and age, this is the best you can get. The world
we live in is one where young boys and girls are raped and then killed, where
many people are starving to death while some have so much food that mega
corporations are in the business of cleaning up the extra food thrown in trash;
where millions are refugees in search of food and shelter, while some drive custom
built BMWs made of gold and diamonds; where for some the biggest complaint is
the latest iPhone is no different than the previous one, while the miseries of
many such as the Kashmiris and the Palestinians are no different than the
previous year.
Sure, that
is how today’s alchemists are going to look like. Because like it or not, that
is who we are. Trump and many leaders like him are our very own reflection. It
is not Trump, it is us.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2266386/the-alchemist-in-the-white-house
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