'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Sartre on Intellectualism

Are Hazaras of Quetta really trapped???

So we are in midst of 2^nd World Wide Protest against ongoing Genocide of Hazaras in Quetta, Pakistan, something that didn’t materialize when Taliban were systematically massacring Hazaras in Kabul, Mazar Sharif and Hazarajat from 1998 until Fall of 2001. Of course, it is the fruit of a decade long struggle of Hazaras to recollect their torn off society to rebuild their civic life. I don’t find any other nation on the face of earth that have faced more than a century long systematic genocides as Hazaras have been facing since 1885. Just in my life time, there have been three systematic genocides in three decades so far. It seems that Hazaras populations are the hotspots of Genocides.

While the Genocides of Hazaras in Quetta is continued and the culprits appear to have strong support and will to carry on their genocidal plans without any check from Government, there are fears of civil war in Afghanistan after withdrawal of international forces after 2014. Both sides of tunnel are dark and there is no light to show the way out. In this situation the migration is natural phenomenon but there are fears that the brain drain of capable men and women make these already torn off populations of Hazaras more vulnerable.
 

Now, what are the options? I am really glad that there are brains inside Hazaras who frequently speak their minds and there are political forces and organizations that are duly responding to crises in very civic manners. If I focus on current issue that is Genocide of Hazaras in Quetta, I should acknowledge that the Political forces have been wise and successful in making Genocide of Hazaras a national issue and are heading towards making it an international issue. As we are all aware that Countries act according to their national interests and it is really hard to conceive that Pakistan, neighboring countries and Gulf States will give concessions on the costs of their foreign policies. Then if Hazaras have been and are victims of geopolitical interests then it is really hard to believe that being a minority in Pakistan, Hazaras can make very big impacts in avoiding their victimizations. Similarly, internationalizing the Genocide of Hazaras might not influence international community to stand for Human Rights of a minority that do not affect global economy and global politics.

Having said all these continued civic movements and protests of Hazaras might influence the international organizations and people that really believe in Human Rights and do not link it just to their national interests. But more important than Human Rights are the Hazaras populations that are now scattered around the world. Their active participations not only make it more costly for forces to continue freely their genocidal plans but also benefit these communities themselves. It is natural to expect that Hazaras feel insecure after facing a century long genocides and they feel more secure within themselves. These protests and activisms will make them to reach out other communities and become active part of plural and democratic societies and let their potentials benefit all.

In short, I am hopeful about the political activism in the Hazaras society and as there are more able and experienced people in the field so I just wanted to express my gratitude to their struggles. BUT, the purpose of this piece of writing was expressing my concerns over other neglected areas.

Hazaras in Quetta was known for their contributions in civil services, education, sports, philanthropy and social activism. In facing the current crisis, politics have dominated the society and all other parts have gone into shades. For long, I am reading and listening to the suggestions about, what Hazaras need to do in face of ongoing crises but I fail to find anything beyond politics. Pakistan for six decades focused just on defense and the result of this one factor policy is now obvious to all. Despite of having a nuclear arsenal, well developed missile defense system, Six hundred thousand strong and organized military, she is moving towards a failed state. Now that Government has realized the mistakes and are trying to focus on the 3D (Defense, Developments and Diplomacy) it doesn’t have the means to do so. Pakistan might need more than a dedicated decade to develop the capacity of implementing her 3D policy.

I may be wrong but I feel that relying just on politics may harm Hazaras on the long run. While political maneuver of Hazaras are local and national more or less but their Economical, Cultural and Social activism have the potential to go global.

As I said earlier that Hazaras in Quetta is known for their contributions in non-political sectors of Province and the country. Learning and encouraged by organizing worldwide protests and activisms, it is time that Hazaras get out of the trap, evolve and bring to light their other areas. When I read the banners, “Hazaras of the world get united”, I do not see any other ways except that we take out our experiences and potentials in education, sport, arts, literature, music, philanthropy, social activism and most importantly economy to go global by networking, working together and most importantly REACHING OUT OTHER COMMUNITIES.

Please feel free to correct me in part that you feel, I have misunderstood… Thanks 

“X” is power

In a scene of the movie, “J. Edgar” – A biographical movie about FBI director, “J. Edgar Hoover”-…… Hoover takes Gandy (His personal secretary) to the Library of Congress, and shows her the card catalog system he devised. He muses about how easy it would be to solve crimes if every citizen were as easily identifiable as the books in the library……. Although Edgar was thinking of having a centralized catalogue of all citizens fingerprints but now the social networking site, “Facebook” made it really easy to make every citizen identifiable as easily as finding a book in library of congress. Facebook do not use fingerprints but instead life-prints. When Edgar said, “information is power”, he might not had an idea that one day, “information” can create “Arab spring” (A clear goal; democracy) and another day, it creates, “Arab winter” (Confusion; what does it mean?). You may have heard a lot that, “Money is power” and then you learn that there is a common practice of “Fractional reserve banking” (One deposits 100 dollars for example to a bank, the bank keeps 20 dollars as reserve and lends out 80 dollars out of it which naturally in ways ends in another bank and it just goes on). Yes, information is power but the real power is in perceptions. Doesn’t matter, you catalogue it, reserve it or rationalize it. 

 For few days, I was feeling that I am going to get cold as there were signs of fatigue but to a restless nature, rest is a punishment. What else I could do except doodling and hanging on in hope of getting something done. I heard that Che Guevara, the famous revolutionary figure was suffering from asthma but still he set to travel South American continent on a motorcycle for four months but ended up traveling on motorcycle, steamship, raft, horse, bus, and hitchhiking, covering more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi) in nine months instead. He just wanted to see what he had just read in books but this travel totally changed his perspective about life, people and government. The rest is what everybody knows. I wanted to watch the movie “The motorcycle diaries” that is based on Che’s travels and tell the fatigue (you are not as good as asthma) that I am not somebody who gives in to pains (Sometimes bragging tastes as sweet as ice cream)… Information, if creates a reasonable perception can give a purpose that changes life/lives. Che’s travel provided him the information that was right for the recipe of a “revolutionary perception”.

In the morning, I wrote in my notebook while taking notes, we are not just in the age of “information” but we are “thinking in paradigm of information”. The whole evolution is based on variations and mutations of “genes” and even “reductionist evolutionists” like to call it, “selfish gene” as everything else is just meant to propagate them. Wonderful huh, with this coin, they are the real “Illuminati “. No, we just can’t blame only evolutionary biologists to be trapped in “information paradigm”. In fact, it began with Philosophers. To Plato, it was not acceptable that “information” with its excellence perish in the dust of time so he created an “ideal world” and called the changing reality as its shadow. What Plato was calling shadow of ideals; human civilizations were just one of its categories. Being the product of information (Mankind’s great minds), they were not immune to falls. The falls of civilizations were the fallibility of human minds and there were always efforts to find ways to make human minds or information infallible. Although, by now, I get irritated to use the “I think, therefore I am” declaration of Rene Descartes but I have to refer to it again as it was yet another reductionist effort to find a way to make human mind infallible. After failing again and again, the Philosopher tried to copy the nature. If nature has created DNA, an infallible carrier of information then perhaps the “language” as carrier of information is the tool that can make human mind infallible. So far all efforts to create a language that make human mind infallible went in vain. We can do math but we can’t speak mathematics. When we say 99%, we don’t mean any figure but instead we mean majority common people. It is what happens when we try to speak math. 

 It doesn’t matter how hard one tries to be exact, how detailed a correlation one makes or how centralized the data become, at the end it is the “X” –the perception- that is the power. Right perceptions are revolutionary and wrong ones “confusions”…

Walking Across.....

I don’t know, whether it is an addiction or ritual but I like to call it ritual as it sounds positive. So in general, the best of part of my day is the ritual of watching a part of some historical Korean drama while taking my lunch (Once, I was calling it, “fill in the blanks” meaning to enjoy doing my favorite things in time-gaps instead of waiting for a leisure time but now it falls; watching movies, reading and writings are my favorites). I like this ritual as it allows me to see how people in other cultures rationalize their acts and behaviors. (Currently watching Yi San; though, the characters in the story are very soft and the story is very slow and sometimes even boring but still, I like it as it makes me realize that, although we all cherish the same values but we rationalize them differently. Slowly, I am also realizing that if we set aside advances in technology and knowledge in general, the history doesn't change much in terms of values. The only thing that changes are the ways we rationalize them. That also happens across the cultures. So either we walk across the cultures or across the history, it is the rationalizations that change not basic values). As in humans, 90% of Serotonin is in gut and the rest in the CNS so just by guess; I hope that this ritual (nourishing body and mind simultaneously) also increases Serotonin levels in my blood (it is just a guess).

Yesterday, I was very late in taking my lunch (the drama part was also very uneventful, hehe). The net effect, I was feeling so sleepy that I thought, it is wiser if instead of pushing myself and tiring myself while not able to make any progress in my work, I should get a nap for an hour and come back to work with a fresh mind. I set my alarm for an hour. When I woke up, it was dark. I checked the time and found that I had slept for three hours instead of one. I even didn’t notice the loud alarm (it was very deep sleep). Initially I felt bad about it but soon my mind started its work, “rationalizing the act”. You know, brain consumes 25% of oxygen and glucose in blood and if one is involved in an intensive problem solving thinking process, the brain consumes almost as much energy as an athlete pushes hard his body to break a record. So, it is natural to get exhausted after a mental work although the body appears to be idle in the process.

Unconvinced by my back-rationalizing, while still lying there, the thoughts of why ancient people about cared those hard questions, “who am I?”, “Why am I here?” “Where will I go?” come to me (I guess, it is the way mind work. It is good at diverting attention and escapes the troubles it faces. This totally unrelated thought was an escape strategy). In nutshell all those questions are linked with purpose of life. Usually, we tend to think that the “primitive people” think simple things and as people advance in terms of knowledge, they questions become more sophisticated. These are really hard questions that still people struggle with. Because, I had just awaken up so the thought of “Morpheus” came to me. In Greek mythology, Morpheus is the God of sleep and dreams. it can take any human forms to appear into dreams (Morphine is named after it).

In a way, it allowed me to hypothesize that because ancient people had not much understanding of nature so they needed explanations to match their life styles (It is because we are highly addicted to brain’s reward system, Dopamine. When our ideas are appreciated or we think, they are right; our brains reward us with dopamine). Coming back to dreams, it is still mystery. Although there are a lot of explanations but none of them are satisfactory. If I was living in ancient time, the belief that Morpheus appears in different forms in my dreams would be a very surreal idea and my brains would definitely rewarded me with lot of dopamine shots.

Although, Science is snatching all those surreal narratives but on other hand it has given us another fancy way of rationalizing and getting rewarded by brain and that is “Hypothesizing”. Brain is very good at finding patterns among very random things and constructing a hypothesis out them to rationalize things.

So what was the pattern here? Well, I guess, in order to get a higher dose of dopamine, when we rationalize, we try to link with something superior and it is perhaps why, Greeks mythology is filled with Gods and Goddesses. Those complex questions of purpose are linked with superior beings to feel superb. It is just an egoistic nature of men that do not accept things as they are (and perhaps better not to). Things have not changed much. Now that modern men think of themselves in-charge instead, we tend to think that we understand most of things and we are right. It appears to me that in future, someone while lying in his bed might be thinking about the ways we rationalize things currently and might try to find a pattern to make a sense out of them. Who knows?