Copyright Issues

Copyrights, patents, trademarks have become contentious issues in a modern, increasingly digitized world. Copyright first became an issue with the invention of the movable type printing press. Previously, it was a non-issue because of the slow speed of manually copying a book and the lack of literacy amongst the general population. The printing press changed the equation by drastically reducing the cost of and time taken to copy a book. It also resulted in a gradual increase in literacy as people started seeing the advantages of being able to read. A good history of copyright can be found at the Copyright History website and also at Wikipedia.

Copyrights were originally seen as an incentive for creative artists. The idea was that they would have a limited time in which they could exploit their created work for commercial gain after which the work would be available in the public domain for anyone to do with it as they please. Copyrights and patents thus served a dual purpose. They were an incentive for creative people to be creative and to create new works and products. The second purpose was that once the work went out of copyright or patent protection into the public domain, the nation's cultural heritage would be enriched and succeeding generations would have a richer, more diverse heritage to build upon. Many of the cultural icons in most societies, specially Western ones, are as such because the original work either went out of copyright or the copyright holder did not strictly enforce his rights. Not just the local culture, but also the global culture is thus richer as a result.

The situation today is different. The value of enforcing copyrights and patents has increased dramatically. Not only that, but copyrights are increasingly being held by organizations and not by individuals. What is good for the organization is not necessarily good for the culture as a whole. What makes the matter worse is that copyright (and patent) enforcement frequently results in increased charges to the end consumer. When payments are tried to be collected globally, the product usually goes out of the reach of most consumers in developing countries who do not have the financial power of consumers in the developed countries. Sometimes, these attempts at rent collection results in consumers being left physically worse than before.

I'll give an example here. The example is the patents held by Western pharmaceutical companies on existing AIDS medication. While these medicines do not cure the disease, they do enable AIDS sufferers to lead relatively long, productive lives. These medicines are also priced at a level that Western consumers can (barely) pay. As a result, nearly the entire developing world cannot afford to buy them. Even governments in developing countries cannot afford to these medications due to their high cost. Millions of people are thus left to suffer a significantly lower quality of life. When developing world governments in desperation turned towards generic medicines, the Western pharmaceutical companies tried to prevent them from doing so backed by the full might of their national government (specifically the US). It was only a global and specially Western public backlash that forced these companies to back down. Their counter-offer was to reduce the price of these drugs by 90%. Unfortunately, the price was still significantly higher than the price being offered by generic manufacturers. What galls people in the developing world is that when the developed nations have what they perceive as a crisis, they suspend the rules for themselves that they impose on less powerful nations. When the US was faced with the possibility of the Swine Flu spreading dramatically, they threatened to break the patent of the manufacturer of the only drug, Tamiflu, that was effective against this disease. Previously, when a developing country had threatened to break the AIDS patent, the US government had weighed in on the issue in support of the patent holder. The life of a person in the developing world is not worth the same as the life of a person in the developed world. This is seen as rank hypocrisy in the rest of the world. One rule for the developed nations and another for the rest of the world.

Today the original intention of copyrights and patents has been hijacked. This has been done due to their increasingly lucrative nature. Since organizations hold most copyrights and patents, they have an incentive to have the time under protection extended to the maximum possible extent. That is why in the US, the period of copyright protection has increased over time till now it is over 100 years. The question is why should any organization or person be allowed to enjoy this protection for so long.

A case for extended copyright protection can be made for individuals - specially in cases where one work or a small number of works account for the bulk of an individual's creative output. If a songwriter has a single hit in his/her lifetime, then there is a strong case that he/she should enjoy copyright protection for the duration of his/her life. However, should this protection be enjoyed by the children? Why? Ofcourse a case for this also can be made. After all, children do inherit property and enjoy the benefits thereof even though they may have done nothing personally to obtain the property. But then the question in this case becomes should copyrights and patents be treated in the same fashion as say land is? If yes, then no creative work will come into the public domain and cultural heritage will be significantly poorer as a result. So a strong argument can be made that copyrights should be limited in time to the life of an individual.

What about organizations? Unlike a person, the potential lifespan of an organization is unlimited. Should a copyright or patent held by an organization then be under protection for the lifespan of the organization? Effectively this is what organizations are aiming for when they push for extensions of copyright and patent protection. In some cases, the costs to society are viewed as being so great that this effort is resisted. Thus patent protection for medicines is allowed to expire after a set period of time because this is seen as a net benefit to society as a whole. In other cases, the issue is not so clear cut. Take the case of the operating system OS/2 which is owned by IBM. The company has stopped selling this software and seemingly has no plans to re-introduce it. This is seen by their efforts to move existing customers of OS/2 to other operating system. In such a case, should IBM be forced to move OS/2 into the public domain? If OS/2 is moved into the public domain (and in this case moving into the public domain means putting the source code into the public domain), then either other people will start tinkering with it or they will ignore it. However, this will be a choice exercised by society. In the current scenario, this choice cannot be exercised because IBM refuses to allow other people to tinker with OS/2 thereby behaving rather like the proverbial dog in the manger. If other people are allowed to tinker with it, then who knows, they may produce something superior to current offerings. This did happen in the browser market. After Netscape collapsed, some enthusiasts got together and started developing Firefox based on Netscape. In the process, they re-ignited developments in the browser market which had stagnated as a result of the virtual monopoly exercised by Internet Explorer.

On the whole, I feel that there is a strong societal benefit having strictly temporary copyright and patent protections. The term should be long enough to give the original owner reasonable time to enjoy the benefits of his/her creation. Afterwords, the work should be moved into the public domain. The term of protection shoudl vary with the industry. To give examples, pharmaceutical companies need a relatively long time frame because of a long testing phase and an almost equally long regulatory process. Creative works like books, songs, articles etc. should enjoy protection for the lifetime of the original creator but no longer. The benefit to society outweighs the benefits that would accrue to the children. For software, protection should be afforded for a fairly limited period like say 10 years or as long as the product is commercially available whichever is shorter. Generally, a piece of software is no longer commercially available within 5 years of its introduction. Even if the software is made available, its undergoes frequent revisions and later versions bear next to no resemblance to the original version. The point is that a reasonable balance needs to be struck between private interests and societal interests.

Loss of Privacy

1984 by George Orwell is a fascinating book. It is an account of a totalitarian world in which every action and thought is controlled by an all powerful state. Reading it today, it can seem a bit over the top. I bring this book up because our headlong rush into a brave new digital world may inadvertently be creating conditions conducive to something akin to the situation described there. The interconnectedness engendered by the Internet has resulted in a dramatic reshaping of industries and our expectations. Exciting new products and services are popping up almost daily. Existing business models are being mercilessly destroyed. In many cases, it is not certain which new business model will replace the old obsolete one and how long that will last. But what is really of concern is that we as a society are accepting a loss of privacy that would have horrified an earlier generation.

Take cell phones as an example. These devices are now ubiquitous in most parts of the world. Their growth rate has been extremely sharp in developing countries where they have been taken up as an alternative to a usually dysfunctional land line system. However, mobile phones also give governments the power to pinpoint the locations of anyone who uses them. This is a loss of privacy that we as consumers have willingly given up for the convenience in communications that the mobile represents. Credit cards are another good example. Each time we use a credit card to make a purchase, we leave behind an electronic trail - a trail that can be used to determine our likes, dislikes, habits perhaps even modes of thinking. Any website that asks for registration is yet another example. Each website that we register on is another strand of our personality profile that we voluntarily weave.

Together all these developments enable governments to increasingly closely monitor us at an individual level. This is a frightening level of control. Previous governments were constrained by the level of technology available. Today this constraint is being increasingly lifted due to developments in hardware and software. Already, the US government can monitor millions of phone calls in real time. Imagine the level of control that developments in the future can bring. This concern can be countered by saying that democratic governments would never abuse (or at least seriously abuse) the increasing invasion of privacy that technology has enabled. It can also be said that consumer groups and the the rule of law would ensure that citizen's privacy is not violated. The counter to this is Hitler. The Nazi government was democratically elected in what was considered to be one of the most civilized countries in Europe. That government subverted the entire democratic process and marched the country straight into the misery and anarchy of World War II and the horror of the holocaust. The degree of control exercised by the Nazis was astonishing and remember that this was using primitive technology. Of course it can be said that we have learned a lesson from that time and such an event would never be allowed to be perpetrated by a modern, democratic government. But then, what about the reaction of the US after 9/11? The country descended into mass hysteria. The PATRIOT act was passed which would have been impossible in an earlier time. US citizens were required to go for special registration simply based on their place of birth and their religion. Many of these people had been living in the country for decades. Nearly all of them were exemplary citizens. None of that mattered. All this happened in a country with some of the strongest institutions in the world. Take the case of India. In 2002, there was an attack on the Indian parliament. The entire country descended into paranoia and a major war almost started. What about the massacres in Gujarat shortly thereafter? A religious group was deliberately targeted using fairly primitive technology.

Who is to say what will happen in the future. To say that the technologies that allow for loss of privacy will never be used in that fashion is to make an unwarranted assumption. How can we ensure that a demagogue along the lines of say Hitler or Stalin will not rise in the future? Given enough time, the horror of the holocaust will lose its shock value. It will eventually became an event that happened in history. The emotional connection to the event will be lost. This is inevitable because the generation that directly experienced it has largely passed away. The next generation is in its senior years. Another 20 - 30 years and they too will be gone. After that will come generations that will have read about these event only in history books. Like us today, they will insist that such events can never happen - until they do.

Anger

Anger is an interesting emotion. It short circuits the thinking mind and brings out raw emotions. In a state of anger, even the slightest things serve to trigger off a reaction. The problem is that while anger does cause a release in pent up emotion, it always worsens the situation further. What is worse is that anger rebounds on oneself. The other party will merrily go along on their way while the negative effects of anger slowly accumulate and cause harm. controlling anger is also not always possible. Often it just bubbles over suddenly and that of course only causes an already bad situation to become much worse.

Sharia

Mention the word sharia in any conversation in virtually any Muslim country (especially Pakistan) and there are generally two fairly typical reactions. One reaction is that this is an excellent step and should be implemented immediately. What is the delay? The other reaction is that this would be an unmitigated disaster that will take us back centuries and cause ruin and havoc not to mention that all the "fun" would be taken out of life. Reactions in a non-muslim (typically Western) country are generally even more violent to the very thought of Sharia. Why do people have reactions like this?

There is a lot of confusion over exactly what is Sharia. The average Muslim living in a Muslim country is generally unaware of what Sharia is. At this point, let me add a disclosure note. I am not a religious scholar and will not attempt even the beginnings of an answer to the question of what Sharia is. The point of this post in any case is not to try and define Sharia but to try and explore why people have such polarized views to this subject. This confusion has not stopped people - both Muslim and non-Muslim from weighing in on the subject. Interestingly enough, a Google search on what is sharia returns sites that seem to be written primarily by non-Muslims. The main aspect of Sharia that seems to arouse ire one camp and draw explanations from the other is the alleged treatment of women under the law.

The biggest confusion regarding Sharia in the minds of Muslims concerns its status. Is it sacred and therefore fixed for all eternity or can it be adapted to circumstances while staying within certain parameters. There is a good article by Dr. Riffat Hussain which seeks to address this issue. Personally I feel that religious scholars, who are the best authorities on Sharia, have shirked a major responsibility in disseminating information regarding Sharia in a readily understandable format. This has resulted in major misunderstandings and confusion amongst the general population in Muslim countries. These misunderstandings are then seized upon by many in non-Muslim countries who use them for essentially propaganda purposes.

On Maturity

What is maturity? A simple enough question but when I started thinking about it, I realized that it was actually not easy to answer. So why am I writing about it? Indeed, why even ask the question? Good questions. So here's my two bit worth on this subject.

Maturity is something that is never explicitly talked about. Very few people - barring perhaps philosophers - even think about. Yet almost every adult assumes it. One of the unstated definitions of being an adult is achieving a certain level of maturity. If asked if the desired level can be defined more specifically, I doubt whether anyone can answer. Maturity, or rather level of maturity, is clearly a subjective matter. It is difficult to answer because it is a behavioral state. It reflects how a person behaves in different situations whether pleasant or unpleasant. Does one become rapturously happy at the smallest piece of good fortune or suicidally depressed at the smallest bit of misfortune? Maturity is essentially appropriate behavior for the circumstances. But it is not just physical behavior. It is primarily emotional behavior. A person's emotional response to a given situation is far more important than the physical response. Frequently, the emotional response exhibits itself in physical behavior but more often it does not. This is specially true for unpleasant circumstances.

Why ask this question? Too often people exhibit less than mature behavior. It also seems to me that the overall maturity level of the world is going down. A side effect perhaps of the increasing popularity of the escapism inherent in sports and entertainment industries. Perhaps this is something worth thinking about.

Leadership

What is leadership? Most of us can recognize a leader or leadership qualities when we see them. Yet we would be hard pressed to define leadership conclusively. Perhaps this is because different people have different ideas of what constitutes leadership. Leadership can occur in almost any situation. We tend to think of it in grand terms. Someone who leads a nation through a difficult time or gives a grand vision - a destiny you could say - to fulfill. However, leadership occurs in more modest environs as well. Corporate leadership is a well documented phenomenon. Most of the large corporations in the world today were built up through corporate leadership. Many of the improvements in the quality of life were built up through someone taking up an issue and working for improvement in that area.

If defining leadership is hard to pin down, then perhaps we can look at some of the characteristics of leadership. In my view, leaders have a vision for the future towards which they work for. It is a vision that they can inspire in other people as well. Someone who has vision but is unable to inspire it in others fails to become a leader. Leaders need not be charismatic in the strict definition of the word. They do need to bring others round to their vision and that has to be more than strictly utilitarian. Some of the best corporate leaders like Jack Welch and Bill Gates have had very clear ideas of where they want their organizations to be.

More later.

On Leadership

Where have the leaders gone? Why are we (and by we, I mean nearly every nation) being led by people who in earlier generations would have been considered pygmies? Tony Blair - a leader? Come on! George W. Bush - a leader? Don't make me laugh. Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Putin; these people cannot be labeled as leaders. The developing countries are led by non-entities except in cases where they are being led by criminals. There are a few exceptions. Obama may shape up to be a leader although the jury is out on that right now. At least he has the ability to inspire people which is one of the hallmarks of a leader.

It was not always thus. The world has experienced leadership - true leadership in living memory. It is said that the moment brings forth the man. Look back into the past. At both moments of existential crises for nations and moments of great importance to them, true leaders have stepped forth - men who inspired their nations through difficult and uncertain times. Abraham Lincoln during the US civil war, Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, Winston Churchill during World War II, George Marshall who helped formulate the Marshall Plan which helped Europe to rebuild after being devastated, Mohandas K. Gandhi - an instrumental figure in the Indian independence movement, Mohammad Ali Jinnah who almost single-handedly created a country, Kemal Ataturk who foiled plans to dismember Turkey and helped the country onto a modern path and many others. There are also negative leaders: men who inspired their nations and then led them onto a destructive path. People like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin - a man who played a destructive role in that he caused the deaths of approximately 20 million in his reign but who also played a positive role in that he inspired his people to resist German invasion in World War II.

So, my original question: where have the leaders gone? The caliber of the political leadership since the 70s has gone into a serious decline. The people who have come to power are not leaders. They have not inspired their nations to new heights or to new ventures. They are pygmies who are obsessed with day to day management and the public opinion. It is a reflection of the times that when someone is thrown from power, or even when that person is in power, his/her ratings in the opinion polls is seriously taken as a measure of success. In fifty years time, no one will remember what the opinion polls said about say Tony Blair. Instead he will have been judged on his record, his actions during power. Personally I doubt anyone will think of Blair as a leader. Today, we are faced with serious economic, ecologic, cultural and political crises. Many of them are large enough to cause massive disruption individually and we are faced with a whole host of them all at once. The times call for inspiring leadership. Someone who will galvanize and inspire the population. What do we have instead? Mostly moral pygmies who inspire nothing but distrust and contempt.

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• President Bill Clinton on FDR (time.com)

A Matter of Trust

There is a news report that Chinese trust prostitutes more than politicians and scientists. Apparently, an online survey was published by Insight China magazine. It seems that 7.9% of respondents consider prostitutes to be trustworthy putting them in third place behind farmers and religious workers. Scientists get a bad rap coming in close to politicians and teachers. Least credible were secretaries, real estate developers, agents, entertainers and directors. An editorial on China Daily on this rather surprising finding can be found here.

On the face of it, this result is quite surprising. But think about it. What is trust? Trust can be defined as a person on whom or thing on which one relies. Wikipedia defines trust as a "relationship of reliance." No moral judgment needs to be made in matters of trust. In this respect, it is paradoxically not surprising that prostitutes can be viewed as more trustworthy than say politicians. After all, when someone visits a prostitute, he knows exactly what he is getting. There are no undertones. There is a straight forward commercial transaction taking place with both parties knowing what they are getting. Of course I am not condoning prostitution in any fashion. I am simply making a statement regarding the nature of transaction.

Politicians are expected to do anything to stay in power so it is not surprising that they are not trusted. What about scientists.?These people are supposed to advance the state of our knowledge in an impartial manner. Supposedly facts rule in matters scientific. A single contrary observation is sufficient to disprove scientific "fact" that may be held for centuries. Take the case of swans. For centuries, it was a proven "fact" that all swans are white. Countless observations over the years had established this beyond any doubt. Until the first black swan was sighted. Immediately the statement "all swans are white" was disproved. So in this highly objective field, why do scientists have so little credibility? Part of the reason can be that over the years, there have been many exposes that have reduced the credibility of scientists. There is a mystique of scientists that they are supremely objective and pursue knowledge for its own sake; unmoved by monetary considerations. However, scientists are also human and many have slipped from the pedestal that they have been placed on by the average layperson. There have been too many cases of scientists colluding with companies to suppress negative research or scientists fudging their results or even stealing other people's work.

What is certain is that trust takes a long time to build and a very short time to be destroyed. What is also certain is that untrustworthy individuals and institutions ultimately suffer the ill effects of their actions. Often it seems that such people can get away with murder. However, fate has a habit of creeping up unawares and striking when you least expect it.

Is There a Purpose to Life?

Is there a purpose to life? For many people, this is probably a stupid question. We are alive. Not just that, we happen to belong to a species that can indulge in abstract thought such as this question. But really, is there a purpose to life? Perhaps more relevant can be can we supply a purpose to our lives? Surely there has to be more to life than just work and shopping. This is what the economic paradigm of the last thirty years has been telling us. We are nothing more than consumers whose sole purpose in existence is to shop and to do that we need to work like dogs. Marketing efforts have convinced a large number of us (maybe all of us) that buying products can make us cool and sexy and help us attract hot chicks (or guys) and make us successful and powerful and what not.

I don't know but this sounds rather sad and pathetic. Work like a dog during the week. Party desperately in the weekend in a sad effort to make it seem worthwhile and don't forget the shopping!

Environmental Responsibility

For far too long, we, as a species, have treated our natural environment in a most cavalier fashion. It is now acknowledged that humans are responsible for the death of mega fauna that used to roam in both the American continents and in other places like Australia and New Zealand. the initial assumption of people in first entering a new land and discovering a rich and seemingly inexhaustible menageries of animals was to assume that the numbers were infact inexhaustible. The discovery that they were not would come when species were driven to extinction and this would inevitably be followed by a crash in population numbers. However, hunter gatherer societies would subsequently adjust themselves in rough harmony with the resources subsequently available.

This calculus started to change with the development of agriculture. Farming allowed a sharp increase in population numbers which in turn allowed some members of the community to start specializing in non farm activities and this eventually led to the development of urban civilization. Pre-industrial farmers were not able to control many variables that affected them. Mortality rates remained at a high level. The development of areas under centralized rule (aka empires) would result in stable conditions conducive to population growth. The population level would slowly increase until some external or internal shock disrupted the system at which point the level would fall often dramatically. Think of the fall of the Roman empire and the Black Plague. Recovery would then restart from this lower level. Pre-industrial societies were also not capable of truly intensive utilization of resources. So a low level of utilization and periodic shocks to the system would allow the natural world to recover. This is not to say that things would return to the state they were in before humans came in. Enough of a respite would be given so that resources, specially animals, were not in real danger of being driven to extinction by human activities.

Several things changed this state of affairs. One was the development of gun powder. Guns allowed for far greater efficiencies in killing both humans and animals. While the earliest guns were cumbersome machines prone to difficulties, these were soon improved upon and the 19th century saw rapid improvement in the quality and capabilities of guns. A second element was improved means of transport. This enabled large number of people to move from one area and settle in another. These settlers came equipped with guns which enabled them to fight off the challenge posed by more primitive societies. Guns also enabled them to harvest animal resources more efficiently. Concurrently with technological developments was the development of a mind set which saw the world as subservient to humans. This viewpoint viewed anything not in the service of the community to be a waste. All of these changes combined with the ancient mind set that viewed natural resources as inexhaustible.

Industrial development resulted in vastly enhancing the impact that humans have on the planet. Since the mind set did not change, this resulted in a dramatic increase in the extinction rate of species and hugely intensified harvesting of natural resources; this resulted in extraction without regard for the environment and resulted in huge losses of forest cover (to cite one example). The net result is that our activities threaten the health of the planet and therefore threatens our continued existence. At the very least, the civilization that we have built cannot continue as before. We are dependent on the biosphere. No one has yet figured out how to survive independently of the natural world.

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• Humans 'driving Earth's extinction' (guardian.co.uk)

The Importance of History

In a modern world gone mad over materialism and obsessing over technology and gadgets, history seemingly plays an unimportant role. The global culture is forward looking. It denigrates the old over the new. The advice that older people can give is ignored as being from the fossilized knowledge of the past. History is regarded merely stories of old; of no relevance to the present and certainly not affecting the future. What is past is past right? No use crying over spilt milk after all.

This is a general view held by people at large. Governments know better. He who controls history controls society's perception of itself in the present. This is why governments have carefully controlled the presentation of history taught to students. The same events can result in wildly differing interpretations. Take the partition of India into two countries in 1947. Was it a step that gave Muslims in India a homeland or was it the division of Mother India? Similarly, was Gandhi a peace loving man who defined a new method of resisting colonialism or was he a cynical manipulator who knew how to push the right buttons to get what he wanted? Going back in the past, who was Mahmud of Ghazni: a staunch Muslim who shattered idolatry or a power mad, money grubbing invader who destroyed temples indiscriminately for the sake of booty? As we can see, one man's villain can be another man's hero.

The point that governments realize is that society's and individual's view of themselves is strongly rooted in their history. Every single nation to a certain extent mythologizes its past. Indeed every single religion has also done so. Christianity is a prime example of this. For almost 300 years after Jesus, there were massive debates within the community on how to present Jesus. Was he the son of God? Was he a prophet sent by God? Was he sent only to the Jews or was he sent to all the peoples of the world? Countless gospels, letters, epistles, acts etc., nearly all purporting to come from the disciples of Jesus circulated during this period. Each presented Jesus in a specific light in an attempt to address these and similar questions. Eventually one point of view won out over the others. Books which supported this point of view were deemed to be scripture while the rest were condemned as apocrypha. The fact remains that for almost 300 years, people who considered themselves to be pious and sincere Christians believed in these other books and yet today any Christian who professes belief in such books is considered to be heretical.

So history instead of being a dull subject; mere stories from the past is actually crucial to a society's view of itself. The same phenomenon also operates at an individual level. People who do well at their chosen careers tend rewrite their history in a more heroic light. People who do not do so well also tend to do the same. A recent interesting (albeit somewhat extreme) case has been that of Howard Manoian, an American WWII veteran who claimed a more heroic role in the war than had actually been the case. On a more prosaic level, people rewrite personal histories to justify and minimize perceived failure and highlight perceived successes.

So we see that history is actually an extremely important subject. The present is composed of decisions made in the past just as the future will be molded by decisions being made in the present. Our sense of who we are and where we come from stems from our understanding of our history at each level: personal, local, regional, national and religious.

Where is The Wisdom?

We live in an age of easy information. This is a most unusual situation. Historically, nearly everyone has been information poor. It took time for information to travel from one place to another; even between places that are relatively close to each other. Even 40 years ago, it was not common for news to be transmitted internationally. Indeed, in nearly all parts of the world, news and information was essentially local. In the early 90's, many companies were still using telexes for international communication - a decades old method of transmitting information. Locally typewriters (by this time electronic ones) and hand written memos were still being used. Fax had recently been introduced. In many subsidiaries of multinationals, fax machines were kept at the chief executive's office.

All this changed within a decade. The transformation has been astonishing. The simultaneous development of email and the web transformed the way businesses and individuals communicate. Information, which previously had been hard to find suddenly became easily accessible; to the extent that a new term - information overload - had to be coined. Earlier generations would have found this concept most intriguing. An entire generation has grown up with easy access to incredible amounts of information. Yet in all this deluge of information, we seem to have lost knowledge. More importantly, we seem to have lost wisdom - the ability to couple information with right and wrong.

A Question of Ethics

Science has advanced at a far more rapid pace than our capacity to assimilate these changes. A good example of this is the debate on stem cell research. Should this be allowed or not. Both sides have their point of view which they are unwilling to change. Proponents say that stem cell research will result in break-throughs in medical advances. New types of treatments and cures for existing ailments will be developed. Opponents generally rely on the argument that all life including fetal life is sacred.

Another example: developments in genetics will soon allow people to screen for genetic abnormalities in fetuses. However, what is to prevent couples from making changes that are cosmetic in nature like increasing height? Is it ethical to do so? What about couples who opt not to do these kind of changes? What about couples who cannot afford to have these kind of changes done? Won't these be steps towards creating a society where opportunities are not equal because of genetic manipulations? Would we want to live in a society like that? These questions have been raised in books like Brave New World (by Aldous Huxley) and in movies like Gattaca.

What about using sperm banks to inseminate a woman when her husband is infertile? Should this be allowed?

Can You Say God Willing?

I recently read The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. This is an account of a personal experiment carried out by Mr. Jacobs in which he attempts to live a year by adhering as strictly as possible in accordance with the various rules and regulations specified in the Bible. An often funny account, it also illustrates how disconnected the average Western person has become from their religious roots.

One thing caught my eye in the book. At one point the author starts adding the words "God willing" to every future tense sentence. This was apparently in accordance with Proverbs 27:1 which states "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." As a Muslim I found this most interesting because most Muslims as a matter of routine add "God willing" (actually its Arabic equivalent InshaAllah) whenever they have to commit to an action in the future. For most Muslims, this is a routine and natural statement said without any hesitation or embarrassment but it was obvious from reading the book that the author and his family were uncomfortable with his saying it.

This got me to thinking why this could be so. Can it be that people in the West are uncomfortable with the idea that they are not completely in control of their lives? Why is it easier to say f--k for example than to say God willing? Anyone got any idea?

Is Religion a Conservative or a Liberal Force?

Most people would answer the above question very forcefully as conservative. Throughout the world, religion - and here I am not talking of any particular religion - is considered to be a strongly conservative force. A large number of people who think of themselves as liberal would insist that religion is not only conservative, it is reactionary. This is an assessment that I would disagree with. I believe that contrary to general opinion, religion is actually a liberating force. Let me add that here I am not talking about cults; I am talking religion in the traditional sense of the word.

Why do I make this claim? It is important to distinguish between what a religion teaches and the actions of the adherents of that religion. Consider Christianity. It is considered to be a religion of love. Yet throughout history, the most violent and intolerant actions have been those of people who considered themselves devout and pious Christians. Again consider Islam. A religion of peace. The very name means submission and is a root for peace in Arabic. Yet today, many non-muslims regard it as a violent religion. So the actions of a religion's adherents can be at a disconnect with the teachings of that religion. Again, take Islam. The religion gave women rights to property and inheritance at a time when they were universally considered to be the property of males with no rights of their own. This is an astonishingly liberal act done in a strikingly conservative milieu.

It has been said before that anyone can read whatever they like in the holy texts of their religion. That is undoubtedly true and generally speaking, a strongly conservative interpretation has been done on these texts. Yet the fact remains that many of the positions taken in these texts are unambiguously liberal.

I hate conspiracy theories. They reek of paranoia to me. People who ascribe to them seem to me to be living in a fantasy world where there are vast impersonal forces out to get them or their country or their religion or whatever. Name any group in the world and there are people - seemingly sane, rational people - who will fervently subscribe to such beliefs. There are a vast number of such conspiracies. So many that the Daily Telegraph has a list of the top thirty. There is nothing that one can do to dissuade someone from believing in a conspiracy theory. Such people will always find some small alleged anomaly or string of coincidences and thereby build a mountain out of a molehill.

Yet, events in the recent past have led to conclude that there is a conspiracy to isolate Pakistan internationally and damage it economically. There seems to be not one grand conspiracy but a nexus of them which may be operating independently but the effects of one are reinforcing the effects of others.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day has again passed with its usual share of controversies in some parts of the non Western world. It is a reflection of the current cultural strength of the West that this occasion has been adopted by cultures in parts of the world which have no such tradition. Many would argue that this day is a harmless expression of love. Others protest vociferously at perceived cultural contamination. Both have a valid but incomplete point of view.

People who enthusiastically adopt this day usually have no knowledge of the historical background. Who was Valentine and how did Valentine's Day become associated with romantic love? Valentine is the name of several early Christian martyrs. Indeed there seem to have been so many of them that until 1969, the Catholic Church recognized no fewer than eleven Valentine's Days. February 14 is associated with two (possibly three) of these Valentines. One was Valentine of Rome, a priest who was killed around AD 269; another was Valentine of Terni who was apparently killed during the reign of Emperor Aurelian; there also seems to have been a third Valentine who was killed in Africa but not much seems to be known about him. Early Christianity does not seem to have associated romantic love with any of these people. The first linkage of February 14 as Valentine's Day associated with romance seems to have been done by Chaucer. Prior to this there seems to be no evidence of any such linkage. However, in the pre Christian era, the period between mid January and mid February was deedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera. So what seems to have happened is that a pre Christian, pagan celebration got adopted in a modified form during the European Middle Ages. The festival was reinvented in the nineteenth century starting from England and then spreading from there. While Europe and the US could be expected to naturally adopt the festival, its spread around the world was fuelled to a large extent by colonialism. The impact of colonialism was not restricted to the military sphere. The European conquerors were not content merely to physically conquer other places. They were genuinely convinced of the superiority of their culture and so in most places, there was a concerted attempt to extinguish the local (and supposedly inferior) culture and put in its place Western culture. The most determined attempt in this regard was made by the French followed by British. The colonials least concerned about cultural matters seem to have been Belgians whose main interest was economic and who went about their business in a rabidly mercenary fashion. But the full cultural impact of the West in most parts of the world came after independence was granted to the colonies. The reason for this was that the colonial authorities tended to temper the civilizing zeal of their compatriots to the exigencies of peacefully controlling the native population. After independence, such termpering instincts were removed. This period also coincided with the rise and fairly rapid spread of radio, movies and television. These proved to be excellent conduits of cultural transmission. These technologies were first developed in the US which thereby gained an unparalled transmitter of American values. The relevance of this to Valentine's Day is that it was in the US that this holiday got truly commercialized and this was then transmitted around the world via the afore mentioned electronic media. So when non Western people celebrate Valentine's Day, they are actually honoring early Christian saints. Ofcourse, by now much of the religious connotation of the festival has been stripped off by the demands of commercialization. It should also be mentioned that adoption of Valentine's Day by non Western, non Christian people reflects their cultural confusion (and in certain respects schizophrenia). This festival is associated with romance. Most of the couples celebrating this in Pakistan would actually have had arranged marriages where romantic love before marriage is generally not a factor. Even for many couples who have not gone the arranged marriage route would be opposed to their children doing the same.

So what about people who oppose this festival? Their opposition is generally visceral. It reflects a rejection of all things Western. These people tend to view things in black and white. Adoption of a festival like this is viewed as cultural contamination. They tend to forget that the culture that they are trying to keep pure is itself a result of many influences over the centuries. Generally, this is presented as a case of religious purity. Most traditional holidays and festivals around the world have their origins in religion. When a festival crosses over as in the case of Valentine's Day, then a question of perceived religious contamination can occur. Usually in such a cross-over, the receiving culture strips out the original religious connotation. A case in point is the festival of Basant which is celebrated in both India and Pakistan. Basant is a Hindu festival held in honor of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and art. The festival is held on the traditional first day of spring and is a celebration of the arrival of spring after a hard winter. During centuries of co-existence, the festival was adopted by the Muslim community which removed the original religious connotations and reduced it into a simple and secular celebration of the arrival of spring after a hard winter. Yet in recent times, this festival has become controversial purely on the basis of religious contamination. The interesting aspect about such debates is that the grandchildren of people who oppose such cross-overs may well end up celebrating them!

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A Delusional State

The world has been living in a state of delusion for a long time now. It is now payback time for the excesses of the last several decades. The delusion was that the world can be endlessly exploited without thought of consequences. The growth of consumerism as a leading global ideology has contributed enormously to this delusional mindset. Modern capitalism has both driven and is being driven by consumerism. Short term financial thinking and an emphasis on the bottom line has led companies to try and condition people into equating personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions in general and their own specific product in particular. Take virtually any advertisement and you will see this element at work. To take an example: I recently saw an ad for a fridge which showed a glamorous woman behaving excitedly and dancing with joy around it. There was no mention of the specific characteristics of the product itself; why should anyone buy it, what made this brand superior to others, what specific benefits did this brand deliver that others did not or if they did in what fashion were these benefits superior to the offerings of competitors? None of these questions were addressed by the ad. Instead the focus was on convincing viewers that purchase of this particular brand would make them feel better or enhance their status. To take another example: you see people wearing branded shirts and the like. Sometimes these have messages written on them. Generally these messages aim to amuse or shock. If you see the ads for such clothing, the message will emphasize how this particular item will help a person express his or her unique individuality. Yet there will be several thousand people (at the very least) who will be wearing such clothes.

It is this equating of personal happiness and consumption that drives the current model of capitalism. If consumers are not made to feel that they have to buy items which they generally do not require, then the whole edifice starts coming down. The result was that consumers in the developed countries ended up with massive debts and this debt fueled consumption model was exported around the world. Now, however, the credit crunch has exposed the limitations of this model. It seems that this method of business has reached its limits and a painful period of adjustment has started.

New Year, New Hope?

New year has usually been seen as a signal of a new dawn; a new hope. A year in which we can shake off the mistakes of the past year and begin afresh from a clean slate as it were. Such hopes never come to pass and the new year resolutions that are so piously made every year are promptly broken and quickly fade from memory. So far, signs are not good to justify having a new hope but lets see....