I can understand the pressure that Columbia was under when it invited Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a guest to speak before its student body in New York.
Perhaps it was this pressure that required Columbia's President, Lee Bollinger, to lunch a tirade against the invited guest and find that he exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" and that he was "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." If these comments were made under pressure that that doesn't say much for the independence of our academic institutions, on the other hand if they were made to cause resentment in Iran for the arrogant treatment of its invited President, then they appear to have wildly succeeded.
I am curious as to whether there is any precedence for this at Columbia or any other University in the world where an invited speaker is subjected to taunt and ridicule as part of their Introduction. Introductions, after all, are supposed to be flattering and intended to highlight the achievements of the speaker/guest. The only exception is when the event is a "Roasting". Did someone forget to tell the Iranian President that he had been invited to a Roast?
Usually a speaker is invited so that the audience can find out what he stands for. I am sure Columbia students, New Yorkers, especially the loud vocal New Yorkers know what Columbia's President stands for, and certainly AIPAC appreciated the brilliancy of those comments, but such self-righteous comments uttered from the pulpit of Columbia by the High Priest of Columbia had no place in an Introduction.
We seem to have become so proud of our "freedom of speech", that we have forgotten that we as Americans do not have all the right answers, (and in some cases we don't even have the wrong answers - in other words we are totally clueless). We are, after all the 800-pound Gorilla that pulverizes whatever it steps on. How can we totally neglect the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by our invasion of Iraq, the killing, jailing, maiming of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of our own civil rights, the neglect shown to Katrina victims, the waste of billions of dollars in arms when hundreds (if not thousands) in the US sleep on the streets or in parks and go without insurance.
We sit here in our isolated halls of freedom and chastise individuals and countries that we have never visited and to which the only access we have is through the myopic, cynical view presented by the US Media. Our people sit in an ignorance well being spoon-fed miss-information and one-liners from the media and our politicians lead us guided by night goggles worn (during the day time) by our intelligence agencies. Is it a surprise then that we know so little about what is happening in the world?
How can the President of Columbia University neglect the sad state of education that exists, not just in the quality of education, at the primary and high school levels, but also the exorbitant cost required to attend college and instead taunt the Iranian President on his educational deficiencies?
We have become an arrogant nation that believes that what it does is right, that those who disagree with us are terrorist, and that those who seek to protect their independence are a threat to us. Our strength and our power have indeed gone to our heads as we hippopotamus like wreck wherever we set foot.
We are good at manufacturing reasons to create enemies; it may be more helpful to use our tremendous resources to make friends and to understand where the world is headed. Indeed our economic survival may depend on this as the rest of the world races ahead in educating its people and in developing their economy.
How much time do we have before China comes calling to collect its trillion dollar debt, before Japan comes calling and before all the Indian software engineers and entrepreneurs have departed back to India taking with them their education, their experience and the wealth that they created? Perhaps the sages who live in New York can answer the question but given the track record displayed so far, rather than finding a solution these sages will find another country to blow up. After all even after Iran has been destroyed, there are other countries already on the hit list and we haven’t even scratched the surface.
May I humbly suggest that the next time Columbia invites someone to speak, do let him or her know they will be roasted.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Pakistan Taliban - It is about Education
This morning Benazir Bhutto was brutally assassinated by another misguided individual who thinks the answers to all questions comes from bullets and bombs. I fear that this world is becoming a ruthless, cold place as we enter a century where the "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality has firmly taken hold.
We will spend more than a Trillion Dollars making bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Our ten million dollar cruise missiles will successfully destroy the hundred dollar mud houses in Afghanistan and as the manufacturers of armaments and plans rejoice in the orders that they fulfill, innocents around the world will pay the price for these armaments as the become collateral casualties, collateral refugees who will then spawn another generation of individuals who become the "suiciders" (another word coined by GW) of the future.
Building a school in a country like Pakistan costs barely ten thousand dollars and one can educate almost a hundred students a year there. The trillion we have spend, the gazillions we are getting ready to spend could educate the entire nations of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is where we blunder. We are fighting this battle with weapons when it should be fought with education. The Taliban (the word means "students") are fighting this war with the weapon of "education" (their brand, of course) and by doing so they seem to mock us with not just "the pen is mightier than the sword" but that "the pen is mightier than missiles, bombs and all your armaments put together".
The Al-Qaeda/Taliban have now had a generation schooled in their mold, this generation is now teaching a second generation. Their offer of "education", food and shelter to the poor children of these countries provides them with grateful graduates/talibs who are willing to return the favor by sacrificing themselves for the taliban cause. One would think that with all the suicide bombings that have taken place, the Talibans would run out of "human resources". but by creating a mass educational system, this resource is multiplying and quadrupling, and will continue to do so until such time that we expend our resources in building schools, education, food and a safe place to nurture the young generation of tomorrow. Unfortunately it is much easier for politicians to fear monger than to provide solutions so we are indeed set for a rough ride. Deporting tens of thousands of "illegal" Muslims from the US didn’t help either.
The US should learn from that noble American, Greg Mortensen, who has done more to battle the Taliban influence, by creating schools in the unforsaken parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, then the entire machinery of the US and NATO. In short, we are in a long struggle that has not yet begun. It will begin when we step back from fighting bullets with missiles, and start fighting fanaticism with education.
Bhutto's assassination is not a reflection on Pakistan, it is a response to the stimuli generated by the megatons of bombs that litter the entire world. The more we bomb the greater crescendo this response will reach.
Best wishes for the New Year. In the hope that these musings will be posted to a year gone by, not to return.
We will spend more than a Trillion Dollars making bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Our ten million dollar cruise missiles will successfully destroy the hundred dollar mud houses in Afghanistan and as the manufacturers of armaments and plans rejoice in the orders that they fulfill, innocents around the world will pay the price for these armaments as the become collateral casualties, collateral refugees who will then spawn another generation of individuals who become the "suiciders" (another word coined by GW) of the future.
Building a school in a country like Pakistan costs barely ten thousand dollars and one can educate almost a hundred students a year there. The trillion we have spend, the gazillions we are getting ready to spend could educate the entire nations of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is where we blunder. We are fighting this battle with weapons when it should be fought with education. The Taliban (the word means "students") are fighting this war with the weapon of "education" (their brand, of course) and by doing so they seem to mock us with not just "the pen is mightier than the sword" but that "the pen is mightier than missiles, bombs and all your armaments put together".
The Al-Qaeda/Taliban have now had a generation schooled in their mold, this generation is now teaching a second generation. Their offer of "education", food and shelter to the poor children of these countries provides them with grateful graduates/talibs who are willing to return the favor by sacrificing themselves for the taliban cause. One would think that with all the suicide bombings that have taken place, the Talibans would run out of "human resources". but by creating a mass educational system, this resource is multiplying and quadrupling, and will continue to do so until such time that we expend our resources in building schools, education, food and a safe place to nurture the young generation of tomorrow. Unfortunately it is much easier for politicians to fear monger than to provide solutions so we are indeed set for a rough ride. Deporting tens of thousands of "illegal" Muslims from the US didn’t help either.
The US should learn from that noble American, Greg Mortensen, who has done more to battle the Taliban influence, by creating schools in the unforsaken parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, then the entire machinery of the US and NATO. In short, we are in a long struggle that has not yet begun. It will begin when we step back from fighting bullets with missiles, and start fighting fanaticism with education.
Bhutto's assassination is not a reflection on Pakistan, it is a response to the stimuli generated by the megatons of bombs that litter the entire world. The more we bomb the greater crescendo this response will reach.
Best wishes for the New Year. In the hope that these musings will be posted to a year gone by, not to return.
Words, Inspirations and Politicians
My very first political memory was of Robert F. Kennedy when he visited the Monterey Airport on March 25, 1968. Having enrolled at a junior College in Salinas, and having just arrived in the US (legally), here was an opportunity to meet a man who had taken on a sitting President (Lyndon Johnson) and challenged America to bring an end to the Vietnam War. We drove to the Airport in a beat up 1952 Rambler and on the tarmac of the airport eagerly awaited the arrival of Bobbie.
Bobbie's plane landed at this small airport and he was carried off on his shoulders into the crowd. He made his speech and then jumped into the crowd. I remember his words, (Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it) but most of all I remember shaking his hand.
It is indeed fitting that the Kennedy clan has endorsed Barrack Obama for Robert Kennedy inspired Obama. At a Human Rights Award Ceremony presentation in 2005, Barack talked about Bobbie:
"Obviously, much has to do with charisma and eloquence – that unique ability, rare for most but common among Kennedys, to sum up the hopes and dreams of the most diverse nation on Earth with a simple phrase or sentence; to inspire even the most apathetic observers of American life."
It is said that history repeats itself. A lying President (Johnson) who lied about the reason for the Vietnam war, that resulted in 5.1 Million Dead (the US Casualties alone were 350,000) was challenged by a man of charisma and vision. Today Obama rises to challenge in unequivocal terms the deceit of another lying President whose war has so far killed over 1,200,000. Johnson had the decency not to run for another term. Bush has termed out.
We do need change. We do need a leader who looks out for America first and stands up to the interest of the lobbyist. This will not be an easy task for any elected leader, given the millions of dollars that are required to campaign, and the millions more that fill the coffers of the US Congress, but to the extent that a leader is elected by the grass roots he stands a better chance of fulfilling the promise of America.
It will ultimately not be the words that the great orator speaks that will define the actions, but the expectations that the citizenry places upon him or her and whether those expectations can check the might (and the beauty) of the lobbyist bearing fruit.
Bobbie's plane landed at this small airport and he was carried off on his shoulders into the crowd. He made his speech and then jumped into the crowd. I remember his words, (Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it) but most of all I remember shaking his hand.
It is indeed fitting that the Kennedy clan has endorsed Barrack Obama for Robert Kennedy inspired Obama. At a Human Rights Award Ceremony presentation in 2005, Barack talked about Bobbie:
"Obviously, much has to do with charisma and eloquence – that unique ability, rare for most but common among Kennedys, to sum up the hopes and dreams of the most diverse nation on Earth with a simple phrase or sentence; to inspire even the most apathetic observers of American life."
It is said that history repeats itself. A lying President (Johnson) who lied about the reason for the Vietnam war, that resulted in 5.1 Million Dead (the US Casualties alone were 350,000) was challenged by a man of charisma and vision. Today Obama rises to challenge in unequivocal terms the deceit of another lying President whose war has so far killed over 1,200,000. Johnson had the decency not to run for another term. Bush has termed out.
We do need change. We do need a leader who looks out for America first and stands up to the interest of the lobbyist. This will not be an easy task for any elected leader, given the millions of dollars that are required to campaign, and the millions more that fill the coffers of the US Congress, but to the extent that a leader is elected by the grass roots he stands a better chance of fulfilling the promise of America.
It will ultimately not be the words that the great orator speaks that will define the actions, but the expectations that the citizenry places upon him or her and whether those expectations can check the might (and the beauty) of the lobbyist bearing fruit.
Pakistan election - Winner Beware
Musharraf's party has been routed at the polls. This is another manifestation of a sea of change sweeping the world. This is the reverse of the trend that swept the world when religious parties dominated: Christian Fundamentalist helping Bush, Islamist gaining power in Pakistan, BJP dominating India and Jewish right wingers controlling Israel.
The religious parties, while still a factor, no longer dominate.
In Pakistan, the election in spite of, and not because of Musharraf (lest we forget the pre-election maneuvering by which BB was in and Sharifs were out), were mostly fair. There are several reports of voters not being on the list and there appear to be several "landslide" type victories which may not be the result of free polls, but all in all this was a good election.
The polls reflect the soft voices of the people of Pakistan. While the loud screaming, demonstrations and protests of these people were loudly ignored, these "soft-speak" cannot be ignored.
It is now time for Musharraf to avoid confrontation and resign, the people of Pakistan do not care for him and he is a liability. He has had his time in the sun, he now needs to move on and he should do so expeditiously while the people of Pakistan are in a forgiving mood. They can celebrate his "fairness" and let him depart with dignity.
As for the opposition parties, the concern is not so much as to whether they can work with each other. The concern is that given their history of corruption whether they will sell out to Musharraf and seek to form a government with Musharraf's support.
To do so will be a betrayal of what the people of Pakistan and will undoubtedly lead to another round of chaos and pandemonium.
The religious parties, while still a factor, no longer dominate.
In Pakistan, the election in spite of, and not because of Musharraf (lest we forget the pre-election maneuvering by which BB was in and Sharifs were out), were mostly fair. There are several reports of voters not being on the list and there appear to be several "landslide" type victories which may not be the result of free polls, but all in all this was a good election.
The polls reflect the soft voices of the people of Pakistan. While the loud screaming, demonstrations and protests of these people were loudly ignored, these "soft-speak" cannot be ignored.
It is now time for Musharraf to avoid confrontation and resign, the people of Pakistan do not care for him and he is a liability. He has had his time in the sun, he now needs to move on and he should do so expeditiously while the people of Pakistan are in a forgiving mood. They can celebrate his "fairness" and let him depart with dignity.
As for the opposition parties, the concern is not so much as to whether they can work with each other. The concern is that given their history of corruption whether they will sell out to Musharraf and seek to form a government with Musharraf's support.
To do so will be a betrayal of what the people of Pakistan and will undoubtedly lead to another round of chaos and pandemonium.
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