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Abdul Razzak is an ordinary man who was caught up in an extraordinary event. Awakened on Boxing Day by the violent shaking of an observation tower, he and two of his colleagues hurriedly dressed and ran down to identify the cause. "Then, I remembered what I used to see on National Geographic last year, every Friday, 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. A Tsunami can be caused by three reasons” Abdul Razzak recalled: “an undersea earthquake, a volcano erupting within the sea, or a massive boulder plunging into the water. I immediately told my colleagues to take my motorcycle and rush to as many villages as they could, and tell them to evacuate immediately.''
Razzak’s quick thinking ensured that 1500 residents were up in the hills, safely, while the Tsunami below was destroying their villages. His quick thinking, based on knowledge that he had gained from watching countless documentaries on the National Geographic channel, is commendable. Sadly, in a world where there has never been so much information, Razzak’s example seems out of the norm: a rare reminder of the power of informed decision making.
Examples of misinformation are easier to come by: a few months after the Iraq war 70% of Americans still thought that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9-11 attacks; a third of the American public believes US forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons. Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. The results startled even the experienced pollsters who conducted and analyse the surveys. "It's a striking finding," said Steve Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which asked the weapons questions during a poll of 1,256 respondents. He added: "Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention, this level of misinformation suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." Though some may dismiss these findings, the lack of informed thinking in the world’s only superpower has profound implications on the nature of international relations and US foreign policy.
Being ill informed is not confined to the US, those in the Muslim world and Europe are equally liable to believe in arrant nonsense. If accountability of decision making is to have any meaning, then to borrow an American phrase the “folks” must be informed. Yet as we engage in serious issues ranging from reconstructing South East Asia, to addressing poverty in Africa, to bringing a new political system to Iraq one is felt wondering how informed we really are about the numerous complexities and nuances that exist in the world around us. How much do we rigorously question the same tired solutions that are continually offered but which have failed in the past? How much do we really question the prevailing wisdom, challenge the status quo or seek alternative solutions? Politicians are often quick to claim, with absolute confidence, that the solutions they advocate on a daily basis are right to the exclusion of all other possibilities. To quote Shakespeare “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” Shakespeare’s point seems valid when reviewing the anarchy in Iraq, the daily death toll of children in Africa (3000 a day) from preventable diseases and the crippling debt servicing in South East Asia,
It is with this in mind that we have prepared a set of articles in this month’s issue, which we hope will challenge us out of some of our intellectual comfort zones and cherished paradigms. In the feature article we argue that the explicit bargain within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty has completely broken down, especially after America’s nuclear posture review was published in December 2001. If nuclear nations are not going to dismantle their extensive arsenals, Iran should not be prevented from developing a nuclear program especially when her national security is at stake. The idea that democracies can only be trusted with the world’s worst weapons is challenged extensively in the article. Talking about democracy, Jamal Okae challenges the ‘sacred’ notion that democracy is a universal political system suitable for every time, every place and every part of the world. Democracy, he argues, is at best a mere means, one of many which seeks to achieve the shared end of good governance, electoral participation, political accountability and the rule of law. In another article Farooq Khan argues that the primacy of nationalism and the nation state in modern day western thinking remains an anachronistic notion in a post enlightenment period. Talking about the enlightenment Zeyno Baran of the Nixon Institute and Dr Abdullah Robin articulate their respective cases around the impact of Islamic political parties and their relevance in today’s world. To add to the mix, there are also some provocative articles on the issues surrounding the ‘equality’ of men and women and the theories surrounding the origin of life where I expect significant raising of eyebrows. Finally, there are also articles on the Islamic viewpoints on intellectual property and stem cell research which we hope you will find both stimulating and new.
Of course New Civilisation will play its part in ensuring the creation of a vibrant and informed debate encompassing all shades of political thought, but of course you our readers also share the same burden. It was James Boswell the Scottish author and biographer in his Life of Samuel Johnson who wrote “Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.”
Abdul Razzak certainly understood this, do we?
Sajjad Khan
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