Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Opinion: THE STONE - Humans Are Animals. Let’s Get Over It.
By Crispin Sartwell
It’s astonishing how relentlessly Western philosophy has strained to prove we are not squirrels. If one were to read through the prefaces and first paragraphs of the canonical works of Western philosophy, one might assume the discipline’s primary question to be this: What makes us humans so much better than all the other animals? Really, it’s astonishing how relentless this theme is in the whole history of philosophy. The separation of people from, and the superiority of people to, members of other species is a good candidate for the originating idea of Western thought. And a good candidate for the worst. The Great Philosopher will, before addressing himself to the deep ethical and metaphysical questions, pause for the conventional, ground-clearing declaration: “I am definitely not a squirrel.” This is evidently something that needs continual emphasizing. Rationality and self-control, as philosophers underline again and again, give humans a value that squirrels lack (let’s just stick with this species for the time being), a moral status unique to us. We are conscious, and squirrels, allegedly, are not; we are rational, and squirrels are not; we are free, and squirrels are not. We can congratulate ourselves on the threat averted. But if we truly believed we were so much better than squirrels, why have we spent thousands of years driving home the point? It’s almost as though the existence of animals, and their various similarities to humans, constituted insults. Like a squirrel, I have eyes and ears, scurry about on the ground and occasionally climb a tree. (One of us does this better than the other does.) Our shared qualities — the fact that we are both hairy or that we have eyes or we poop, for example — are disconcerting if I am an immortal being created in the image of God and the squirrel just a physical organism, a bundle of instincts. One difficult thing to face about our animality is that it entails our deaths; being an animal is associated throughout philosophy with dying purposelessly, and so with living meaninglessly. It is rationality that gives us dignity, that makes a claim to moral respect that no mere animal can deserve. “The moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality,” writes Immanuel Kant in “Critique of Practical Reason.” In this assertion, at least, the Western intellectual tradition has been remarkably consistent. The connection of such ideas to the way we treat animals — for example, in our food chain — is too obvious to need repeating. And the devaluation of animals and disconnection of us from them reflect a deeper devaluation of the material universe in general. In this scheme of things, we owe nature nothing; it is to yield us everything. This is the ideology of species annihilation and environmental destruction, and also of technological development. Further trouble is caused when the distinctions between humans and animals are then used to draw distinctions among human beings. Some humans, according to this line of thinking, are self-conscious, rational and free, and some are driven by beastly desires. Some of us transcend our environment: Reason alone moves us to action. But some of us are pushed around by physical circumstances, by our bodies. Some of us, in short, are animals — and some of us are better than that. This, it turns out, is a useful justification for colonialism, slavery and racism. Every human hierarchy, insofar as it can be justified philosophically, is treated by Aristotle by analogy to the relation of people to animals. One might be forgiven for thinking that Aristotle’s real goal is not to establish the superiority of humans to animals, but the superiority of some people to others. “The savage people in many places of America,” writes Thomas Hobbes in “Leviathan,” responding to the charge that human beings have never lived in a state of nature, “have no government at all, and live in this brutish manner.” Like Plato, Hobbes associates anarchy with animality and civilization with the state, which gives to our merely animal motion moral content for the first time and orders us into a definite hierarchy. But this line of thought also happens to justify colonizing or even extirpating the “savage,” the beast in human form. Our supposed fundamental distinction from “beasts, “brutes” and “savages” is used to divide us from nature, from one another and, finally, from ourselves. In Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates divides the human soul into two parts. The soul of the thirsty person, he says, “wishes for nothing else than to drink.” But we can restrain ourselves. “That which inhibits such actions,” he concludes, “arises from the calculations of reason.” When we restrain or control ourselves, Plato argues, a rational being restrains an animal. In this view, each of us is both a beast and a person — and the point of human life is to constrain our desires with rationality and purify ourselves of animality. These sorts of systematic self-divisions come to be refigured in Cartesian dualism, which separates the mind from the body, or in Sigmund Freud’s distinction between id and ego, or in the neurological contrast between the functions of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. I’d like to publicly identify this dualistic view as a disaster, but I don’t know how to refute it, exactly, except to say that I don’t feel myself to be a logic program running on an animal body; I’d like to consider myself a lot more integrated than that. And I’d like to repudiate every political and environmental conclusion ever drawn by our supposed transcendence of the order of nature. I don’t see how we could cease to be mammals and remain ourselves. There is no doubt that human beings are distinct from other animals, though not necessarily more distinct than other animals are from one another. But maybe we’ve been too focused on the differences for too long. Maybe we should emphasize what all us animals have in common. Our resemblance to squirrels doesn’t have to be interpreted as a threat to our self-image. Instead, it could be seen as a hopeful sign that we will someday be better at tree leaping.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/opinion/humans-animals-philosophy.html
Christian leaders slam Minister Shah: Pakistan does not protect its minorities
By Shafique KhokharPakistan's Anti-Narcotics Minister Ijaz Shah spoke recently at the centennial of the Saka Nankana or Nankana massacre. His controversial speech sparked outrage. At the ceremony held last Sunday in Nankana Sahib, Lahore (Punjab), the politician said that all minorities in the country are respected and protected, while in India they are the subject of “atrocities”.This elicited an immediate response from some prominent individuals, including some Christians, who cited many examples of violations, evidence that minorities are protected only “on paper”. The minister spoke at an event marking the centenary of the Nankana massacre, an anniversary that brought many Sikh pilgrims from across Pakistan and also abroad.The anniversary commemorates the killing of more than 260 Sikhs, some as young as seven, at the hands of the last Udasi Custodian, Mahant Narayan Das, and his mercenaries when the area was still part of British India. The three-day observance coincided with the birthday of Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism, which was celebrated in the presence of politicians, religious leaders, minority representatives, activists and worshippers gathered in Nankana Sahib. Addressing those present, the Anti-Narcotics Minister said that “good treatment of minorities is one of the obligations of the Islamic religion” and “the white colour in our national flag represents minorities”. Guru Nanak, he added, “taught the lesson of peace and love to people”. Mr Shah also noted that the Baba Guru Nanak University was under construction, and that it would bring an educational revolution in the area, paid entirely by the Pakistani government. The minister's celebratory words raised concern, even outrage, in many representatives of religious minorities who say that it is false to say that “religious minorities enjoy full respect in Pakistan”. For Rev Javed Bashir, a pastor with the Voice of Christ Pentecostal Church in Karachi, Ijaz Shah's words are contrary to reality “because not only Christians, but all minorities face a difficult situation” that is getting worse “day to day”.” “Let us pray for the leaders and authorities of our country, that they may bring true peace and prosperity to our nation,” the Christian leader said. “We are concerned about the future of our young people” and it remains essential to “educate children”. Citing a recent report by International Christian Concern, Rev Bashir noted that non-Muslims are at critical moment, subjected to many abuses and acts of violence. The report, he points out, documents at least 38 episodes of persecution that include “discrimination, sexual assaults, kidnappings, forced conversions, forced marriages, spurious accusations of blasphemy, and even murder.”
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Christian-leaders-slam-Minister-Shah:-Pakistan-does-not-protect-its-minorities-52422.html
On Pakistan’s Minority Persecution ‘Concerns’ – OpEd
By Nilesh KunwarLast Thursday, while speaking at a virtual meeting of United Nations Economic and Social Council on “Reimagining Equality: Eliminating Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination for all,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister [FM] Shah Mahmood Qureshi was at his eloquent best, pitching strongly for the “forging a global alliance against the rise and spread of Islamophobic as well as other violent nationalist and racist groups.” He lamented that hateful political rhetoric and inciting violence against vulnerable ethnic and religious groups being practiced in ‘Pakistan’s neighbourhood’ had “resulted in discriminatory citizenship laws, attacks on places of worship and repeated state-sponsored pogroms against minorities.” Even though Qureshi didn’t specify who was responsible for what he in his wisdom perceives to be a replay of the Holocaust, there are no prizes for guessing at whom this barb had been directed as this completely unsubstantiated and patently motivated refrain has become Islamabad’s staple fare. What’s most intriguing is that despite having failed to garner any meaningful support for its puerile and ineffectual Kashmir narrative, Islamabad still continues to reiterate it on every conceivable occasion. So, it’s not at all surprising that the exasperated international community has even abandoned the diplomatic nicety of at least acknowledging Pakistan’s concerns, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them. Domestic compulsions driving Islamabad’s anti-India tirade are understandable. That’s why its insistence to continue harping on a narrative that’s been univocally rejected by both UN and the international community is indeed intriguing-unless of course, the persistent reprise is inspired by Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels’s dictum that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” However, it seems that Islamabad isn’t aware of, or doesn’t believe in the adage that ‘whenever one points a finger at others, three fingers are pointing back at the accuser’. Since Prime Minister Imran Khan had in 2018 announced with great flourish that “We will show the Modi government how to treat minorities,” Qureshi being anguished by “state-sponsored pogroms against minorities” in Pakistan’s neighbourhood is comprehensible. However, it appears that foreign affairs are keeping him so busy that he’s completely ignorant about pitiable conditions of minorities in his own country on which several international organisations have voiced serious concern. However, since both Khan and Qureshi would outrightly “reject” any such report prepared by an external agency no matter how impartial and credible it may be, let’s restrict ourselves to what the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan [HRCP] itself has revealed. In its annual report [‘State of Human Rights in 2019’], HRCP has listed two damning observations. One, it notes that “Religious minorities remained unable to enjoy the freedom of religion or belief guaranteed to them under the constitution[Emphasis added]. For the Ahmadiyya community in Punjab, this included the desecration of several sites of worship.” Two, that “Both the Hindu and Christian communities in Sindh and Punjab continued to report cases of forced conversion. In Punjab, girls as young as 14 were forcibly converted and coerced into marriage. In Sindh, the case of two Hindu girls whose families claimed they had been kidnapped for marriage and converted forcibly, drew widespread attention when the Islamabad High Court ruled that the girls were not minors at the time of marriage and allowed them to return to their spouses.” [Emphasis added]. Enforced disappearance is another grave issue that ethnic minorities in Pakistan have to grapple with. The 2019 HRCP report makes the shocking revelation that “Pakistan has yet to criminalise enforced disappearances even after a commitment to this effect made by the incumbent government on several occasions” goes on to state that “The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances falls short of being an effective agency to provide relief to the citizens, apportion responsibility and bring perpetrators to justice.” It also mentions that “Since the inception of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, KP [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has topped the list in the numbers of missing persons. At end December 2019, the total number of cases registered in KP stood at 2,472.” [KP is home to Pakistan’s Pashtun minority]. Islamabad will most certainly deny any institutionalised persecution of the Pashtun minority. However, if this is true, then how does it explain Director General [DG] of Pakistan army’s media wing Inter Services Public Relations [ISPR] warning Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement [PTM], a social movement for Pashtun human rights based in KP and Balochistan, by saying that “their time is up”? Is the fact that within a month of the DGISPR issuing this not-so-cryptic threat,13 PTM supporters were killed and over 25 others injured near Kharqamar check post in North Waziristan when the army opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, just a mere coincidence? If Rawalpindi’s contention that soldiers at Kharqamar check post resorted to firing as a last resort after they were attacked by violent PTM demonstrators and had exercised full restraint is really true, three questions still arise. One, if the Pakistan army had really exercised outmost restraint, then how come it ended up inflicting such heavy casualties? Two, if soldiers had acted purely in self-defence, then why was HRCP’s fact finding team stopped by the army from proceeding to the check post for an on-site-investigation? Lastly, as per Rawalpindi, one soldier was killed while five were seriously injured when PTM protesters attacked the Kharqamar check post. So, if PTM workers had indeed been instigated to attack the check post and had both killed and injured soldiers, then why did the government withdraw the cases against National Assembly members Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar who had been arrested by security forces for having incited protesters? The people of Balochistan too have been bearing the brunt of a brutally violent campaign being carried out by Pakistan army in the garb of anti-terrorist operations and today, this region has become inextricably associated with enforced disappearances. In its ‘Public Statement’ of 12 November 2020, Amnesty International [AI] notes that “Enforced disappearances targeting students, activists, journalists and human rights defenders continue relentlessly in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan.” In its recommendation, AI has called upon Pakistani authorities to “Ensure that all measures are taken to immediately end the practice of enforced disappearance.” Though AI’s explicit statement and recommendation addressed to “Pakistani authorities” gives a clear indication of institutional complicity in the repulsive practice of disappearing people, the Government of Pakistan will obviously reject the same. However, even if AI’s observation as well as recommendation is disregarded and Islamabad is given benefit of doubt, this issue doesn’t disappear. Readers may recall that during a media interaction session in 2019, when senior journalist Hamid Mir of Geo TV expressed concern about enforced disappearances in Balochistan and elsewhere, DGISPR replied, “You have a deep attachment with missing persons [but] so have we. We don’t wish that anyone should be missing. But when its war, you have to do a lot of things- as they say, all is fair in love and war; war is very ruthless.” [Emphasis added]. Now with Pakistan army’s media chief himself admitting that Rawalpindi considers military actions against its own citizens who are resisting exploitation of the region’s natural resources and excesses against their people as ‘war’ and follows the “all is fair in love and war” approach to justify enforced disappearances, is any further proof of institutionalised persecution of ethnic minorities in Pakistan necessary? So, rather than levelling unproven accusations in an attempt to malign opponents, it would certainly do Islamabad a lot of good if it focuses more on setting its own house in order, because at the end of the day, the international community neither has time nor the inclination to suffer hypocrites peddling lies.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22022021-on-pakistans-minority-persecution-concerns-oped/
France summons Pakistan envoy over criticism of ‘separatism’ bill
Spat comes after Pakistani President Arif Alvi called on Paris to abandon controversial bill, claiming the law would discriminate against Muslims.
The French foreign ministry has summoned Pakistan’s envoy to protest against claims by President Arif Alvi that a French bill cracking down on what it terms “Islamist extremism” stigmatises Muslims.
Addressing a conference on religion on Saturday, Alvi said: “When you see that laws are being changed in favour of a majority to isolate a minority, that is a dangerous precedent.”
Specifically referring to the legislation drafted after the beheading of a French teacher over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Alvi said: “When you insult the prophet, you insult all Muslims.
“I urge the political leadership of France not to entrench these attitudes into laws … You have to bring people together – not to stamp a religion in a certain manner and create disharmony among the people or create bias.”
Pakistan was one of several Muslim countries that saw angry anti-French protests in October over President Emmanuel Macron’s defence of the right to show cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Pakistan, a country with the second-largest number of Muslims in the world after Indonesia, does not have an ambassador in France.
The French foreign ministry said late Monday it had called in Pakistan’s charge d’affaires to mark “our surprise and our disapproval (over Alvi’s remarks), given that the bill contains no discriminatory element”.
“It is guided by the basic principles of freedom of religion and conscience, makes no distinction between the different religions and applies therefore equally to all faiths,” the ministry said.
“Pakistan must understand this and adopt a constructive attitude for our bilateral relations,” it added.
The bill adopted by the lower house of the French parliament last week is dubbed the “anti-separatism” bill in reference to Macron’s claim that “Islamists” are closing themselves off from French society by refusing to embrace secularism, gender equality and other French values.
The legislation significantly expands the state’s powers to close religious organisations and places of worship if they are found to air “theories or ideas” that “provoke hate or violence towards a person or people”.It also creates a new crime of “separatism” – described as threatening a public servant to gain “a total or partial exemption or different application of the rules” – that is punishable by up to five years in prison.Pakistan’s government has been particularly virulent in its condemnation of Macron’s clampdown, which followed a wave of attacks in recent years on French soil.
Prime Minister Imran Khan in October accused Macron on Sunday of “attacking Islam” and choosing to “encourage Islamophobia” for defending the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/23/france-summons-pakistan-envoy-over-criticism-of-separatism-bill
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