Matins

¶ What kind of a nation is Pakistan? Islamabad professor Pervez Hoodbhoy professes to be hopeful, but he’s honest about foundational tensions that make it difficult for Pakistan to behave like a nation. (Himal; via  3 Quarks Daily)

Dangling the utopia of an Islamic state raised expectations but did little else. To the chagrin of the political and army establishment, it ultimately backfired and became the cause of infinite division. The post-Zia generation – which believes that every issue would be solved if the country were to go back to the fundamentals of Islam – muddles on in a state of deep confusion and deadly divisiveness. It believes that adherence to ‘true Islam’ will solve all problems and lead to a conflict-free society. But, in reality, the Quran and Hadith can be interpreted in multiple ways, and ‘Islamic fundamentals’ can be defined in many contradictory ways. These differences fuel violent political forces, each convinced that they alone understand god’s will. Murderous wars between Sunni and Shia militias started during the late 1980s. Today, even those favouring the utopian vision of an ideal Islamic state are frightened by the Pakistani Taliban, which seeks to impose its version of Sharia through the Kalashnikov and suicide bombings.

All this was easily predictable, as sectarian divides are almost as old as religion itself. Basic questions are fundamentally unanswerable: Which interpretation of Islam, for instance, is the ‘right’ Islam? Of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (Hanafi, Shafii, Maaliki, Hanbali), which version of the Sharia should be adopted? Will all, or most, Pakistanis accept any non-elected amir-ul-momineen (leader of the pious), or a caliph? And what about the Shia? Democracy is excluded in any theocratic state, which, by definition, is a state governed according to divinely revealed principles wherein the head of state, elected or otherwise, interprets such principles and translates them into practical matters of the state.

Meanwhile, Arnaud de Borchegrave takes a look at Turkey’s rapidly-reconfiguring alignments, and goes so far as to assert that the Turkish government sees its American counterpart as “in decline.” (Washington Post; via  RealClearWorld)

Mr. Erdogan, like most world leaders, had high hopes for President Obama. But now they see he is unable to master a dysfunctional system of government; that he may lose one or even both houses of Congress in November; and that Afghanistan appears to be headed for another debacle comparable to Vietnam circa 1975 (when Congress stripped South Vietnam of military aid, in effect inviting North Vietnam to administer the coup de grace). Turkey still maintains 1,750 soldiers in Afghanistan, albeit in a noncombat role to train Afghan soldiers.

One cynical Turkish ex-foreign minister, speculating about the Afghan war, confided, “The way things are going, your Congress will have made Afghanistan secure for China to make a deal with a new Taliban regime to exploit the $3 trillion worth of minerals verified by U.S. intelligence.”

Turkish officials who see the global balance of power trending eastward also can see over the horizon a great Turkic nation that spans most of Central Asia. For them, this is a more exciting vista than a slow NATO retreat from Afghanistan. Or a European Union, where Turkey’s nemesis, Greece, the sick man of Europe, almost collapsed the painfully erected House of Europe.

Vespers

¶ At The Survival of the Book, Brian considers the possibility that the iPad is a great resource for mid-list books.

Ihara goes on to explain why this happens, that we all want to feel we’re moving forward and the endless march of exciting new fiction and revelatory new non-fiction is evidence that yes, there are yet new things to explore and discover. But then he does his magic trick, throwing together the sound argument he has just made – luring us bookie technophobes in with that line about the bookstore, that dog! – by bringing up the opportunity offered by the digital future:

The potential for the iPad to contemporize and repackage novels is endlessly exciting. Novels could get the full “Criterion Collection” experience and come with a wealth of supplementary information: a comprehensive history of a novel’s covers, links to online book communities, reviews, biographies, photgraphs, authors interview, short stories, etc. Zeitgeist would come included.

While We’re Away

¶ From You Are Not So Smart, a word of caution about Confirmation Bias to Internauts and other consumers of I-Know-What-I-Like.

Confirmation bias is seeing the world through a filter, thinking selectively.

The examples above are a sort of passive version of the phenomenon. The real trouble begins when confirmation bias distorts your active pursuit of facts.

Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias.

Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views.

If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn’t, you hate them.

Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.

This is sadly true. We like Rachel Maddow, a lot. But she’s no less a cheerleader than Rush Limbaugh.

¶ So, you wish you could have gone to Shakespeare and Company’s fourth biannual literary festival? What with all the World Cup metaphors, not to mention the usual floods of high-minded eyewash, we don’t. But this passage from Lauren Elkin’s account (at The Millions) gave us a pang:

Saturday night, we headed to the very exclusive private party at an hotel particulier in the 7th.  Kristin Scott Thomas is there, in sky-high Louboutins.  Jeanette Winterson wears a dress. All the big writers and big sponsors are here.  We underlings are thrilled to be at this kind of event: everyone is nervous; everyone is on their best behavior.  Some of us congregate outside in spite of the unseasonable chill.

“What is this place?” Nam Le asked, fresh off a plane from Italy, looking up at the house.

The girl who fetched him from the airport took this as a sign of Nam’s unfamiliarity with Parisian geography, and launched into an explanation. “Well you see if someone were to frown” — she frowned — “then the frown is the Seine, it goes like this, see?” and she began to point out all the monuments of Paris on her face. “So we’re here,” she said, indicating a point right under the middle of her frown.

“Oh,” Nam said. “I was actually wondering about the history of the mansion.”

Kristin Scott Thomas sat on the floor while Natalie Clein gave a transcendental cello performance; meanwhile the kids in the crowd passed around a piece of wood on which someone had painted the words “post-cello dance party!” Natalie eventually finished playing but no one danced.

Have a Look

¶ Another great Volkswagen romp. We think that this is not something that anybody outside of Germany ought to attempt. Joe Jervis writes,

Man, I’d love to see this next to that horrid six-story monster at Lex and 53rd.

Er, all we can conjure is a scene drawn by R Crumb.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, June 25th, 2010 at 10:02 am.