Senator John McCain, the US Republican choice for presidential nominee, has made an ill-advised, highly political choice of vice presidential candidates in Sarah Palin. She is an incredibly under-accomplished, far-right wing, inexperienced woman whose only significant political experience is being the governor of Alaskaa and an Alaskan city of 9,000 people, Wasilla.
One might think that this woman, who only holds an undergraduate degree from Idaho State and whose policies reflect her utter lack of education and grip on reality, foreign policy, economics, defense, environment, etc, might be unelectable. Unfortunately, as the election of George W Bush before her proves, Americans are apt to vote based purely on personality, looks and lifestyle, not on qualifications, education, policy or experience.
Beyond Palin's corrupt political career, abandonment of her own home state in pursuit of national political aims (her lobbying for a $200 million bridge to connect an empty town in Alaska to a local airport, and then voting against her own bridge after it became clear the country was in uproar, as other bridges in other states collapsed and multiple fatalities resulted), her undistinguished careeer as an almost-beauty queen, her support for oil-drilling on the Alaskan coast to support her personal and family oil company financial interests, and anti-environment policies, etc, Sarah Palin is a rabid right winger against women's human rights.
Ironically, her stance against sex education in schools, and her support of abstinence-only until marriage education, has resulted in her own daughter, Bristol, becoming an unmarried pregnant teenager at 17 years old. Her boyfriend Levi vows on his since-erased MySpace page that he "doesn't want kids." Yet this week, Palin has forced her daughter into becoming engaged to her underaged boyfriend still in high school, in order to uphold her political appearance and candidacy for vice president.
Terrifyingly, McCain is the oldest potential incumbent in the United States, at 70 years old. Were McCain to pop off during the presidency, this woman would become President of the United States. Even more ironically, this woman who is the staunchest opponent to women's rights wishes to reverse the slow and painstaking progress made to gender inequality over the past 100 years. She would reverse Roe v. Wade and she opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
Here's some information about how "Sarah Barracuda", a self-termed "hockey mom" and mother of five, feels about people's ability to make their own choices about their sexual and reproductive health:
Palin Is A Member Of Anti-Abortion Group Feminists For Life. Palin is a member of an “anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life.” When running for governor in 2002, she “sent an e-mail to the anti-abortion Alaska Right to Life Board saying she was as ‘pro-life as any candidate can be’ and has ‘adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion.’”
Palin Opposes Abortion Even In Cases Of Rape Or Incest. In 2006, Palin said that even if her daughter were raped, “I would choose life.” She said that she would support abortion only if the mother’s life were in danger.
Palin Slashed Funding To Help Teenage Mothers. Earlier this year, Palin used a line-item veto “to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.” Funding for Covenant House Alaska, which provides transitional housing for teen mothers, was cut by 20 percent — from $5 million to $3.9 million.
Palin Supports Abstinence-Only Policies. In 2006, the Eagle Forum Alaska asked Palin whether she would “support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education.” Palin replied, “Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”
Palin Supports Parental Consent Laws For Minors Seeking Abortions. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin was “disappointed lawmakers let a bill die requiring girls under 17 to get parental consent for an abortion. ‘My belief is parents have the right to know about the health and welfare of their children,’ she said.”
I headed off in the morning to the Australian Science and Math School, hosted at Flinders University. The school is only a few years old, and is built with an open concept -- no classrooms, but instead a number of large spaces with desks and chairs that reconfigured in many different ways to foster teamwork and collaboration. We had a large group - about 50 teachers and school leaders, and had a really interesting day -- when I showed the "Are you listening?" video, a whole bunch of students gathered upstairs in the area overlooking where I was speaking to watch - I think they were really curious that so many teachers were learning about their way of using technology!
After a fantastic dinner by the water with a group of curriculum developers, I headed to sleep -- because I had to catch a 6:40am flight to Canberra!
I made it to the nation's capital early in the morning, and it was freezing! 0 degrees but it warmed up as the sun rose... I had a few hours to fit the gym and have lunch before heading to Canberra University -- the group in Canberra decided to have an evening workshop (4-9pm) with dinner. Although everyone had a full day of work before showing up, we still had a lot of active participation, and after wrapping up at 9 and getting back to the hotel around 10, it was time for sleep for another 6:45am flight back to Sydney for the last workshop of the trip!
Arriving in Sydney in the morning, with my 32kg on-the-dot bag faithfully appearing on the carousel, I headed off to Parramatta right on time, and arrived 3 minutes before the workshop was to begin! We had the biggest crowd of any session -- around 60 people, and so a lot of the interactive sections took a lot longer than usual, but they had great ideas and a large group of schools approached me after and wants to deeply engage their entire district with TIGed, which is exciting! After wrapping up and chatting with a bunch of the attendees, I was off to one of my favourite hotels in the world -- the Westin Sydney, to relax, enjoy their great gym, and have dinner with Jenny, who had the whole series of workshops organized, to debrief on the experience (yum, Tasmanian lamb!). After that, I met up with Jarra and Nick, and headed to Micky's for dessert (Banana Pancakes and Ice Cream!) to catch up and for me to celebrate the completion of 10 sessions in 11 days in 5 cities!
I'm writing this now on the flight to Vancouver -- I managed to get right to sleep after lunch on the 10am flight, which will hopefully mean I can work through the North American day and head to sleep at a proper time tonight. Saturday, we head to Quebec City for the World Youth Congress to meet TIG members from all over the world. I've also agreed to head to Brisbane on the 19th to speak at the Queenland Government's e-learning summit, and after that, I'll be ready to just settle down at home and enjoy the rest of the summer in Toronto :)
Now that I've been away a full week, I forced myself to carve out some time to reflect on the intensity of the time so far before kicking off the second stretch.
As always, our summers at TakingITGlobal are quite busy -- generally for the education "industry", most conferences are held during the summer when teachers have school holidays. This summer, as a follow-up to my keynote at last October's ACEL (Australian Counsel of Educational Leaders) conference (which was apparently quite good even though I was quite sick at the time), I was invited to be a "Traveling Scholar" for ACEL, presenting 5 full-day workshops on TakingITGlobal to school leaders and teachers across Australia. In addition, I started off the trip by keynoting a leadership conference at Melbourne Grammar School, and today keynoted the International Middle Years conference in Adelaide... so I've made quite good use of two weeks!
Sunday - Wednesday: Melbourne
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Monday, I woke up nice and early and arrived at the charming greened campus of Melbourne Grammar, one of Melbourne's oldest and most respected private schools. To their enormous credit, they had invited students from a broad cross-section of Melbourne to attend the conference, in addition to a grade of their students. I was brilliantly introduced by one of their capable students, and my keynote was well-received - with more questions from students than we had time for. Following the keynote, a panel including a futurist, scientist, and Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, who cited my presentation several times as they discussed issues of leadership in the 21st century and challenged students to act on the issues they felt challenged by. In the afternoon, I ran several hours of hands-on workshops guiding a small group of students through the TIG site and beginning the Guide to Action as a tool for action planning.
Tuesday morning, I visited Kilsyth, a suburb of Melbourne, and ran a 3 hour workshop with a group of teachers across that region looking at TIG and especially with an interest in Health education... it was a good challenge because we didn't have Internet except for a very slow 2G connection, so I was able to get well prepared and experiment with some activities for the following days' sessions!
That evening, I traveled to Mooney Valley Racecourse (home of Australia's best race - the Cox plate, worth $3 million!) and presented our work at TIG to about 150 principals, who also had some great questions, and I enjoyed meeting a teacher who grew up in Mississauga and had spent his recent years enjoying and exploring Australia's wilderness.
On Wednesday, I spent from 9 AM to 3:30 PM with an enthusiastic group of teachers and principals learning about TIG, exploring global issues, and understanding how to fit our programs and ideas at TIG into the curriculum and everyday use in their classrooms. I also shared our Best Practices on Global Education resource with them... and then I was off to the airport, heading to my next destination: Tasmania!
Thursday - Saturday: Hobart, Tasmania
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
After a short 2 hour break to refresh and do some e-mail, I headed off to the Hobart Yacht club, where I addressed about 50 high school principals, who weren't able to attend the day's workshop because they were having a leadership retreat. I had to pack 90 minutes into a 30 minute before dinner speech, so I think it was overwhelming, but many of them were quite excited by what we do... and I had delicious local Salmon which was a bonus!
The next day was my main day off. I decided not to head off to my next destination right away, but to stick around in Hobart and see some of the beautiful wildlife Tasmania has to offer. So I signed up for a Tasman Island Eco Cruise - having no idea how much of an adventure it would be! After a scenic bus ride to Port Arthur, one of the main convict colonies from the 1800s, we boarded a powerful boat (675 HP) that they describe as a 4x4 of the sea. Initially the ride was quite smooth - and we discovered some caves and amazing rock formations on the coast. The "swells" were only about 1 meter, and so it was just like jumping waves on a boat at home.
However, once we got out to the Tasman Sea, things got a lot more interesting. The waves and the winds were coming strongly from an unusual direction, and 2-3 meter waves and swells gave us quite a ride! I had chosen to sit in the 4th row (moved from the 2nd) and for close to an hour, we jumped waves and it felt like we were on a roller coaster as we plunged down after riding a wave.... but I stuck with my seat - a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
We arrived at two areas with Australian and New Zealand seals, and at a cove where dolphins chased our boat around until we had to leave - amazing to lean over and watch them at the water and bow of the boat jumping up playfully! A number of albatross with their huge wingspans also provided us with an amazing show - watching them fish and gracefully glide across the sky with nothing around us but huge rock and menacing water... or what looked menacing in my book. In 1998, however, the water was so rough that in the annual Sydney-Hobart race, five boats sank and six sailors were killed.
On Saturday morning, before heading to the airport, I spent a few hours enjoying the Salamanca Market, with hundreds of stalls offering delicious local treats and art and coffee and everything needed to pass a few hours and take in the culture of a place!
Sunday - Monday: Adelaide, South Australia
Now I'm here in Adelaide, where this morning I keynoted the International Middle Years of Schooling conference, and was again introduced by a fantastic student duo! I gave out dozens of bookmarks afterwards, with many many people promising to check out the site and connect their students into TIG. I was also followed by an excellent presentation by Professor Erica, who gave a talk on creativity that linked really perfectly and built on top of many of the themes I covered.
Tomorrow I'm off to the Australian Science and Mathematics School to do another day-long workshop, and then heading to Canberra the next morning... I'll be sure to check in soon with more! And I'll be editing this entry in about 2 hours with photos once they upload.
Moderate quake hits northeastern Bangladesh
2 hours ago
A shallow, 4.9-magnitude earthquake hit northeastern Bangladesh early Sunday, meteorologists said.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake was centred 115 kilometres (70 miles) north of the capital Dhaka at a depth of 5.2 kilometres and struck at 12:51 am (1851 GMT Saturday).
There were no reports of any damage or casualties, but the tremor was felt in Dhaka and a police spokesman in Mymensingh, the district nearest the epicentre, told AFP it sparked panic there.
A meteorologist at Bangladesh's Storm Warning Centre said it had measured the quake at 5.6 on the Richter scale, according to local media reports.
Bangladesh last month announced plans to step up its earthquake response contingency plans.
The South Asian nation sits on active tectonic plates and is frequently jolted by tremors. The last major earthquake struck in 1896.
Italy declares state of emergency over immigration
Saturday, 26 July , 2008, 16:40
Rome: The Italian government announced a nationwide state of emergency on Saturday in reaction to a phenomenal increase in illegal immigration to the country's south.
The Silvio Berlusconi government's move is to provide local authorities with greater means to deal with the rising tide of illegals arriving by boat.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni plans to build new intake centres throughout the country, the daily La Repubblica reported.
Also in the news: Anxiety in Bangalore a day after terror blasts | Column: Heroes of a devil's democracy
According to the interior ministry, nearly 11,000 people illegally migrated to Italy in the first half of 2008, twice as many that came in the same period in 2007.
The Italian government called a state of emergency with a wave of refugees in 2002 and it was renewed annually - even under the centre-left government of Romano Prodi. As the intake centres in February 2008 seemed sufficient, the Prodi government limited the emergency measures to the three southern regions of Calabria, Sicily and Puglia. The Berlusconi government at the behest of the Interior Ministry has now widened the powers to the entire country.
Warning of the introduction of a "police state," the country's opposition attacked the measures sharply, calling them abhorrent. "Italy does not need inhuman and extraordinary measures," said parliamentarian Rocco Buttiglione, the Turin-based newspaper La Stampa reported on Saturday.
In response, Maroni criticised what he claimed was the opposition intention to make the state of emergency seem like an entirely new development, and called the opposition position "the worst Italian politics."
The Interior Minister is to face Parliament on Tuesday.
Berlusconi, who was elected Prime Minister in April, had declared the fight against illegal immigration a priority. A first step was the passage this week of a package of new security laws brought forward by the conservative government.
The number of illegal immigrants in Italy is estimated at around 650,000. Tens of thousands of refugees attempt the dangerous journey in less-than-seaworthy boats from North Africa into southern Europe each year.
Overnight another 73 would-be immigrants arrived in two boats at the Italian island of Lampedusa.
I'm speaking tomorrow at PUSH, an interesting conference here in Minneapolis, MN
The first session that just wrapped up was quite interesting - Chandran Nair took us through a look at the world's problems and how many misconceptions there are about what can solve them. What I found striking was the comparison of world problems to spending on trivial/much less meaningful things:
Health & Nutrition ($13B) : Petfood Spending in the USA ($17B)
Water and Sanitation ($9B) : Ice Cream in Europe ($11B)
Education ($6B) : Cosmetics in the USA ($8B)
Jonathan Greenblatt, one of the co-founders of Ethos Water, also gave us a compelling look into the world of Water and how simple and cheap ($25/person) it is to solve. The one thing I don't get - on a $1.79 bottle of water, Starbucks (which acquired Ethos) donates 5 cents (10 cents in Canada oddly). They were founded on the basis of donating 50% of profits... I can't believe profit on that bottle of water is only 10 cents! (considering how much cheaper other bottled water is). Anyway, he now works with a new magazine - GOOD - which has a unique subscription model of giving away the $20 subscription fee to a charity of your choice.
How can this not inspire you with hope that the messages that captivate our friends in the U.S. voting this fall can be positive and not just negative? Messages that excite with the possibility of a positive future, not try to cast fear and uncertainty as the reason to select a person.
I'm very proud of them for ending the video with the simple message of "vote" - resisting the urge to squeeze it beyond need towards the candidate.
My apologies for this very geek-specific post. If you don't have a Dell m1330 laptop, you can ignore it!
My Dell XPS m1330 is my favorite laptop yet (I think it's my 10th in 10 years!), but Dell and Microsoft have made it far too hard to re-format it cleanly without Windows Vista Blue-screening on every second boot (caused by the AHCI setting in BIOS, but not providing AHCI drivers during install). It took me awhile to figure out how to do this properly, so I thought I'd share to help the rest of the Internet figure it out.
2) Run the file with a "-a" from the Windows commandline, which will put those files into the "C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage Manager" directory
3) Copy the files from the "Drivers" or "Drivers64" (64-bit Vista) directory onto a USB Key
4) When you install Vista from the DVD, pick the "Custom" option, then click "Load Drivers"
5) Click "Browse", and point to your USB stick. Load the drivers from it.
“…… we were told to kill the hindus and Kafirs (non-believer in God). One day in June, we cordoned a village and were ordered to kill the Kafirs in that area. We found all the village women reciting from the Holy Quran, and the men holding special congregational prayers seeking God’s mercy. But they were unlucky. Our commanding officer ordered us not to waste any time.”
Confession of a Pakistani Soldier
It all started with Operation Searchlight, a planned military pacification carried out by the Pakistan Army started on 25 March, 1971 to curb the Bengali nationalist movement by taking control of the major cities on March 26, and then eliminating all opposition, political or military, within one month. Before the beginning of the operation, all foreign journalists were systematically deported from Bangladesh. The main phase of Operation Searchlight ended with the fall of the last major town in Bengali hands in mid May.
According to New York Times (3/28/71) 10,000 people were killed; New York Times (3/29/71) 5,000-7,000 people were killed in Dhaka; The Sydney Morning Herald (3/29/71) 10,000 - 100,000 were killed; New York Times (4/1/71) 35,000 were killed in Dhaka during operation searchlight.
The operation also began the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. These systematic killings served only to enrage the Bengalis, which ultimately resulted in the secession of East Pakistan later in December, 1971. The international media and reference books in English have published casualty figures which vary greatly; 200,000–3,000,000 for Bangladesh as a whole.
There is only one word for this: Genocide.
Genocide in Bangladesh, 1971
The mass killings in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971 vie with the annihilation of the Soviet POWs, the holocaust against the Jews, and the genocide in Rwanda as the most concentrated act of genocide in the twentieth century. In an attempt to crush forces seeking independence for East Pakistan, the West Pakistani military regime unleashed a systematic campaign of mass murder which aimed at killing millions of Bengalis, and likely succeeded in doing so.
In national elections held in December 1970, the Awami League won an overwhelming victory across Bengali territory. On February 22, 1971 the generals in West Pakistan took a decision to crush the Awami League and its supporters. It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: “Kill three million of them,” said President Yahya Khan at the February conference, “and the rest will eat out of our hands.” (Robert Payne, Massacre [1972], p. 50.) On March 25 the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca (Dhaka) was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. “Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military.” (Payne, Massacre, p. 48.) Ten million refugees fled to India, overwhelming that country’s resources and spurring the eventual Indian military intervention. (The population of Bangladesh/East Pakistan at the outbreak of the genocide was about 75 million.)
The gendercide against Bengali men
The war against the Bengali population proceeded in classic gendercidal fashion. According to Anthony Mascarenhas:
There is no doubt whatsoever about the targets of the genocide. They were: (1) The Bengali militarymen of the East Bengal Regiment, the East Pakistan Rifles, police and para-military Ansars and Mujahids. (2) The Hindus — “We are only killing the men; the women and children go free. We are soldiers not cowards to kill them …” I was to hear in Comilla [site of a major military base] [Comments R.J. Rummel: “One would think that murdering an unarmed man was a heroic act” (Death By Government, p. 323)] (3) The Awami Leaguers — all office bearers and volunteers down to the lowest link in the chain of command. (4) The students — college and university boys and some of the more militant girls. (5) Bengali intellectuals such as professors and teachers whenever damned by the army as “militant.” (Anthony Mascarenhas, The Rape of Bangla Desh [Delhi: Vikas Publications, 1972(?)], pp. 116-17.)
Mascarenhas’s summary makes clear the linkages between gender and social class (the “intellectuals,” “professors,” “teachers,” “office bearers,” and — obviously — “militarymen” can all be expected to be overwhelmingly if not exclusively male, although in many cases their families died or fell victim to other atrocities alongside them). In this respect, the Bangladesh events can be classed as a combined gendercide and elitocide, with both strategies overwhelmingly targeting males for the most annihilatory excesses.
London, 6/13/71). The Sunday Times…..”The Government’s policy for East Bengal was spelled out to me in the Eastern Command headquarters at Dacca. It has three elements:
1. The Bengalis have proved themselves unreliable and must be ruled by West Pakistanis;
2. The Bengalis will have to be re-educated along proper Islamic lines. The - Islamization of the masses - this is the official jargon - is intended to eliminate secessionist tendencies and provide a strong religious bond with West Pakistan;
3. When the Hindus have been eliminated by death and fight, their property will be used as a golden carrot to win over the under privileged Muslim middle-class. This will provide the base for erecting administrative and political structures in the future.”
Bengali man and boys massacred by the West Pakistani regime.
Younger men and adolescent boys, of whatever social class, were equally targets. According to Rounaq Jahan, “All through the liberation war, able-bodied young men were suspected of being actual or potential freedom fighters. Thousands were arrested, tortured, and killed. Eventually cities and towns became bereft of young males who either took refuge in India or joined the liberation war.” Especially “during the first phase” of the genocide, he writes, “young able-bodied males were the victims of indiscriminate killings.” (”Genocide in Bangladesh,” in Totten et al., Century of Genocide, p. 298.) R.J. Rummel likewise writes that “the Pakistan army [sought] out those especially likely to join the resistance — young boys. Sweeps were conducted of young men who were never seen again. Bodies of youths would be found in fields, floating down rivers, or near army camps. As can be imagined, this terrorized all young men and their families within reach of the army. Most between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five began to flee from one village to another and toward India. Many of those reluctant to leave their homes were forced to flee by mothers and sisters concerned for their safety.” (Death By Government, p. 329.) Rummel describes (p. 323) a chilling gendercidal ritual, reminiscent of Nazi procedure towards Jewish males: “In what became province-wide acts of genocide, Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligated circumcision among Moslems. If circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death.”
Robert Payne describes scenes of systematic mass slaughter around Dacca (Dhaka) that, while not explicitly “gendered” in his account, bear every hallmark of classic gender-selective roundups and gendercidal slaughters of non-combatant men:
In the dead region surrounding Dacca, the military authorities conducted experiments in mass extermination in places unlikely to be seen by journalists. At Hariharpara, a once thriving village on the banks of the Buriganga River near Dacca, they found the three elements necessary for killing people in large numbers: a prison in which to hold the victims, a place for executing the prisoners, and a method for disposing of the bodies. The prison was a large riverside warehouse, or godown, belonging to the Pakistan National Oil Company, the place of execution was the river edge, or the shallows near the shore, and the bodies were disposed of by the simple means of permitting them to float downstream. The killing took place night after night. Usually the prisoners were roped together and made to wade out into the river. They were in batches of six or eight, and in the light of a powerful electric arc lamp, they were easy targets, black against the silvery water. The executioners stood on the pier, shooting down at the compact bunches of prisoners wading in the water. There were screams in the hot night air, and then silence. The prisoners fell on their sides and their bodies lapped against the shore. Then a new bunch of prisoners was brought out, and the process was repeated. In the morning the village boatmen hauled the bodies into midstream and the ropes binding the bodies were cut so that each body drifted separately downstream. (Payne, Massacre [Macmillan, 1973], p. 55.)
Strikingly similar and equally hellish scenes are described in the case-studies of genocide in Armenia and the Nanjing Massacre of 1937.
How many died?
Bangladeshi authorities claim that 3 million people were killed, while the Hamoodur Rahman Commission, an official Pakistan Government investigation, put the figure as low as 26,000 civilian casualties. The fact is that the number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66).
As R.J. Rummel writes:
The human death toll over only 267 days was incredible. Just to give for five out of the eighteen districts some incomplete statistics published in Bangladesh newspapers or by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca, 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts the total is 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete toll, and to this day no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide [Rummel’s “death by government”] are much lower — one is of 300,000 dead — but most range from 1 million to 3 million. … The Pakistani army and allied paramilitary groups killed about one out of every sixty-one people in Pakistan overall; one out of every twenty-five Bengalis, Hindus, and others in East Pakistan. If the rate of killing for all of Pakistan is annualized over the years the Yahya martial law regime was in power (March 1969 to December 1971), then this one regime was more lethal than that of the Soviet Union, China under the communists, or Japan under the military (even through World War II). (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 331.)
People regard that the best option is to regard “3 million” as not an absolute but an arbitrary number. The proportion of men versus women murdered is impossible to ascertain, but a speculation might be attempted. If we take the highest estimates for both women raped and Bengalis killed (400,000 and 3 million, respectively); if we accept that half as many women were killed as were raped; and if we double that number for murdered children of both sexes (total: 600,000), we are still left with a death-toll that is 80 percent adult male (2.4 million out of 3 million). Any such disproportion, which is almost certainly on the low side, would qualify Bangladesh as one of the worst gendercides against men in the last half-millennium.
Who was responsible?
“For month after month in all the regions of East Pakistan the massacres went on,” writes Robert Payne. “They were not the small casual killings of young officers who wanted to demonstrate their efficiency, but organized massacres conducted by sophisticated staff officers, who knew exactly what they were doing. Muslim soldiers, sent out to kill Muslim peasants, went about their work mechanically and efficiently, until killing defenseless people became a habit like smoking cigarettes or drinking wine. … Not since Hitler invaded Russia had there been so vast a massacre.” (Payne, Massacre, p. 29.)
There is no doubt that the mass killing in Bangladesh was among the most carefully and centrally planned of modern genocides. A cabal of five Pakistani generals orchestrated the events: President Yahya Khan, General Tikka Khan, chief of staff General Pirzada, security chief General Umar Khan, and intelligence chief General Akbar Khan. The U.S. government, long supportive of military rule in Pakistan, supplied some $3.8 million in military equipment to the dictatorship after the onset of the genocide, “and after a government spokesman told Congress that all shipments to Yahya Khan’s regime had ceased.” (Payne, Massacre, p. 102.)
The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These “willing executioners” were fuelled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. “Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said Pakistan General Niazi, ‘It was a low lying land of low lying people.’ The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, ‘We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.’ This is the arrogance of Power.” (Rummel, Death By Government, p. 335.)
Eyewitness accounts
The atrocities of the razakars in killing the Bengalis equaled those of their Pakistani masters. An excerpt from an article written in the Azad, dated January 15, 1972, underscores the inhuman atrocities of the Pakistani troops and their associates, the razakar and al-Badr forces:
‘….The people of Narail can bear witness to the reign of terror, the inhuman atrocities, inflicted on them after (General) Yahya let loose his troops to do what they would. After March 25, many people fled Jessore in fear of their lives, and took refuge in Narail and its neighboring localities. Many of them were severely bashed by the soldiers of Yahya and lost their lives. Very few people ever returned. Bhayna is a flourishing village near Narail. Ali Akbar is a well-known figure there. On April 8, the Pakistani troops surrounded the village on the pretext that it was a sanctuary for freedom fighters. Just as fish are caught in a net so too were the people of this village all assembled, in an open field. Then everyone- men, women, and children–were all forced to line up. Young men between the ages of 25 and 30 were lined up separately. 45 people were shot to death on the spot. Three of Ali Akbar’s brothers were killed there. Ali Akbar was able to save himself by lying on the ground. But no one else of that group was as fortunate. Nadanor was the Killing field. Every day 20 to 30 people were taken there with their hands tied behind their backs, and killed. The dead bodies would be flung into the river. Apart from this, a slaughter house was also readied for Bengalis. Manik, Omar, and Ashraf were sent to Jessore Cantonment for training and then brought to this slaughter house. Every day they would slaughter 9 to 12 persons here. The rate per person was Taka ten. On one particular day, 45 persons were slaughtered here. From April 15 to December 10, the butchery continued. It is gathered that 2,723 people lost their lives here. People were brought here and bashed, then their ears were cut off, and their eyes gouged out. Finally they were slaughtered… : The Chairman of the Peace Committee was Moulana Solaiman. With Dr. Abul Hussain and Abdul Rashid Mukhtar, he assisted in the genocide. Omar would proudly say, “During the day I am Omar, at night I am Shimar( legendary executioner famous for extreme cruelty). Don’t you see my dagger? There are countless Kafirs (heretics) on it.”
Chuknagar: The largest genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971
Chuknagar is a small business town located in the Dumuria Thana of Khulna district and very close to the India Bangladesh border. In 71 thousands of refugees gathered in Chuknagar to go to Kolkata. According to a conservative account around ten thousand people were in Chuknagar waiting to cross the border.
In the early morning of May 10, the fatal day around 10am two trucks carrying Paki troops arrived at Kautala (then known as Patkhola). The Pakis were not many in number, most possibly a platoon or so. As soon as the Paki trucks stopped, the Pakis alighted from the truck carrying light machine guns (LMGs) and semi automatic rifles and opened fire on the public. Within a few minutes a lively town turned into a city of death.
The accounts of the two hundred interviewees were same. They differed only in details. “There were piled up dead bodies. Dead Kids’ on dead mum’s laps. Wives hugging their beloved husbands to protect them from killer bullets. Dads’ hugging their daughters to shield them. Within a flash they all were just dead bodies. Blood streamed into the Bhadra river, it became a river of corps. A few hours later when the Paki bastards ran out of bullets, they killed the rest of the people with bayonet.”
Source: Muntassir Mamun, The Archive of Liberation War, Bangabandhu and Bangladesh Research Institute
Radhuni, a popular brand of Square Consumer Products, will arrange a two-day
cultural extravaganza in Rome from April 13.
The organisers informed media at a press conference held on Saturday in
the city. Abdul Mukit Muzamder, director of Impress Telefilm Limited,
Mohammad Malik Syeed, head of marketing of Square Consumers Products limited
and Obadiul Haq, assistant marketing manager of the same organisation, among
others, were present at the briefing.
They said that the noted singers and performers would take part at the
programme titled 'Radhuni Bangladesh Night'.
Among the artists, popular singers Sabina Yasmin, Kumar Bishwajit, Bari
Siddiquee, Ankhi Alamgir, Nukul Kumar Bishwas, Biplab and Shahnaz Belly will
sing at the programme. Popular performers Mahfuz Ahmed, Purnima, Tisha,
Tinni, and model-turned-actor Novel will also attend the extravaganza.
The organisers hoped that the cultural programme would not only uphold
the spice product Radhuni among the Italians but also would present the
cultural heritage.
The two-day cultural function would also delight the expatriate
Bangladeshis in Rome, they added.
They also said that the product had already earned a good response in the
Italian market and this sort of programme would help to popularise the
product more in that country.
Channel-i will co-operate with the organisers as the media partner for
the event.
1. "Is it not a fact that there was a time when the human being was nothing to be mentioned?"
2. "We created the human from a liquid mixture, from two parents, in order to test him. Thus, we made him a hearer and a seer."
3. "We showed him the two paths, then he is either appreciative, or unappreciative."
What most people are unaware of, is the very STRUCTURE of their own selves.
Most of us grow up to think that 'we' are just made-up of the 'soul' which, when it dies, reverts back to GOD.
Although this information is 'partially' correct, there is also much more to the make-up of the human being which GOD explains to us through the Quran.
It is the devil's system to confuse and weaken us so we do not even know how to fight him!. One principal rule of any conflict is that you "know your enemy". But before doing that, you must first "know yourself"!.
Rouh = Soul?
This is the single biggest misconception that people have made which helped distort the issue of 'who we are'.
In Arabia, when someone dies, the people say: 'let us pray on his Rouh!'.
Also, when they speak about someone dying, the say: 'his Rouh has left him'.
In schools, they teach our kids that the 'Soul' is the 'Rouh' and that is what will die and be judged and punished or rewarded...
However, the story changes when we look at what GOD has to say:
"GOD takes the 'Nafs' when death comes, and also at the time of sleep..." (39:42)
"No 'Nafs' dies except by GOD's leave, at a predetermined time..." (3:145)
"Every 'Nafs' tastes death, then you receive your recompense on the Day of Resurrection..." (3:185)
"...You shall not kill the 'Nafs' that GOD has made sacred, except in the course of justice..." (6:151)
"...she said: my Lord, I have wronged my 'Nafs"..." (27:16)
Well, you get the picture!.
GOD tells us that our 'Soul' is called 'Nafs', and that this 'Nafs' is what is taken at death and what is judged on j-day (then rewarded or punished). The 'Nafs' is YOU, it is your entire being, it is your slate, which is burdened or lightened by your actions...
So, if the 'Soul' is the 'Nafs', then what is the Rouh?
Rouh = Spirit.
"While a barrier separated her from them, we sent to her Our 'Rouh'. He went to her in the form of a human being." (19:17)
"They ask you about the 'Rouh'. Say: 'The 'Rouh' comes from my Lord. And you were not given knowledge, except little." (Quran 17:85)
It becomes apparent to the reader that the 'Rouh' is from GOD and it is the accumulation of 'knowledge' that will assist the human being in his life...It is best described as 'Spirit'.
You see, animals also have 'Nafs' just like we do (it is their life-force), yet, you do not see monkeys building spaceships nor turtles working on computers!.
The 'Rouh' is the gift that GOD gave to our species to allow us the advantage of 'knowledge'.
"Once I perfect him (the human), and blow into him from My 'Rouh', you shall fall prostrate before him." (15:29)
All animals can communicate with one another (remember the birds speaking to Solomon?). However, it is only man that has 'knowledge'.
The 'Rouh' is GOD's gift to us, and it is only GOOD. The information that the 'Rouh' provides each of us is to be used for our benefit, but we have the 'choice' to use it for evil (like nuclear fission being used to make a bomb).
Some unfortunate news about the 'Rouh': It will NEVER approach you and save the day. for example, you are struggling to understand something. If you don't ask GOD for help, it won't go; "hey, here is the answer!" no, you have to approach it. Also, it will always be LITERAL. you will have to be specific of what you are asking. Note, you don't have to say this out loud. You can just think of it - because many times, humans have hard time expressing what exactly they want to ask. With the spirit of god, you don't have to worry about this - as long as you get the intention of asking, the spirit will know the question...as much as you wanted to ask and that ALONE (though it knows all the questions you know - it is not going to answer anything you did not ask).
Thus if we can summarize what we have upto this point.
The human being so far is made-up of:
1. The 'Soul' - Nafs (the is YOU, the real person, what makes choices and what will be judged);
2. The 'Spirit' - Rouh (this is a gift from GOD, it is NOT yours, you do not own it, all people have access to it - like the Quran. It's purpose is to help provide answers and knowledge to help your Soul make the right decisions).
Satan - Shaitan
The 3rd and most lethal mix in the equation of man is 'Satan'.
"He (Satan) said, "Since You have honored him over me, if You respite me till the Day of Resurrection, I will possess all his descendants, except a few." (17:62)
The unfortunate fact of our lives is that Satan challenged the right of our ancestors to posses access to the 'Rouh". Satan claimed that he was more qualified to utilize GOD's gift and that he would do a better job with it:
He (GOD) said, "What prevented you from serving when I ordered you?" He said, "I am better than he; You created me from fire, and created him from mud." (7:12)
This questioning of man's ability led to a dispute in the heavens and 'doubts' thus erupted:
Sura 38 (S'ad):
67 . Say, "Here is awesome news.
68. "That you are totally oblivious to.
69. "I had no knowledge previously, about the feud in the High heavens.
70. "I am inspired that my sole mission is to deliver the warnings to you."
71. Your Lord said to the angels: 'I am creating a human being from clay.
72. "Once I design him, and blow into him from My spirit, you shall assist him."
73. The angels assisted, all of them,
74. except Satan; he refused, and was too arrogant, unappreciative.
75. He said, "O Satan, what prevented you from assisting what I created before with My hands? Are you too arrogant? Have you rebelled?"
76. He said, "I am better than he; You created me from fire, and created him from clay."
77. He said, "Therefore, you must be exiled, you will be banished.
78. "You have incurred My condemnation until the Day of Judgment."
79. He said, "My Lord, respite me till the Day of Resurrection."
80. He said, "You are respited.
81. "Until the appointed day."
82. He said, "I swear by Your majesty, that I will send them all astray.
83. "Except Your worshipers who are devoted absolutely to You alone."
The above verses tell the story very clearly.
Satan requested that he be given a chance to 'prove' that man is unfit for the task...
And GOD thus allowed Satan (who has evil intentions) to entice us (but NOT have access to us):
"You may entice them with your voice, and mobilize all your forces and all your men against them, and share in their money and children, and promise them. Anything the devil promises is no more than an illusion." (Quran 17:64)
"I will come to them from before them, and from behind them, and from their right, and from their left, and You will find that most of them are unappreciative." (7:17)
Had the story stopped there, we would still be fine. Problem is, Satan managed to trick our ancestors into giving him ACCESS to our Souls!:
"The devil whispered to them, in order to gain access to them. He said, "Your Lord did not forbid you from this tree, except to prevent you from becoming angels, and from attaining eternal existence." (7:20)
Eating from the 'forbidden' tree allowed Satan to have constant access to our 'Nafs'.
The mix we now have is:
1. The 'Soul' - Nafs ;
2. The 'Spirit' - Rouh;
3. Satan - Shaitan (this is the devil having access to our Souls and being able to influence them).
Satan is the ULTIMATE falsehood within you. If there is ever a falsehood, don't look for it...outside of you - it lies within you.
Some more bad news: unlike the Rouh, Satan APPROACHES you. If you have a delimma, he will give your answer. Whether the answer is correct is not even a question, because we know it isn't. sometimes, before you even have a delimma, he will give you chaos...because he will give you so much falsehood in your life that you will end up feeling CONFUSED, DEPRESSED, feeling HATED by god, ABANDONED, etc etc etc - all the things he thrives in.
Do not despair.
Because Satan exists within you, there isn't much you can do about getting rid of him for good. however, you can get rid of every time he approaches - and as long as you keep in mind you shouldn't get tired of kicking him into silence, you are always the winner - because he invades your mind. by seeking refuge in GOD, you give the Rouh authority to keep him silent.
"When you learn the Quran, you shall seek refuge in GOD from Satan the rejected. He has no power over those who believe and trust in their Lord. His power is limited to those who choose him as their master, those who choose him as their god." (16:98-100)
How can you be safe with his falsehood information?. Every time he offers a solution, you do not take it for face value - you go and ask your Rouh. if you get a solution without asking for it - there are two ways you might've got that;
1. The 'Nafs' gave it to you (your own subconscious made the suggestion);
2. It came from Satan!.
You never get unasked solutions from the spirit. Abraham...whom god has chosen...was not approached by GOD - he approached GOD. The point is; GOD always loves you...but he won't stop you from ruining your life...if you don't ask for His help. GOD never abandons someone entirely...and never guides someone entirely - if he did, he would Abraham, Mohammed, etc - messengers whom He has chosen (who we see making human mistakes). And guidance, unlike the Muslim understanding of it...is a process of every situation...instead of all at once thing.
Final Note:
The best Islam is within you - the spirit of GOD (Rouh'u Allah) is within you. There is no such thing that truth lies outside of you. the ultimate truth lies within you. please, take advantage of that blessing. It will be your ultimate weapon against falsehood...
By Free-Minds (e-mail: free@free-minds.org)
SOUL IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
The discussion of the human soul, its existence, nature, ultimate objective and eternity, occupies a highly important position in Islamic philosophy and forms its main focus. For the most part Muslim philosophers agreed, as did their Greek predecessors, that the soul consists of non-rational and rational parts. The non-rational part they divided into the plant and animal souls, the rational part into the practical and the theoretical intellects. All believed that the non-rational part is linked essentially to the body, but some considered the rational part as separate from the body by nature and others that all the parts of the soul are by nature material. The philosophers agreed that, while the soul is in the body, its non-rational part is to manage the body, its practical intellect is to manage worldly affairs, including those of the body, and its theoretical intellect is to know the eternal aspects of the universe. They thought that the ultimate end or happiness of the soul depends on its ability to separate itself from the demands of the body and to focus on grasping the eternal aspects of the universe. All believed that the non-rational soul comes into being and unavoidably perishes. Some, like al-Farabi, believed that the rational soul may or may not survive eternally; others, like Ibn Sina, believed that it has no beginning and no end; still others, such as Ibn Rushd, believed that the soul with all its individual parts comes into existence and is eventually destroyed.
1 The existence of the soul
2 The nature of the soul
3 The rational soul
4 The ultimate objective of the soul
5 Eternity of the soul
References end further reading
1 The existence of the soul
All Muslim philosophers concerned themselves with the subject of the soul. The most detailed and most important works on this subject are those of al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Muslim philosophers recognized that the first issue, that confronts the human mind with regard to the soul is its existence. That is why, at the very beginning of his inquiry about the soul in al-Shifa’ (Healing), Ibn Sina (§6) asserts that we infer the existence of the soul from the fact that we observe bodies that perform certain acts with some degree of will. These acts are exemplified in taking nourishment, growing, reproducing, moving and perceiving. Since these acts do not belong to the nature of bodies, for this nature is devoid of will, they must belong to a principle they have other than bodies. This principle is what is called ‘soul’.
This argument is intended to prove the existence of the animal soul, which includes the plant soul. The soul is the source of acts performed by the will, not inasmuch as it is ‘a substance’ (an independent entity), but inasmuch as it is ‘the principle of such acts’. The rational soul, on the other hand, need not look outside itself to infer its existence. It is aware of its existence with immediacy, that is, without any instruments. Ibn Sina’s example of the suspended man is intended to prove that the rational soul is aware of itself apart from any body. His argument boils down to the view that, even if the adult rational soul is not aware of anything material, not even its body, it remains aware of its own existence.
2 The nature of the soul
While Islam made it incumbent on Muslim philosophers to occupy themselves extensively with the study of the soul and to make certain statements that in some cases appear consistent with Islamic beliefs, Greek philosophy had the upper hand in forming the real convictions of Muslim philosophers with regard to the nature of the soul. Unless otherwise specified, reference to :he soul here is limited to the terrestrial soul to the exclusion of the celestial one, since Muslim philosophers concerned themselves primarily with the former. It must be pointed out at the outset that ‘soul’. (nafs) was used in more than one sense in Islamic philosophy; the term was used to refer to the plant or vegetative part of a living being, the animal or sensitive part, the rational part and finally the totality of all three parts. The first two are the non-rational soul and the totality is the human soul. To add to the confusion, ‘human soul’ is used only in the sense of this fourth type of soul. The plant, animal and; rational souls are also called powers or parts of the; soul. Only from the context can one understand, whether a Muslim philosopher was using ‘soul’ in the broad sense to mean the human soul (the totality of the parts of the soul), or in the narrow sense to mean a specific part of the human soul.
Inasmuch as it has a certain relation to a body, the soul is a form for that body, that is, the perfection of that body. It is a form because a natural body is composed of matter and form, which in the case of animals are body and soul. Since it has been shown that the soul is the source of will and therefore is not matter, it remains a form. Perfection is of two types, primary and secondary. A primary perfection is what makes a thing actually a species, as shape does for the sword, or a genus as sensation and-movement do for animals. A secondary perfection is an act necessitated by the nature of the species or genus, such as cutting for the sword and touching for animal. The soul is a primary perfection of a natural body capable of performing the secondary perfections necessitated by this primary perfection. Together with its body, the soul constitutes a material substance. This substance can be the subject of plant, animal or human life.
The soul is a perfection inasmuch as it makes a natural body into a plant, an animal or a rational being. However, to define the soul as a perfection does not give us a clue as to what the soul is in itself, but only inasmuch as it has a relation to the body. The body is, therefore, an essential element in the definition of the soul. Without relating to a body, the thing we call ‘soul’ is not a soul and does not require the body as an essential part of its definition. Note, however, that in spite of this assertion, perhaps for the lack of any better term, Muslim philosophers use ‘soul’ also to refer to the rational soul after it separates from the body and reaches a complete state of purity from matter.
In its first or lowest stages of relating to the body, the soul is the plant soul, which is a primary perfection for an organic natural body inasmuch as this body can take nourishment, grow and reproduce. The plant soul is the power human beings and other animals share with plants. If the body with a soul is an animal, the soul develops into the animal soul, which is a primary perfection for an organic natural body inasmuch as this body has sensation and movement through will. While this soul includes the plant soul, it has also a sensitive power and a locomotive one. The sensitive power has both external and internal senses. The external senses are, in priority of existence, touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight. The first three are said to be necessary for survival and the last two for well being. In Talkhis kitab an-nafs (Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul), IBN RUSHD (§3) asserts that the five external senses may be in potentiality, as in infancy and sleep, or in actuality, as in daily seeing or hearing. He also argues that there cannot be any external sense other than these five because there would be no function for it, since there is no external sensation other than the objects of the five senses mentioned above. Most Muslim philosophers mention three types of internal senses: common sense, imagination and memory. IBN SINA (§3) enumerates five internal senses: common sense, representational power, imagination, estimative power and memory. On the whole, the philosophers agree on the function of the common sense, imagination and memory; the function that Ibn Sina limits to the representational and estimative powers, other Muslim philosophers allocate to the imagination.
The common sense is an internal power in which all the objects of the external senses are collected. Contrary to the external senses, which can grasp only one type of sensation, as sight grasps light and hearing grasps sound, the common sense can grasp all external sensations, such as that honey is of such and such a colour, texture and smell. The representational power preserves the sensations of the common sense even after sensible things disappear. The imagination selects at will to combine some of the objects of the representational power with each other and to separate the rest. It makes its judgment about external things, but in the absence of these things. That is why it functions best when the external senses, which represent external things, are not at work, as in sleep. Ibn Rushd points out that animals such as worms and flies that do not act except in the presence of sensible things are devoid of imagination. The imagination is called such inasmuch as it is an animal instrument; it is called cognitive inasmuch as it is a rational instrument. The estimative power grasps non-sensible notions of sensible things, such as the sheep’s notion that the wolf is to be avoided. This notion is about a sensible thing but is not grasped through the external senses, as is the colour or shape of a wolf. Memory preserves the notions of the estimative power. The imagination acts on the objects of memory in the same way it acts on those of the representational powers. Like the objects of the external senses, those of the internal senses are particular and material. The difference is that they can be experienced in the absence of external things and are to some degree abstracted from matter.
The locomotive power branches into that which causes movement and that which actually moves. The former, the desiderative power, subdivides into the appetitive and the irascible. The appetitive causes movement toward what is imagined to be necessary or beneficial in the pursuit of pleasure. The irascible causes avoidance of what is imagined to be harmful or an impediment in the pursuit of dominance. The power that actually moves uses the nerves to relax the muscles at the demands of the appetitive power or tighten them at the demands of the irascible one.
3 The rational soul
The rational soul, which is defined as a primary perfection for an organic natural body inasmuch as this body can act by rational choice and grasp the universals, is divided into the practical and the theoretical intellects. The practical intellect seeks knowledge in order to act in accordance with the good in its individual body, its family and its state. It must, therefore, know the principles for properly managing the body, the family and the state, that is, ethics, home management and politics. The practical intellect is the rational soul turning its face downward. The function of the theoretical intellect is to know just for the sake of having the universals (the realities or natures of things). Some of these natures, such as God and the intellect, cannot attach to movement; knowledge of them is metaphysics. Other natures, such as unity, can attach to movement but do not; knowledge of them is mathematics. Still other natures, such as humanity and squareness, can attach to movement either in reality and thought, such as humanity, or in reality but not in thought, such as squareness. Knowledge of these is physics.
The theoretical intellect is the rational soul with its face upward. The practical intellect looks up to the theoretical one and moves its body accordingly. In this, the practical intellect is similar to :the celestial soul that looks up to the intellect of its sphere and moves its sphere accordingly. Thus, like .the celestial soul, the practical intellect is the link between intellect as such and matter.
On the whole, Muslim philosophers followed al-Kindi’s division of the theoretical intellect into the material intellect (al-‘aql al-hayulant), the habitual intellect (al-‘agl bil-malaka), the actual intellect (al-‘aql bi’!-fi’b and the acquired intellect’ (al-‘aql al-mustafad). The material intellect is a blank slate with the potentiality for grasping the intelligible forms or universals. Ibn Sina points out that it is referred to as material, not because it is actually material but because it resembles matter in accepting the form. The habitual intellect grasps the universals, as one acquires the skill to write; in other words, this intellect has the ability to use the universals but does not always do so. The actual intellect grasps the universals in actuality and is always ready to use them. While Muslim philosophers differed slightly with regard to their accounts of the acquired intellect, their general view is that it is the highest human state, the point of contact with the divine, the agent intellect (the intelligence of the moon, the lowest celestial intellect), which makes it possible for the theoretical intellect to acquire the universals in the purest form (see EPISTEMOLOGY IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY §4).
4 The ultimate objective of the soul
AL-FARABI asserts that even though the soul is of different parts, it is a unity with all its parts working for one final end, happiness. While the plant soul, for example, serves a specific function, it also serves the powers that are higher than it in rank, the animal powers. Without nourishment, growth and reproduction, the animal powers cannot perform their necessary functions. Similarly, while the function of the animal powers is to have sensation and movement, by performing this function they also promote the functions of the powers above them, the rational ones. The operations of the animal powers, especially those of the senses, are particularly important for the attainment of the final end. The external senses strip the forms from material objects and convey them to the internal senses. The more they are transferred internally, the less mixed with matter do they become. Since the innermost sense they reach is the imagination, they are there in their purest material existence (see IMAGINATION).
The role of the objects of the imagination is not always clearly defined in Islamic philosophy. Occasionally it is said by somebody like Ibn Sina to be one of preparation for the theoretical intellect to receive the universals from the agent intellect. At other times Ibn Sina, like other Aristotelians such as Ibn Rushd, takes these objects to be the ingredients out of which the universals are made after the last process of purification (see EPISTEMOLOGY IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY). It seems, however, that in either case the light of the agent intellect is needed to complete the process. In the former case, this light gives the intelligible forms to the theoretical intellect when this intellect is prepared. In the latter case, it sheds itself on the objects of the imagination, which are then reflected on the theoretical intellect without their matter. Since the theoretical intellect is in its first stages in potentiality, it cannot act on the objects of the imagination directly; hence the need for the agent intellect, which is pure actuality. The role of the practical intellect in all this is to put order into the body. This sets free the theoretical intellect from preoccupation with the body and helps the powers whose function is necessary for theoretical knowledge to function unhampered.
Muslim philosophers adhered to the view that the acquired intellect is one with its objects, for they thought the knower and the known are one, as did their Greek predecessors. This means that the highest human state is one in which unity with the universals or the eternal aspects of the universe is reached. This state is described as happiness because in it eternity, an aspect of the objects of the acquired intellect, is attained.
5 Eternity of the soul
When Muslim philosophers assert that the soul comes into existence simultaneously with the coming into existence of the body, some, such as Ibn Sina (§6), who believe that the rational soul is in essence nonmaterial, are thinking only of the non-rational soul. Others, such as Ibn Rushd (§3), who believe that the rational soul is originally not separate from matter, contend that the whole human soul comes into existence. The latter believe that since the rational soul grasps the universals from particular sensibles, and since such sensibles are material and have a temporal beginning, this soul must also be material and must have a temporal beginning. Those who attribute non-materiality to the essence of the rational soul, such as AL-KINDI and Ibn Sina, assert that this soul pre-exists the body. Whil
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