A Human's Development Goals [Grave Edition]

• To have gained and imparted beneficial knowledge
• To have performed actions of on going benefit
• To have pious children who pray for you

Its quite intergenerational, with the target being the highest point in the hereafter, and the zone of translation this life. Through knowledge, action and progeny, a continuity of wisdom, discovery and social uplift is hardwired and softwired into the socio-spiritual life.
What simplicity.

To turn it the other way, it would be the ultimate in misguidance,

• To have spread malicious poison, gossip and slander
• To have caused and enabled cascading harm
• To have children who curse you

David Davis shows some mojo

After the Labour party bribed itself to increase the detention without charge period from 28 days to 42, cheapening the habeus corpus tradition and wounding the British civilisational psyche, one politician did something interesting. David Davis, who came second in the last Tory leadership contest, resigned as Shadow Home secretary and MP to trigger a by-election in a safe Tory seat. The ex-editor of The Scum seems to be putting himself forward to stand against him, regarding the British public as scaredy-cat morons who don't care whether its 42 or 420 days.

Empirical analysis of the cases of people held for the 28 day maximum doesn't suggest that more time is needed. Rather than putting some brains into the investigatory effort, The Man prefers to give them more time. A very sad state of affairs for the innocent people messed up by the rule change, if not the general population who still face the AQ type political violence hazard.

Critics have poured scorn on Davis. 'Vain, self indulgent stunt' blah blah blah they say. Labour may not even bother to field a candidate against him, bless their evil unprincipled socks. Still, its sweet when politics moves beyond the follow-thy-leader practice. That Queen Shami of Liberty worries that he may have made a bum move doesn't really bother me. For me, the act was both symbolic and real, it means a lot. conservatism, of the good stuff, certainly helps at times like these. The chap's actions have stuck a barb in Labour, and highlighted the issue of our time to the public conscience. Many polls still show Brits not being bothered too much, quantitatively speaking, about the 42 day thing. Practically, the House of Lords would probably have blocked it anyway.

Its just heart-warming to know that there was a politician for whom this democratically laced corruption was too much. Labour MPs were being whipped silly and bribed with all they could have(honours, Cuba etc) .... just to bolster Brown's illusion of control. Davis has earned some political currency, trust and kudos through this. An unjust government action should be resisted, however pathetically, just to prove that truth is not dead. I do not deify Davis Davis, but want to give him a big bro hug right now. Muslims would do well to flock to help his re-election campaign for Haltemprice and Howden as citizens... though that would probably guarantee he loses...

Termites ate my spine

Termites have eaten important documents in a high profile corruption case against former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, lawyers say.


And Shaytan laughs at the poetry of it all. His mission to misguide humankind would seem to be doing rather well. Strangely, as 'Sheikha' flies 'off sick' to America, so many people are overjoyed.. and its hard not to feel overjoyed by proxy... because they are overjoyed and relieved of tension. I mean, pissed off, rather busting, Awami Leaguers are a severe public nuisance, guaranteed to blow your mind to get whatever they think their way is.

TERMITES..... after all that they turn around and say TERMITES have come to protect a defendant in a corruption case. I understand how hard it is to keep books and paper records in Bangladesh.... but TERMITES.

I remember when the Late Mrs Bhutto had a forensic style investigation done on her possessions, revealing cast iron data showing dodjyness. Mushybaby brushed it aside. Who really knows the real presence, nature, mechanics and dynamics of Sheikha's illegal behaviour.. but this TERMITE issue is terrific.

Why cant Bangladeshi society evolve past this stage? Why does it appear that this democratic punctuation wasn't the success that it should have been?

1. No crystalline vision for the society.
2. No community of kind thinkers and doers to craft, refine and translate such a vision.
3. no genuine public sphere, just a superficial civil society that convinces nobody.
   
4. Limited cognition of the voters and activists, who believe their leaders are of any essential benefit.

The four are nested in negative disastrous feedback loop.

Guardening

The changing of the guard took place
at a differential kind of pace...
through hostile takeovers of charity
and bizarre coalitions of opportunity.

I hope we keep the memory

of those who deserved authority

lest we become so buzzword spun

for then who's work is being done?

Our millat grows more crystalline
It takes a while for ribs from spine
I'm waiting for the nervous system
For synchrony with every piston


Ancestral ties, what a can of worms
makes me shrug and go quite taciturn
"They just got worse" is all i'll say
horizons narrow day by day

Tariq bin Ziad, he burnt his boats,
but we aren't on conquest you silly goats,
Some inbetweeny agnostic hope,
or crown is needed, not hangman's rope.

But what about those carried through errors?
we've theologised some rank blinking howlers.
who's man enough to call them out
improve, move on and banish all doubt?

Its clear who cant; rent-boys and the bayah'd,
The former are foul, the latter have soured.
The aloof and white-masked, were never real factors,
what qualities then define my imagined actors?

Tablighi networked and mannered will do,
An A-team-Suffragette-Royal Society stew.
this could be a stretched and elitist bright future
we might just end up wielding flagon and pitcher

Annual Development Ponce-around 2008-9

In the land of Vang, the wazir made a budget
it was full of numbers, and various widgets.
Large amounts were committed to good causes
to be prosecuted by officers and political orphans.

The budget was small, but thats no matter.
Its June, and you cant build for the water.
The determining factor, and this is the key
is to implement governance unfoolishly.

The officers mess, was a complex arena
vested interests galore, little hope for enema.
But honestly one must feel sad for ECNEC*
no paradigm to translate, just technocratic rednecks.

With politicals in jail, the officers roam free,
they're clever but designed for coloniality.
Politicians were thick, unable to guide
region and faction and interest denied...

Nobody even seemed to have any answer
"democracy-election" was the principle mantra
No vision cohered, no gandalf stood up
Perhaps what was needed was a kick up the butt

Meanwhile in the court of the Imperial master
Mandarins planned a conference for the pending disaster
they invited the Press Lord, his minions and a General
the programme i tell you, it looks rather terrible.

The story goes on and with each passing day,
more people are born and more people pray,
for openings to be taken by the salehin**
not rentboys who dwell in the doomed mezzanine

*ECNEC makes decisions on interesting big funding projects.
**Righteous

Zak Goldsmith for Richmond Park MP

Take a recent editor of The Ecologist, stick him in the Tory party and set it in the time between the decline and the death of the New Labour movement in 21st century great britain. Remind all the Paks that he is Jemima Apas little bro. Assign the chap the Richmond Park constituency and what do you get?

A ray of hope?

Headline of the century "[Bangladeshi] Politicians resent budget-making sidestepping them"

Source NewAgeBD 6.6.08.

possibly the funniest, truest statement ever made.

Important Scholar Alert: Shayk Javed Ahmad Ghamidi

Over in West Bangladesh there is a scholar with precious guidance. He is a theo-centred teacher who joined then left Jamat-e-Islami, came out the other end better and does his own significant thing. Qualitively I understand that he shares certain understandings with other Asian greats like the Malaysian Syed Naquib Al Attas (Its all about the adab) and Indonesian Nurcholish Madjid (Islamic parties are a dumb idea).

Its great to hear about another great thought leader in the Ummah, for who the be all and end all isn't politics and state power.

Wiki on him

Wiki on the constellation of linked institutions

Boston Globe Article

Muslim states, he says, cannot be theocracies, yet they cannot be divorced from Islam either. Islam cannot simply be one competing ideology or interest group that reigns supreme one moment and is gone the next. He instead argues for the active investment of the state in building institutions that will help create a truly "Islamic democracy."

"I challenge liberal and conservative thought at the same time," he told me recently at his home in Lahore. "The liberals in Pakistan are confused by me. The religionists are fuming and have called me everything short of an infidel."

Journal, unambitiously called 'Renaissance'

New party formation and progress issues

Is it time for Anwar? ie. will he be elected Prime Minister when he is allowed to run in Malaysian elections next time? If so, what symbolic ripples would that send throughout the world?

Malaysia IS a small country, blessed with many natural resources as well as ethnic characters and temperaments that have enabled its uplift since it Independence. But it was interesting to see how in their last election a new party was able to make a mark and exploit even Malay confidence in the UMNO. In Turkey too, new parties, or reconfigured ones, are able to form, do well, get squashed and reform within a short time scale. There's a sociopolitical elastic that forms between people and political parties as the latter perform well. This is the fruit of the confidence that Erdogan honoured as Mayor of Istanbul, and the intention of Anwar Ibrahim and co as they compete to perform at the regional level.

In Bangladesh however something else is going on, the elastic broke sometime in the past and it is hard to re-attach. The political field is devoid of ideas and the receiver dishes resistant to incoming transmissions. Not here a new-wave multiracial or Islamic politics 2.0, here there is the politics of revenge and the revolution of the fools. Maybe there wasn't even any elastic before, the oft-repeatednational elastic might just have been an accident. Whats for sure is that its hard to start new parties and get anywhere. Emergent splinters, splinter furthe, while voting folks are too fixed to the tribes that they know. There is an upstream problem too, in thought leadership.

The 'intelligentsia' is dishonestly drunk on unearnt, unlawful earnings and not competitive in a good way. Years of providing substandard services for the people have taken their toll on their integrity and vitality. This reminds me of how vibrant women dumb down a lot and become boring upon wedding the wrong person. nuff said really. Though maybe some interesting teenager will come by in the next few years. Unfortunately Aid Baby was reared on rehydrated yak milk.

So small parties and new parties of the elections of 2008/9. Good luck with crafting a New Agenda and translating it.

Islamic Finance in service of what?

I went to a lecture the other day that explored the question of how islamic, islamic finance is. It was by Dr. Mehmet Asutay, and kinda jammed around this paper. I was heartened by what he had to say, not depressed. He had something nuanced to say about maqasid al sharia. It was that the ibn al quayyum rendering(infitnite list) may be a better point of reference than imam ghazalis(five) and that the goals of Islam, rather than the goals of Islamic Law are more collectivisable.

Translation of islamic mojo isnt about how oil wealth is stored and protected, but how muslim money culture evolves and allows brians, sweat and money to lead to GUD. Gross Ummahtic Dignification. Maqasidi investment has as much to do with how a finance minister may prioritise and allocate state funds, how a venture capitalist might choose what bright ideas to enable, how communities enable GUD and how individuals invest with their resources.


Pure profit making motivation, purifying profit.

Which is why i reckon that we should just wipe jungly Islamic finance out as as, to be invisible. Just like a coke can on a table actually doesnt exist, we shouldnt accord things value on the sole basis of money and figures. (property is the 5th maqasid out of five, behind deen, life, dignity and intellect).



Practicioners of the dark arts dont please me because they seldom talk to the conceptual universe that I inhabit or that the ambitions I have, i find there answers tend to be 'no' and their stances over analytical and lacking vision. Habibie managed to dislodge a lot of such people and get some creative non linear mojo in Indonesia. It is sad that a lot of smart Muslim people seldom take islamic concepts and think with them practical and empirically to check out how they interact with the world.

But Doc Asutay was cool, could communicate with the mixed up millat without confusing, and the QnA was eclectic to say the least. He hat tipped and built on the works of the founders of Islamic Economics, which is something that marks wheat from chaff. He qualified that the foundational stuff came from the islamic resurgence of the 60s and 70s that kinda flopped, so we needed to think about things a bit more. The next generation must look at whats going on now and take the real thing further, not go with the fashion of islamically attracting gulf money like the british government.

He made an interesting couple of points. Some survey of Islamic Finance used in Malaysia in the recent past showed that 88% of it was just use to finance consumption... just buying stuff. whereas something like 2% (musharaka and mudaraba) actually did anything interesting. Interesting means creating essential value not plinging things around. Whether this says more about the dear malay's lack of entrepreneurial mojo than failings in the structure who knows?

But the point is that lots of dosh plinging around isnt the key here, its the benefitial work done by it thats crucial. ok we can understant sharia compliancy like halal meat, as a technocratic permissability factor. But a monstrous building for the opulent erected with islamic finance next to the Kaba? Come on! Allah mentions good(tayeb) whenever he speaks of lawful (halal). The dirty halal fried chicken might be lawful, but is it good?


Maqasidi venture capitalism is what I would like to see work, and a gradual awakening to the point that Allah will judge us well on how we spent our wealth health and time. It's not just about reducing the harm, its about increasing the good. The maqasid conversation, if nothing else, can makes it clear in the Muslim moral vernacular. Its inately vision broadening.

In a sense the states and corporates matter less than communities, families and individuals. Its a bad bad outcome when the faith is only played back but with certain frequencies missing. Taking out the bum notes from the scale is great but you really have to play a good tune. If bad 'Islamic' Financing is a greedy pig in scholastic clothing, it is time for the real murrabi's to distinguish themselves.


Another observation was that it was the Islamic Banks in Sudan (who enable a lot of agriculture) and Bangladesh were fulfilling more than anywhere else. Theres a trust in desh where even the most secular hardcore will bank with them. This mirrors 'secular' parents who want their daughters to marry a jamati boy because he prays and behaves. On social and economic levels things seem ok, its just when political power becomes part of the equation that things go ape.

There was a piece in todays newage paper, carried from bdnews24 about Islamic banks in desh. they repeated some of the same information twice though. Anyway so i was wondering....

(naive)Femenist analysis of islamic banking -> how many females employees do they have>

Economistic analysis of islamic banking -> bunch of numbers, no social context or resemblance of heart.

Anu muhammad (lefti bdeshi uni prof) analysis -> they charge more 'interest' so can profit more. religious command over capitalist economy must be resisted. Democracy please. look this is linked to the defilement of our pure secularism, we have always been secular... look at me, i am everybody.


Nationalist analysis of Islamic banking -> why are you buying them machineries from india?

Muslim students view of Islamic finance -> how can i get a job in it?

degraded Tablighi's view of Islamic banking -> oooh this means i can take a 2 hour break every namaz time.

British view of Islamic Finance -> how can we make some money out of these stupid arabs who seem to be the only ones with welath at the moment. Ah, london as an Islamic hub. badass!

dafter 'Paki' islamist view of Islamic Finance. -> how can i grow my status in this environment? I know, i will mirror the british view.

Malaysian view of Islamic Finance -> ok-la. what ever you like

Islamic Development Bank view of Islamic Finance -> dudes, over here, we do good work we have limited funds and a helluva lot of work to do... look. oh you just want to make money... i see... We'll still be over here when you figure out what a stupid bunch of stupids you are. Anybody want to work in jeddah?