Praise for the use not for a use, Fallacy, Revolution that takes place after the war. Not even their mother can tell them apart: this is really good.

Praise for the use not for a use, Fallacy, Revolution that takes place after the war. Not even their mother can tell them apart: this is really good.  By Dr. Sohail Ansari

Conceived and worded by DR Sohail Ansari (originality of concepts and originality of words).

He believes that there can never be a zero scope for improvement and appreciates criticism if it is not for the sake of criticism.

·       ‘The only thing that really exists is you and that everything you perceive and experience is a figment of your own imagination’.  I am not different from the atheist in not buying this solipsism; but I am not an atheist. Things cannot be disproved, can still be proved. Existence of aliens cannot be proved, even though there is no way to disprove the existence of aliens. Every atheist like me knows that but does not cease to be an atheist.

Praise for the use not for a use  

·      Everyone uses words; but it is the use that unleashes their inherent magic. Historian is like an architect; latter must not be praised for using well-seasoned timber or properly mixed concrete as the art of architect lies in the use. Factual accuracy is not the historian’s most notable accomplishment. 

Fallacy

·      ‘Masterpieces of literature are intertextual that is, they tend to be written in response not of reality but to other works of literature. A work of literature is not intertexual if it is written in response to a writing that accurately mirrors social reality’.

Revolution that takes place after the war.

·      Revolution leads to revolutionary changes in the word revolution itself. It is a mass movement from below to overthrow the oppressors and then it is the revolution from above, signifying the conquest of power by revolutionaries. Revolution occurs after the successful conquest.

Not even their mother can tell them apart: this is really good.  

·      People fall for the association fallacy. Political marketing consultant turns ‘guilt by association’ into ‘pride by association’, knowing people of extremist views does not make politician extremist; but it certainly makes him the right person to talk to extremists.  

Quote

·       Creativity is finding extraordinary story in ordinary occurrence destruction is breaking old paths for breaking new and better.

From:             Pakistan Islamic Front

Ads:    Value ads

Ad N:14

Analysis:

Well-known stories  of corruption during the rule of Nawaz and Benazir and squeaky clean image of Qazi are the key to decode the coded criticism ‘plunder’ and understand what ad attempts to sell: Qazi as the savior. No where all this is mentioned; but when one integrates visual and textual material with the knowledge he already has (the reputation of Qazi and two politicians free from the taints of moral and monetary corruption and tainted by it respectively) as the linking mechanism he achieves an internal and external transfer of significance and succeeds to interpret the ad. At the connotative level, the ad implies something more. Viewed from general perspective, posturing of Qazi indicates exuberance, self strength, and confidence, and to Jamat’s adherents it transmits, in addition, exhilaration.

The ad appears to be tapping into a wellspring of resentment and rage, and fatigue factor emanating from the ham-handed approach to governance and percolating across all levels of society and from the fact that power had alternated between two parties.

The conventional view of Jamat-Islami counts one basic component to its image: the dependence of it on bigger party. Jamat was always perceived to be the natural allay of Muslim League and its differences with latter never appeared more than sibling rivalry. But this ad does not sound like the one from Jamat Islami of popular imagination, and reflects the shift in its strategy. The word plunderer contains a kind of blanket condemnation that is not typical of it; because bashing had always been selective. The disassociation of jamat with Muslim League robbed the latter to steal rightist manifesto and wrap it in the sheep’s clothing of Muslim league while maintaining its image as different from religious party; which on the one hand rendered Jamat superfluous for election, and on the other, enabled Muslim League to justify later its failure to catch up with the religious rhetoric of election.

Furthermore, the ad is directed to effect a paradigm shift in general perception by reshaping Qazi from merely pawn to the ace of spade.

NEGATIVES:

Society is long used to see politics and religion mapped out as the separate realms. The slogans for accountability reverberates throughout the echelon of society, but that echo never thunders the corrupt rulers out of office, because corruption is seen as an internal malady that should be rectified through preaching and sermons. It is widely held that inner transformation occurred through moral urging will bring automatically change in political milieu; Islam should be promulgated from pulpits only and then it will spread with the power of its own, implementing or even promoting it with the state force amounts to the negation of its intrinsic appeal.

The purging of corruption but not through any external force is what society knows and believes. The importance of religious leaders lies in not what they can do for people but what they symbolize.  Superseding of corrupt secular rulers by religious one is largely believed to be unworkable, if not unknown concept, and dismissed as the trespassing of politics into the domain of religion__ the squaring of circle. Consequently, the history of the scholars is largely the history of having general admiration as pious but not fit to rule.

Man is more concerned regarding the fulfillment of his animal instincts. People are less likely to be persuaded out of preferring form (rituals of religion) to substance (religion as system) unless religion proves to be fat better in resolving material problems of life. The failure to project Islam as the elixir to whole slew of political and social ills led the formation of socialist and secular parties and bleaching of religious parties from political tapestry.

This ad aims at ‘national perception management.’ Ad projects Jamat on the threshold of living on its own. Perfection does not lie in freedom from minus: for every pros as human creation has cons; it lies in making minus negligible.  This ad would have been far more efficacious for psychological operation, if it had negotiated cultural or social barriers that doom any effort to offer religious parties as the viable alternative. The ad plays the corruption card; but the cleansing of venality from politics is perceived more ethical than political. Here ad fails and seems to be good example of neither and nor. It does not explain that how the character-deficit of leader does damage to country and fails to establish the link of corruption to social and economic woes of country; for example how it dries up fund allocated to generate jobs and provide health and education facilities.

Quoting examples from the rule of pious caliphs as the best demonstration of Islamic theory of governance; and mentioning of the benefits of Islamic social justice and economic system (prevailed during that rule) would establish the link between the good governance and good life; but absence of this plus is that minus which overshadow whole ad. Disadvantages (of having corrupt rulers) and advantages (of having pious rulers) are that missing dimension whose presence could only dislodge well entrenched beliefs and bring home to people that no problem is decoupled with religion; and voting corrupt out and pious man in is the only way to change the things.

If ad fails to achieve absolute rectification of perception it must fail for letting absence of certain lines render present lines ineffective.