ISLAM ANAYSIS ON SCIENCE

ISLAM ANAYSIS ON SCIENCE

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

“Give science a social contract,” succinctly contends Islam as an analytical frame for science.

The contention stresses, among other things, the full import of science benefiting sectors of society and/or the population. I could hardly disagree with such an analytical frame, which finds parallelism in the ‘Asian way’ to understanding science.

A science must generate technologies—the ‘know how’—which can then be disseminated to end-users. In the developing world, end-users refer particularly to the middle and marginal sectors, thus rendering science & technology as performing a ‘social responsibility’.

Any science program that fails to generate technologies should be scrapped in case they are proposed in a university or think-tank. In my own field, the social sciences, I hold the position that any new social science program or even subject must be able to generate ‘social technologies’ or ‘best practices’ to be meaningful at all.

Below is the update discourse on Islam analysis of science.

[Philippines, 18 September 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/science-in-the-islamic-world/opinions/islam-analysis-give-science-a-social-contract-1.html

Islam Analysis: Give science a social contract

Athar Osama

11 August 2011

Ambitious plans for a 'desert development corridor' in Egypt could provide a concrete example of the social value of science, says Athar Osama.

Last month, the journal Science published a supplement called 'Revolutionizing Egypt's Science' that hailed the prospects for Egyptian science after the 25 January revolution. Its optimism reflected a spate of initiatives and increased science budgets announced by the new government to demonstrate its commitment to science and innovation.

But some have rightly warned against reading too much into recent announcements, saying there are still significant obstacles to lifting the scientific profession from its low point during the pre-revolution regime to a place where it can play a constructive role in socio-economic development.

Egypt's leaders and scientists, like those in much of the rest of the Islamic world, need to work with both intellectuals and ordinary citizens to achieve a vast cultural change before science can really be expected to deliver the goods. Progress for Egyptian science must come by putting people first, rather than high-profile 'bricks and mortar' mega-projects.

Highway to prosperity

One example of how this might be achieved is a proposal for a massive 'desert development corridor', which is the brainchild of Boston University geologist Farouk El-Baz, who has been using satellite imagery to study Egypt's deserts for decades.

Initially conceived in the early 1980s, when El-Baz served as president Anwar Sadat's science advisor, the project was shelved for two decades after Sadat's death. But interest was reignited in the mid-2000s and has escalated since.

This US$24–billion initiative — even larger than the US$2-billion 'science city' proposed by Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail — would use scientific knowledge of satellite imagery, desert geology and hydrology to provide socio-economic benefits to society.

It seeks to build a major superhighway to the west of the Nile from the country's north to the south, with arteries connecting it with towns in the east and west. The corridor will also provide a freshwater pipeline and an electricity line to support these areas during the development and afterwards.

According to El-Baz, the corridor "would bring much-needed relief to overpopulated Egyptian cities and reduce urban encroachment of agricultural land, enhance the habitable land mass, improve continental trade linkages from the Mediterranean in the north all the way to South Africa, and create, literally, a 'breathing space' for Egyptian society that is so critical to creativity".

A key aspect of the idea is the creation of a special funding vehicle — essentially, a bond open to the public — that would allow Egyptian people to invest in the initiative. They would become its 'owners' and so, according to El-Baz, control their own destiny.

A social contract

The initiative is most unusual in the Islamic world in making an explicit link between a scientist's idea and its direct beneficiaries.

It could also address a serious weakness in the science policy discourse within the Islamic world.

One of the most fundamental reasons for the lack of science-based development in the Islamic world is the absence of a 'social contract' between scientists and citizens. Under a social contract, citizens pay their taxes to fund scientists in the expectation that they will benefit from the knowledge created and the subsequent socio-economic improvement.

The absence of any such social contract in Islamic countries is exacerbated by the fact that science is not seen as having contributed much towards socio-economic development.

With some notable exceptions — such as agricultural research, development and extension in Egypt and Pakistan during the 1960s and 1970s — much of the science carried out in laboratories across the Islamic world is limited in its scope for commercial application. It is often theoretical, rather than practical, and is sometimes not of sufficient quality to solve real-life problems.

Making science relevant

Furthermore, the entrepreneurial infrastructure needed to commercialise the benefits of scientific research is extremely underdeveloped in the Islamic world. In the absence of strong private sector participation, innovation often ends up as an unwanted baby, with nobody prepared to pay the bills or take responsibility for it.

The crucial link between science and its impact is therefore broken and society suffers as a result. This limits the possibilities, popular enthusiasm and political support for science in the Islamic world.

Two things must happen if science is to win the popular and political support it needs to develop some form of a social contract — a task for which the scientific community must share responsibility.

First, scientists and science policymakers must make science more relevant to their respective societies. Scientists have an important role to play in this; they must come down from their ivory towers and use science to address the urgent needs of their societies.

Without a visible link between investment in science and its returns to the society that funds it, a social contract will be hard to achieve, and science will continue to be seen as a burdensome tax on the present, rather than an investment in the future.

Role of communication

Second, scientists and science policymakers must communicate science more effectively. This is a global challenge but is particularly acute in the Islamic world.

El-Baz learned this the hard way when he started exploring the Egyptian deserts. "We had to tell desert nomads what we were doing, and initially it was hard to do, but we gradually became better at it," he says.

Science journalists can play an important role here. But the much-needed enthusiasm for using science for public benefit must come from scientists themselves.

The growing grass-roots political support for Egypt's Desert Development Corridor is the kind of movement that can help establish a genuine social contract for science. In doing so, it will help put the Islamic world on course towards embracing a culture of science-based development.

[Athar Osama is a London-based science and innovation policy researcher and consultant, and director of Middle East and Asia for a technology policy consulting firm. He is the founder of Muslim-Science.com.]

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ARAB TURMOIL DERAILS WORLD WAR III AGENDA OF GLOBAL OLIGARCHY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Arab social turbulence has been rocking the world news straight for many days now. Let’s continue our reflections on the subject, and see how the turmoil dovetails on the agenda of the global financier oligarchs to wage a World War III by pitting a Sunni-Israel alliance versus Shiite Iran.

Since the 3rd quarter of of 2010 yet, the Israeli forces have begun large scale trainings and preparations for a frontal attack on Iran. That secret training was being done in Romania, probably with echo trainings elsewhere. The war should happen within months’ time since inception of preparations, which means the first semester of 2011.

I’ve already written articles last year concerning that Sunni-Israel alliance going to war versus Iran. My analysis was that ancient racial memories, long dormant in the collective unconscious, are awakening again, and those memories revive the old hatreds between the Semites and the Persians.

However, the recent social turbulence in the Arab republics—whose presidents seem to be chief execs for life—has become a new ‘flavor of the year’ for the Arabs. The turbulence could have brought enormous alarm bells on the Anglo-American-European financiers who may have been caught unprepared by the turmoil incidence.

Thus, in the event of sustained widespread social turmoil among Arab republics, the global oligarchs’ options for solidifying a Sunni-Israel alliance will be short-circuited. The oligarchs will be forced to rely on the sheikhdoms & emirates, the bastions of archaic political cultures, as base for the Sunni counterpart of the alliance.

The sheikhs & emirs were actually integrated into the power orbit of the global oligarchy and form a part of the intricate web of elite networks led by the Northern/Western financiers. Saudi Arabia’s nobles have in fact prepared well for a larger conflagration with Iran, as evidenced by the voracious arms purchases worth hundreds of billions of dollars that they have been undertaking.

In the event of an all-out war between the Sunni-Israel or Semitic Alliance versus Shiite Iran (Persia), the same elites will cash in gargantuan sums out of speculative & portfolio finance that will be moving out of the region during the hot confrontations alone. Then, when war will be over, they will buy estates and wrecked enterprises in Iran and contiguous countries at cheap dirt prices. They did that in Europe after the 2nd world war, and in the Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Stalinist states in 1989.

But here now comes the social turbulence, and we can only surmise what thoughts the same oligarchs have about the events there. Chances are that they are being challenged to cash in on the turbulence right away, by moving ‘smart money’ in and out of the affected Arab region during the turbulence.

Another X event that could happen is when the turmoil will engulf the sheikhdoms & emirates as well. With such internal political fires taking their toils on the archaic Arab states, a World War III will become less feasible. Israel will be compelled to go it alone versus Iran, and that is a terribly suicidal option.

The only option left for the global oligarchs is to engineer the prepositioning of their organized forces inside the Arab states, both republic and archaic, notably the Sunni fundamentalist sects. The Muslim Brotherhood, to recall, was constituted decades ago yet by the British intelligence, for purposes of advancing their polarity agenda.

The fall of the Arab republics into the hands of Islamic groups will surely be a boon to the global oligarchs. The next challenge for them will be to get the new Islamic theocracies to crystallize a tactical alliance versus Iran, and enjoin them in the Zionist war versus Shiite Iran.

But to manipulate Arab politics so as to install Shiite theocracies into power is “suntok sa buwan” as we say in Filipino. That phrase translates to “punch the moon,” or next to impossible. The option is high stakes gambling, and that is outside the agenda set by the oligarchs a long time ago now (see notes about the American freemason Albert Pike, whose 19th century agenda of war pre-defined the larger conflagrations of the 20th and 21st centuries).

Let us all continue to watch the unfolding events in the Arab region as a whole. As of this writing, the stock markets and petrol trade across the globe are being rattled by the social turbulence.

[Philippines, 18 February 2011]

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PEACE TALKS BETWIXT PH GOVERNMENT & REBELS RESUME

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

We have a glad tiding of news coming from the Philippines as the stalled peace talks between government and rebel groups will resume again very soon. A heartwarming news this one is, as Filipinos are now very sick and tired of local wars. It’s time that total peace be achieved very soon.

To recall recent history, Maoist and Muslim insurgencies broke out in the Philippines way back in the early ‘70s. Martial Law, declared in 1972, was instrumental in further swelling the numbers of insurgents, leading at one point to conflicts bordering civil war proportions.

The Maoist New People’s Army, military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines or CPP, a ragtag band at its inception, grew to a huge size across the major island groups along the way. Smaller factions split off from the CPP-NPA, it shrank in size in the past decade, yet it continues to be a threat to the central government.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF was a splinter group from the Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF. The latter, original Muslim insurgency group agreed to a negotiated peace settlement in the ‘90s yet, so only the MILF eventually pursued the old dream of an independent state for provinces where Muslims have a strong presence. While the MNLF held a secular ideology, the MILF was largely a sectarian, Islamic movement.

Talks between both rebel groups and government stalled during the incumbency of the Gloria Arroyo regime. It was unfortunate and tragic a consequence of failed talks, as battlefronts across the islands continuously experience ambuscades and confrontations between warring forces. Collateral damage had already downsized, but it continues to be a phenomenal consequence of the hot wars.

I just hope that the peace talks won’t be for show, like a zarzuela of sorts. Like most compatriot Filipinos, I have grown tired of the wars though I see legitimacy in the advocacies of the insurgents. I myself am of the opinion that social causes are at an all-time relevance, yet these social causes can be fought for through legal and electoral means.

Filipinas has already urbanized across the decades, and urbanization is proceeding at a rapid pace. 2% of folks are added to urban population every year, while 2% are deducted from rural population during the same period. At 68% urban population today, Filipinos can better be convinced about pursuing social causes and advocacies via the ‘urban way’ of mass movements, civil society, and electoral contests rather than the bloody armed way of the old rural Philippines.

The Maoist Left and other Left groups have already proven the relative success of the ‘electoral way’ to institute structural and economic changes. It may be time now to fold up all rebel groups from the most secularly-oriented groups to the most sectarian-fundamentalist groups. The rugs under our feet are changing and the pace of change is fast, so ideological blocs should be fast enough in retooling themselves and co-directing the compass of change via the ‘urban way’.

Meantime, Norway has committed itself as a 3rd party to the talks with the Maoists, while Malaysia has done the same to the talks with the Muslim rebels. The Filipinos down the ground welcome the peace talks, and wouldn’t squirm at the venues of talks whether these be domestically located or overseas. What matters most is peace talks are resumed and warring parties are holding genuine dialogues.

So far, confidence-building measures were already done by the Aquino regime, with the release of political prisoners from the Left. Not only that, even the political prisoners from the military rebel group Magdalo were also released (the mutiny group is ragtag/no peace talks are necessary between it and government). Development projects in areas covered by Muslim rebels are being scaled up.

A nice beginning for the year 2011 indeed, as the crucible of dialogue pervades among warring camps. Let dialogue be the strategic expression, as conflict folds up and is consigned to historical archives.

[Philippines, 06 February 2011]

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EID’L FITR SOLIDARITY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Solidarity and peace to you all on the occasion of Eid’l Fitr!

The Philippines officially celebrates Eid’l Fitr, the Muslim post-Ramadan celebration, on this day of my writing this piece. Solidarity to all Muslims of the Philippines and the world!

We have about 7 Millions of Muslims in the Philippines, a fact that qualifies this country to be represented in international bodies for Muslims such as the OIC. Just being considered an observer in such bodies already brings forth glad tidings of peace and cooperation for the country.

For the record, Islam was instrumental in creating centralized forms of governance (principalities, sultanates) in the country. Likewise did it contribute to revolutionizing agriculture from simple commodity production to intensive plantation system.

I need not belabor the point that Islam also brought interest-free banking to the country. I could only do guess work on the earlier forms of Islamic finance around the 14th and 15th centuries, but what I can infer facilely is that Islam introduced the concept and practice of finance as early as that period in antiquity.

Let me also cite that Islam was instrumental in the take-off of systems of rational casuistry for thought-systems of antiquity, notably those affecting devotional practice (religion), governance, family and kinship. Rational codifications were seeded with the ideas of Aristotle and Greco-Roman philosophers, moving on through Avicenna and Avineroes of Cordoba-Cadiz fame, and it is gladdening to note that Islam brought such casuistry to the Philippines way ahead of Western powers’ commission of the same.

Among other things, there are Arabic numerals, geometry, algebra, civil works, and architecture that Islam likewise brought to the Philippines. The Western cultures borrowed extensively from Muslim Arabs those same sciences & arts cited, which they then brought to the Philippines to expand on what the Muslim principalities & sultanates have already begun much earlier.

On the historical-archeological facets of life, Muslims (notably the nobilities) have accumulated a huge amount of relics that are awaiting the scholars who would tap the same for deeper studies of Philippine history, culture, economy, governance, and institutions during past epochs. The Philippine state should prepare enabling measures that will protect the Muslim nobles (their lives are at risk from marauding criminals) who are the repositories of high culture, and help preserve the relics cited.

Thus, so much reason abounds that justifies the Philippines’ celebration of Eid’l Fitr. Never mind if the country is predominantly Christian. Islam and Arab culture contributed immensely to political, economic, and cultural development of the country, even as the country had evolved into a multi-cultural, global nation as a whole, and so the country should recognize such contributions by co-celebrating the Eid’l Fitr with the rest of the world.

Praise be the Almighty Allah for the enormous blessings poured unto this beloved country over its so many centuries of existence!

Love and Peace!


[Philippines, 09 September 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

ISLAMIC BANKING RECONSTRUCTED

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Islamic banking is part of the totality of ‘best practices’ that originated from Asia. Being among the strong proponents of the ‘Asian way’ as the way out of our capitalist economic malaise and crises of our times, I’d share my own notes of hallelujah to Islamic banking.

I am among those development practitioners and social scientists who propose that let’s all undertake a review of Islamic banking. This banking practice is based on zero-interest banking. The challenge is for us to reconstruct the practice to suit the current context of information society.

Usury is among the proscriptions of spiritual masters and sages of the East. It is within the context of a non-usurious finance, embedded in spiritually-guided livelihood practices, that Islamic banking emerged in Western Asia.

Zero-interest financing contributed immensely to accumulating wealth for the Asiatic polities that engaged in them in antiquity. The same wealth was utilized for social services, ambitious projects, building cities, and advancing the arts, sciences, and philosophy.

Usury is alien to Asia, even as its massive introduction to the continent brought untold miseries to the marginal folks. It had also tied up Asian economies in debt peonage to the financial cartels of the West and their local banking/financial partners.

Before the Asian economies, notably the emerging markets, will go down the drain and lose their growth gains due to usury and predatory finance, their own stakeholders should rethink their borrowed paradigms. They better review those golden Asiatic economic principles taught by spiritual masters, and make ways to re-carve their financial systems following such principles.

Asia is indubitably the driver of the global economy today. It is time for Asia to set the trends by beginning with new financial paradigm such as the one offered by Islamic banking.

[Philippines, 07 June 2010]

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WILL PHILIPPINE INSURGENCIES END SOON?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

It is still poll day as of this writing, as the day’s polling time has been extended till 7 p.m. Poll-related incidence had accordingly dropped by 200% since 2004, an encouraging development amidst a backdrop of systemic violence.

What I’d reflect about this time is the insurgency question: whether the country’s decades-old insurgencies will cease after the installation of a new national leadership. The communist and Bangsamoro insurgents have been conducting peace talks with the Philippine state for a long time now, and there’s no question that insurgencies’ end is in the wish list of diverse stakeholders.

In a society where trust has been torn asunder by the prevalence of polarized mind frames for centuries now, it is understandable that insurgencies will persist for some time. Building mutual trust and confidence is therefore a sine qua non to the end of insurgencies.

Economistic apperceptions of insurgencies, such as to account them solely to high poverty incidence, would hardly hold water. Canada, for instance, is a prosperous country with good governance in place, yet a part of it (Quebec) almost bolted away from the Canadian state.

Addressing poverty, which is now at 33-35% incidence rate, is surely a must, added to food security. There is no denying that this has been on the agenda of peace talks, aside from the options for the livelihood of combatant insurgents when they go back to the mainstream in the case of a political settlement.

What we can see from the economistic discourse is that addressing poverty and social injustices would be good approaches to re-building trust and confidence. During the first two (2) years of the new political dispensation, there has to be a trickling down of incomes to enable poverty reduction, which should convince the insurgents of the sincerity and competence of the leadership in handling the socio-economic malaise of our society.

Furthermore, there has to be relentless efforts made by civil society, church, state, and philanthropic groups to build a culture of tolerance and peace. Peace talks shouldn’t be left to government and insurgents alone, in other words, but should involve the broadest sector of society.

The building of mutual trust, confidence, and contextual building of peace and tolerance, will redound to constructing greater civility and cooperation. A ‘dialogue of civilizations’ is a broad manifestation of a culture of peace and tolerance permeating the private sphere, which is a cherished human condition by the peoples of the world.

Insurgents are incidentally growing old, and are getting weary of the war itself. They want peace, and this is a boon to the peace talks. In our day-to-day conduct of affairs as a people, we should continue to build trust in the private spaces of our lives. This, we hope, would encourage insurgents to forge new social arrangements with us on a people-to-people basis, a step that would bring us closer to a high-trust environment.

We must also continue to exert pressure on the Phiippine state and insurgents to continue to dialogue and put a time limit to the peace talks. Peace talks have already dragged on for decades, so maybe it would prove fruitful to put a time cap on the talks. We can use organizational instruments that we have, such as professional, crafts, and civil society groups.

Let us hope that we don’t have a hawkish regime forthcoming. A regime of hawks would be anachronistic to the overall trend today of higher expectations for peace and a sustained dialogue between state and insurgents.

We are all running against time today, even as we citizens of an war-torn country are tired and weary of the wars. New weapons of mass destruction, such as the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM, are moving out of assembly lines, and sooner or later they would be traded via organized crime groups to hot-headed insurgent and jihadist groups locally.

A wish indeed, let us hope that the two (2) insurgencies will be settled finally, with the former rebels integrated into the mainstream to participate in parliamentary politics and civil society engagements. This will give us breathing spaces we need to concur more social cooperation and economic amelioration in the short run.

With the large insurgencies gone, the police & military forces can then focus their efforts on clamping down jihadist movements that we perceive as illegitimate or criminal groups. In no way should government negotiate with groups that possess warped sense of community and are unwilling to recognize the full import of dialogue and tolerance.

[Philippines, 10 May 2010.]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]