This thread will not be an anti-Islam thread, I want to share this interesting interview with you.
Pakistani nuclear physicist: "Muslim societies have failed collectively"
By Hasnain Kazim, Islamabad
In Islamic countries, it rumbles, even after the Arab revolution everywhere religious forces are on the rise.The Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy sees a "collective failure" of Muslim societies. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he explains his thesis.
Students dance around Pervez Hoodbhoy. They wear robes and doctorates, the young women have slipped the hats just about their scarves. They have just learned that they have passed their exams. Now they want to be photographed with Hoodbhoy. Her famous professor.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, 62, nuclear physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. Here he teaches since the seventies.He studied at prestigious universities in the U.S. and in Europe and also taught. For his achievements, he has received awards, and the physics he came to political issues.
For example, he criticized the nuclear armament of nuclear power Pakistan and the encroachment of religion in scientific, cultural and political areas. With this attitude, he makes enemies in Pakistan, which is so proud of its atomic bomb. A private university in Lahore has just released him, for his work in Islamabad waiting for months for his pay.
Still, he had never thought to leave Pakistan, he says. Hoodbhoy was born a Muslim, in an Ismaili family. Hated by many, but also secretly admired by some, he does not want to be silenced. "I say what I think. And I founded," he says in his office, which he's still at the university, which paid him no more. On the walls are pictures of Japan after its destruction by the atomic bombs on the desk are stacked books on physics and politics.
Read the interview, why Pervez Hoodbhoy is facing so critical of religion, and how he sees the future of Islamic societies:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Hoodbhoy, regularly warn against the radicalization of Muslims. How do you do it will be concrete?
Hoodbhoy: When I started teaching here at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad in the early seventies, there was throughout the campus only one student, who was wearing a burqa. Today, about 70 percent of the women here are completely wrapped. Only 30 percent run around normally.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Justify your students that? Or is that not an issue?
Hoodbhoy: I ask them sometimes, and many say that Islam requires that of them. Others say they wear the burqa or hijab, because most women do it here. Others say they feel safer that way, even if it stood at the bus stop, then they harass anyone.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it does not turn to God and stricter interpretation of religion?
Hoodbhoy: Yes. We are witnessing a major cultural revolution in the Islamic world. Pakistan is not only affected, but more or less every Muslim country. Pakistan is changing, has radicalized Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, many countries in Africa and in the Arab world, Egypt, Algeria, Mali now.Sooner or later you will see in Syria, only veiled women. But let's look at the Muslim communities in Europe and the U.S. - have been infected by the same pathogen. Why? I think you realize that you are different than others. Obviously there is the desire to show that you are different. A burqa is nothing more than a label to distinguish itself. This is shown very clearly: My identity is Islamic. This identity is closely linked to the feeling of being a victim of history. Hidden deep Muslims feel that they have failed. This mixture of feelings I instills fear, because it leads to a behavior that is very unhealthy.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You look at Muslim societies as failed collectively.What do you mean?
Hoodbhoy: There are about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world - but they can show a substantial achievement in any field. Not in the political sphere, not in social terms, neither in science nor in art or literature.Everything they do is with great devotion, prayer and fasting. But there are no efforts to improve living conditions within Islamic societies.Unconsciously, people naturally feel that this is a collective failure.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There was recently called Arab Spring , where people - Muslims - have fought well for better living conditions.
Hoodbhoy: The Arab Spring was only a response to autocratic regimes and despotism, so the reasons that the Arab world can sink into darkness. The protests, however, were not desire a cultural and scientific renaissance. Therefore, one can not expect any major changes. The actual liberation, there will be only if policy changes on a cultural change and a change in attitudes follows. Arab Muslims have to give their false but widespread belief that science in any way, contains elements of religion. Inshallah this mentality that makes God responsible for everything is the opposite of scientific thought. Quite apart from the Arab morale is bad. There are constant interruptions to fulfill religious obligations. In order to compete in the modern world, will have things like punctuality and adherence to the rules, setting up the people, not God, dramatically improved.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you get for such statements actually threats?
Hoodbhoy: no threats, but it gives me a hard time. I had just been released at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, where I taught physics. This is a very progressive private university, but there are in this society limits of what you can say. Even here in Islamabad, it is not easy for me. Since I am verbeamteter professor, one can not dismiss me. But I will not pay more for months. Doing so, I only facts: What major invention or discovery has made Muslims in the last thousand years? Power? Electromagnetic waves? Antibiotics? The internal combustion engine? Computer? No, nothing, at least nothing that makes a modern civilization. So it is now. And when it comes to the religious fanatics, it does not matter. The mentally still stuck in the twelfth century.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There are definitely very progressive Muslims, those who are secular and appreciate the modern world. And even religiously most are moderate. Where are you now against unfair.
Hoodbhoy: Of course there were experiments in Islamic societies to modernize, in the middle of the 20th Century. Pakistan was when it was founded in 1947, a very modern idea. Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, they were all societies, the formation and progress seen as a good thing. All that is over. There are several reasons. Arab nationalism failed. The Palestinians were kept small. And the West continued his interests independently by positive developments in Islamic countries, for example, when it comes to oil. If everything goes wrong, people look to God.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You think that is enough to ignite a radicalization?
Hoodbhoy: For many Muslims, the question is asked: why is it over with our greatness? And the answer that they give the mullahs, is: Because you are not good Muslims! Pray! Fasts! Conceals your wives! Think about your interpretation of Islam! Only: There will be no progress. We are experiencing the consequences. In Pakistan, radical Sunnis kill Shiites daily now, just because the are considered infidels.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And what do you think is the right way to stop this trend?
Hoodbhoy: companies need to do their bloody experience. In this way, Europe has become more secular. Previously, there was always wars between Catholics and Protestants, and only when the bloodshed continued long enough, the people came to their senses. I fear that we are making these terrible experiences straight.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nevertheless, we do have in the here and now to deal with the radicals. What do you think of talks with the Taliban ?
Hoodbhoy: Those who are not willing to talk, but to hold on to power, we have to kill. Take the Pakistani Taliban: You have two requirements, namely that Pakistan severs its ties with the U.S. and that we have theSharia introduce as the only valid law. They want no roads, no schools, no work. They are totally uncompromising. Of course you can not talk to them. We have seen it in 2009 in Swat, the Pakistani government made more concessions and the extremists were advancing ever further. They need to say quite clearly that we deal only with you, if your gun resigns.And since they will not do that, we must fight it. If you talk to the Taliban, and then only from a position of strength.
SPIEGEL ONLINE : Would the government for the support of the people if they would fight the Taliban?
Hoodbhoy: When it 2009 at the question of whether the army is waging war against the Taliban in the Swat Valley, there were fierce resistance in the population.Nevertheless, the military invaded. Today is the Swat valley more visible than it was under the Taliban. I believe that many do not like the army, but they like even less the extremists. I am convinced that military action is possible.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How strong is the degree of radicalization within the Pakistani army, which has at least about the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world?
Hoodbhoy: The army can hardly be different in composition than the society from which they are recruited. Pakistani society has the Islamist agenda given a place, and this is equally true for the armed forces. The military therefore faces great difficulties. There are officers who see themselves as part of Pakistan's army. And there are officers who see themselves as part of the Army of Islam. The secular forces within the armed forces see the quite concerned, but they have no answer to this challenge.
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy (Urdu: پرویز ہودبھائی; born 11 July 1950), is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, essayist and defence analyst. He has also taught as the visiting professor of Physics at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) where he also worked on topics in theoretical applications in the topological insulators, various Hall effects and Graphene. Before joining LUMS, he was the professor of nuclear and high-energy physics, and also the head of the Physics Department at the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU). He graduated and also received a PhD from MIT and continues to do research in Particle physics. He received the Baker Award for Electronics in 1968, and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics in 1984. He has authored various scientific research papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Hoodbhoy is also a prominent environmentalist and social activist and regularly writes on a wide range of social, cultural and environmental issues. He is the chairman of Mashal, a non-profit organization which publishes Urdu books on feminism, education, environmental issues, philosophy, and modern thought. Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy is a strong and avid supporter for peaceful use of nuclear technology in Pakistan, nuclear non-proliferation, and nuclear disarmament and criticizing the United States, Israel, Pakistan's and India's nuclear program in many national and international forums.
Journalist: Hasnain Kazim
Born in 1974 in Oldenburg, son of Indian-Pakistani immigrants. Preschool time in Stade and in Karachi, Pakistan, school in the Pakistan and in Stade. Studied political science in Hamburg, career as a naval officer. Freelance among other things, the "Stader Tageblatt" and the German Press Agency dpa in South Asia Office in New Delhi, India. From 2000 internship at the "Heilbronner Stimme", then political editor there. From February 2006 to June 2009 for economic affairs editor of Spiegel Online. Since July 2009, South Asia correspondent based in Islamabad, Pakistan.
original source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausla...en-atomphysiker-pervez-hoodbhoy-a-879319.html
translation source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/noma...es-have-failed-collectively/10151229455226301
curriculum vitae Pervez Hoodbhoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Hoodbhoy
curriculum vitae Hasnain Kazim: http://www.spiegel.de/extra/a-632138.html
Hasnain Kazim on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hasnain.kazim?fref=ts
Pakistani nuclear physicist: "Muslim societies have failed collectively"
By Hasnain Kazim, Islamabad
In Islamic countries, it rumbles, even after the Arab revolution everywhere religious forces are on the rise.The Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy sees a "collective failure" of Muslim societies. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he explains his thesis.
Students dance around Pervez Hoodbhoy. They wear robes and doctorates, the young women have slipped the hats just about their scarves. They have just learned that they have passed their exams. Now they want to be photographed with Hoodbhoy. Her famous professor.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, 62, nuclear physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. Here he teaches since the seventies.He studied at prestigious universities in the U.S. and in Europe and also taught. For his achievements, he has received awards, and the physics he came to political issues.
For example, he criticized the nuclear armament of nuclear power Pakistan and the encroachment of religion in scientific, cultural and political areas. With this attitude, he makes enemies in Pakistan, which is so proud of its atomic bomb. A private university in Lahore has just released him, for his work in Islamabad waiting for months for his pay.
Still, he had never thought to leave Pakistan, he says. Hoodbhoy was born a Muslim, in an Ismaili family. Hated by many, but also secretly admired by some, he does not want to be silenced. "I say what I think. And I founded," he says in his office, which he's still at the university, which paid him no more. On the walls are pictures of Japan after its destruction by the atomic bombs on the desk are stacked books on physics and politics.
Read the interview, why Pervez Hoodbhoy is facing so critical of religion, and how he sees the future of Islamic societies:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Hoodbhoy, regularly warn against the radicalization of Muslims. How do you do it will be concrete?
Hoodbhoy: When I started teaching here at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad in the early seventies, there was throughout the campus only one student, who was wearing a burqa. Today, about 70 percent of the women here are completely wrapped. Only 30 percent run around normally.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Justify your students that? Or is that not an issue?
Hoodbhoy: I ask them sometimes, and many say that Islam requires that of them. Others say they wear the burqa or hijab, because most women do it here. Others say they feel safer that way, even if it stood at the bus stop, then they harass anyone.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it does not turn to God and stricter interpretation of religion?
Hoodbhoy: Yes. We are witnessing a major cultural revolution in the Islamic world. Pakistan is not only affected, but more or less every Muslim country. Pakistan is changing, has radicalized Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, many countries in Africa and in the Arab world, Egypt, Algeria, Mali now.Sooner or later you will see in Syria, only veiled women. But let's look at the Muslim communities in Europe and the U.S. - have been infected by the same pathogen. Why? I think you realize that you are different than others. Obviously there is the desire to show that you are different. A burqa is nothing more than a label to distinguish itself. This is shown very clearly: My identity is Islamic. This identity is closely linked to the feeling of being a victim of history. Hidden deep Muslims feel that they have failed. This mixture of feelings I instills fear, because it leads to a behavior that is very unhealthy.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You look at Muslim societies as failed collectively.What do you mean?
Hoodbhoy: There are about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world - but they can show a substantial achievement in any field. Not in the political sphere, not in social terms, neither in science nor in art or literature.Everything they do is with great devotion, prayer and fasting. But there are no efforts to improve living conditions within Islamic societies.Unconsciously, people naturally feel that this is a collective failure.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There was recently called Arab Spring , where people - Muslims - have fought well for better living conditions.
Hoodbhoy: The Arab Spring was only a response to autocratic regimes and despotism, so the reasons that the Arab world can sink into darkness. The protests, however, were not desire a cultural and scientific renaissance. Therefore, one can not expect any major changes. The actual liberation, there will be only if policy changes on a cultural change and a change in attitudes follows. Arab Muslims have to give their false but widespread belief that science in any way, contains elements of religion. Inshallah this mentality that makes God responsible for everything is the opposite of scientific thought. Quite apart from the Arab morale is bad. There are constant interruptions to fulfill religious obligations. In order to compete in the modern world, will have things like punctuality and adherence to the rules, setting up the people, not God, dramatically improved.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you get for such statements actually threats?
Hoodbhoy: no threats, but it gives me a hard time. I had just been released at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, where I taught physics. This is a very progressive private university, but there are in this society limits of what you can say. Even here in Islamabad, it is not easy for me. Since I am verbeamteter professor, one can not dismiss me. But I will not pay more for months. Doing so, I only facts: What major invention or discovery has made Muslims in the last thousand years? Power? Electromagnetic waves? Antibiotics? The internal combustion engine? Computer? No, nothing, at least nothing that makes a modern civilization. So it is now. And when it comes to the religious fanatics, it does not matter. The mentally still stuck in the twelfth century.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There are definitely very progressive Muslims, those who are secular and appreciate the modern world. And even religiously most are moderate. Where are you now against unfair.
Hoodbhoy: Of course there were experiments in Islamic societies to modernize, in the middle of the 20th Century. Pakistan was when it was founded in 1947, a very modern idea. Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, they were all societies, the formation and progress seen as a good thing. All that is over. There are several reasons. Arab nationalism failed. The Palestinians were kept small. And the West continued his interests independently by positive developments in Islamic countries, for example, when it comes to oil. If everything goes wrong, people look to God.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You think that is enough to ignite a radicalization?
Hoodbhoy: For many Muslims, the question is asked: why is it over with our greatness? And the answer that they give the mullahs, is: Because you are not good Muslims! Pray! Fasts! Conceals your wives! Think about your interpretation of Islam! Only: There will be no progress. We are experiencing the consequences. In Pakistan, radical Sunnis kill Shiites daily now, just because the are considered infidels.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And what do you think is the right way to stop this trend?
Hoodbhoy: companies need to do their bloody experience. In this way, Europe has become more secular. Previously, there was always wars between Catholics and Protestants, and only when the bloodshed continued long enough, the people came to their senses. I fear that we are making these terrible experiences straight.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nevertheless, we do have in the here and now to deal with the radicals. What do you think of talks with the Taliban ?
Hoodbhoy: Those who are not willing to talk, but to hold on to power, we have to kill. Take the Pakistani Taliban: You have two requirements, namely that Pakistan severs its ties with the U.S. and that we have theSharia introduce as the only valid law. They want no roads, no schools, no work. They are totally uncompromising. Of course you can not talk to them. We have seen it in 2009 in Swat, the Pakistani government made more concessions and the extremists were advancing ever further. They need to say quite clearly that we deal only with you, if your gun resigns.And since they will not do that, we must fight it. If you talk to the Taliban, and then only from a position of strength.
SPIEGEL ONLINE : Would the government for the support of the people if they would fight the Taliban?
Hoodbhoy: When it 2009 at the question of whether the army is waging war against the Taliban in the Swat Valley, there were fierce resistance in the population.Nevertheless, the military invaded. Today is the Swat valley more visible than it was under the Taliban. I believe that many do not like the army, but they like even less the extremists. I am convinced that military action is possible.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How strong is the degree of radicalization within the Pakistani army, which has at least about the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world?
Hoodbhoy: The army can hardly be different in composition than the society from which they are recruited. Pakistani society has the Islamist agenda given a place, and this is equally true for the armed forces. The military therefore faces great difficulties. There are officers who see themselves as part of Pakistan's army. And there are officers who see themselves as part of the Army of Islam. The secular forces within the armed forces see the quite concerned, but they have no answer to this challenge.
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy (Urdu: پرویز ہودبھائی; born 11 July 1950), is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, essayist and defence analyst. He has also taught as the visiting professor of Physics at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) where he also worked on topics in theoretical applications in the topological insulators, various Hall effects and Graphene. Before joining LUMS, he was the professor of nuclear and high-energy physics, and also the head of the Physics Department at the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU). He graduated and also received a PhD from MIT and continues to do research in Particle physics. He received the Baker Award for Electronics in 1968, and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics in 1984. He has authored various scientific research papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Hoodbhoy is also a prominent environmentalist and social activist and regularly writes on a wide range of social, cultural and environmental issues. He is the chairman of Mashal, a non-profit organization which publishes Urdu books on feminism, education, environmental issues, philosophy, and modern thought. Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy is a strong and avid supporter for peaceful use of nuclear technology in Pakistan, nuclear non-proliferation, and nuclear disarmament and criticizing the United States, Israel, Pakistan's and India's nuclear program in many national and international forums.
Journalist: Hasnain Kazim
Born in 1974 in Oldenburg, son of Indian-Pakistani immigrants. Preschool time in Stade and in Karachi, Pakistan, school in the Pakistan and in Stade. Studied political science in Hamburg, career as a naval officer. Freelance among other things, the "Stader Tageblatt" and the German Press Agency dpa in South Asia Office in New Delhi, India. From 2000 internship at the "Heilbronner Stimme", then political editor there. From February 2006 to June 2009 for economic affairs editor of Spiegel Online. Since July 2009, South Asia correspondent based in Islamabad, Pakistan.
original source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausla...en-atomphysiker-pervez-hoodbhoy-a-879319.html
translation source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/noma...es-have-failed-collectively/10151229455226301
curriculum vitae Pervez Hoodbhoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Hoodbhoy
curriculum vitae Hasnain Kazim: http://www.spiegel.de/extra/a-632138.html
Hasnain Kazim on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hasnain.kazim?fref=ts
