THE Saudi ambassador to Pakistan has expressed optimism about the outcome of the extraordinary OIC Special Summit to be held in Makkah. Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asseri believes that the renaissance of Islam will take place in the years to come. He hopes the OIC will be restructured so that it can effectively handle the challenges that Muslim nations face.
The ambassador was concerned above all about the ‘negative perception of Muslims’ in the world. Indeed, the summit must address this, as it always attempts to. These concerns notwithstanding, this extraordinary summit in the holy city of Makkah calls for a deeper reflection on the state of the Ummah.
When more than 1,400 years ago, the Prophet of Islam instructed his followers to “acquire knowledge even if you have to travel to China,” he was underscoring the critical place that knowledge and scholarship must have in a nation as well as in an individual’s life. And how scholarship was responsible for the ascent of Muslim societies is a matter of recorded history, as unfortunately how ignorance caused the sharp descent.
The application of knowledge in the management of a society is inextricably linked to the progress of a society; whether intellectual, economic or spiritual. Today, in the face of mounting challenges, Muslims have failed to acquire knowledge in all spheres of human activity — ranging from the hard sciences to the social sciences, from the arts to psychology, and from technology to environment — only at their own peril.
Today, more than ever, there is an urgent necessity that we embrace the available knowledge and create new knowledge. Without it, there can be no dealing with the crisis of disease, of scarcity, of natural disasters, of man-made disasters, of social conflict etc. Without the tool of knowledge, the state and society cannot acquire the wisdom so essential to deal with the widespread conflict and chaos that is an inevitable outcome of a mismanaged planet.
While the chaos signals less than a perfect management of our planet, the uneven spread of chaos talks of some greater success stories at managing the ‘collective society’ than the rest. Ours, of the Ummah, has been the least successful. Dare we state the obvious. Knowledge was the dividing factor. The world witnessed the journey of the Muslim power and glory into oblivion and of the others towards their imminent power and glory. The power and the glory they acquired by ‘outdoing’ the others by the tricks of the many traits that constituted rudimentary governance then.
Charles Issawi’s seminal work on the economic history of Egypt in the eighteenth century documents this phenomenon very ably. The West was feeding knowledge into the avenues of power. The exercise of power was being invested with ‘wisdom’ in the pursuit of the objective it had defined for itself. For the pursuit of specific commercial and political objectives appropriate systems, adequate institutions were put in place. Freedom of thought enables inquiry without which new knowledge cannot be created and intellectual stagnation often renders redundant that which cannot provide answers and solutions to the new questions and the new challenges.
Conversely, in societies, where there are autonomous institutions that inquire, create new knowledge and draw on other sources of knowledge, yet have a regular channel for communication with the state, that state and society will be more dynamic, more democratic, and perhaps better placed to address the crisis of its times. This is a necessary condition that must prevail for the management structures in society not to atrophy. We lament the conflict that often surrounds us. But truly, the emergence of conflict in a society is no sign of a crisis. Only its continued existence is. Conflict is inherent in the human context, and in fact, a catalyst for generating new forms of management. The state must recognise the causes of grievances to then be able to address them. If the state functions as a conscious, perceptive entity, it should take the opportunity that conflict presents. Conflict causes the dynamic growth of the structures of societal management.
Crisis indeed does have a sign — when the state institutions are incapable of resolving conflict. Sustained conflict converts into a crisis and chronic crisis into turmoil. No global collective objectives can be achieved unless the mess within is cleaned up. No fine rationale is needed for this obvious fact. The internal mess stays unless development, democracy and defence are all upheld. Like the European Union’s progress was prefaced by internal reform, followed by integration and leading to progress.
The abiding question for our times is how best to organise collective existence within a nation state and even beyond. Linked to it has been the abiding struggle how to exercise power and authority in a wise manner so that it advances the ‘good’ of the maximum number. Rousseau’s put forward the social contract. Machiavellian dictates were to promote the survival of the incumbent, the authority of the ‘Prince’.
However, these opposing approaches, one protecting the ‘ruled’, while the other the ‘rulers’, must merge in one because of the human condition. The nature of contemporary challenge is such that it offers no cushion to the ‘rulers’. The logic of managing societies is uniform and indivisible no matter what your vantage point. Rousseau’s social contract and Machiavelli’s recipe have now converged. So, it is the logic of survival that compels a wiser more knowledge-based management of society. The society and its managers shall swim or sink together. Hence, Machiavellian’s clients too must follow the logic of Rousseau because today, the larger good also includes the good of those who exercise power.
In the absence of knowledge, let’s see where we stand today? Out of 191 countries of the United Nations, 57 are in the OIC. We have a population of over 1.25 billion — one fifth of the world. We also possess roughly one fifth of the world’s land mass. We possess 70 per cent of world’s energy resources. And we supply 40 per cent of the global exports of raw materials. Yet, the OIC has less than five per cent of the world’s GDP; and, besides, the others are growing faster.
The GDP of the entire Muslim world is roughly $1,400 billion while that of Japan alone is $4,500 billion. The highest GDP of a Muslim country is $185 billion, while that of tiny European countries with no natural resources is above $ 200 billion. Our knowledge hubs are few and far between. Others enjoy the technological and human resource edge over us. We have only 500 universities and 1,000 PhDs per annum. Japan alone has more than 9,000 universities and England alone produces more than 2,000 PhDs.
In trade and foreign direct investment, the OIC countries share in world trade is only 6 to 8 per cent. Hardly $5 billion of FDI is attracted by all the OIC countries. This figure is roughly that of Sweden or Thailand alone. China alone has FDI of $50 billion. What is most saddening is that lntra-0IC trade is a small fraction of its total trade volume. None of this will change unless we do not ‘fix’ our fundamentals. What then is needed? Acquisition, spread and integration of knowledge in the functioning of state institutions, accountable exercise of power and rule of law not the ‘rule of the strongest’ in our societies. And above all, no societies progress if half of the Ummah, the women, are kept as marginalised members of society. The state of the Ummah cannot improve unless we get all this right. At Makkah, from where the Prophet started his journey armed with the ultimate knowledge and immense wisdom, the OIC must declare the pursuit and spread of knowledge as its primary task. And back the declaration by putting institutions in place that would make that happen.

Sounds of silence in Natwar affair
M. J. Akbar

If you want to understand the big story, look for the small detail. When the action is being broadcast in the merciless way that television adopts, get out of the din and check the silence. The sound of the breaking story can be very loud; in the case of the Iraqi oil scam that has splattered the life and career of former Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, and could spill over into Congress’ fortunes, the noise has been powerful enough to shatter the glasshouse in which Delhi VIPs live. But the sound of silence can be louder.
There was no home more silent than that of Natwar on Friday, the day Aaj Tak, building on the interview that India’s ambassador to Croatia, Aniel Matherani, gave to Saurabh Shukla of India Today, exposed how precisely the lucrative deal had been made by the minister’s son Jagat and his “cousin” Andaleeb Sehgal with the Saddam Hussein regime. Media, planted outside the walls of the ruling class bungalow, reported that all phones, including mobiles inside the Natwar establishment had been switched off, but of course they were referring only to those numbers that they knew of. Cabinet ministers have the use of secure telephone systems, and surely there was a mobile number or two that was unknown to media. There were no calls made to Natwar by friends or ministerial colleagues in his moment of anguish, possibly to save embarrassment to both host and guest, or maybe because there was nothing much to say after Matherani’s revelations.
Matherani was a member of the delegation led by Natwar to Baghdad during which the deal was apparently made, and his recollection of detail was devastating. Late in the evening, Natwar came out to read a simple, and very short, statement in which he denied all allegations, and reiterated that his conscience was clear but did not explain the reasons for such clarity. He added that his lawyers were looking into the matter. He did not specify whether he was planning to sue India Today, Aaj Tak, and about a thousand other channels and newspapers carrying the full story. He could also have been planning to sue Matherani, but I rather doubt that. I mention this because someone in the Congress once threatened to sue the United Nations, and that did not quite happen.
The silence was particularly deafening because it was in sharp contrast to the megawatt protests of outrage that followed the revelations of the Paul Volcker report some weeks ago. Natwar then sought out anyone and everyone in order to pour scorn, vitriol, anger, vehemence on Volcker and anyone who thought the latter had a point. Such was the media high that son Jagat was trundled out to supplement father Natwar. Young Jagat was so stiff that he did not even sit down, and he made the memorable statement that young Andy was not a particularly good friend, just one of many acquaintances.
I don’t think he wants to be reminded of that now: Live by the media, die by the media. On Friday both father and son seemed to have taken a vow of silence, leading to gossip that someone had given a few orders. Silence is not the preferred weapon of the Singhs.
In the evening the agencies issued a statement from our ambassador in Croatia, denying he had made any accusations against his former boss in the government and still his senior in the Congress Party, the leader of his famous delegation to Baghdad in 2001, Natwar.
Matherani is a nice sort of chap, with lots of hair on his head and plenty of smiles on his face, but you wouldn’t want to put him at the head of any research project. His great asset has been loyalty to the Congress. He has been a functionary in the Congress office through thick and thin — and the years of thin have outnumbered the years of thick. I don’t know if he always spelt his first name the way he does now; most Anils prefer to stick to four letters. I suspect that some astrologer advised the alteration to change his luck. If that is true, find out the astrologer’s name, because the Congress victory 18 months ago certainly changed his fortunes.
Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said, on the infamous Friday, that Matherani had already been recalled from his post in Zagreb. One could ask why, and why he has not returned as yet, and the answers would be most interesting; but that would not be the most important question.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told Parliament that the Enforcement Directorate will not hesitate to look wherever necessary in its search for guilt. Here is a suggestion. Technology enables telephone companies to keep a record of all phone calls made. They should get a list of all calls made to Matherani on Friday, both at his office numbers and to his personal mobile phones.
Praise be to technology. If India Today had not taped its interview, and then broadcast it on television, it would not have had the impact it did. Print is cold beside the warmth of a live voice, and that is what viewers heard all through the day: A member of the original Baghdad Four narrating precisely how the oil-vouchers deal was done.
Here is the Big Denial: “I gave no interview to India Today.”
Hello? We could always check out whether the voice of Matherani we heard on television was his real voice or not. A simple check should establish that.
The second sentence provides clarification: It was off-the-record. There was a bit of huffing about “complete breach of privacy.” Well, it was a long breach, because the interview was pretty comprehensive, and while our ambassador to Croatia might not win the next Nobel Prize for Physics, he was surely aware that he was passing on information of volatile importance at a very crucial moment. More to the point is whether what he said, and he definitely did say it, is true or not.
The denial adds that the interview was “distorted” and “misrepresented” and “out-of-context”. Where? The Matherani denial never explained what had been distorted or misrepresented. As heard on television and published in print, the interview is comprehensive; the questions and answers flow into each other. The last sentence of the denial is meant to be conclusive: “I also completely and unequivocally deny that I said oil vouchers were allotted to Shri Natwar Singh during the delegation’s visit to Iraq as reported in the story.”
This is as brazen as it can get. Matherani provided exquisite and unchallenged detail of how Natwar virtually smuggled his son into the Congress delegation; how Andy Sehgal “accidentally” met them in Amman; how Singh arranged for them to stay at the Baath Party hotel, and took both of them to meetings to give the impression that the delegation consisted of six members rather than four, and implied that the delegation had a political component and an “economic” component (read oil vouchers for latter); that the arrangements had been made earlier and all that was required was to give implicit legitimacy to the Natwar-Sehgal partnership, which was done; how they stayed back in Amman on the return journey in order to complete the deal in Jordan.
The individual and the party knew, and deliberately attempted a cover-up, according to India’s ambassador to Croatia, a position that he still formally holds.
There is one sound that Singh, his son Jagat, and their acquaintance-cum-friend-cum-cousin-cum-partner (these are only the avatars one is aware of, there could be more) Sehgal must be praying for: The sound of silence. Their presumption must be that public memory is short and media memory a total dwarf; that time will somehow make this story go away. The establishment also must have a vested interest in a slow fadeout, for who knows what will emerge in the next interview. The stress on middlemen fearing that they will be made scapegoats must be enormous.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a simple responsibility, and one addresses this to him because of the belief that he is an honorable man. He must prove, and quickly, that India is ruled by the law, and Delhi is different from Saddam’s Baghdad.