Let us be optimistic about propaganda

Submitted by N. Bhatnagar (United States), Dec 30, 2005 at 03:03

Dear Dr. Pipes: I think that your observation "…unlike the Soviet bloc, the Muslim world lacks not access to reliable information but interest in it" is overly pessimistic. The parallel between communism and political/fundamentalist Islam is true but not entirely. For all their bad policies, the communist governments did one very good thing – they educated their population very-very well. It was easy for this highly educated population to entertain and adapt progressive ideas. Further more, communism prevailed in the communist countries only for about 70 odd years.

The fundamentalist Islam has roots that go hundreds of years in the past. Add to that the illiteracy and ignorance prevalent in these societies and the fight against fundamentalist Islam becomes enormously difficult. But it does not mean that it cannot be won by education and dissemination of progressive values. I think that is the only way to win this war.

In this exceedingly competitive world, societies that do not relentlessly pursue excellence will fail to survive. This is exactly why communism died (though some people credit Ronald Reagan for the demise of communism). In today's day and age no society can afford violence. Similarly, in our times, no society can afford to put a very high percent of their young minds to study unproductive religious dogmas for extended periods of times. Muslim kids and parents will soon realize that the years that they spent in the madarsas are better spent studying literature, philosophy or science.

Many Muslims and Muslim-apologists blame the past injustices done to Muslims as a justification for the current poverty in Muslim societies but the history of the world is full of the histories of displaced populations to whom injustice was done. The Jews around the world, the Sindhi and Punjabi Hindus, the Sikhs, the displaced Vietnamese people in many corners of the United States scream it aloud that past injustices alone are not an excuse for the present poverty. If the Palestinian people had adopted peaceful means, I think, the Middle East is big enough to accommodate both Jews and Palestinians. I wish that our planet had never seen an example of injustice, but I also see no value in fighting multi-generation bloody wars to seek revenge or retribution.

I think that the demise of communism was accelerated by the invention of VCRs and video tapes. I hypothesize that video tapes allowed common citizens of the communist states to see the progress that the West had made and their countries had not. What VCRs did for communist nations, the Internet and the satellite disks will do for the Islamic societies. So I still have faith in educational propaganda and education.

N. Bhatnagar

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