November 10, 2006	Friday	Shawwal 17, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: Speakers at a seminar on Thursday stressed the need to hold a comprehensive dialogue with the western thinkers and scholars, but not without a clear understanding of the latter’s logic and viewpoint to check the world from being divided along eastern and western lines.

The seminar held in connection with the 129th birth anniversary of the country’s national poet Dr Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) was organised jointly by the Pakistan Academy of Letters and the Allama Iqbal Open University on the latter’s premises here.

Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani was the chief guest at the seminar on the need to establish a dialogue with the present times in the light of Allama Iqbal’s thoughts.

The minister counselled the audience to ponder whether a conversation based on irrefutable logic would be a better way of talking to the sole super power of the world.

He said developed countries had progressed on the strength of solid research, and “that was the road we should take”. Hence, it would be a folly to take on the super power with an attitude of anger, antagonism, or extremism couple with terrorism, he said.

PAL Chief Iftikhar Arif said Iqbal was a great proponent of a dialogue with western leaders of opinion, but then he had a clear understanding of the logic of both western and eastern scholars.

In this regard, he urged the Pakistani scholars to be well prepared for such a dialogue by inculcating a crystal clear perception of their contemporaries in the West.

He said: “We are witnessing the imperialist designs of multinationals that are concentrating on Chah Bahar and Gwadar.” They are attracted to oil, and, in the process, they are trampling over democratic rights of the people.

In their essays, Prof (Dr) Ayub Sabir, Dr Salma Shaheen, Dr Sabir Afaqi, Prof Moeenuddin Aqil, and Prof Siddique Shibli also called for the need to have a dialogue with the western thinkers after the world had profoundly changed due to the impact of 9/11 incident.

Presenting a new perspective of his province, Dr Sher Mohammad Marri from Balochistan University questioned why a perfectly genuine demand for provincial rights should be allowed to become one of the gravest problems confronted by the country.

In his paper, Dr Marri observed that the recent government efforts to restore the writ of the federation had strengthened the tottering Sardari system and made a hero out of Sardars. It appeared to him that the civil-military combine might be in league with the feudal as well as foreign elements because Sardar managed to get a new lease of life.

Supporting his viewpoint, he said the administration of the Khan of Kalat was nearing its end in the 19th century, but the British strengthened him. Iskandar Mirza as well as Tikka Khan followed the suit, and, on the pretext of building roads, snuffed out the inner struggle against the Baloch tribal system.

He found it odd that the name of Islam, Pakistan and Iqbal were repeated before the army took action. This has made the name of Iqbal antithetical in the eyes of Baloch aspirations, while “we know very well that Iqbal was a friend of Balochistan and an avowed anti-imperialist in his outlook”. “Our elder generation of poets and thinkers such as Yusuf Aziz Magsi, Gul Khan Naseer, Mohammad Husain Anqa, Abdullah Jan Jamaldini, Abdus Samad Achakzai, Kamal Khan Sheerani, Dr Kuhudadad and Mitha Khan Marri all were inspired by the lofty anti-imperialist thoughts of Dr Allama Iqbal, and regarded him as a means to reach Europe’s great writers such as Bergson, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Tolstoy.”