A QUOTE from Anwer Mooraj’s column on this page last Monday: “Pakistan’s economic strategy was decided in the early stages of the country’s history when Ayub Khan was presented two options by Dr Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler’s former minister of finance.....”. His mention of Schacht evoked for me a train of thought.

Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht (1877-1970), as special currency commissioner in the German finance ministry, in 1923 was primarily responsible for ending the disastrous inflation in his country by setting up the basis for a new currency, and that same year was appointed president of the Reichsbank, Germany’s leading financial institution. In 1930, after having resigned from the bank on a point of principal, he decided that Adolf Hitler was a political genius and joined the National Socialist ranks. He was reappointed to head the bank and also held the post of minister without a portfolio until in 1944 Hitler had him arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and imprisoned. He was taken into custody by the Americans in 1945 and brought before the Nuremberg tribunal.

Before the beginning of the trial and while the Nazi leaders were in solitary confinement, they were submitted to an intelligence test and their IQs were calculated according to the Wechsler-Bellevue method. The resulting IQs showed “that the Nazi leaders were above average intelligence (IQ 90-110), merely confirming the fact that the most successful men in any sphere of human activity — whether it be politics, industry, militarism, or crime — are apt to be above average intelligence.” (‘Nuremberg Diary’, G M Gilbert, PhD, Prison Psychologist at the Nuremberg Trial).

Topping the list at 143 (158 is genius level) was Hjalmar Schacht, followed by Seyss-Inquart, Austrian Chancellor and later commissioner for the Netherlands, at 141. Herman Goering, Reichsmarschall and Luftwaffe chief, President of the Reichstag, etc etc, 138 ; Karl Doenitz, Grand Admiral and Hitler’s successor, also 138; Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreign minister, 129; Wilhelm Keitel, Field Marshal, chief of staff of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, 129, Albert Speer, architect, Reichsminister of Armaments and Munitions, 128. Of the 21 leaders in custody, Julius Streicher, Nazi Germany’s premier Jew-baiter and Gauleiter of Franconia, former teacher and WW1 army lieutenant, came in last at 106, at average intelligence.

Schacht was one of the three to be acquitted (11 were sentenced to be hanged, and the rest given various lengths of imprisonment), and in 1953 he founded a private banking house, Schacht & Co, in Dusseldorf, and served as a financial consultant to several countries, Egypt, Iran, India and Pakistan among them. (I remember once on a visit to Bombay, probably in the early ‘50s, hearing him speak at Sir Cowasjee Jehangir Hall).

Now, according to psychologist Gilbert, those who make a name for themselves in politics and in crime are above average IQ. Where does that leave our politicians, the majority of whom are also heavily involved in crime?

In 2002, Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen came up with a table, ‘IQ and the Wealth of nations’, which records the national IQ based on arithmetic means as calculated by them : “The number of geniuses produced by a population depends on the population’s mean IQ. For a population with a mean IQ of 100, an IQ of 158 is present in approximately one individual out of 30,000. In a population with a mean IQ of 115, there would be approximately one individual per 1,000 people with an IQ over 158, a thirty-fold increase, Thus, differences in the mean IQs of national populations will have large multiplier effects on the numbers of geniuses produced. These effects are likely to contribute both directly and indirectly to economic development.”

Topping the list at 107 is Hong Kong, with South Korea second at 106, Japan and Liechtenstein third at 105. Germany is at 102, the US at 98 as is France, and the UK at 100 as is China.

Bottom of the list is Equatorial Guinea at 59 (its president, Colonel Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, aide-de-camp to his uncle and former president, overthrew him, had him tried and executed. In the presidential elections of December 2002, Mbasogo won over 97 per cent of the vote.).

As far as IQ, coupled with wealth, is concerned, the subcontinent does not fare too well — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are all equal at 81.

Now, I would like some help from our national geniuses. The Lynn and Vanhanen findings, together with other related information, can be found at www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html. The mean IQ of our population is rated at 81. Basing the population at 160 million, how many geniuses does the country have, with the exception, of course, of Herr Professor Doctor Ata-ur-Rahman who is the genius in charge of our Higher Education Commission.

The HEC website records the research award grant list of 2003-2004, one of which is :

“247. Quranization of courses at the M.Sc. Level. Higher Education Commission, Islamabad. Dr. Saadia Khawar Khan Chishti 5,581,000, three-Year. Researches by Muslims as well as by non-Muslims have confirmed that Al-Quran has the roots of disciplines both known as well as unknown to humanity. As such, it becomes obligatory for any Islamic state to weave the Quranic perspective into its curricula. Broadly speaking, the main focus of this project is Quranization of existing science courses at M.Sc.level by weaving the Quranic perspective into the syllabus without changing the contents of the course.”

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk