Hats off to our friends  Aziz Ahmad and Rashid Mughal for presenting a very effective analysis of the current situation. The anger of Rashid Mughal, counterproductive to whatever extent it may be, is still a   sign of his sincerity, as well as frustration over mindsets of Muslims, in general. Aziz has very articulately addressed the questions like the regulation of freedom of _expression and the appropriateness of mode of protests adopted by some Muslims.

To the delight of Rashid Mughal, we, had disowned those Muslims who had nothing better to do than hold demonstrations, burn embassies and bomb people long time ago. We had also disowned those Muslims, who consider Islam to be "mukamal zabita-e-hayat" (a complete code of life), and consider other religions as "concoctions" and "altered truths". We had believed that every individual carries the payload of his or her own truth and is in a state of "cognitive equilibrium". In this state, the creative abilities of individuals are at its peak and if this equilibrium is disturbed, by coercion or force, the deterioration is exponentially related to the extent of coercion. Coercion could be physical, cognitive or fear based. This might be one of the ways to explain why in spite of so much wealth, majority of Muslim countries are just consumers and have insignificant or no contribution in research & development, medicine, space sciences, social sciences or in any other area of human development.

Najeeb Kazmi
March 10, 2006