Pakistan - Complexities at Birth Endure

“The struggle for power is universal in time and space and is an undeniable fact of experience” - Morgenthau

Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations written in 1948 is considered a tour de force in the realist school of international relations. He set out six principles of realism:

• Politics is governed by objective laws that have roots in human nature;
• Statesmen conduct themselves in terms of interest defined as power;
• Interest determines political conduct with the political and cultural context in which foreign policy is formulated;
• Prudence is the supreme virtue in international politics;
• Nations are entities that pursue their interests as defined by power and should not be judged by universal moral principles;
• Political realism rejects the legalistic-moralistic approach to international politics.

 The subcontinent as it is called so due to the context of its ‘isolated’ geography. It has the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea towards the south arc. The Northern arc is comprised of mountains in Baluchistan rising northwards into Hindukush and then swerving eastward towards the Karakoram ranges and then becoming the Himalayas and then extending to the Rakhine Mountains at Myanmar. This enclosed land region including the trading zones via sea extending from east Africa, Middle East to South East Asia historically has been an organic region exchanging goods, ideas and people with India as its core. Threats to the Indian subcontinent have arisen from the Afghan-Pakistan border via Punjab the only practical crossing point or via sea. Technological and infrastructure development may have reduced ‘space’ with China but it still does not ease the situation for massive armies to cross the Himalayan ranges.

The attraction of India through the ages for premised on its bountiful fertile lands created by the river systems endowed by Himalayas / Tibetan plateau in a largely agrarian world before 1800s.

Rank	Country	Cultivated land (km2)	Cultivated land (%)	Arable land (km2)	Arable land (%)	Total land area (km2)
—	World	17,298,900	11.61	15,749,300	10.57	149,000,000
1	United States	1,669,302	18.22	1,650,062	18.01	9,826,675
2	India	1,535,063	51.63	1,451,810	48.83	3,287,240
3	China	1,504,350	16.13	1,385,905	14.86	9,640,821
4	Russia	1,192,300	7.28	1,174,284	7.17	17,075,400

 

The Indians had two large neighbours – (1) Han China – which the Himalayas kept away and (2) Islam which inhabited the arc from Arabia to Central Asia – who came in the 10^th century via Pakistan’s Punjab.

Islam in Pakistan 

While Islam ruled large parts of India till the British supplanted their rule, it is only when elements to parliamentary democracy was introduced they realized that the numbers altered the power equations that existed for centuries before. This also led later to demands for separate electorate i.e. Muslims electing Muslim representatives and Hindu electing Hindu representatives with equal number in Parliament. The next fork came in the definition of Indian nationalism in terms of territory as against religion. These conflicting views came down to division of the territories based on religion but when it was born the Pakistani state espoused a secular status only to change too soon. By 1948 it was adopted, “sovereignty belongs to Allah” and for people to live based on the teachings of Islam.


Pakistani scholar, Waheed-uz-Zaman elaborated two decades later, “the wish to see the kingdom of God established in a Muslim territory...was the moving idea behind the demand for Pakistan, the corner-stone of the movement, the ideology of the people, and the raison d'etre of the new nation-state.... If we let go the ideology of Islam, we cannot hold together as a nation by any other means.... If the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians, God forbid, give up Islam, the Arabs yet remain Arabs, the Turks remain Turks, the Iranians remain Iranians, but what do we remain if we give up Islam?”

This state, thus, born had no core moorings to latch onto except Islam. It adopted the philosophy of Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maudidi, the opposing pole of Jinnah. Maudidi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, was the founder of Islamic fundamentalism in South Asia and one of the most powerful influences globally, writes Francis Robinson. He expounded that there was no difference between the physical and metaphysical world and therefore wrong to divide Islamic community into nations (exactly the nature of movements that IS and Al Qaeda lead to form a global caliphate). At Pakistan’s birth, he argued, if a secular and Godless constitution was to be introduced and if the British Criminal Code was to be introduced instead of Islamic Sharia what was the sense in all this struggle for a separate Muslim Homeland?

The Islamists continued to prod with naming of Pakistan as Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956 and then under Zia country was embedded more deeply with Islam with even madrassa’s issuing degree. Under Zia, the military was to also be the safe-keeper of the nation’s ideology. In addition, at the time of partition, Pakistan got a third of the army of British India, a disproportionate number compared to its geography, which many analysts associate with the dominance of the army. These new areas the state of Pakistan occupied did little to connect its populace with the rich history of Islam in South Asia. The partition of Bangladesh which today has 133m Muslims as against Pakistan’s 176m and India’s 167m make the establishment of even the Islamic identity subject to question. But an identity was nonetheless required, in August 2009 Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani stated that “Islam is the soul and spirit of Pakistan. It is our strength and we will always be an Islamic republic.” But whose Islam, Shia or Sunni, has resulted in another angle of rivalry which has drawn Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The identity crisis is the core of the continued competition with what is identified as “Hindu India”. This crisis continues to intensify as the reach of Indian ideas, in an area which has always been the cultural dominion of India, through Indian channels, movies or internet continues.  After the wars of 1948, 1965, 1971 and Kargil, the war against India has become a continues state of low intensity conflict under the camouflage of a nuclear threat. A similar case transpires against Afghanistan. In search for strategic depth and the to overcome the question regarding the permanence of the ‘Durand Line’ from the Afghans, a similar conflict continues on the other side of the border (i.e. the ISI cell to manage Afghanistan was set at least 5 years before the Soviet intervention!). This permanent state of conflict has resulted in significant acts of violence by terror organizations in Pakistan where the Army in fear of a potential revolt by the military due to confrontation with the Islamic brethren and terrorists it helped create has entered into pacts. This has also stunted the economic growth of the country. Pakistan’s per capita income in 2007 was $1,045 and in 2015 was $1,152 as against $1,165 and $1806 respectively for India.

Regional Differences

Meanwhile, the underlying regional differences with the dominant Punjabi heartland came to the fore. Pakistan was born with five provinces and now has four.

• Bangladesh with its Bengali identity and divided from the Punjabi heartland by India in between separated in 1971, two decades after its birth as dominant Punjab sought to deprive Bengali Muslims a fair share in power;
• The NWFP which shares the border with Afghanistan, has been a contested border as Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line which separates the two countries. The region has faced continued instability with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, then ‘Talibanisation’ after Soviets withdrew and then after 9/11;

• Baluchistan occupies the largest landmass of Pakistan with rich energy and mineral resources and Gwadar port ceded to Pakistan in 1958 by Oman which since the 1960’s has been part of every Pakistani planner (and the Soviets as one of the reasons for Afghan occupation) dream to make it a transport hub for Central Asian resources and potentially link Middle Eastern oil and markets with China. Kaplan says in, “Baluchistan…is a Turko-Iranian, step child of the Middle East that has chafed for decades under the domination of darker skinned, urbanized and, and so it is alleged, sharper-in-the-ways-of-the-world Punjabis.” Despite providing for most of the gas for the Pakistani state, its GDP is less than 5% of Punjab. Selig Harrison says regarding the 1973-1977 Baluch war with the Pakistani state, “frustrated by their inability to find Baluch guerrilla units…Pakistani forces bombed, strafed and burned 15,000 families”. What he refers to as a continuation of “slow motion genocide” in recent years F16s and Cobra helicopters were used against the masses, large scale government organized kidnappings and the Baluch leader Nawab Bugti was also killed in 2006. Moyuddin Baloch, erstwhile Prince, in Feb 2015 suggests that from 1976 to 1999, the situation remained comparatively peaceful in the province but afterwards it went downhill, “Today we see use of force, mutilated bodies dumped in deserted places, even I could have got killed but let me make it clear that at present Baloch people are not at war but are staging protests and even those who have climbed to mountains tops are not engaged in fighting,”.
• Kaplan writes, “Sindh had been part of the Bombay Presidency, a province of British India until 1936, when it became a province in its own right tied to New Delhi. Sindh joined Pakistan less because it was Muslim than because the new state promised autonomy which it never got.” Sindh houses the port city of Karachi with 24m people which has dominated the economic landscape of Pakistan. Karachi has a GDP excess of US$32bn (>10% of Pakistan). Today Karachi, is a melting pot of Pushtuns, Punjabis, Indian Muslims (Mohajirs) and Sindhis torn by ethnic riots in a competition for resources (http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/karachis-deadly-unrest/).
• Punjab, a largely agrarian province, with 56% of its population is the core of Pakistan. Most of the Army, judiciary and the bureaucracy comprises of Punjabis. It is also the hot bed of anti-India Islamic groups. The core issue this province faces is water - In a report published in 2013, the Asian Development Bank described Pakistan as one of the most “water-stressed” countries in the world, with a water availability of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year — a fivefold drop since independence in 1947, and about the same level as drought-stricken Ethiopia. This also makes the Kashmir issue pertinent given that the upper reaches of the Indus water flow through this region, allowing India the possibility of restricting water availability.

Rentier State

Pakistan after independence allied itself with the US as the Indians found solace with the Soviets. It worked with Saudi’s during the Afghan war (along with the US) and provided forces for defending the Royal family to even potentially have an arrangement to provide them a nuclear bomb in case of an existential threat. In return Saudi’s provide substantial financial support. It supplied nuclear material and know-how to North Korea and Libya, while it itself smuggled parts for its nuclear program (the Chinese had provided Pakistani with designs for the nuclear device). China has committed to invest $46bn in China Pakistan Economic Corridor running from Xinjiang province to Baluchistan to enable energy and goods to be directly routed from the Arabian Sea via Gwadar without having to cross the Straits of Malacca, potential choke point around Singapore. But above all, the support it receives keeps Indian resources and mind bogged at the North Western front. A settlement would allow India to devote national resources to build its blue water navy, something both China and US see detrimental to their command of the Indian Ocean and beyond, although with differing time horizon and level of development they can tolerate.

Reconnecting

If we were to now see Pakistan through the prism of Morgenthau’s principles, we would arrive at the following aspects regarding Pakistan:

• Given the insecurity in the current anchor of the state, its need to identify itself in terms of a Pan-Islamic identity making ideologies of Lashkar, Wahhabism, Islamic State or Al Qaeda easy to seep into society. The Afghan-Pakistan region is dominated largely by tribal affinities which makes modern nation state an anathema. This region has historically been used as a transit point to India given its agricultural bounties and consumption ability, the future may see no difference with the dramatic drop in water resources of Pakistan and desire of the coastal regions (Gwadar or Karachi) to trade, as historically, with India and the Middle East;
• In the context the leadership of Pakistan (i.e. the Army) is responding in the manner it can, deepen the Islamic connect and focus the nation towards external enemies (i.e. India and Afghanistan) and identify with global Muslim causes and consequently see Israel and US as enemies. This is the only way the state preserves itself. Given the permanent state of battle internal and external, low level of education / development; the resources of the nation outstrip its internal capacities which turns it to seek a benefactor (US, Saudi Arabia and China) which consequently means it is consistently balancing between the demands of these countries and playing one against the other.;
• Given the context of the birth of the nation which has no shared identity, unification via creating a pan-Islamic identity or finding events in the subcontinent’s history to create an appropriate narrative has proven exceedingly difficult. But in justifying its Islamic identity has led it to perpetrate violence across the region. This is path they thought prudent but the genie is beyond their control;  
• As Morgenthau said, there is no point in seeing the interest of Pakistan from the prism of legalistic-morality, and I am sure India or any other nation will intervene in Pakistan in their own self-interest or for that matter Pan-Islamic organizations. Given the weak institutions, it will almost subjugate domestic and international politics of Pakistan.

Morgenthau observed in 1956, six decades back “Pakistan is not a nation and hardly a state. It has no justification in history, ethnic origin, language, civilization, or the consciousness of those who make up its population … Thus it is hard to see how anything but a miracle, or else a revival of religious fanaticism, will assure Pakistan’s future.”

In this context, whether India or Afghanistan suffers what emanates from Pakistan is only based on choice (i.e. fear of consequence of reaction) or a constraint of national power. If Modi seeks to change the terms of reference of any discussion (i.e. Baluchistan or Northern Areas or POK) or incremental intervention it is contextualised in the manner in which he sees “diplomatic power” (“diplomatic power combines different elements of national power into an integrated whole”) of the state; so be it. That he has given himself greater latitude or even potentially put China on notice for its massive investment in the corridor that passes through this region can be a matter of debate but not outside the realm of possible reaction for what has occurred. That he will seek to reframe India is something I had discussed much long ago. The Nehruvian speak on non-alignment and passivity is unnatural. In a sense doublespeak – were we not aligned to the Soviets during the cold war and did we not intervene in Sri Lanka? The more critical element in the context of Pakistan is the manner in which national power is now used to maintain credibility of spoken words and achieve national self-interest.    

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Quid-i-Azam, the creator of the state that many have called the most dangerous and explosive in the world, is buried in the middle of a vast immaculately landscaped garden in central Karachi. Just as the tomb looked out of place amid Karachi’s ratty mishmash, Jinnah’s model-state has so far proved unsuited for the ground-realities of a messy world” - Kaplan

Factual Implications

“The first week at August's was a consolation, a pure relief. The world will give you that once in a while, a brief time-out; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.” ― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Brexit

Now that majority (not overwhelming) members of the British public have voted for any exit from the European Union, the elite are unable to comprehend, including those in the leave campaign, about the ‘new’ relationship that they want with the European Union.

The age old British relationship with the continent has been the one of maintaining adequate distance and intervening on the side of the weak to ensure that no strong power emerges to pose a threat to Britain across the challenge. With the end of the World Wars, Britain while engaging in the European project kept away from the institutions till the 1970s by their own volition or the French under Charles De Gaulle keeping them away to ensure leadership in European affairs. But the Soviet Union cracked and Germany united, it was only a matter of time when the superior geography and skills of Germany organized over a century ago under Bismarck over took the French dominance of affairs. While the French maintained military leadership in Europe, the Germans overtook economically. Britain in matters of defence coordinated with the French (which the Germans given their Nazi history never stepped up to) and with the Germans regarding economic matters against the protectionist tendencies of the French. The broader relationship framework will not change, in my view, but the political vibrations of Brexit may create disturbances in it in the next 3-5 years. And, these are instances where democracies fail to comprehend the long-term. Tocqueville wrote in 1945,”But a democracy can only with great difficulty regulate the details of important undertaking, persevere in a fixed design, and work out its execution in spite serious obstacles.”

Britain is the ­2^nd largest economy in the European Union. Germany the largest economy and the most powerful member of EU has an export to GDP of 46% and GDP growth of next to zero. If there is one thing that the German politicians are afraid of is loss of access to the single market and UK is the 3^rd largest buyer of German products. Now behind all the bluster this one dynamic that will ensure that despite all the turns and uncertainty we may see in the negotiations, the likely outcome is reciprocal preferential market access will continue. The largest tug-o-war will be around the “passporting” of financial services and the question is despite the bluster can Frankfurt or Paris be an alternative to London people skills and financial and legal architecture in 2-3 years. There may be some migration but imagine a substantial base shifting!!      

The real fear that the Europeans have is not the relationship they will have with Britain it is the implication of this vote across core member countries like Italy, France, Spain and Germany itself as they go into elections over the next few years. The rise of nationalist right wing parties (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_nationalist_parties_in_Europe) since the Global Financial Crises of 2008 owing significantly to high joblessness, is a massive threat to the European experiment. Brexit, also, does not change the key challenges Europe faces:

• Immigrations from the Middle-East and North Africa;
• Deficit spending beyond EU mandate by member states;
• Ultra-loose monetary policy;
• Italian banks with Eur400bn of NPLs;
• Catalonia (part of Spain) or Lega Norde (part of Italy) would still be looking to secede;
• Or for that matter Deutsche Bank, the largest bank in Europe, would still be under stress and labelled by IMF as such in its recent report.

US Dollar

The dollar index had almost touched 100 December 2015 and then it corrected down to 92 in May as US Fed interest increases became less and less definitive as Fed uncertainty around Brexit and other international issues came to the fore. Since then it has moved up to 96 tightening global market monetary conditions. The strength of USD comes from the fact that relatively it’s is the “cleanest” cash flows in the world with 10-yr T-bills at 1.35% when >$12 trillion worth bonds is at negative rates. It does not have the issues of Brexit or the financial crises of Europe, the BOJ manipulated bond markets of Japan or closed markets of China. The fact that it is the largest consumer market with a huge trade deficit ensures availability of USD for international trade. While the Chinese may desire to create a global currency how does a significantly restrictive economy make the currency freely available - provide huge loans internationally or becomes a net importing country to make its currency widely available and, therefore, less controllable by PBOC.

But the USD rise is creating renewed issues across the world, including the US itself:

• Renewed pressure across commodity markets including Oil. The destabilization that continued oil weakness can cause is the break of the Saudi-USD peg as Saudi Arabia finds the pressure of continued capital flight too much to handle, a doomsday scenario for oil prices. Expect the unexpected to happen…think Swiss Franc peg to the Euro which broke when it was not expected to happen;
• Gold is on an upward tear despite the USD strengthening, a consequence of unprecedented expansion in central bank balance sheets and negative interest rates – a divergence with negative correlation with USD. Gold was base money for thousands of years, it is signalling a break-down in global monetary structure;
• Emerging market USD debt to non-banks outside the US is USD>10trillion and borrowers’ resident in emerging markets owe >1/3^rd of this. This will create added pressure in times of significant commodity weakness and growth slowdown. “Since 2008, dollar credit has grown more rapidly outside the United States than inside. Although there is only one dollar yield curve, the two stocks of dollar credit behave differently. Dollar credit to non-US residents grew faster owing not only to more rapid growth in emerging market economies (EMEs) over the last six years. Dollar credit also expanded owing to its substitution for local currency credit given favourable dollar interest rates and exchange rate expectations (Bruno and Shin (2015a,b)) as EME firms leveraged up (IMF (2015)).”;
• While on the one hand Fed is worried about US corporate growth due to strengthening of USD rates and fall-out of Brexit, the Chinese are worried about potential strengthening of USD and incremental demand weakness in Europe forced by Brexit will put more capital flight pressure.

Endgame of Debt mountain

The significant government leverage built across markets post the global financial crises is crushing global government finances.

Country	Debt to GDP
US	104%
Japan	229%
China	44%
UK	89%
Euro Area	91%
Germany	71%
France	96%
Italy	133%

 

For examples, US budget will turn negative post entitlements, defence and interest rates by 2019. It cannot manage with an increase in interest rates unless productivity growth perks up dramatically. If interest rates were to rise by just 2%, it would take 80 to 100% of all tax revenues of Japan. Similar case exists in key European markets. Interest rate increases would be radioactive.

The total balance sheets of all major central banks have expanded almost 3 times since 2008 to excess of US$17 trillion:

• Fed holds >US$4 trillion of US Treasuries, Agency Debt and Mortgage Backed Security;
• ECB holds ~EUR1.6 trillion of securities and >Eur500 billions of lending to Euro area credit institutions;
• BOJ has presided over an unprecedented expansion over the last 3 years, driving their balance sheet over 5x with 10yr interest rates crashing below zero.

This extraordinary expansion is what is keeping interest rates at current levels. And, the balance sheets are only likely to expand:

• UK easing in response to Brexit;
• Italian banks bail-out;
• China’s recapitalization of banks given the high level of NPLs – recently there was news that COSCO ordered 11 ships in this depressed environment of global trade encouraged by government subsidies to keep shipping yards occupied.

The next phase of money printing will be “more printing”. As I have stated in the past, Fed will threaten to raise rates and then back off – the global balance sheets are too precariously structured to threaten them with capital losses or interest increases. What will follow the money printing binge is a likely forgiveness by central banks of government debt. An uncoordinated forgiveness by major central banks will spark a crisis, a new synchronized arrangement will need the large economies to coordinate the levels of debt reduction and a global monetary arrangement to agree on relative exchange rates.

“All great beginnings start in the dark, when the moon greets you to a new day at midnight.” ― Shannon L. Alder

Four by Four

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” ― Marie Curie

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.” ― Joseph Stalin

One of these days I was by myself thinking about what are those path breaking concepts or thoughts that have captivated men and societies for hundreds of years if not a millennium. As I thought about it, it was important to reframe the question to address what it meant to today’s world rather than to any other time. Even then, there have been so many ideas and thoughts since the beginning of time that it would make any representation difficult. This consequently got me to a more limited set - identifying one idea from each of the last four millennia that have a disproportionate impact today.

Democracy (1,000BC to 0 BC)

Athens in the 4th to 5th century BCE had an extraordinary system of government, where all male citizens had equal political rights, freedom of speech, and the opportunity to participate directly in the political decision-making. The citizens not only participated but they also served in the various institutions that were in place. While this idea did not survive the Peloponnesian War, it was revived fully in the 19^th century. In some form they existed in various times as advisors to rulers.

The Athenian assembly met at least once a month, more likely two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate around 6,000 citizens. Any citizen could speak to the assembly and vote on decisions by simply holding up their hands. The majority won the day and the decision was final. They evolved a system whereby a body could prioritize the discussions, developed executive councils and law courts.

Pericles, one of the leading men of the time, described the basic principles of democracy in his speech, "Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.  No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other… We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we obey the laws themselves, especially those which are for the protection of the oppressed, and those unwritten laws which it is an acknowledged shame to break.”

At the time it was a unique and revolutionary concept that realized its goals in an unprecedented manner (Athens was the strongest state of the time) and the seeds of which lay dormant but strong to spring up more than 2 millennia later.

Christianity and Islam (0BC to 1,000AD)

Between the two religions 2/3^rd of global population is covered. While they have within them multiple factions but undeniably the idea espoused by Jesus and the Prophet encouraged the masses to give up their earlier beliefs they had of worshipping various natural phenomena’s like the sun, moon, birds or trees for a supreme power that was responsible for occurrence of these including human beings or for that matter some of the earlier existent Byzantine, Sassanian, Zoroastrian or other political identities.  

For the polytheistic and pagan societies, apart from the religious and spiritual reasons each individual may have had, conversion to Christian or Islamic "represented the response of a tribal, pastoral population to the need for a larger framework for political and economic integration, a more stable state, and a more imaginative and encompassing moral vision to cope with the problems of a tumultuous society."

Christianity emerged in the Levant in the mid-1st century AD. It spread initially from Jerusalem to large areas of the middle east like Mesopotamia, Jordan and Egypt. In 313, Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, officially legalizing Christian worship. The loss of Western Roman Empire dominance coincided with early missionary efforts into areas not controlled by the collapsing empire. In the 4th century it was successively adopted as the state religion by Armenia in 301AD, Georgia in 319AD, the Aksumite Empire in 325AD, and the Roman Empire in 380AD. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity spread to all of Europe in the Middle Ages. Then the next burst came as it expanded throughout the world during Europe's Age of Exploration from the Renaissance onwards, becoming the world's largest religion. Today there are more than two billion Christians worldwide.

The expansion of the Arab Empire in the years following Prophet Muhammad's death led to the creation of caliphates, occupying a vast geographical area and conversion to Islam was boosted by missionary activities particularly those of Sufis, who easily intermingled with local populace to propagate the religious teachings. These early caliphates, coupled with trading and the later expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in Islam's spread. Trading played an important role in the spread of Islam in several parts of the world, notably southeast Asia, like Indonesia. Muslim dynasties such as those of Mughals in India and Safavids in Persia and Ottomans in Anatolia were among the largest and most powerful in the world.

Verify and Believe, Individuality (1000AD to 2000AD)

While the ancient civilizations of India, Greece, Egypt or China had pushed the frontiers of science and philosophy, but it was in next phase in Europe that the next giant push to understand the natural world came. Until this time the belief was that the priests knew the laws of the natural world interpreted from the holy books. While it grew and became extremely influential by the 18^th century, in almost as early as the 13^th century Thomas Aquinas rediscovered Aristotelian logic to question the dogmas by the Church. He said, “The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.”

In 1521 Martin Luther is said to have declared, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other. May God help me. Amen.”

In the 16^th and early 17^th century, scientists or natural philosophers like Galileo and Sir Issac Newton discovered the existent natural laws contrary to the Bible. Galileo, regarded now as the father of observational astronomy, science and modern physics, championed heliocentrism (Sun is at centre of our solar system) which undermined the biblical belief that Earth is at the centre. Sir Issac Newton formulated the laws of motion, gravitation, mechanics among other accomplishments. All these drove towards a greater understanding of the natural environment through measures of proof and not belief. Then there was Michel de Montaigne, French Renaissance philosopher, who lived from 1533 to 1592, who in his work Essais which was to inspire many writers after continuously asked the question, “What do I know?”   

Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan written in 1651, which is supposed to have established the agenda for significant portion of Western philosophy, wrote, “Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time.” Locke defined the state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law; in which all men are born equal and with the right to life, liberty and property. With this they declared that true understanding could not happen without consonance with human reason and experience. For centuries, the Church had characterized human beings as naturally sinful and in need of forgiveness through religion. Enlightenment philosophy was in direct opposition with an emphasis on the importance of the individual. They did not think the Church was necessary to make people behave morally. The concept of favouring individual liberty over the power of an institution became prevalent in France, Britain and the United States, leading to revolutions in two of those of those countries, as well as a concept of "basic human rights" that shaped the U.S. Constitution.

With the need for empiricism grew the scientific endeavours. Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. After 1700, a tremendous number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe, and by 1789 there were over seventy official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined the term "the Age of Academies" to describe the 18th century. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. The 18th century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline but what followed in the later century with the seeds sowed here was dramatic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries).

Communication People to People (2000AD+)

In a society driven by commerce, individuality and knowledge the most important element is to have the ability to communicate instantly free from interference. The advent of internet and telecom networks in the late 20^th century provided the foundation for the massive innovation in communication we have witnessed. There is no longer the need for a book to be published or a newspaper to be written.

The concept of “instant messaging” finds its origins in 1960s, when Multi-user operating systems or Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) was created at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computation Center in 1961. It allowed up to 30 users to log in at the same time and send messages to each other. This further evolved to peer to peer protocols between universities. In 1996, Israeli company Mirabilis (acquired by AOL in 1998) launched ICQ - it allowed for multi-user chats, file transfers and a searchable user directory.

The turning point occurred in 1997, when AOL launched AIM. AIM allowed users to send messages to each other, and included user profiles, away messages and icons for more engagement. With AIM also came the development of bots – StudyBuddy, SmarterChild - with whom users could interact. By 2005, AIM dominated the instant messaging market with 53 million users.

Yahoo launched Yahoo! Messenger in 1998. Pidgin, founded as "Gaim" in 1998 as an open-source instant messaging client. Microsoft released MSN Messenger in 1999. Microsoft renamed the service Windows Live Messenger in 2005, adding photo sharing capabilities, social network integration and games. In 2000, Jabber, a multi-protocol instant messenger that acted as a single gateway for users to chat with friends and access their buddy lists on all of the big networks at the time: AIM, Yahoo and MSN. Apple developed iChat for its Mac OS X operating system in 2002. In 2011, Apple announced iMessage. Founded in 2003, Skype allowed Internet users to communicate with others through video, voice and instant messaging. In 2005, Google released Google Talk. The service includes text-based messaging, voice calls and video conferences. Most recently, Google Talk has been integrated with Google+, allowing users to chat while in the social network. Facebook released Facebook Chat in 2008, allowing users to instant message one friend or multiple people through the groups feature. In July 2011, Skype announced integration with Facebook.

Then, there is Linkedin (launched in 2003) which also allows users to communicate with one another and the ubiquitous messaging channels on smartphone like Whatsapp (founded in 2009) and now less used Blackberry Messenger.

Between some of the main channels ~1.5 billion of humanity is now connected - Google+ (estimated 90m users globally with 80% being active), Facebook (1.6bn users), Linkedin (400m+ users), Whatsapp (1Bn+ users) and networking platforms like Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr and Instagram.

John Lennon once said, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” This togetherness is creating more active and aware societies within nations aspiring for change based on global benchmarks. It is enabling Arab Spring, innovative and cheaper product launches, awareness in heavy censorship society like China, money transfers, solution to and creation of medical problems, getting jobs to fulfilling the basic elementary level human need to feel connected.

Just as the Athenians gathered on the Pnyx hill once or twice a month, these tools are ensuring a gathering every second of some group or another. Imagine the impact on human society!!

“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.” ― Margaret Heffernan.