Alex Spillus
Daily Telegraph
18 Jan 10
We all know that honeymoons come to an end, and even on that sparkling January day a year ago this week when Barack Obama made it official with the American people, both sides realised that such bliss could not be eternal. But neither partner in that marriage foresaw that the honeymoon would end so soon, with the bride of public opinion packing her bags in the holiday hotel in a tearful rage, leaving the groom to plead, "I never said this would be easy … come back, I can still bring change".
Americans have fallen out of love with their charming President at a fast rate, even as his popularity has remained high abroad. As early as October, his approval ratings had tumbled from 65-70 per cent to the high 40s. Obama's inheritance from George W Bush – some wedding present – was two wars, the worst recession for 70 years, unemployment heading for 10 per cent and a $1.2 trillion deficit. It guaranteed a first year of unprecedented challenge.
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Not content with dealing with all that, Obama decided to tame the monster of health care, tackle energy reform, sign a global green treaty, embrace the Muslim world, bring peace to the Middle East, establish a universe free of nuclear weapons and talk sense to the Iranians. Americans have baulked at the mind-boggling sums involved in his domestic reform: a $787 billion stimulus bill, a $1 trillion health care bill and plans for cap and trade that will cost industry dearly.
In Congress, his fellow Democrats are fretting about losing seats in November's midterm elections. The party has already lost the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia in the first major post-Obama votes. Even the late Senator Edward Kennedy's seat is now a close call in tomorrow's by-election.
The President has confessed to disappointment at breaking his vow on changing the political culture. "What I haven't been able to do in the midst of this crisis is bring the country together in a way that we had done in the inauguration," he admitted to People magazine. "That's what's been lost this year … that sense of changing how Washington works."
Overseas, Obama may still be seen as the great anti-Bush, but at home the standard narrative is that he has taken on too much, lost the ability to inspire, can't impose his will on Congress and been too soft abroad. That said, in many ways it has been a remarkable first year. Obama is on the verge of seeing reforms passed that will provide health insurance for every American for the first time. Plenty of presidents have talked about that since 1947; none has done it. A last-minute defeat would not be for lack of compromise on his part. If passed, it could prove political Viagra for him and his party in the next 12 months and well beyond.
He has propped up the economy, albeit with an inflated and, in places, misdirected stimulus bill. The housing market has bottomed out, and consumer confidence is returning. The possibility of a double-dip recession remains, but if most forecasters are right, unemployment should begin to fall. Belatedly, Obama and his ex-Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have acknowledged popular outrage over the bail-out by proposing a special bank tax, a start towards easing Main Street's resentment over Wall Street's preferential treatment.
Contrary to Obama's big-spending image, he has cut more superfluous spending programmes in Congress than his Republican predecessor. And despite the image of stagnation – created in large part by the
10-month health care debate – Congress has passed more legislation supported by a president than any before him, according to Congressional Quarterly.
Furthermore, he has banned torture (just in case there was any confusion about America's position on this), ordered the closure of Guantánamo and sent the 9/11 suspects for trial in the civilian courts. Federal funding has been restored to stem-cell research, women's rights to equal pay have been improved, and new emissions standards have been set for vehicles. This is not a President who can't get things done.
And lest we forget, by his very presence, and by his handling of race when it has reared into public debate, he has gone some way to erasing what Condoleezza Rice called America's birth defect.
Critics have lambasted his foreign policy for appeasing terrorists, kowtowing to China and bowing to monarchs of far-off lands. With all this negotiation and reaching out, where are the results, they demand.
But who seriously expected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-il to respond to overtures when their existence depends in part on vilifying America? Changing the tone in the Middle East conflict was clumsily done but could still bring results. In his Egypt speech last June, Obama said: "I've come to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect." Those are powerful words. In time, they could come to mean something.
In Britain, there has been speculation that Obama was going to jilt the US's greatest ally for another – the whole world. But after a rocky start with the Brits – that gift of DVDs to Gordon Brown still induce a wince – he does, at last, seem to be appreciating the value of the special relationship, thanks in chief to the British sacrifice in Helmand. Profound affinity there will never be, but practical friendship, yes.
He has made mistakes in foreign policy and there was an overconfident assumption in the White House that his golden touch in Iowa and South Carolina would work just as well in Moscow and Tel Aviv. Allowing his speech to students in China to be suppressed by the authorities should not happen to American presidents. Nor should arriving at the Copenhagen summit without a climate deal.
His decision to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan while setting a deadline for withdrawal could prove a disastrous lack of incentive for allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And his initial response to the botched Christmas Day plane bomb was strangely detached; it made him seem more interested in America's, and his, image, than in its safety. It took a week before he summoned any visibly strong feelings about the fact that terrorists wanted to kill large numbers of his compatriots.
In the heady early days leading to his inauguration, Obama's admirers forecast greatness. Would he be a Lincoln or a Kennedy or a Roosevelt, they pondered fondly. Such talk was still grossly premature – and remains so.
But who knows? Ronald Reagan is regarded in the US as one of the best presidents of the post-war era. He came into office in 1981 with ratings just above 60 per cent, but by 1983 they had plummeted to below 40 per cent as the economy slid into recession. Less than two years later, he trounced Walter Mondale. The President and his advisers insist they are taking the long view – at the moment, given the polls, they have no choice – and they may be justified.
Obama does have some defects to correct. He needs to stop blaming George W Bush for his problems and to find some of Bush's fire in the belly when it counts. There were encouraging signs of the latter when he delivered a forceful reaction to the Haiti disaster. It would help if he pruned his agenda. Hours after he had spoken about how the US would assist the Haitians, he spoke at the White House Forum on Modernising Government. Preparing for such events takes time that could be spent on weightier matters.
Obama has travelled more than any other president in his first year, visiting 23 countries on 10 trips. It might disappoint his admirers abroad, but the President needs to stay at home more in the next year.
The good news for Obama, and for all of us dependent on his success, is that he has shown he can learn from his mistakes. There was a long period at the start of the marathon 2008 campaign when his performances were lacklustre and his debating skills blunt. Possessing a self-awareness rare in politics, he identified his problems and corrected them.
What he hasn't been able to change is the habit of making cocky asides. Asked to grade his first-year performance – never a question a politician should answer – he gave himself a B+. He smugly told People that "I'm pretty good" at being president.
Obama's first year has not been nearly as bad as the received truth in Washington would have it. Having swooned for him in the campaign, the media has overcorrected its earlier collective abandonment of balanced reporting. But if he wants to win back those Americans he has lost, President Obama needs to appreciate that, as he often said on the stump, their relationship isn't about him, it is about them.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Monday, 15 February 2010
The closed minds that deny a civilisation's glories
Yasmin ali-Bhai Brown
onfused Dad Mohamed from somewhere in the US sends his dilemma to an Islamic guidance website through whom Allah apparently communicates his orders – on how we dress, what we do minute by minute, unholy TV programmes, wicked vitamins and even wickeder relations between males and females.
I paraphrase Mohamed's frantic appeal for clarity. His children watch cartoons, and have stuffed toys, quilts and pillow cases with Mickey Mouse on them. Is all that halal? Now many of us detest the addictive and manipulative Disney brand which targets young children. But this fully grown, procreative adult cannot trust his own mind and seeks instructions from unverified voices of authority. How abject is that?
These global sites control people, push through Maoist "cleansing". Miserable mullahs are closing down the Muslim mind and heart the world over. Meanwhile "true believers" desperately seek enslavement and thank their enslavers. The questions posed are startling in their naiveté. May we sing? Is it OK for a man to listen to a woman singer? Do I watch a female newsreader? Yes, says a wise one – as long as she is properly covered up and not wearing perfume. Don't laugh. It is tragic, not funny.
Somehow in the last decade or so, millions of believers have been persuaded that they are repositories of sin because they watch films, love music and paintings, read books, experience temporal pleasures and ecstasies. Remember the ferocity with which the Taliban destroyed all pre-Islamic treasures? Saudi Arabia is guilty of similar vandalism. Thus they seek to recreate the piety of triumphant Islam. Well they didn't have cameras, mobile phones, cars and computers then. Should these be banned too?
Muslim children are now programmed to obey – robbed of imagination, independent thought and refinement. UK Muslim parents are increasingly coming out against school visits, music and drama, novels, exercise, scientific facts. Teachers know these parental demands leave Muslim children under-educated and emotionally numbed, rendered unresponsive to artistic words, sights and sounds.
This is a travesty of our history, our love of truth and beauty, the intellectual energy that throughout history uplifted Muslim civilisations. The current Science Museum exhibition of Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world proves we were never the barbarians promoted in Western demonology. Some of the earliest manuals on surgery and optics, astronomy and flying machines came out of Muslim regions. And those same places were creative hubs producing great works of art, incredible buildings and intricate crafts.
There is no Koranic injunction against the depiction of the human form, yet pictures from previous ages would today not be painted – a kneeling, sensual angel by an Ottoman artist in the mid-16th century, a man filling his cup of wine. Passion plays were performed through the centuries in all main Arabian conurbations. Poetry was written and recited by both men and women. Music, devotional and romantic, was in every household. All that is under threat today.
The Pakistani blogger Raza Rumi writes: "Who are these butchers of culture? What religion do they follow? They have no religion except barbarism." Exactly. British Muslims for Secular Democracy (of which I am chair), supported by the British Council, is tomorrow organising a conference on artistic and cultural freedom at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Speakers include Miss Pakistan (who is also a professor), fashion designers, the entrepreneur Saira Khan, painters, stand-up comics, musicians, writers, others who are concerned. The event is open to all. Check the BMSD site. We will be launching an advisory guide for teachers on protecting the interests of the Muslim child.
Many sagacious websites will warn that mixing with us, people with faith who are also freethinkers, is definitely haram (a sin). That will keep away the born-again religious troglodytes. But our hope is that the nervous and undecided will turn up to listen to artists and entertainers – and throw off their chains.
One artist I know put it beautifully: "Allah gave me my mind, my hands my eyes, my patience, my selfhood. I use all these gifts and show people the wonders of the world. How can that be wrong? Does God want us to be deaf, stupid and blind?"
No, but God's army sure does.
Monday, 15 February 2010
onfused Dad Mohamed from somewhere in the US sends his dilemma to an Islamic guidance website through whom Allah apparently communicates his orders – on how we dress, what we do minute by minute, unholy TV programmes, wicked vitamins and even wickeder relations between males and females.
I paraphrase Mohamed's frantic appeal for clarity. His children watch cartoons, and have stuffed toys, quilts and pillow cases with Mickey Mouse on them. Is all that halal? Now many of us detest the addictive and manipulative Disney brand which targets young children. But this fully grown, procreative adult cannot trust his own mind and seeks instructions from unverified voices of authority. How abject is that?
These global sites control people, push through Maoist "cleansing". Miserable mullahs are closing down the Muslim mind and heart the world over. Meanwhile "true believers" desperately seek enslavement and thank their enslavers. The questions posed are startling in their naiveté. May we sing? Is it OK for a man to listen to a woman singer? Do I watch a female newsreader? Yes, says a wise one – as long as she is properly covered up and not wearing perfume. Don't laugh. It is tragic, not funny.
Somehow in the last decade or so, millions of believers have been persuaded that they are repositories of sin because they watch films, love music and paintings, read books, experience temporal pleasures and ecstasies. Remember the ferocity with which the Taliban destroyed all pre-Islamic treasures? Saudi Arabia is guilty of similar vandalism. Thus they seek to recreate the piety of triumphant Islam. Well they didn't have cameras, mobile phones, cars and computers then. Should these be banned too?
Muslim children are now programmed to obey – robbed of imagination, independent thought and refinement. UK Muslim parents are increasingly coming out against school visits, music and drama, novels, exercise, scientific facts. Teachers know these parental demands leave Muslim children under-educated and emotionally numbed, rendered unresponsive to artistic words, sights and sounds.
This is a travesty of our history, our love of truth and beauty, the intellectual energy that throughout history uplifted Muslim civilisations. The current Science Museum exhibition of Muslim inventions that shaped the modern world proves we were never the barbarians promoted in Western demonology. Some of the earliest manuals on surgery and optics, astronomy and flying machines came out of Muslim regions. And those same places were creative hubs producing great works of art, incredible buildings and intricate crafts.
There is no Koranic injunction against the depiction of the human form, yet pictures from previous ages would today not be painted – a kneeling, sensual angel by an Ottoman artist in the mid-16th century, a man filling his cup of wine. Passion plays were performed through the centuries in all main Arabian conurbations. Poetry was written and recited by both men and women. Music, devotional and romantic, was in every household. All that is under threat today.
The Pakistani blogger Raza Rumi writes: "Who are these butchers of culture? What religion do they follow? They have no religion except barbarism." Exactly. British Muslims for Secular Democracy (of which I am chair), supported by the British Council, is tomorrow organising a conference on artistic and cultural freedom at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Speakers include Miss Pakistan (who is also a professor), fashion designers, the entrepreneur Saira Khan, painters, stand-up comics, musicians, writers, others who are concerned. The event is open to all. Check the BMSD site. We will be launching an advisory guide for teachers on protecting the interests of the Muslim child.
Many sagacious websites will warn that mixing with us, people with faith who are also freethinkers, is definitely haram (a sin). That will keep away the born-again religious troglodytes. But our hope is that the nervous and undecided will turn up to listen to artists and entertainers – and throw off their chains.
One artist I know put it beautifully: "Allah gave me my mind, my hands my eyes, my patience, my selfhood. I use all these gifts and show people the wonders of the world. How can that be wrong? Does God want us to be deaf, stupid and blind?"
No, but God's army sure does.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010
My compatriots' vote to ban minarets is fuelled by fear
Tariq Ramadan
It wasn't meant to go this way. For months we had been told that the efforts to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland were doomed. The last surveys suggested around 34% of the Swiss population would vote for this shocking initiative. Last Friday, in a meeting organised in Lausanne, more than 800 students, professors and citizens were in no doubt that the referendum would see the motion rejected, and instead were focused on how to turn this silly initiative into a more positive future.
Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people's fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?
There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.
Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.
At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.
Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?
The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.
Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe
It wasn't meant to go this way. For months we had been told that the efforts to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland were doomed. The last surveys suggested around 34% of the Swiss population would vote for this shocking initiative. Last Friday, in a meeting organised in Lausanne, more than 800 students, professors and citizens were in no doubt that the referendum would see the motion rejected, and instead were focused on how to turn this silly initiative into a more positive future.
Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people's fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?
There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.
Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.
At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.
Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?
The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.
Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe
Sunday, 22 November 2009
The generation that failed
Like Russians, we Pakistanis remain obsessed by two great questions formulated by 19th-century Russian writers Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky: who is to blame and what is to be done?
Many nations in the past have attempted to develop democratic institutions, only to lose them when they took their liberties and political institutions for granted, and failed to comprehend the threat posed by a powerful military establishment and corrupt political leaders. Pakistan is a classic example.
As he left the constitutional convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by an admirer: “Dr Franklin, what have you given us?” Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Not too long ago, we too possessed a great country earned for us by the sweat of the brow and iron will of one person. We have done to Pakistan what Lenin’s successors did to the Soviet Union.
On Oct 7, 1958, democracy was expunged from the politics of Pakistan with scarcely a protest. The result is the mess we are in today. As a direct consequence of military intervention in October 1958, we lost half the country in 1971. A weak political system and corrupt political leaders allowed the Generals to manipulate events and hijack the state.
There are, in my view, two factors that, above all others, have shaped our history during the last 62 years. One is the growing power of the military in running the affairs of state. The other, without doubt, consists in the total failure of the politicians, the intelligentsia, the intellectuals, the civil servants — in fact, the entire civil society — to comprehend the threat posed by a powerful army to the country’s fragile democracy, and to devise ways and means to thwart it. “Military coups,” Alexis de Tocqueville warned more than 200 years ago, “are always to be feared in democracies. They should be reckoned among the most threatening of the perils which face their future existence. Statesmen must never relax their efforts to find a remedy for this evil.” Sadly, the warning went unheeded in newly-independent Pakistan. When our descendants, in a century’s time, come to look at our age, it is these two phenomena that will be held to be the determining factors of our history — the most demanding of explanation and analysis.
“Perhaps no form of government needs great leaders so much as democracy,” said the historian and diplomat Lord Bryce. The leadership Pakistan brought to power in 1947 proved unable to govern a country rent by political, ethnic, economic, and social conflicts. No wonder, today it is a nightmare of despair and despondency, in doubt about its future. The rich are getting richer, while the poor are sinking deeper and deeper into a black hole of abject poverty. The country appears to be adrift, lacking confidence about its future. Disaster and frustration roam the political landscape. Look into the eyes of a Pakistani today and you will see a smouldering rage.
Sixty-two years after independence, are we really free? Are the people masters in their own house? Are our sovereignty and independence untrammelled? On Aug 14, 1947, we thought we had found freedom, but it has turned out to be another kind of slavery. The independence of Pakistan is a myth. Pakistan is no longer a free country. Today it is not just a “rentier state,” not just a client state. It is a state with a government set up by Washington. It is no longer a democratic country. Today we have a disjointed, dysfunctional, lopsided, hybrid, artificial, political system — a non-sovereign rubberstamp parliament, a weak and ineffective prime minister, appointed by a powerful accidental president. Armed American security personnel crisscross our border without let or hindrance. They violate our air space with impunity, bomb our villages and kill innocent men, women and children. Everyday I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in Jinnah’s Pakistan? Where are the voices of public outrage? Where is the leadership willing to stand up and say: Enough! Enough! We have sullied ourselves enough. Why are we so passively mute? How can we be so comatose as a nation when all our political institutions are crumbling before our own eyes?
Many questions come to mind. Why did the army get involved in the politics of Pakistan in the first instance? Why did Ayub Khan stab Pakistan’s fledgling democracy in the back? Why was he allowed to commit the original sin? Worse still, why did everybody acclaim it? There was no breakdown of law and order to justify imposition of martial law. There was also no civil commotion to prevent the judges from attending their courts. The country was abuzz with politics, but that happens in all democracies, especially on the eve of elections.
Why did the superior judiciary, the guardian of the Constitution, the protector of the citizens’ rights, become subservient to the executive and to the philosophy of the party in power? Why did we allow the rule of law to give way to the rule of man? Why did our judges match their constitutional ideas and legal language to the exigencies of current politics? Why did the courts tailor their decisions for reasons of expediency or, at times, for simple survival?
Why did parliament, the pillar of our state, the embodiment of the will of the people, become a rubberstamp? Why did it allow itself to be gagged? Why did it surrender its sovereignty to both military and civilian dictators?
Why did Pakistan become a land of opportunities for corrupt, unscrupulous, unprincipled politicians; judges and generals; corrupt and dishonest civil servants; smugglers and tax evaders who have bank accounts, luxurious villas, mansions, and apartments in the West? Why did Pakistan become a nightmare of corruption, crime and despair? Why? Why?
Aug 14 gave independence to Pakistan, but not to Pakistanis. The greatest disappointment of my generation has been its failure to stand up to Generals who have robbed us of everything — our past, our present, our future. Prolonged army rule has reduced us, collectively, to a plantation of slaves. We seem to be helpless in the grip of some all — powerful monster; our limbs paralysed; our minds deadened. Few Pakistanis seem ready to die for anything anymore.
Who has done this to us? There is something pitiable about a people that constantly bemoans its leaders. If they have let us down, it is only because we have allowed them to. With the mess we are in, we look everywhere but within. It is the fault of corrupt politicians. It is Washington’s fault. It is the Pakistan army and power-hungry generals. It is the corrupt bureaucracy. Somebody fix it! What about us?
We have made a mockery of the gift of independence. What gift, shall we, the living, bequeath to the unborn? What Pakistan shall we hand over to the future? Today we feel ourselves unable to look our children in the eye, for the shame of what we did, and didn’t do, during the last 62 years. For the shame of what we allowed to happen.
Today the Supreme Court, the guardian of the Constitution, is the only ray of hope in the darkness that surrounds us. After years of subservience, it is on its feet and holding its head high. Sadly, in spite of a strong and independent judiciary, the present corrupt order may survive because both the presidency and the Parliament are dysfunctional and out of sync with the spirit of the times.
What is to be done? At last, people have found their life mission: fight corrupt, discredited rulers, elected or unelected, when they capture the commanding heights of power. And I believe they have also found the tool to achieve this mammoth task: peaceful streets demonstrations and rallies.
When we organise with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But corrupt leaders who have nothing but contempt for the people and no respect for democracy, freedom or justice have taken it over. It is up to all of us to take it back. And as Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk, www.roedadkhan.com
Many nations in the past have attempted to develop democratic institutions, only to lose them when they took their liberties and political institutions for granted, and failed to comprehend the threat posed by a powerful military establishment and corrupt political leaders. Pakistan is a classic example.
As he left the constitutional convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by an admirer: “Dr Franklin, what have you given us?” Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Not too long ago, we too possessed a great country earned for us by the sweat of the brow and iron will of one person. We have done to Pakistan what Lenin’s successors did to the Soviet Union.
On Oct 7, 1958, democracy was expunged from the politics of Pakistan with scarcely a protest. The result is the mess we are in today. As a direct consequence of military intervention in October 1958, we lost half the country in 1971. A weak political system and corrupt political leaders allowed the Generals to manipulate events and hijack the state.
There are, in my view, two factors that, above all others, have shaped our history during the last 62 years. One is the growing power of the military in running the affairs of state. The other, without doubt, consists in the total failure of the politicians, the intelligentsia, the intellectuals, the civil servants — in fact, the entire civil society — to comprehend the threat posed by a powerful army to the country’s fragile democracy, and to devise ways and means to thwart it. “Military coups,” Alexis de Tocqueville warned more than 200 years ago, “are always to be feared in democracies. They should be reckoned among the most threatening of the perils which face their future existence. Statesmen must never relax their efforts to find a remedy for this evil.” Sadly, the warning went unheeded in newly-independent Pakistan. When our descendants, in a century’s time, come to look at our age, it is these two phenomena that will be held to be the determining factors of our history — the most demanding of explanation and analysis.
“Perhaps no form of government needs great leaders so much as democracy,” said the historian and diplomat Lord Bryce. The leadership Pakistan brought to power in 1947 proved unable to govern a country rent by political, ethnic, economic, and social conflicts. No wonder, today it is a nightmare of despair and despondency, in doubt about its future. The rich are getting richer, while the poor are sinking deeper and deeper into a black hole of abject poverty. The country appears to be adrift, lacking confidence about its future. Disaster and frustration roam the political landscape. Look into the eyes of a Pakistani today and you will see a smouldering rage.
Sixty-two years after independence, are we really free? Are the people masters in their own house? Are our sovereignty and independence untrammelled? On Aug 14, 1947, we thought we had found freedom, but it has turned out to be another kind of slavery. The independence of Pakistan is a myth. Pakistan is no longer a free country. Today it is not just a “rentier state,” not just a client state. It is a state with a government set up by Washington. It is no longer a democratic country. Today we have a disjointed, dysfunctional, lopsided, hybrid, artificial, political system — a non-sovereign rubberstamp parliament, a weak and ineffective prime minister, appointed by a powerful accidental president. Armed American security personnel crisscross our border without let or hindrance. They violate our air space with impunity, bomb our villages and kill innocent men, women and children. Everyday I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in Jinnah’s Pakistan? Where are the voices of public outrage? Where is the leadership willing to stand up and say: Enough! Enough! We have sullied ourselves enough. Why are we so passively mute? How can we be so comatose as a nation when all our political institutions are crumbling before our own eyes?
Many questions come to mind. Why did the army get involved in the politics of Pakistan in the first instance? Why did Ayub Khan stab Pakistan’s fledgling democracy in the back? Why was he allowed to commit the original sin? Worse still, why did everybody acclaim it? There was no breakdown of law and order to justify imposition of martial law. There was also no civil commotion to prevent the judges from attending their courts. The country was abuzz with politics, but that happens in all democracies, especially on the eve of elections.
Why did the superior judiciary, the guardian of the Constitution, the protector of the citizens’ rights, become subservient to the executive and to the philosophy of the party in power? Why did we allow the rule of law to give way to the rule of man? Why did our judges match their constitutional ideas and legal language to the exigencies of current politics? Why did the courts tailor their decisions for reasons of expediency or, at times, for simple survival?
Why did parliament, the pillar of our state, the embodiment of the will of the people, become a rubberstamp? Why did it allow itself to be gagged? Why did it surrender its sovereignty to both military and civilian dictators?
Why did Pakistan become a land of opportunities for corrupt, unscrupulous, unprincipled politicians; judges and generals; corrupt and dishonest civil servants; smugglers and tax evaders who have bank accounts, luxurious villas, mansions, and apartments in the West? Why did Pakistan become a nightmare of corruption, crime and despair? Why? Why?
Aug 14 gave independence to Pakistan, but not to Pakistanis. The greatest disappointment of my generation has been its failure to stand up to Generals who have robbed us of everything — our past, our present, our future. Prolonged army rule has reduced us, collectively, to a plantation of slaves. We seem to be helpless in the grip of some all — powerful monster; our limbs paralysed; our minds deadened. Few Pakistanis seem ready to die for anything anymore.
Who has done this to us? There is something pitiable about a people that constantly bemoans its leaders. If they have let us down, it is only because we have allowed them to. With the mess we are in, we look everywhere but within. It is the fault of corrupt politicians. It is Washington’s fault. It is the Pakistan army and power-hungry generals. It is the corrupt bureaucracy. Somebody fix it! What about us?
We have made a mockery of the gift of independence. What gift, shall we, the living, bequeath to the unborn? What Pakistan shall we hand over to the future? Today we feel ourselves unable to look our children in the eye, for the shame of what we did, and didn’t do, during the last 62 years. For the shame of what we allowed to happen.
Today the Supreme Court, the guardian of the Constitution, is the only ray of hope in the darkness that surrounds us. After years of subservience, it is on its feet and holding its head high. Sadly, in spite of a strong and independent judiciary, the present corrupt order may survive because both the presidency and the Parliament are dysfunctional and out of sync with the spirit of the times.
What is to be done? At last, people have found their life mission: fight corrupt, discredited rulers, elected or unelected, when they capture the commanding heights of power. And I believe they have also found the tool to achieve this mammoth task: peaceful streets demonstrations and rallies.
When we organise with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But corrupt leaders who have nothing but contempt for the people and no respect for democracy, freedom or justice have taken it over. It is up to all of us to take it back. And as Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk, www.roedadkhan.com
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Vitaly Ginzberg
Vitaly Ginzburg, who has died aged 93, was a Nobel prizewinning Russian physicist and a father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. He was born in Tsarist Russia so long ago that even the calendar was different: his date of birth was 21 September 1916, according to the old Russian calendar, or 4 October in the western version.
The discovery of superconductivity – the ability of electric currents to flow in certain materials for years without resistance, whose theoretical explanation would lead to his Nobel prize – had occurred five years before his birth. Its mechanism remained a mystery for 40 years, until Ginzburg and Lev Landau produced their theory in 1950. With the phenomenon having defied explanation for so long, the Nobel committee seemed in no rush to recognise their success, and another half-century elapsed before Ginzburg shared the 2003 prize (with his fellow Russian Alexei Abrikosov and the Briton Anthony Leggett, Landau having died in 1968).
It is customary for Nobel laureates to produce a brief autobiography, which usually amounts to a few hundred words. Ginzburg's was different. Having lived through so much – born in pre-revolutionary Russia, maturing in Stalin's Soviet Union, and spending his latter years in the new Russia – he had a broad vision, rich experiences and much to say. The result was an epic, exceeding 14,000 words, the reason being that: "I am already 87 and will hardly ever have another occasion to write about myself and my views."
A member of a Jewish family, the son of an engineer and a doctor, he had lived through times of economic degradation, and hunger. One of his memories from early childhood was of "a wagon, loaded with half-covered coffins with dead bodies and pulled by a horse past our house in the centre of Moscow". He did not start school until the age of 11, as it was not obligatory and his parents were concerned at the state of Soviet schools. Four years after he eventually entered formal education, his school was abolished, leaving him "lost and unhappy". By chance, an acquaintance of his aunt was a professor of science in a higher educational establishment, and he helped get Ginzburg a job as a laboratory assistant. Ginzburg recalled: "I did not have any talent, but in physics I was at least interested."
He progressed rapidly, entering Moscow State University, graduating in 1938, receiving his PhD in physics in 1940 and DSc in 1942. In 1937 he had married a fellow student, Olga Zamsha, from whom he divorced in 1946, the same year that he married Nina Ermakova. In 1944 Nina had been arrested, allegedly for being part of a plot to kill Stalin. She was released in an amnesty the following year, but exiled to Gorky. Ginzburg was at that stage teaching in Gorky University, which is where they met.
From 1946 to 1953 Ginzburg was living in Moscow, but his requests for Nina to be released from exile to join him were refused. In turn, the paranoia of the Stalinist tyranny determined that he, as her husband, was "politically unreliable". So it is remarkable that, in 1950, Ginzburg was recruited to the team developing the Soviet hydrogen bomb.
Only after the story of the Soviet weapons programme was declassified did the importance of Ginzburg's contributions become known. Before those times the folk wisdom was that Andrei Sakharov had made, enigmatically, "the first idea", and Ginzburg "the second idea", which had opened the way to the H-bomb. The essential fuel is tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, which is a gas. However, a gas is hard to control in hydrogen bombs, and Ginzburg's insight was that it could be made, within the device, by bombarding solid lithium deuteride with neutrons.
Crucial though this idea had been, concerns about Ginzburg's "reliability" led to him being excluded from the weapon's actual test, and in 1951, during one of Stalin's antisemitic purges, he was removed from the project entirely. He feared that he was about to be put into a special prison for scientists, but was saved from this fate by Stalin's death in 1953. At this, Ginzburg was reinstated into the project, and also became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
At the same time that he was involved with the secret weapons programme, he was also working in fundamental pure research, producing his famed paper with Landau on the phenomenon of superconductivity in 1950.
In 1911, the Dutch physicist Heike Onnes had discovered that, when cooled to -269C, solid mercury suddenly lost all resistance to the flow of electric current. This phenomenon – "superconductivity" – was later found in other materials, such as tin and metal alloys. In a loop of wire made of superconducting material, electric currents can flow for years without needing any voltage to be applied. This astonishing phenomenon defied explanation for decades.
In the micro-world of atoms and particles, such as electrons, quantum mechanics applies. The phenomena are often weird, such as the well-known uncertainty principle – the inability to know precisely both the position and speed of an atomic particle. In the large scale, or macro-world, we are used to more "common sense" – the laws of Isaac Newton, which enable us to know both where we are and how fast we are travelling. However, even in the macro-world there are examples where quantum mechanics rules, one such being the phenomenon of superconductivity. There are two types of superconductors, one which completely rejects magnetic fields, and the other, known as "type 2", where superconductivity and magnetism can co-exist.
Landau and Ginzburg used quantum theory to produce a series of equations which successfully predicted that, under certain circumstances, superconductors can tolerate magnetic fields. This led to work by Abrikosov, who discovered how magnetic fields penetrate superconductors, and opened the way to many practical applications.
These breakthroughs led to many ways of achieving superconductivity, even in the presence of large magnetic fields, which today is widely used in science, industry and medicine. In 1962 the first commercial superconducting wire was made using a niobium-titanium alloy. Superconductivity has vast implications in technology, being used in powerful electromagnets, such as are found in MRI scanners in hospitals, in magnetic levitation systems for high-speed transport, and in the world's largest cryogenic facility – the 27km ring of superconducting magnets of the Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator, at Cern in Geneva.
In addition to this seminal work on superconductivity, in a career that spanned seven decades Ginzburg authored several fundamental papers in a range of areas: quantum theory; the propagation of electromagnetic waves through the ionosphere; the origin of cosmic rays; radioastronomy and astrophysics. Several of his ideas were regarded as being of Nobel prize calibre.
He held passionate opinions about topics far beyond science, being a strong believer in the global triumph of democracy, and that "secular humanism" would overcome threats such as Islamic terrorism, poverty and Aids. He was one of a group of scientists that helped bring down Trofim Lysenko, whose beliefs about biological inheritance had impeded genetic research in the Soviet Union for decades.
Ginzburg was a vehement atheist, and strongly opposed the growing role of the Russian Orthodox church in state affairs after the 1991 Soviet collapse. He protested against attempts to introduce religious lessons in schools, telling a Russian newspaper in 2007 that "these Orthodox scoundrels want to lure away children's souls". As a result, several Orthodox Christian groups threatened to sue him for "offending millions of Russian Christians".
Having lived under Stalin's yoke, and seen Hitler ravaging Europe, he remained an optimist. "The forces of democracy have saved civilised society and nowadays both nazism and communism have almost sunk into oblivion," he wrote in his Nobel biography. He was certain that this proves that "we can hope for the ultimate triumph of the democratic system and secular humanism all over the world". All that are required, he said, are "the presence of historical memory, and the development of science".
He is survived by Nina, and by the daughter of his first marriage.
• Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg, theoretical physicist and astrophysicist, born 4 October 1916; died 8 November 2009
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
A hope in Helmand
Theo Farrell
The news from Afghanistan has been grim. The collapse of the second round of the national elections; Hamid Karzai's government tainted by corruption; and, last week, five British soldiers killed by a rogue Afghan policeman in Nad-e'Ali. All the while, Washington continues to dither over its strategy. Small wonder that the British public have lost faith in this war: 57% now think it unwinnable.
However, on the ground in Afghanistan things look a little more optimistic. I have just spent two weeks in Helmand, talking to dozens of civilian stabilisation advisers and military officers. Predictably, everybody complains about the shortage of helicopters (with good reason). But local governance has been reestablished this past year in the key district centres of Garmsir, Gereshk and Nad-e'Ali. And though the formal justice system has been slow to take root because of the difficulties of putting judges and prosecutors in district centres, in its place an informal justice system has developed supported by international advisers.
In all districts, schools and health clinics are being built or refurbished. And even in the area of counter-narcotics, there are some encouraging signs. Poppy cultivation is down 37% this year in Helmand. A significant increase in poppy cultivation in neighbouring Kandahar suggests that this reduction is not simply due to market forces. In Helmand, a wheat seed distribution programme (which encourages farmers to grow wheat instead of poppy)is covering more farmers. Often the best solutions in Afghanistan are local ones.
Notwithstanding the tragic events in Nad-e'Ali, the Afghan security forces are getting better, as is the partnership between Afghans and the International Security Assistance Force. I saw this most visibly in Garmsir, where I spent some time with the US marines. Garmsir district centre has tarmac roads, solar streetlights and a thriving bazaar. US-run Radio Garmsir pumps out popular programming courtsey of its two local DJs; it also receives over 1,000 letters a month from listeners. Most striking of all, the marines trust Afghan police and soldiers to secure the district centre. Garmsir feels very much like a society that is shaking off the shackles of war.
So what accounts for this success? First, an offensive by the marines in collaboration with the Afghan armyover September and October, that pushed the Taliban lines far south of Snakeshead (the main population and agricultural area, extending far beyond the district centre). This created the perception of security that underpins local support for the government. It also gave locals the confidence to send their children to school, to trade in the bazaar and return to normal life. The US marines' campaign in Garmsir has built on foundations laid by British military operations and stabilisation efforts. But the British lacked the forces to hold captured territory. The marines have created outposts and stayed. Such commitment is crucial to Afghan confidence.
Second, security operations are a true partnership between the marines and the Afghan security forces. I observed the marine commander signing up to an Afghan security plan for the elections, and deferring to a shura of local leaders in deciding the fate of eight men the marines hadapprehended planting a roadside bomb. Finally, contrary to stereotype, the marines have been more concerned about making peace than making war. To be sure, the campaign in Garmsir has involved a lot of hard fighting by marines (and the British army before them). But as Lt Col Cabaniss put it, the main effort for his battalion has focused on expanding the "hope bubble" and "restarting civilian society".
The events in Nad-e-Ali are unquestionably a setback. But they will have little impact on the success stories like Garmsir. Garmsir highlights the importance of nurturing effective local government, and of boots on the ground. Most of all, Garmsir underlines the importance of partnership between international and Afghan security forces. Garmsir enjoys an advantage here in that the local army, police and national security chiefs are all professional and work well together. As Nad-e-Ali suggests, police quality, especially of the lower ranks, is a key priority. There is a new police academy opening in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, to provide basic and specialist training to police throughout Helmand.
There is much to be done in Helmand, especially in towns such as Sangin and Musa Qala, where the Taliban still threaten security. But on the ground, one can begin to see the green shoots of progress and, in Garmsir, the conditions of stability and Britain's eventual withdrawal
The news from Afghanistan has been grim. The collapse of the second round of the national elections; Hamid Karzai's government tainted by corruption; and, last week, five British soldiers killed by a rogue Afghan policeman in Nad-e'Ali. All the while, Washington continues to dither over its strategy. Small wonder that the British public have lost faith in this war: 57% now think it unwinnable.
However, on the ground in Afghanistan things look a little more optimistic. I have just spent two weeks in Helmand, talking to dozens of civilian stabilisation advisers and military officers. Predictably, everybody complains about the shortage of helicopters (with good reason). But local governance has been reestablished this past year in the key district centres of Garmsir, Gereshk and Nad-e'Ali. And though the formal justice system has been slow to take root because of the difficulties of putting judges and prosecutors in district centres, in its place an informal justice system has developed supported by international advisers.
In all districts, schools and health clinics are being built or refurbished. And even in the area of counter-narcotics, there are some encouraging signs. Poppy cultivation is down 37% this year in Helmand. A significant increase in poppy cultivation in neighbouring Kandahar suggests that this reduction is not simply due to market forces. In Helmand, a wheat seed distribution programme (which encourages farmers to grow wheat instead of poppy)is covering more farmers. Often the best solutions in Afghanistan are local ones.
Notwithstanding the tragic events in Nad-e'Ali, the Afghan security forces are getting better, as is the partnership between Afghans and the International Security Assistance Force. I saw this most visibly in Garmsir, where I spent some time with the US marines. Garmsir district centre has tarmac roads, solar streetlights and a thriving bazaar. US-run Radio Garmsir pumps out popular programming courtsey of its two local DJs; it also receives over 1,000 letters a month from listeners. Most striking of all, the marines trust Afghan police and soldiers to secure the district centre. Garmsir feels very much like a society that is shaking off the shackles of war.
So what accounts for this success? First, an offensive by the marines in collaboration with the Afghan armyover September and October, that pushed the Taliban lines far south of Snakeshead (the main population and agricultural area, extending far beyond the district centre). This created the perception of security that underpins local support for the government. It also gave locals the confidence to send their children to school, to trade in the bazaar and return to normal life. The US marines' campaign in Garmsir has built on foundations laid by British military operations and stabilisation efforts. But the British lacked the forces to hold captured territory. The marines have created outposts and stayed. Such commitment is crucial to Afghan confidence.
Second, security operations are a true partnership between the marines and the Afghan security forces. I observed the marine commander signing up to an Afghan security plan for the elections, and deferring to a shura of local leaders in deciding the fate of eight men the marines hadapprehended planting a roadside bomb. Finally, contrary to stereotype, the marines have been more concerned about making peace than making war. To be sure, the campaign in Garmsir has involved a lot of hard fighting by marines (and the British army before them). But as Lt Col Cabaniss put it, the main effort for his battalion has focused on expanding the "hope bubble" and "restarting civilian society".
The events in Nad-e-Ali are unquestionably a setback. But they will have little impact on the success stories like Garmsir. Garmsir highlights the importance of nurturing effective local government, and of boots on the ground. Most of all, Garmsir underlines the importance of partnership between international and Afghan security forces. Garmsir enjoys an advantage here in that the local army, police and national security chiefs are all professional and work well together. As Nad-e-Ali suggests, police quality, especially of the lower ranks, is a key priority. There is a new police academy opening in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, to provide basic and specialist training to police throughout Helmand.
There is much to be done in Helmand, especially in towns such as Sangin and Musa Qala, where the Taliban still threaten security. But on the ground, one can begin to see the green shoots of progress and, in Garmsir, the conditions of stability and Britain's eventual withdrawal
Monday, 9 November 2009
Obituary: Israel Gelfand
Israel Gelfand, who has died aged 96, was a major figure in mathematicsfor seven decades. His research ranged over most of pure maths, including algebra, analysis, and geometry. He also worked in mathematical biology, opening up the field of integral geometry, a topic that is fundamental to medical scanners. He was an incomparable teacher and made significant advances in every field that he touched.
Gelfand was born to Jewish parents in the small town of Okny (now Krasni Okny) to the north of Odessa in southern Ukraine, which was then a part of the Russian empire. In 1930 he moved to Moscow to complete his secondary education. However, he was not permitted to enrol as an undergraduate, having (according to some sources) been expelled from school because his father, a miller, was considered to be a capitalist. Israel took a part-time job as doorkeeper at the Lenin Library and taught evening classes on mathematics. The work made it possible for him to attend mathematics courses at Moscow State University.
He showed such talent that Andrei Kolmogorov, the leading Soviet mathematician of the period, took him on as a postgraduate student. His 1935 PhD thesis was in the relatively new area of functional analysis, where the ideas of calculus are extended from finitely many variables to infinitely many. One practical application is to partial differential equations, the mathematical physicist's favourite tool for describing the natural world. Another is the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics.
Gelfand was appointed to the Steklov Mathematical Institute and taught at the university, but lost both positions temporarily through antisemitism. He was elected a corresponding (low-status) member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, but it was more than 30 years before he was made a full member. His seminar series, run independently of the university and open to anybody, ran for nearly 50 years and is famous throughout the mathematical world. He moved to America in 1989, first to Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then settling at Rutgers University, New Jersey.
The heart of Gelfand's research was representation theory, a formal setting for symmetry, a concept of central importance in mathematics and physics. A symmetry of an object is a transformation that preserves its structure, and the collection of all such transformations is the object's symmetry group. The physical world, at subatomic level, is highly symmetric: if you change an electron's direction of spin, or its electric charge, the laws of physics still work the same way. Representation theory studies all the contexts in which a particular symmetry group can arise. Its applications include subatomic particles and pattern formation – why snowflakes are six-sided, and why tigers have stripes but leopards have spots.
The most important types of symmetry are the "classical groups", a typical example being the group of all rotations of space. Gelfand solved many fundamental questions about classical groups, using a mixture of algebraic and geometric methods. His interests went beyond mathematics into theoretical and experimental science. In 1958, when his son, Aleksandr, contracted leukaemia, he started applying mathematics to cell biology, setting up the Institute of Biological Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Some of his discoveries have applications that are important for everyone: medical scanners. Doctors routinely use several different kinds of scanner. CT scanners, for example, use beams of x-rays to obtain a three-dimensional image of the body's internal organs. This is a bit like holding a semi-transparent object up to the light and using the resulting shadows to work out its true shape. The first steps in this area were taken in 1917 by Johann Radon. Gelfand developed Radon's ideas extensively, founding an entire field of mathematics, now called integral geometry. His ideas are vital to today's medical imaging methods.
I first came across Gelfand in 1973, early in my academic career. Oxford University was awarding him an honorary degree, and – unusually for that time – he had been allowed to leave the Soviet Union to receive it. So this was a rare opportunity to see the great man in action. Several of us piled into a car and drove to Oxford's Mathematical Institute. I still remember the lecture, which was about a remarkable geometrical phenomenon, the "five subspace" theorem. Today it is interpreted as a deep phenomenon in representation theory, placing limits on what is theoretically possible. Gelfand had a reputation for clear, well-organised lectures, and this one was no exception. It was aimed at professionals, and quite technical, but he developed the ideas systematically, explaining their significance as he went along. By the end of the talk, he had made a very surprising result seem natural and inevitable – a sure sign of high-quality mathematics.
Gelfand received many awards. The Soviet Union awarded him the Order of Lenin three times. He won the Wolf prize (comparable to a Nobel) in 1978, and the Kyoto prize (for "significant contributions to the progress of science, the development of civilisation, and the enrichment and elevation of the human spirit") in 1989. He was elected to innumerable academic bodies, including the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Science.
He was also a great teacher. He set up a distance-learning school for mathematics in the Soviet Union, and a similar one in the US in 1992. He considered teaching and research to be inseparable, and was equally comfortable talking to schoolchildren or his research colleagues. He supervised 22 PhD students, several of them now outstanding mathematicians in their own right.
Gelfand is survived by his second wife, Tatiana, two sons, a daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
• Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, mathematician, born 2 September 1913; died 5 October 200
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