Category Archives: Rationalism

Rationalism (Latin, ratioreason, the faculty of the mind which forms the ground of calculation, i.e. discursive reason. See Apologetics; Atheism; Bible; Deism; Empiricism; Biblical Exegesis; Faith; Materialism; Miracle; Revelation). The term is used: (I) in an exact sense, to designate a particular moment in the development of Protestant thought in Germany; (2) in a broader, and more usual, sense to cover the view (in relation to which many schools may be classed as rationalistic) that the human reason, or understanding, is the sole source and final test of all truth. It has further: (3) occasionally been applied to the method of treating revealed truth theologically, by casting it into a reasoned form, and employing philosophical categories in its elaboration. These three uses of the term will be discussed in the present article.

The German school of theological Rationalism formed a part of the more general movement of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. It may be said to owe its immediate origin to the philosophical system of Christian Wolff (1679-1754), which was a modification, with Aristotelean features, of that of Leibniz, especially characterized by its spiritualism, determinism, and dogmatism. This philosophy and its method exerted a profound influence upon contemporaneous German religious thought, providing it with a rationalistic point of view in theology and exegesis. German philosophy in the eighteenth century was, as a whole, tributary to Leibniz, whose Theodicee was written principally against the Rationalism of Bayle: it was marked by an infiltration of English Deism and French Materialism, to which the Rationalism at present considered had great affinity, and towards which it progressively developed: and it was vulgarized by its union with popular literature. Wolff himself was expelled from his chair at the University of Halle on account of the Rationalistic nature of his teaching, principally owing to the action of Lange (1670-1774; cf. Cauca Dei et religionis naturalis adversus atheismum, and Modesta Disputatio, Halle, 1723). Retiring to Marburg, he taught there until 1740, when he was recalled to Halle by Frederick II. Wolffs attempt to demonstrate natural religion rationally was in no sense an attack upon revelation. As a supranaturalist he admitted truths above reason, and he attempted to support by reason the supernatural truths contained in Holy Scripture. But his attempt, while it incensed the pietistic school and was readily welcomed by the more liberal and moderate among the orthodox Lutherans, in reality turned out to be strongly in favor of the Naturalism that he wished to condemn. Natural religion, he asserted, is demonstrable; revealed religion is to be found in the Bible alone. But in his method of proof of the authority of Scripture recourse was had to reason, and thus the human mind became, logically, the ultimate arbiter in the case of both. Supra-naturalism in theology, which it was Wolffs intention to uphold, proved incompatible with such a philosophical position, and Rationalism took its place. This, however, is to be distinguished from pure Naturalism, to which it led, but with which it never became theoretically identified. Revelation was not denied by the Rationalists; though, as a matter of fact, if not of theory, it was quietly suppressed by the claim, with its ever-increasing application, that reason is the competent judge of all truth. Naturalists, on the other hand, denied the fact of revelation. As with Deism and Materialism, the German Rationalism invaded the department of Biblical exegesis. Here a destructive criticism, very similar to that of the Deists, was levelled against the miracles recorded in, and the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. Nevertheless, the distinction between Rationalism and Naturalism still obtained. The great Biblical critic Semler (1725-91), who is one of the principal representatives of the school, was a strong opponent of the latter; in company with Teller (1734-1804) and others he endeavored to show that the records of the Bible have no more than a local and temporary character, thus attempting to safeguard the deeper revelation, while sacrificing to the critics its superficial vehicle. He makes the distinction between theology and religion (by which he signifies ethics).

The distinction made between natural and revealed religion necessitated a closer definition of the latter. For Supernaturalists and Rationalists alike religion was held to be a way of knowing and worshipping the Deity, but consisting chiefly, for the Rationalists, in the observance of Gods law. This identification of religion with morals, which at the time was utilitarian in character (see Utilitarianism), led to further developments in the conceptions of the nature of religion, the meaning of revelation, and the value of the Bible as a collection of inspired writings. The earlier orthodox Protestant view of religion as a body of truths published and taught by God to man in revelation was in process of disintegration. In Semlers distinction between religion (ethics) on the one hand and theology on the other, with Herders similar separation of religion from theological opinions and religious usages, the cause of the Christian religion, as they conceived it, seemed to be put beyond the reach of the shock of criticism, which, by destroying the foundations upon which it claimed to rest, had gone so far to discredit the older form of Lutheranism. Kants (1724-1804) criticism of the reason, however, formed a turning-point in the development of Rationalism. For a full understanding of his attitude, the reader must be acquainted with the nature of his pietistic upbringing and later scientific and philosophical formation in the Leibniz-Wolff school of thought (see Immanuel Kant). As far as concerns the point that occupies us at present, Kant was a Rationalist. For him religion was coextensive, with natural, though not utilitarian, morals. When he met with the criticisms of Hume and undertook his famous Kritik, his preoccupation was to safe-guard his religious opinions, his rigorous morality, from the danger of criticism. This he did, not by means of the old Rationalism, but by throwing discredit upon metaphysics. The accepted proofs of the existence of God, immortality, and liberty were thus, in his opinion, overthrown, and the well-known set of postulates of the categoric imperative put forward in their place. This, obviously, was the end of Rationalism in its earlier form, in which the fundamental truths of religion were set out as demonstrable by reason. But, despite the shifting of the burden of religion from the pure to the practical reason, Kant himself never seems to have reached the viewto which all his work pointedthat religion is not mere ethics, conceiving moral laws as divine commands, no matter how far removed from Utilitarianismnot an affair of the mind, but of the heart and will; and that revelation does not reach man by way of an exterior promulgation, but consists in a personal adaptation towards God. This conception was reached gradually with the advance of the theory that man possesses a religious sense, or faculty, distinct from the rational (Fries, 1773-1843; Jacobi, 1743-1819; Herder, 1744-1803,;all opposed to the Intellectualism of Kant), and ultimately found expression with Schleiermacher (1768-1834), for whom religion is to be found neither in knowledge nor in action, but in a peculiar attitude of mind which consists in the consciousness of absolute dependence upon God. Here the older distinction between natural and revealed religion disappears. All that can be called religionthe consciousness of dependenceis at the same time revelational, and all religion is of the same character. There is no special revelation in the older Protestant (the Catholic) sense, but merely this attitude of dependence brought into being in the individual by the teaching of various great personalities who, from time to time, have manifested an extraordinary sense of the religious. Schleiermacher was a contemporary of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, whose philosophical speculations had influence, with his own, in ultimately subvertingRationalism as here dealt with. The movement may be said to have ended with himin the opinion of Teller the greatest theologian that the Protestant Church has had since the period of the Reformation. The majority of modern Protestant theologians accept his views, not, however, to the exclusion of knowledge as a basis of religion.

Parallel with the development of the philosophical and theological views as to the nature of religion and the worth of revelation, which provided it with its critical principles, took place an exegetical evolution. The first phase consisted in replacing the orthodox Protestant doctrine (i.e. that the Sacred Scriptures are the Word of God) by a distinction between the Word of God contained in the Bible and the Bible itself (Tollner, Herder), though the Rationalists still held that the purer source of revelation lies rather in the written than in the traditional word. This distinction led inevitably to the destruction of the rigid view of inspiration, and prepared the ground for the second phase. The principle of accommodation was now employed to explain the difficulties raised by the Scripture records of miraculous events and demoniacal manifestations (Senf, Vogel), and arbitrary methods of exegesis were also used to the same end (Paulus, Eichhorn). In the third phase Rationalists had reached the point of allowing the possibility of mistakes having been made by Christ and the Apostles, at any rate with regard to non-essential parts of religion. All the devices of exegesis were employed vainly; and, in the end, Rationalists found themselves forced to admit that the authors of the New Testament must have written from a point of view different from that which a modern theologian would adopt (Henke, Wegscheider). This principle, which is sufficiently elastic to admit of usage by nearly every variety of opinion, was admitted by several of the Supernaturalists (Reinhard, Storr), and is very generally accepted by modern Protestant divines, in the rejection of verbal inspiration. Herder is very clear on the distinctionthe truly inspired must be discerned from that which is not; and de Wette lays down as the canon of interpretation the religious perception of the divine operation, or of the Holy Spirit, in the sacred writers as regards their belief and inspiration, but not respecting their faculty of forming ideas In an extreme form it may be seen employed in such works as Strausss Leben Jesu, where the hypothesis of the mythical nature of miracles is developed to a greater extent than by Schleiermacher or de Wette.

(2) Rationalism, in the broader, popular meaning of the term, is used to designate any mode of thought in which human reason holds the place of supreme criterion of truth; in this sense, it is especially applied to such modes of thought as contrasted with faith. Thus Atheism, Materialism, Naturalism, Pantheism, Scepticism, etc., fall under the head of rationalistic systems. As such, the rationalistic tendency has always existed in philosophy, and has generally shown itself powerful in all the critical schools. As has been noted in the preceding paragraph, German Rationalism had strong affinities with English Deism and French Materialism, two historic forms in which the tendency has manifested itself. But with the vulgarization of the ideas contained in the various systems that composed these movements, Rationalism has degenerated. It has become connected in the popular mind with the shallow and misleading philosophy frequently put forward in the name of science, so that a double confusion has arisen, in which (i) questionable philosophical speculations are taken for scientific facts, and (ii) science is falsely supposed to be in opposition to religion. This Rationalism is now rather a spirit, or attitude, ready to seize upon any arguments, from any source and of any or no value, to urge against the doctrines and practices of faith. Beside this crude and popular form it has taken, for which the publication of cheap reprints and a vigorous propaganda are mainly responsible, there runs the deeper and more thoughtful current of critical-philosophical Rationalism, which either rejects religion and revelation altogether or treats them in much the same manner as did the Germans. Its various manifestations have little in common in method or content, save the general appeal to reason as supreme. No better description of the position can be given than the statements of the objects of the Rationalist Press Association. Among these are: To stimulate the habits of reflection and inquiry and the free exercise of individual intellect and generally to assert the supremacy of reason as the natural and necessary means to all such knowledge and wisdom as man can achieve. A perusal of the publications of the same will show in what sense this representative body interprets the above statement. It may be said finally, that Rationalism is the direct and logical outcome of the principles of Protestantism; and that the intermediary form, in which assent is given to revealed truth as possessing the imprimatur of reason, is only a phase in the evolution of ideas towards general disbelief. Official condemnations of the various forms of Rationalism, absolute and mitigated, are to be found in the Syllabus of Pius IX.

(3) The term Rationalism is perhaps not usually applied to the theological method of the Catholic Church. All forms of theological statement, however, and pre-eminently the dialectical form of Catholic theology, are rationalistic in the truest sense. Indeed, the claim of such Rationalism as is dealt with above is directly met by the counter claim of the Church: that it is at best but a mutilated and unreasonable Rationalism, not worthy of the name, while that of the Church is rationally complete, and integrated, moreover, with super-rational truth. In this sense Catholic theology presupposes the certain truths of natural reason as the preambula fidei, philosophy (the ancilla theologice) is employed in the defense of revealed truth (see Apologetics), and the content of Divine revelation is treated and systematized in the categories of natural thought. This systematization is carried out both in dogmatic and moral theology. It is a process contemporaneous with the first attempt at a scientific statement of religious truth, comes to perfection of method in the works of such writers as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus, and is consistently employed and developed in the Schools.

FRANCIS AVELING

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Rationalism | Catholic Answers

Of all the reactions to the Vatican declaration this week ruling out the blessing of same-sex unions, the most interesting came from Daniel P. Horan, OFM. Times have changed, Father Horan believes, and Rome must look past its hidebound moral dogmas to fully appreciate new or hitherto-repressed dimensions of love, including those disclosed by homosexual relations.

As Father Horan sees it, whats blocking the way to such an opening is the Churchs centuries-old adoption of Aristotelian teleology and virtue ethics. He sarcastically commented: Breaking News: Gravity is considered intrinsically disordered, because it does not appear anywhere in the 13th-century appropriation of Aristotle's treatise on physics and, therefore, goes against God's will. Anyone participating in gravity is committing a grave sin.

Aristotles limits as a physicist, as Father Horan no doubt knows, dont invalidate his insights into ethics. Sarcasm aside, Father Horan's response to the statement of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith evoked an old and unpleasant strand of Christian anti-intellectualism. He also tweeted, Im very sick of the idolatry of certain Christians, including many in positions of great authority, who have replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; and the foolishness of Gods love (I Cor. 1:1830) with the logic of Aristotle. God loves you!

Although deployed in service of a modern cause that would have been unthinkable to the Church Fathers, Father Horans rhetoric places him squarely in an anti-philosophy tradition going back to the patristic age. His charge that Aristotle (or mere natural reason) has supplanted revelation for his opponents, his use of that precise verse from Saint Pauls First Letter to the Corinthians, even the scare quotes around the word logicall could have come down from, say, a Tertullian.

The second-century father, too, raged against Aristotle: What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church, what between heretics and Christians? . . . Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic and dialectic composition! Tertullian blamed all heresy, ultimately, on Christians refusal to dispense with the worlds reason now that God had revealed himself on Sinai and Calvary.

Attitudes like Tertullians continued to shape a part of the Christian mind in the middle ages. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux encouraged his disciples to boast, after the psalmist, of having more understanding than all my teachers (Ps. 119:99): Wherefore, O my brother, dost thou make such a boast? The reasonings of Plato and the subtleties of Aristotle? God forbid!, thou answerest. It is because I have sought thy commandments, O Lord.

Bernards disdain was a justified reaction to an excessive rationalism that risked absolutizing Aristotle, as Josef Pieper put it. Moreover, all the Churchs great thinkers would sometimes stand in awe of how the ordinary Christian has a more sublime understanding of God than Plato or Aristotle. None of them would ever pit sound reason against the true faith.

Still, an anti-philosophy streak was a real force in that time. Blessedly, others countered itor else, as tienne Gilson famously quipped, the Dark Ages would have deserved their name.

Above all, it was Saint Thomas Aquinas who struck just the right balance between the poles of biblicism and rationalism, leading the Church to adopt his system for harmonizing faith and reason as her own. For his service, Pope Leo XIII called him the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith.

Aquinas, too, heard all around him the accusation that philosophy was an invitation to worldliness, that natural reason risked devaluing the foolishness of God. And he struck backhard: They hold a plainly false opinion who say that in regard to the truth of religion it does not matter what a man thinks about creation so long as he has the correct opinion concerning God. An error concerning the creation ends as false thinking about God (SCG II.3).

It doesnt take too many steps to show that Father Horans brand of biblicism displays precisely the error the Angelic Doctor warned of. By denying a space to philosophy, and specifically natural teleology, Father Horan ends up denying that human beings have natural ends proper to them as rational animals. And that, in turn, leads him to the view, totally alien to his anti-philosophy forebears in the Church, that same-sex unions can receive the Churchs blessing.

It's a clear demonstration of why the Church needs philosophyand why philosophical errors concerning human things lead to errors about divine things.

Sohrab Ahmari is the op-ed editor of the New York Post and author of the forthcoming book The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos.

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A New Brand of Biblicism | Sohrab Ahmari - First Things

Italy had its renaissance, Germany its reformation, France had Voltaire, the historian Will Durant once commented.

Born Franois-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778) was known in his lifetime as the patriarch of the French enlightenment. A man of extraordinary energy and abilities, he produced some 100 volumes of poetry, fiction, theatre, biblical and literary criticism, history and philosophy.

Among his myriad works, Voltaires Candide, or Optimism (1759) is widely recognised as the masterpiece. A darkly satirical novella taking aim at human folly, pride and excessive faith in reasons ability to plumb the deepest metaphysical truths, it remains as telling in this era of pandemics and wild conspiracy theories as when first published.

Read more: Criticism of Western Civilisation isn't new, it was part of the Enlightenment

In his earlier works Voltaire had propounded an almost naive optimism, but the decade from 1749-1759 was not easy for the philosopher-author.

Personally, his great love, milie du Chtelet had died in 1749. Politically, he had been forced from exile to exile for his criticism of monastic and clerical privileges in France and his Essay on Universal History, the Manners, and Spirit of Nations (1756), which treated Christianity as just one world religion, rather than the final revealed truth.

In 1755, meanwhile, on November 1, a huge earthquake had struck the Portugese capital, Lisbon, followed by a tsunami. Within minutes, tens of thousands were dead.

The recriminations soon began. Protestants saw in Lisbons destruction divine judgement on Catholicism. Catholics proposed, with equal implausibility, the especial sinfulness of the Lisbonites as the disasters cause. Pyres were erected in the streets to burn heretics, as scapegoats for the disaster.

This combination of senseless death and even more senseless human responses outraged Voltaire. His first response was the impassioned Poem on the Lisbon Disaster of 1755:

As the dying voices call out, will you dare respondTo this appalling spectacle of smoking ashes with, [] God is avenged. Their death is the price of their crimes?

Then, several years later, came Candide.

As his name suggests, Voltaires hero, Candide, is a simple lad. Raised in a magnificent castle in Westphalia, in North-Western Germany, he is moved by just two passions. The first is abiding love for his sweetheart, Cungonde.

The second is admiration for his teacher, Pangloss (all tongue), an exalted Professor of mtaphysico-thologo-cosmolonigologie possessed of the happy ability to explain everything that happens, despite appearances, as for the best.

It is demonstrable, said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for [] all is necessarily for the best end. Observe, that the nose has been formed to bear spectacles thus we have spectacles. Legs are visibly designed for stockings and we have stockings [] Pigs were made to be eaten therefore we eat pork all the year round. Consequently, they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said: all is for the best.

In Pangloss, Voltaire is satirising German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the British poet, Alexander Pope.

These two men had defended what the former called theodicy: the idea that a perfect God could only have created the best possible world. Hence, the human perception that events like pandemics, earthquakes, massacres and tsunamis are bad must be mistaken.

Read more: Floods and fires: the struggle to rebuild, the search for meaning

Candides fate is set up by Voltaire as a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity) of this optimistic theory. Our hero is first expelled from his Edenic childhood garden, when Cungondes father comes upon she and Candide illicitly experimenting in what Voltaire delicately calls natural philosophy.

In Candides ensuing wanderings around Europe and the Americas, Voltaire treats his hero to a veritable guided tour of all of the evils of war, lust, avarice, vanity and colonialism.

Fleeing war, rapine and zealotry in Bulgaria and Holland, Candide arrives in Lisbon just in time for the earthquake. He is selected for execution by fire as a heretic, before escaping to save Cungonde from disputing, lustful representatives of the Wests two great biblical faiths, Judaism and Christianity.

The lovers flee together to the Americas. In Buenos Aires, however, the Spanish governor seizes Cungonde for his wife. Candide and his servant, Cacambo, are forced to flee through yet more bloody misadventures in the new world.

In a rightly famous passage, which finally sees Candide recant of his teacher Pangloss theodicy as the abomination [] of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong, they come upon a crippled African slave whose masters are Dutch merchants in Surinam:

Yes, sir, said the negro, it is the custom. [] When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe.

To this Europe, the increasingly disillusioned Candide returns. The riches he acquired in the new world are soon fleeced by cunning social climbers in Paris and Venice. He is reunited with Pangloss, who has recanted nothing of his optimism, despite being enslaved, flogged, hanged and brutally maimed, explaining that I am a philosopher and I cannot retract []

Soon enough, Candide also hears news that Cungonde is now a slave in Turkey, after her own litany of unlikely sufferings. So, he hits the road one last time. Reunited at last with his half-broken beloved, they retire to a little farm with their friends near Constantinople.

Here, despite everything, Pangloss still sometimes comes to mindlessly philosophise, as the story famously closes:

There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: [] if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.

All that is very well, answered Candide, but let us cultivate our garden.

In the entry on wit (esprit) in his famous Philosophical Dictionary of 1764, Voltaire reflects that it is:

the art either of bringing together two things apparently remote, or of dividing two things which seem to be united, or of opposing them to each other []

It is the art of Voltaires Candide to leave readers unsure whether they should be weeping, screaming, laughing or all at the same time. Atrocious sufferings are recounted with the innocence of a childrens fairy tale.

Elevated questions of metaphysical philosophy, which for a century had divided the greatest Western minds, are brought crashing down to earth amid the clamours of warring armies, collapsing cities, inhumane barbarism and slavery.

It is easy to see why critics have read Voltaires novella as a document written in despair. But the laughter of the book suggests this is only half the story.

Voltaire is enraged at human cruelty and idiocy. He scorns the Panglossian pride, which pretends to justify the unjustifiable with blithe self-assurance and vain sophistries. He despises any theory clever enough to explain away human suffering, but not humane enough to decry it.

But this is because he believes human beings can be better. For Voltaire, we can and should challenge all fair-sounding ideologies reconciling us to indignities visited on others we would not accept for ourselves.

Read more: A moral world in which bad things happen to good people

Stateless, Voltaire had ended up in 1758 in rural retreat in Ferney, near the Swiss-French border. At the tender age of 65, he embarked on a legendary campaign against religious fanaticism associated with his famous slogan: crasez l'infme! (let us crush the infamous!).

His Treatise of Toleration of 1763, was sparked by anger at the wrongful execution of Protestant Jean Calas by Catholic zealots in Toulouse.

In 1778, the legendary author and advocate for multi-faith society finally returned to Paris, to be hailed as a hero. Fatigued by the journey, Voltaire died soon after, claiming: I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.

In 1791, the revolutionary government honoured Voltaire as an inspiration. His remains were re-interred in the Pantheon.

There is no pandemic in Voltaires Candide, and todays conspiracy theories make Pangloss inhumane, hyper-rationalism look balanced.

But there are few other books you could read with greater sympathy in 2021 than this little gem of irony, calamity, and restrained outrage at human folly and prejudice. And none that are more cutting and entertaining.

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Guide to the Classics: Voltaires Candide a darkly satirical tale of human folly in times of crisis - The Conversation AU

23rd March

What was the 23rd March Resolution? What was its political context? What is its current state of affairs and relevance? What does it demand from the present day Pakistan? These are some of the questions pondered in this article albeit very briefly. Empirically, it happened at the Lahore Session of All-India Muslim League on March 22nd-24th, 1940. Along with other relevant matters, the Session categorically rejected the scheme of federation embodied in the Government of India Act, 1935 as being unsuited to, and unworkable for Muslim India. It empathetically demanded a new constitution for the protection of minorities rights pertaining to their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights. To put it differently, the Muslims of India demanded adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards for their (minority) group rights.

The case for Muslim homeland was well substantiated by M A Jinnah in an article in the London Weekly Time & Tide on March 9, 1940 in the following words:

Democratic systems based on the concept of homogeneous nation such as England are very definitely not applicable to heterogeneous countries such as India.... If, therefore, it is accepted that there is in India a major and a minor nation, it follows that a parliamentary system based on the majority principle must inevitably mean the rule of major nation.

Jinnahs ideas were supplemented by hard and undeniable facts too. It was explicit from the attacks on the Muslims since the Congress led provincial government in India. The following words shed light on how Jinnah very aptly pointed the systematic and gross activities of Hindu majority against the Muslim minority since 1935:

In the five Muslim provinces every attempt was made to defeat the Muslim-led-coalition Ministries. Attempts were made to have Bande Mataram, the Congress Party song, recognised as the national anthem, the Party flag, and the real national language, Urdu, supplanted by Hindi. Everywhere oppression commenced and complaints poured in such force. Is it the desire (of British people) that India should become a totalitarian Hindu State? And I feel certain that Muslim India will never submit to such a position and will be forced to resist it with every means in their power. To conclude, a constitution must be evolved that recognises that there are in India two nations who both must share the governance of their common motherland.

Against the above pretext, it is crystal clear that Jinnah and his companions wanted to win constitutional arrangements to avoid the continuing persecutions of the Indian Muslims in the near future. Since then, it became evident that All India Muslim League wanted to secure the rights of the Indian Muslims and was not possible constitutional recognition of two separate nations living in one state and consequently, required likewise appreciation by their colonial masters.

Under their continuous struggle, Jinnah and his counterparts won a separate home for the Indian Muslims. In his first speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Jinnah as the father of the nation, promised a set of rights for the citizens of the newly born state on August 11, 1947.

He emphasised on an inclusive and impartial government, religious freedom, rule of law and equality for all. Jinnah also outlined a list of urgent problems to be fixed by the new government. To name a few, his list included law and order, so life, property and religious beliefs are protected for all. He also referred to the problems of bribery, black-marketing and nepotism. Most importantly, he visualised that all citizens of the country must be first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights. But did we win Jinnahs resolve of freedom and other human rights? Nations history tells us rather a very different story.

Unfortunately, the group rights promised by the founding fathers of Pakistan were never translated into reality. The human rights conditions become even more gruesome over time. Furthermore, human rights listed in the International Bill of Human Rights as well as the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan hardly touched the social, political, economic and cultural ontology of Pakistan. Interestingly though, in the name of group rights the state became increasingly powerful whereas the individuals as powerless. The irony of the matter is that the state itself is grounded in the collective rights of individuals in order to dispense their rights as a duty bearer but it turned out to impede the realisation of its very purpose.

As Pakistan is celebrating the 81st anniversary of its Resolution at the national level, it is high time to ponder upon certain questions. First, do we need to comprehend the real meanings of an independent sovereign state where the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of its citizens come on top of everything else?

Second, what is the use of state if it consistently fails to deliver its fundamental promise to its people? Third, what if there appears a clear clash of interests between civilians and state institutions where later assumes itself above public accountability and scrutiny? Fourth, what if leaders elected by the public to serve them involve themselves in nepotism, bribery, corruption and looting and plundering of public funds? Lastly, what if ethnic and religious minorities consistently whine against the organized violation of their rights?

The current history of the world enlightens us that when group right namely state sovereignty endangers the basic rights and interests of individuals, it should not be considered as a genuine human right. Therefore, there must not be any compromise on individuals rights in whatsoever conditions and by whosoever be it any state or regime. Hence, we need to think about the way out of the quagmire which has encircled the people of Pakistan since their dream of freedom has partially realized.

To begin with, all states are supposed to respect the human rights of their citizens. For example, after basic rights, equal importance must be given to freedom of speech, association, assembly and there must not be any form of torture, disappearance, and mass killings in an organised fashion.

Some states do cross the ethical and legal threshold by referring to the group right of self-determination as well as on the basis of rationalism. Their constructs include one or all of these justifications: a) the perceived benefits of repressing exceed the costs,

b) there are no viable alternatives for socio-political control, c) the probability of success from repressive action is high, d) utilitarian use of force, e) to end the specific violation. These arguments which are sometimes termed as the utilitarian approach is vehemently debated and challenged in the moral discourses hence do not warrant the violation of human rights by any state.

Arguably, it is also a considerable fact that as an infant democracy, a state may go for political repression to establish order to advance economic goals/prosperity. Therefore, it is assumed that as state repression decreases as democratic maturity (values) increases. Likewise, all democracies are not the same therefore, insistence on one specific form of democratic values and practices may go against the spirit of democracy. Nevertheless, the aforementioned excuses are losing their moral grounds in the case of Pakistan as the state is almost approaching its seventy fifth anniversary and the Declaration its 81st. Today, we must reinvert the real promise of Pakistan.

The secret to realising the Promise of Pakistan is hidden in true democracy as more and more democracy leads to less and less state coercion as it provides the safest route to people to vote the highest authorities out of office if voters find their actions inappropriate and contrary to the promise of the constitution. Along the same lines, democratic values dictate the democratic behaviour of state officials. Lastly, democracy gives a way to alternative perspectives, tolerate dissent, breeds an environment for national dialogue, and reconciliation which todays Pakistan needs most. Let us rediscover the promise of the Pakistan Resolution and make our country a truly social welfare democracy.

The writer teaches International Relations at Iqra

University Islamabad. He can be reached at:

[emailprotected]

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With the price of lithium almost doubling since the start of the year, a Chinese lithium chemical company has prepaid for future delivery of the metal from an Australian mining company.

Didi Chuxing's new D1 electric vehicle on display during a launch event in Beijing in November 2020. ... [+]

Sichuan-based Yibin Tianyi earlier this week signed an offtake and prepayment agreement with Australias Pilbara Minerals for the provision of up to 40,000 tons a year of concentrated spodumene (lithium ore).

The deal has a modest value of just $15 million, but it could be one of several signs that the war of words between two natural trading partners is fading in its intensity.

Yibin Tianyis cash will help pay for an expansion of Pilbaras operations, though lithium from the upgrade is not expected to be delivered to China until later this year.

The lithium deal follows an earlier transaction between an Australian and a Chinese company over the production of titanium minerals, mainly used to make paint, and zircon, which is mainly used in ceramics.

Thunderbird Is Go, With A Chinese Cash Boost

Yansteel, a subsidiary of Tangshan Yanshan Iron & Steel, last week agreed to pay $100 million for a 50% stake in Kimberley Mineral Sands, which is developing the Thunderbird project in the north of Western Australia.

Australias Sheffield Resources owns the other half of Thunderbird, which is in the final stages of design and planning with an investment decision scheduled for later this year

Another hint, this time at a political level, that the frozen China-Australia relationship might be thawing is a decision by the Premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall, to accept a Chinese government invitation to formally open a controversial Chinese consulate in the state capital of Adelaide.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall is happy to accept a Chinese government invitation to open ... [+] the new Chinese consulate in Adelaide.

Marshall will be sharing the stage at the March 30 opening with Chinas Ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, who has been a harsh critic of Australia after it led a campaign for an independent inquiry into the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the sometimes harsh criticism of each other, China and Australia remain major trading partners with a steady flow of goods and services, mainly minerals from Australia and manufactured goods from China.

The quarrel reached a peak last year when China refused to take delivery of some Australian shipments of coal and slapped punitive tariffs on Australian wine, barley and shellfish.

Fading Pain

Short-term pain for Australian exporters of those products has largely faded with new markets being found.

Some of the barley earmarked for China has made its way to Mexico. Wine shipments to Britain are booming and coal, meant for China is being delivered to the Middle East and Pakistanwith commodity traders reportedly reloading and shipping it into China.

No winners are likely to emerge from the dispute, which is more about bruised Chinese pride and Australias dislike of Chinas attempts to dictate terms of the relationship.

Economic rationalism and a sense that its time to find an exit appears to be topping current thinking on both sides, not to mention Chinese drinkers preferring Australian barley as the base for beer made by famous brewers such as Tsingtao.

More here:

Lithium Deal Could Signal An End To The China-Australia Trade War - Forbes

Having gone to considerable lengths in lobbying for one of our very own, former finance minister Mathias Cormann, to become Secretary-General of the Paris based OECD, the Government at least the international set would be very pleased with itself.

Unfortunately, the OECDhas long outlived its former fervour for economic rationalism: balanced budgets, low tariffs,andsmall governmentthat leavescompetitive free markets to be the essential supply force(with agriculture always an exception given the protectionism ofits key European membership).

In more recent times it has focussed on decarbonisation,assisting the poor,gender issues (there is an OECD gender portal and scoldings about how progress-on-gender-equality-is-too-slow). The OECD is also probably always was a proponent of Keynesian stimulus.As a result, it usually has an unwarranted faith in fiscal stimulus in bringing about faster growth and tends to miss the damage done by government spending especially that which supposedly favours the poor. It totally missed the excessive lending to those with no collateral that causedthe USeconomy to implode in 2007 triggeringtheglobalGreat Recession of 2008.

The outgoing Secretary-General is the Mexican socialist JosngelGurra.

Cormann seemed an unlikely successful candidate. Though ticking the boxes in linguistic skills, this was no different fromother candidates.

Australias former finance minister was up against several female candidates at a time when all the pressures favour womenbeing appointedas leaders in what are often seen as male bastions. The favourite was Cecilia Malmstrm, a politician from the small centre-right Swedish Liberal Party. She is an advocate for children and combating terrorism through preventive measures, rather than through confrontation. Beyond Swedish politics, she has a distinguished diplomatic career and was the former European Commissioner for Trade.

Cormann,as a Liberal,isostensibly fiscally conservative, normally the key credential for aFinance Minister. Peter Walsh (1984-90) wasAustraliasoutstanding finance minister,holding back theinnate spending excesses of the Hawke government but Penny Wong (2010-13) also did a reasonable job in the Gillard-Rudd administration. Among Liberals, Nick Minchin can claim credit in paring back the size of Commonwealth spending from the 25 per cent of GDP which he inherited to 23 per cent.

Cormann can make no such claims. Even prior to the COVID spendathon, he proved unable to reduce the size of government which was 24.4 per cent in his first year (2014)and 24.5 per cent in 2019.He was unable to build on the fat-cutting progress that Penny Wong set in train.

Perhaps he is just too nice a guy.

If not, he demonstrated oceans of adaptability in pursuing the top job in Paris.Hisacceptance statement talked ofa big job to be done to help drive stronger, cleaner, fairer, more inclusive growth. Cleaner, fairer and more inclusive is the trifecta essential to win the EU and US/Canada votein the modern woke era.

Hopefully, Cormann in his statement was just turning on the marketing charm. But probably notin view of his mundane record in holding backhis fellowpoliticians predisposition to see themselves as the best spenders of their constituents hard-earned.

Like most bureaucracies, the OECD has a culture with established fiefdoms and ideologies. Its Secretary-Generals have becomefigureheads. The organisation would appear to have little to fear from Cormann breaking the mould by pushing back on its policies favouring carbon taxes, feministasand other goals deemed worthy by the elites.

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Why did Cormann get the top job at the OECD? His track record shows he won't upset woke globalists - The Spectator Australia

In many ways, March 22, 1987, was an ordinary Friday night. A crowd of students congregated in Ferris Booth Commons, with the usual noise and rush of excitement in anticipation of the weekend. On any other Friday night, you might not have noticed Mike Jones, a junior at Columbia College. Jones friends describe him as short and unassuming in build but with a toughness and sense of self-assurance. But on this particular nighta night that would shape the months to comeJones walked into the dining hall with the urge to be heard.

For weeks, a group of white football players repeatedly harassed Jones, who is Black. A friend recalls instances of the football players physically obstructing Jones path in the stairwells of campus. Jones had grown tired of the constant intimidation and expressed his frustration to a group of friends, who encouraged him to seek out the football players, confront them, and demand that they leave him alone. On that night, Winston Grady-Willis, a Columbia College senior at the time, was one of a handful of Jones friends who agreed to accompany him to Ferris in an attempt to identify the perpetrators. I was out there; we were all out there, several of us, says Grady-Willis. Not to throw down but to literally just observe what was going to happen, take some names.

Grady-Willis says that they planned to follow the Universitys protocols and bring the football players names to the dean. JacQuie Parmlee-Bates, CC 89 and former Black Students Organization president, was also there that night. [Jones] didnt come out fighting, she says. He was trying to just tell [the perpetrator], Im tired of your crap. Before Jones could confront the students civilly, witnesses recall that a circle of 10 to 15 white football players began to form around him. According to Parmlee-Bates, Jones had not registered that there were people behind him when he was suddenly punched in the back of the head.

Grady-Willis says he has never been a fighter, but he still entered the action to pull Jones away from someone holding him in a headlock. A crowd formed around the scene as the fight spilled onto Broadway. Parmlee-Bates remembers with dismay that many of the onlookers immediately took sides without knowing what was happening. The crowd contained more than 50 students, many attracted by the spectacle, and soon, the initial punch launched at Jones had launched the peaceful Friday night into unadulterated chaos. The horde of people grew so loud that first-years leaned out of their dorm windows in Carman Hall to see the cause of such commotion. The altercation reached its point of no return when a few of the football players yelled threats and racial slurs at the Black students. Both Grady-Willis and Parmlee-Bates have yet to forget it.

And then, Parmlee-Bates says, then it was a fight.

A fight that landed Mike Jones at St. Lukes hospital for medical treatment.

In the early hours of the next morning, a group of Black students convened in the Malcolm X Lounge to recover from the incident and form a new campus activist organization: Concerned Black Students of Columbia.

Grady-Willis was one of the Black students who went to the Malcolm X Lounge that night and became directly involved in the CBSCs formation and operation. What do we do? he remembers the group members asking themselves. One of the key things that we realized is that we have to organize, and we have to make a statement thats bigger than the incident itself.

The CBSC initially focused on directly responding to the previous nights fight. It filed witness reports to the police and called for disciplinary action against the following four white Columbia College students involved in the altercation: Matt Sodl, Drew Krause, Don Chiesa, and Michael Bogacki. It then expanded its focus to promote a list of larger demands that aimed to advocate for the Black community on campus. These demands included the creation of an Africana studies department and the hiring of more Black faculty members. We knew that this incident was just a precipitation of a condition that was already there, Parmlee-Bates states.

In the weeks following, the CBSC hosted informational meetings in residence halls where students could learn about the organization and voice their concerns. One such meeting occurred on April 14, when members of the CBSC updated attendees on the lack of progress with the police statements they submitted immediately following the fight. Members also addressed concerns regarding the perceived exclusion of white students in the movement. In a Spectator article published the following day, Dorian Scott, a steering committee member and a sophomore at Columbia College, responded by clarifying that the CBSC welcomed the support of white students. However, she also asserted the importance of Black leadership by adding that [Black people] should be in the leadership of a black movement.

The CBSC also organized various rallies and marches on campus. A march held on April 4, 1987, drew a crowd of approximately 600 protesters. In addition to advocating for the CBSCs causes, the rally commemorated the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the second anniversary of the 1985 Hamilton Hall blockade.

Grady-Willis remembers detritus being thrown at protesters from nearby windows during a march held by the organization. What we saw on campus was this really visceral response to the activism of Black students and white allies, he says.

On April 21, the CBSC organized a sit-in in front of Hamilton Hall, chaining the doors closed for roughly 12 hours before being broken up by the New York Police Department. Students identified from videos of the protest received disciplinary action, with the arrested students spending their summer on campus while anxiously awaiting a court date. What ended up happening is that we became the victims, or we became victims again, because we were already victims the first time, says Parmlee-Bates.

The judge ultimately dropped the students cases, but the anxiety and the injustice associated with the summer of probation still remain with Parmlee-Bates to this day.

Emira Woods, a senior in Columbia College who was a University Senator and a member of the CBSC, points out that the Universitys hostility to the Black student protesters stood in contrast to its relative inaction against the white students involved in the original incident. To her, this hypocrisy was also reflected in the racial bias of campus discourse, including Spectators coverage.

It wasnt an equal representation, says Woods. It was almost like, in spite of the impediments, were going to try to force to be heard. It wasnt a level playing field.

From the very outset, the CBSC clashed with both the Columbia administration and popular campus discourse. The first opinion segment critiquing the organization was printed in the Columbia Daily Spectator on March 24.

An op-ed titled Rationalism, not radicalism, is the way out of racism inaccurately describes the incident outside of Ferris as a confrontation between several white students and a crowd of blacks [that] took place outside Ferris Booth Hall. People on both sides of the altercation were Columbia students, but the statement refers to the Black students only as blacks.

The article further frames the CBSCs flyering and public statements as an explosion of propaganda. The writer, Niloofar Razi, claims that the allegations made by this group occurred on the first day of Black Power week. With a sarcastic tone, Razi poses a question: A coincidence? My sense of morality forces me to say yes.

This cloud of doubt surrounding the CBSCs political motives was present from the very beginning. As the CBSC planned actions and protests in a matter of days after the incident, students were skeptical that such swift organizing could happen organically. They assumed that the protests must have been planned in advance to observe Malcolm X Day, but Parmlee-Bates says that the holiday had no part in the CBSCs organizing.

We wanted to address the issue immediately, and thats how we organized, Parmlee-Bates says. We just did it that next day and anybody who wanted to participate did.

Razis article continues to question the legitimacy of Black students characterization of the initial altercation. The events surrounding the outbursts are hazy; the conflicting accounts of the story make it unlikely that what happened will ever be resolved. A few sentences later, Razi offers her own interpretation of the incident asking, if, as Sodl, Krause, and others maintain, the white students were surrounded by a group of blacksan obviously intimidating situation, who then is doing the assaulting?

Woods reflects on the discourse surrounding the CBSC. Its almost like a presumption of guilt for the person of color, which is wrong, she recalls.

The next day, Spectator published a rebuttal to Razis article written by Ubah Hussen, a Barnard senior. The opinion piece directly responds to Razis misplaced blame on the Black victims, while also making a statement to the larger community. Hussen writes, Razi offers the tired-ass argument that black people should be rational in the face of physical, life-threatening violence. Based on the racist assumption that we somehow deserve what we get since we must have somehow instigated it, this farce also runs in the face of rational human nature.

The critiques against the CBSC only mounted following Hussens rebuttal, however, with further editorials sharing the sentiment that the CBSC was too radical and that adopting a more moderate, reformist tone was in its best interest. One such editorial was published on March 30 by Spectators managing board, highlighting the so-called misdirected militancy of the organization. If the CBSCs efforts are to be truly productive, it will need a wide base of support, the piece reads. The groups tactics have already left some students alienated and threaten to alienate more.

On April 9, 1987, Spectator published a To the Editor opinion by Lawrence Temlock, a white Columbia College sophomore, who encouraged the CBSC to be more welcoming of students who do not support its over-radical tactics. In essence, this brief piece demands that the CBSC stop fighting invisible enemies and start fighting the real racists. A few weeks later, an editorial by Tim Gershon titled Standing up for Columbia describes the CBSCs work as slanted, exaggerated, and full of inflammatory falsehoods. He writes, [the CBSCs] tactic may succeed in radicalizing some who feel guilty for the racism that still has not been eliminated from society. But the strategy also alienates many who object to the destructive abuse of this universitys tolerant spirit. Several of the CBSCs demands are absurd.

Parmlee-Bates clarifies that the marches, sit-ins, and demands that some detractors referred to as extremism were necessary to raise awareness of the incident with Jones. Without these protests, the CBSC felt that its calls for change would be overlooked and ultimately dismissed.

I could see them saying that we were revolutionary in the types of things that we were doing, but what we were trying to explain to them was that they were going to sweep it under the rug. That was very clear early on, Parmlee-Bates says. So we had to do things that would keep it front of mind for them, keep it at the top of their minds. We werent damaging property, we werent snatching people up. We were just doing the traditional ways of protesting.

Exclusion was another key accusation hurled at the CBSC. On March 31, Spectator featured a To The Editor titled Racism is no excuse for racism that equates the experience of two white students being turned away from a CBSC meeting to Jim Crow segregation. The piece closes with the lines, although I understand how Sundays incident might cause such a reaction on the part of Columbias black community, I cannot sympathize with such blatant discrimination.

According to former members, certain CBSC meetings were specifically for Black students to come together and heal, while others were open to all members of the Columbia community to attend. Grady-Willis remembers tension surrounding the perceived exclusivity of such CBSC meetings, and his inability to articulate the importance of having a safe space for Black students at the time. We didnt have that kind of language [to explain it], we didnt have that toolkit, he says.

Once claims of being radical and exclusionary against the organization were seemingly exhausted, Johnathan Sobels piece on April 3, The fiction and the fury, unleashed yet another critique.

Sobel accuses the CBSC of lying about the incident outside of Ferris to serve its own self-interest, writing in opposition to the demand for the creation of a mandatory Core Curriculum course that educates students on racism and racially motivated violence against people of African descent.

An illustration accompanying the article depicts a white man inflating a massive balloon emblazoned with the word HYPE, directly implying that the CBSCs claims rely on the momentum of popular attention rather than merit or value.

While the CBSCs demand to institute a new Core Curriculum class ultimately fell short, its demands were included in a proposal that led to the Columbia College Committee on Instructions approval of a new interdepartmental program in African American studies. Parmlee-Bates recalls, My major came out of [the CBSCs work]. There was not an African American Studies major and I became one of the first people to get that major. Thats one of the key things I remember.

The majority of opinion articles run by Spectator in the weeks and months following the fight involving Jones characterize the CBSC as a group of militant, radical, exclusionary Black students who brushed past the evidence to serve their own personal causes. But these descriptors are not how former CBSC members recall their experiences with the organization, which became a vital network during their time at Columbia.

Though the group disbanded about two years after its formation, former members of the CBSC still hold onto vital pieces of the groups collective identity. In fact, the enduring power of the CBSCs mission is perhaps most strongly manifested in the way that its members still speak of their time in the group with the same passion and dedication to fighting injustice as they did in 1987.

According to some former CBSC members, much of the organizations actual mission centered not around revolution, but around education. In addition to making demands for institutional change, members advocated for social education on issues of race within the Columbia community. Parmlee-Bates recalls, We had to educate even the Black people on campus. Youre either with us or youre not, you know, but we had a bigger fight to fight.

The larger effort to undo inequities and further diversification and sensitivity at Columbia predated the CBSC and persists today. Woods explains that the manifold challenges the CBSC faced in educating the student body and making the groups points heard were partly due to a bastion of conservatism on campus in the 1980s that arose in response to the first class of women admitted in 1983 and the emergence of progressive leaders of color in the anti-apartheid divestment movement of 1985.

Contrary to the popular depiction of the CBSC as uncooperative and fixated on radical shows of protest, the CBSC made concerted efforts to affect change through the Universitys established channels: its members met with administrators to discuss their demands and activists like Woods advocated for a racism resolution drafted by the Student Affairs Committee in response to the incident. When the racism resolution was proposed to the University Senate, however, it was rejected on the spot, and the meeting with administrators was deemed unproductive by both the CBSC and the administrators.

Woods recalls that exerting pressure from within the system was nearly impossible when spaces like the University Senate were dominated by entrenched forces, both within the faculty, within the administration, as well as the student body, the alumni networks, [working to] maintain the status quo without a real reckoning of why there was a need for change. It was only after the CBSCs attempts at internal pressure proved largely futile that the organization turned toward forms of active protest on campus, a maneuver that Woods calls outside strategy.

The accumulation of attacks, unfair treatment, and racial bias from the University and campus discourse left the CBSC battle-tested in the face of constant criticism during Grady-Willis senior year. We knew what it meant to speak truth to power and that was our intention this time as well, Grady-Willis says.

He also admits that in response to the constant attacks taught him to ignore Spectator articles. It just becomes about self-care, he says. Self-care was important for student activists like Grady-Willis who were still healing from the incident: I wasnt thinking this at the time but I think I was depressed in the midst of the movement in 1987. I just felt alone, just kind of fragile, vulnerable, as a graduating senior. I mean the situation was just intense.

The feelings of isolation engendered by the University and its institutions persisted all the way through graduation, Woods recalls. As senior students within the CBSC grappled with the bittersweet culmination of their Columbia experience, many of them were still under academic probation from the University for protesting in Hamilton Hall.

We were facing issues of, as you go toward graduation, do you want to walk and why? Does this campus reflect your values? Woods says. It went to that point, even at graduation, of expressing discontent to how issues of race and issues of justice were playing out both on the campus, and in areas off the campus that the university had influence on.

The CBSCs spring 1987 activism culminated with seniors walking out of the graduation ceremony in an act of protest. A Spectator article published on May 20, 1987, states that more than 30 students marched out of commencement in favor of their own graduation ceremony, which they held in the courtyard outside of Hamilton Hall.

These shared acts of solidarity ultimately molded the CBSC into a network of Black students who came together to process trauma, heal, advocate for themselves, and enjoy social support. The Malcolm X Lounge was critical for this network, with Grady-Willis describing it as a place where we had one anothers back when things really really got challenging.

We got to dance together, he wistfully recalls. [We] got to sweat together and just establish bonds that are so tremendous. The community that the CBSC established remains strongone of Grady-Willis friends from his years in the CBSC is now the godfather of his youngest child.

In the face of mounting critiques and a lack of institutional support, the CBSC mobilized in the spring of 1987 to build a community that would last beyond the groups existence. Some amazing things happened because we have the audacity to really kind of care about one another even if it meant that it was a really adversarial relationship with the university itself, Grady-Willis remembers. He smirks before adding, And I mean adversarial, all-caps underlined.

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The Fight, The Movement, and The Backlash: Columbia's Reckoning with Racism in 1987 - CU Columbia Spectator

If successful politics is all about messaging and news management, Downing Street really seems to have got the hang of it. Either that or the Prime Minister has been on the receiving end of fortuitous triumphs, like a lucky general whose adversaries make spectacular unforced errors.

To have the EU move overnight from trashing the reputation of the UKs AstraZeneca vaccine so discrediting its effectiveness that thousands of European doses were going unused to threatening a block on vaccine exports to the UK and wartime confiscation of manufacturing facilities in a demand for more of the very vaccine that it tried to devalue, would have been good enough. But no sooner had the bizarre contradictions and alarming legal precedents in the EU position begun to unravel than along came, by an extraordinary coincidence (or not?) on the very same day, a leaked NHS letter showing that the UKs own immediate vaccine supply appeared to be in doubt.

By God, what a gift. The Government got a slew of newspaper front pages juxtaposing Ursula von der Leyens thunderous warning of all-out-vaccine-war with the news of a forced slow down in our own magnificent rollout programme.

So maybe not a coincidence? As Matt Hancock said in his press briefing, delivery of the vaccines has always been lumpy and this particular glitch was not going to cause any disruption to the roadmap dates, or interfere with any vaccination appointments already booked. Nothing much to worry about then. In fact, both of the descriptions of this very temporary delay are almost certainly true.

There will be a brief hiatus to do with the supply from India and it will make almost no difference to the scheduled stages of the end of lockdown, or even the predicted vaccination targets (since those were running ahead of schedule anyway). There have quite possibly been a number of previous such letters sent out by the NHS about hiccups in supply but this one leaked to the media on that particular day had a stupendous effect on news coverage of Mrs von der Leyens bombshell.

Then again, perhaps this is just journalistic cynicism. Anyway, it is not an accusation of any sort of dishonesty. Everything that was said was genuine (both the NHS letter and Mr Hancocks dismissive account of it), and, if it was a tactic, it was fair game in what is becoming an increasingly irresponsible propaganda war being waged by the EU in a quite hysterical attempt to save its credibility. In the meantime, there will almost undoubtedly be unnecessary deaths directly attributable to the words and actions of European leaders who are playing political games that have more serious consequences than a bit of headline manipulation for home consumption.

Downing Street has won a genuine moral victory as well as a public relations one. It made a succession of good calls on vaccine requisition and then handled the distribution of those vaccines superbly even with occasional supply problems taken into account. But it isnt just in verbal contention with the EU that Downing Street is getting cannier. There has been over the past week a systematic attempt to come to terms with the history of our national Covid struggle. Now, with the present circumstances coming good: a world-beating vaccine programme, numbers of cases and deaths heading downwards, and promising predictions of economic recovery, it clearly seemed to be time to admit earlier misjudgements.

The two biggest mistakes made at the start of the pandemic are generally thought to be the failure to close the borders particularly to travellers from China early enough and to lock down internally before the spread of the virus had got out of control. (Both of these points are still subject to argument but they are the most persuasive criticisms made of early policy.)

The Government has made an explicit point now of accepting that these decisions were wrong. But, crucially, it has pointed out that they were made following the official advice of scientific advisers who believed at the time that closing borders would be pointless because the virus was already circulating in this country, and that too early an introduction of lockdown measures would result in public fatigue and loss of compliance. You may recall Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty saying these things quite explicitly at press briefings a fact which they now admit without reservation.

So this admission of error may seem to be framed rather cleverly in the least damaging way possible: yes, we did the wrong thing but it wasnt our fault. We were just doing what we had always promised to do following The Science. But what ministers were actually doing was following the advice of particular scientific experts who would always have been (I am sure) prepared to admit that they were fallible. Because science does not consist of immutable truths and individual scientists are not handing down inviolable sacred doctrine.

Perhaps the single biggest mistake that the Government has made (and is possibly still making although it drops hints that this is changing) is to misconstrue the nature and objectives of science itself. Scientific endeavour is a way of examining phenomena, adducing evidence for competing theories, and putting rival interpretations forward for debate.

Scientists argue with one another all the time, in their symposia and their publications: thats the whole point. That is how science progresses. Doubt is at the heart of it: a rejection of medieval certainties. Descartes, reputed to be the founder of modern rationalism, began by resolving to doubt everything it seemed possible to doubt until he was left with only his own existence as undeniable because he was the one doing the thinking. (This lone certainty was later refuted by even more modern thinkers who argued that all that could be asserted was that thought existed, not a person thinking.)

To blame the scientists for giving what turned out to be bad advice is unfair: mistakes and revisions are essential to their occupation. What should never have happened was that elected leaders handed over responsibility for political judgments to people who were unsuited to that role, and unaccountable to the country.

Read more:

At home and abroad, Boris is now winning the Covid political war - Telegraph.co.uk

A video from a recent event has been interpreted to allege that Telangana Welfare Schools were against Hinduism.

A video from an event by the Swaero movement, launched by senior IPS officer RS Praveen Kumar from Telangana and others, has triggered a row in the state. Following this, Praveen Kumar has clarified that the Swaero movement does not teach prejudice against any religion. Based on a video clip from the launch event of the Swaero Holy Month on Monday, a few Telangana BJP leaders have accused Praveen Kumar of promoting teachings against Hinduism among students.

Swaero is a social transformation movement launched by Praveen Kumar, who is the secretary of the Telangana Social & Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society, and others. It mainly consists of alumni from the society.

The Swaero Holy Month, also called Bheem Deeksha, is a month-long event, marked by reading Dr BR Ambedkars works and other such activities. This year, the event was launched at the historical Dhulikatta Buddhist Shrine in Telanganas Peddapalli district, known for its Buddhist heritage.

According to Praveen Kumar, a members of a local Buddhist family who attended the event went on stage and recited the Buddha Vandanam, or the vows taken by Dr B R Ambedkar on the historic day of his conversion to Buddhism on October 15, 1956, at Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur. In the video clip that is now being circulated and criticised by right wing groups, Praveen Kumar is seen repeating Ambedkars vows after a person leading the oath on stage. These vows include denouncing faith in certain Hindu gods, as well as striving for equality and refraining from committing sins.

Read: Harvard University students to study success story of Telangana social welfare schools

Based on a video of the oath, Telangana BJP leaders and VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad) members have accused Praveen Kumar of cultivating sentiments against the Hindu religion through the Swaero movement, among students of the Telangana Social & Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions. Clarifying his stand, Praveen Kumar issued a statement saying Swaeroism is an inclusive ideology, where people of all religious faiths are working for liberation of the poor from poverty.

Swaero Network has people with all religious beliefs in it and we take the best from all religions and we don't teach any prejudice against any religion both in our homes and in work places and celebrate all festivals. We work for just and equal society in the country only through education, health awareness, scientific thinking and economic empowerment, not through hatred, the statement said.

Praveen Kumar said that he and his Swaero colleagues do not subscribe to what the Buddhist family said on stage. We deeply regret if it has hurt anyone's religious sentiments. Our organisers have clarified this to all the participants on the stage itself immediately, Praveen Kumar said.

In a video from Praveen Kumars speech at the Bheem Deeksha, the IPS officer is seen saying, Bheem Deeksha means knowledge, rationalism and discipline. It means tolerance towards all religions. Regardless of caste, religion and region, to find our own hidden potential, and to strive for greatness, is the aim of this event. Bheem Deeksha and Swaeroism does not discriminate against or blame any particular religion, caste, region or nation.

Watch Praveen Kumar's speech at the event

Praveen Kumar has been widely recognised for his transformational work in the field of education in the Telangana residential welfare schools, bringing a wide range of opportunities to students from marginalised backgrounds.

Read: Telangana's Poorna becomes first tribal in world to scale 6 mountain peaks in 6 continents

The Swaero movement, based on the ideologies of Jyothi Rao Phule and Dr BR Ambedkar, consists of alumni of the Telangana Social & Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society. It aims to instill self-confidence in students from marginalised communities and to encourage them to pursue higher education.

Read: How Telangana welfare schools are beating the challenge of inequality during lockdown

In another instance in the past, baseless allegations have been made that anti-national activities were being carried out in the welfare schools.

Read: Brawl in Hyd press club: A larger conspiracy at play against Praveen Kumar of TSWREIS?

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After video triggers row in Telangana, IPS officer Praveen Kumar issues clarification - The News Minute

"Raised by Wolves," a television series created by Aaron Guzikowski and released on HBO Max last September, initially feels like many other works of science fiction: set in a dystopic future where the Earth is destroyed and competing groups escape to other planets for survival. Yet in just 10 episodes, it becomes clear how deceptively profound the show truly is, and for Catholic viewers especially, there is much for us to contemplate.

The pilot begins following two androids, Mother and Father, who escaped from a war on Earth between atheists and a religious order known as the Mithraics. Mother and Father, reprogrammed and tasked with rebuilding the human race and civilization, now live on the extrasolar planet, Kepler-22b. They left Earth with six embryos, but only one survives. They, along with their last surviving son, Campion, struggle to survive on Kelper, all the while believing they are the planet's only inhabitants. Soon after, however, the Mithraics arrive, along with the violence of the world they thought they left behind.

The Mithraics, based on the first century Roman cult, are a group of warriors and priests who believe in a rigid caste system. They are more militaristic and technologically advanced than the androids or atheist humans. Once they arrive on Kepler-22b, their struggle to survive challenges their faith in ways they are not entirely prepared for. For them, religion is a matter of adhering to their sacred texts, and there is no room for question. Unlike the Christian faiths of our world, they are not contemplative. This is something that is put to the test on the new planet, and although their faith is unreflective, different characters are forced to contemplate and reexamine who they are following, and whether their god Sol's will is always being expressed by the one who is ordained a leader. Androids and humans, on the other hand, want no relationship with any kind of faith tradition, but despite themselves are drawn into areas that rationality cannot explain and they are forced to express a kind of faith and trust both in themselves and each other when facing the unknown.

Violence soon escalates on the new planet over these religious differences, with each side believing their respective opinion concerning belief, rationality and faith the superior one. Each individual character struggles with their own personal understandings of faith. Some are more rigid in their desire to follow the laws of Sol, while others question Sol's will and abandon their faith when given the first opportunity to do so. When Marcus, a former child soldier for the atheists who assumed the identity of a Mithraic soldier, begins to hear the voice of Sol commanding him, he becomes filled with pride. Some look upon this revelation with awe and wonder, but other higher-ranking clerics, filled with jealousy, seek to supplant him.

These people, with their own pasts and hopes and fears, all are in competition with one another and this mysterious new world as they each try to figure out what really matters to them in order to build a future and survive. For the Catholic viewer, this is a worthwhile opportunity to reflect about our own will and faith and how each is expressed in our lives.

This engagement with faith will feel familiar to fans of works like "Alien" and "Blade Runner." Ridley Scott, an executive producer, directed the first two episodes, and like other Scott works, the show encouragers viewers to think more deeply about consciousness, the soul and the role of religion in human life. In "Blade Runner," the idea of androids possessing souls is toyed with, and in "Prometheus" and "Alien Covenant," we see characters attempting to play God and change change creation.

Religious elements are even more fleshed out in "Raised by Wolves" by Scott and Guzikowski, a lapsed Catholic. Many things in the show feel similar to our own world like the war between believers and atheists. In the first episode, Father, realizing that Campion must not be raised alone, signals the Mithraic ship. When Mother finds out, she kills father in a rage. This murder evokes Cain and Abel and instills a sense in us that although the world we are watching on screen is new, the stories and lives of these characters are universal.

The show, which initially presents itself as a series about rational atheism versus blind faith, offers a powerful commentary on the dangers of fanaticism. The beliefs of the Mithraics, humans and androids, no matter how adamantly they believe in their convictions, are insufficient. Each character's rationalism or blind faith is tested, pushed and sometimes broken, and each character, and viewer, is left with more questions than answers.

"Raised by Wolves," which was renewed for a second season several weeks after its premiere, will keep the viewer coming back for more because it is so unlike other shows available on streaming services. It challenges how we think about morality and although this is not explicitly a "Catholic" show, it very much shows an engagement with religious themes and ideas that a Catholic worldview lends itself to understanding, and it does all this without watering down the complexity of the series.

In an era where shows are designed to be consumed as quickly as possible, "Raised by Wolves" challenges us to slow down, chew over every episode and think about how religion informs how we view the world around us.

For Catholic viewers, the show which premiered amid a global COVID-19 pandemic and anti-racism marches all across the United States encourages us to confront our understanding of the Catholic imagination and engage with art that might not seem readily "Catholic" but that nevertheless can offer us glimpses of the truth, for all art touches the sublime in some way or another.

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Why every Catholic should watch HBO's 'Raised by Wolves' - National Catholic Reporter