February 13, 2004/Zil Haj 21, 1424 A.H.
 

Science, Scientists and Society

The recent uproar about Pakistani scientists and nuclear proliferation may not have brought all related facts to light, but it has certainly brought home one fundamental truth common to all post-colonial societies: a total lack of understanding of what science is, how it functions and how it differs from its application through technologies.

All the fuss has been about Pakistani scientists, but if one were to honestly look for a scientist in Pakistan, one would find out that such an entity does not exist; Pakistan has only technicians and a few technologists. What passes for science in Pakistan is mostly technology or a bit of applied science, but certainly not the science that is a creative activity, rooted in the imaginative faculties of a gifted human being who tries to understand the physical world through an exploration of fundamental aspects of nature. That kind of science, which leads to discoveries of primary importance, is not to be found in the thoroughly drained post-colonial societies where the imagination has been strangled. What we have in these societies is not science, but crumbs of science, brought home by Ph.D students who went to Europe or America and who came back to their homelands to spend the rest of their lives remembering that brief sojourn overseas. They produce caricatures of their doctoral research through our universities where young men and women come to waste the most creative part of their lives in a deadening culture of unimaginative learning.

Let me state at the cost of repetition: our universities do not produce scientists; they only circulate regurgitated scientific knowledge. Even for an applied science like chemistry, there are no links between universities and industry, which operates on a turn-key basis. There is no real research in any of our universities; only cheap repetitions of what the teachers had done during their doctoral research.

Under these circumstances, it is not the lack of intelligence or hard work which reduces bright young minds to dull technicians but the sheer meaninglessness of it all. Those who graduate, find out that there are no jobs out there worth doing, except to join the teaching profession only to produce more copies of the cheap kind. So, there is no question of Pakistani scientists doing anything wrong, because they do not exist.

Science does not operate in vacuum; it exists in a given society. And under the present conditions, science cannot exist in societies like Pakistan. Not because of lack of talent, but because of the lack of creative imagination which alone produces fundamental revolutions in science through theories such the Theory of Relativity and through disciplines such as quantum physics.

In the absence of a culture which allows creativity to flow like a natural spring, young men and women cannot produce wonders in science. This is a tragedy of great proportions, but an equally great tragedy is the fact that our so-called science establishment is not even setup to produce mediocre scientists and average technologists who can make use of what is abundantly available in scientific literature to solve some of the most pressing problems of our defense, agricultural and manufacturing sectors. What we have, instead, is a massive gap in using the existing scientific knowledge to solve those national problems which can be solved through application of science.

Our so-called greatest accomplishment in science is not an accomplishment in science; merely a successful application of one particular technology which has allowed us to enrich our abundant uranium ore; that is about all that can be said with honesty about this accomplishment of our “great scientists”. This particular technology, the centrifuge technology, was brought home from Holland by one individual who did what he did. And that is the alpha and omega of this story. The nature of personal gains through this success, the foreign pressure that has suddenly made numerous old facts, known to everyone in Islamabad, dramatic revelations are outside the domain of science and must be dealt with in their proper context.

One aspect of these dramatic stories is about the so-called sale of this technology to other countries. Let us note that (unlike science) technology is, by its very nature, an item for sale; it is produced for that very purpose. Unlike pure science, much of which is published in scientific journals available to everyone, technology is kept secret; only then can it be sold. Technology is a product of the application of scientific principles and it produces products which sell. The greatest producer and seller of technology today is the weapons industry. This is one of the largest, if not the largest, industry in the world.

According to a new Congressional report, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995-2002”, sent to the US House and Senate in the third week of September 2003 by the Congressional Research Service which is an arm of the Library of Congress, the United States was remained the leader in total worldwide weapons sales in 2002. During this year, it sold conventional weapons worth about $13.3 billion, a rise of $1.2 billion from its 2001 sales. This is 45.5 percent of all conventional weapons deals in the world. US sales to developing nations were to the tune of  $8.6 billion, that is 48.6 percent of conventional arms deals concluded with developing nations in 2002.  The nearest rival was Russia (sales worth $5 billions), followed by France with $1 billion.

This annual study, written by Richard F. Grimmett, a specialist in national defense at the research service, is considered the most authoritative resource available to the public on worldwide weapons sales. If read carefully, one can discover numerous reasons for the October 2003 trips by certain US officials to Pakistan which started the Qadeer Khan Saga. The weapons mafia, let us be clear, does not want anyone else to jump into the market, especially if they are dealing with cutting-edge technologies. Their monopoly is strategic. They only sell what is dated and can be easily defeated. No one is allowed to sell anything that would endanger this multi-billion dollar industry which supports US presidential campaigns and which protects US interests. As an example, one can note that since 1999, there have been no sales of surface-to-surface missiles to the Middle East from any of the arms makers in the United States, Russia, China or Europe. This is not by chance. These missiles are the greatest dangers to the security of Israel, hence all manufactures have agreed not to sell these to the Middle East!

A second important aspect of the weapon industry is the fact that the world weapons mafia develops technologies through a respectable university culture spread out throughout the West. But this is done through a sophisticated mechanism which allows these honourable professors and researchers to absolve themselves of all moral responsibility. The MIT research lab that developed a robot which can penetrate into caves; hundreds of small and big inventions and technologies needed to produce a B-52 Bomber; the laser research used in the so-called Smart Weapons such as Tomahawks, Mavericks and Harpoons; and technologies used in the production of numerous other deadly weapons were all parceled out to these respectable research facilities and no fingers are ever pointed to those who develop and share these lethal technologies which obliterate life and kill innocent civilians by the thousands. These labs, spread out in Europe and America, have regular institutional exchange and cooperation; no one ever objects to the sharing of these technologies of mass destruction.

In comparison, no two Muslim nations are supposed to cooperate on any matter, much less on weapons production. Might is right, the law of the jungle is the operative reality of our times and our servile rulers have no choice but to say: yes sir, we shall punish those who challenge your monopoly in this deadly crime against humanity.