Why Jews So Powerful…and Muslims So Powerless [dan Komentarku!]

By: Dr Farrukh Saleem
The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist

Why are Jews so powerful?

There are only 14 million Jews in the world; seven million in the Americas , five million in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa . For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together. Ever wondered why?

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Century’, was a Jew. Sigmund Freud — id, ego, and superego — the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew. So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity: Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle. Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine. Alert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine. Gertrude Elion gave us a leukaemia fighting drug. Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B. Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis (a sexually transmitted disease).. Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases.

Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission. Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology (disorders of the endocrine system; diabetes, hyperthyroidism) … Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy (psychotherapy to treat mental disorders, depression and phobias). Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill. George Wald won a Nobel for furthering our understanding of the human eye. Stanley
Cohen won a Nobel in embryology (study of embryos and their development) . Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine.

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes).

Why are Jews so powerful? Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip. Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor. Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable; Charles Adler, traffic lights; Benno Strauss, Stainless steel; Isador Kisee, sound movies; Emile Berliner, telephone microphone and Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder.

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include Ralph Lauren (Polo), Levis Strauss (Levi’s Jeans), Howard Schultz (Starbuck’s) , Sergey Brin (Google), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Donna Karan (DKNY), Irv Robbins (Baskin & Robbins) and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts).

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush), Joseph Lieberman, Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state), Maxim Litvinov (USSR foreign Minister), David Marshal (Singapore’s first chief minister), Isaac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia), Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM), Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal), Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes France (French PM), Michael Howard (British home secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria) and Robert Rubin (former American secretary of treasury).

In the media, famous Jews include Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time), Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyyeld (Executive editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times).

Can you name the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world? The name is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world. Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals. Lenny Krayzelburg is a three- time Olympic gold medallist. Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker are all Jewish.

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter Falk are all Jewish?

As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew. Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky and Hutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The thief of Baghdad) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish.

To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that matters is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery.

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed. Guess what faith did he belong to?

So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education.

Why are Muslims so powerless?

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims.
Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?

Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World
Universities’ , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian- majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same. Around 40 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the ‘literate s’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).
Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan , there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan ‘s exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t producing knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless?
Because we aren’t applying knowledge.

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.
America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion;
China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods
and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion;
Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion,
Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion.
(Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

So, why are Muslims so powerless?
Answer: Lack of education!
All we do is shout to Allah whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures..!.*****

EDUCATION IS THE KEY…..Pass this on to your children, whatever their denomination or race be.

(Albert Einstein talking to a group of school children. 1934.)

My dear children: I rejoice to see you before me today, happy youth of a sunny and fortunate land. Bear in mind that the wonderful things that you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labour in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honour it, and add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common. If you always keep that in mind you will find meaning in life and work and acquire the right attitude towards other nations and ages.

KOMENTARKU:

Saya kira pertanyaan ini belum tuntas. Mengapa dunia muslim tertinggal pendidikannya? Jawabannya: FILSAFAT! Ya, karena dunia muslim pada umumnya menabukan filsafat, induknya ilmu pengetahuan. Lebih-lebih setelah aliran Wahhabi, yang secara teologis antirasionalisme ini, me-mainstream sebagai model Islam di dunia.

Riset-riset mutakhir barat saat ini tak terlepas dari jasa positivisme August Comte, yang memadukan filsafat rasionalisme cartesian dengan filsafat empirisme. Selain itu, pertanyaan-pertanyaan riset, 5w1h questions, merupakan salah satu bagian pertanyaan-pertanyaan mendasar dari filsafat logika. Belum lagi jika kita bicara soal cabang-cabang ilmu yang lain, seperti psikologi, sosiologi, ilmu politik, hukum dll, semua pasti beralaskan filsafat.

Jangankan itu, mari kita lihat dari kacamata geopolitik. Ideologi yang berkembang di dunia ini berakar kuat pada filsafat. Ideologi kapitalisme, misalnya, dipengaruhi oleh Filsafat Kebebasan Manusia ala John Locke. Sementara Komunisme diawali dari Filsafat Materialisme Dialektika.

Apakah sejarah peradaban Islam tidak pernah (mau) mengenal filsafat? Nay! Zaman keemasan Islam dulu tak terlepas dari peran filsafat dalam meletakkan basis keilmuwan. Sebut saja Ibu Sina (dokter, ahli kimia, geologis, ahli astronomi, dll), Al-Farabi (ahli matematika, musisi, sosiolog, dll) dan Al-Kindi (ahli matematika, psikologi, dokter, musisi) yang juga filsuf. Saking pentingnya filsafat, sampai-sampai Ibnu Thufail asal Andalusia menulis novel “Hayy ibn Yaqdzan, yang menekankan pentingnya akal untuk “mencari” Tuhan.

Tapi kita tak perlu berkecil hati soal ini. Di belahan Islam lain, ada sekelompok “minoritas kreatif” yang tradisi filsafatnya juga kuat. Ya, dialah Iran. Sebut saja di antaranya Mulla Shadra, Murtadha Muthahhari, Muhammad Baqr ash-Shadr, bahkan sang revolusionis Ayatullah Khomeini (bahkan termasuk Ibnu Sina!). Karena filsafatnya kuat, maka tradisi keilmuannya pun juga maju. Dengan demikian, tak heran jika pendidikan di Iran juga mulai berkembang pesat.

Kuatnya tradisi keilmuan dan berkualitas karya-karya di sana, sampai-sampai membuat barat dan orientalis tertarik untuk mempelajarinya. Sepasang suami istri William Chittick dan Sachiko Murata, misalnya, termasuk di antaranya yang tertarik mempelajari filsafat di Negeri Mullah ini.

Soal fasilitas pendidikan bagaimana? Di Iran, anak-anak yang berasal dari keluarga tak mampu diberikan fasilitas pendidikan, antara lain bebas biaya SPP dan printil-printil lainnya serta diberikan buku-buku gratis. Walhasil, anak-anak yang berasal dari keluarga menengah ke bawah justru yang rata-rata berprestasi.

Bagaimana dengan tradisi pengajaran di sana? Mari kita tengok ke salah satu “pesantren tradisional” bernama Hauzah ‘Ilmiyyah al-Moqaddesah di kota Qom. “Yang paling berkesan belajar di Iran adalah perilaku ulama-ulama yang ada di Qom, yang begitu baik menghargai pelajar-pelajar. Tidak merasa lebih tinggi atau pintar. Mereka benar-benar memahami Islam dengan baik dari perilakunya,” kata Musa Kadzim Siraj, alumnus Hauzah asal Madura ini.

Bagaimana soal infrastrukturnya? Di ibukota Iran, Tehran, ada perpustakaan dengan koleksi buku terbanyak di dunia, yaitu berjumlah lebih dari 9 juta buku. Saking berharganya ilmu pengetahuan bagi mereka, sampai-sampai rak-rak bukunya bisa masuk ke dalam bunker secara otomatis jika terjadi sesuatu. Ya, belajar dari zaman kemunduran Islam dulu, ketika karya-karya besar ilmuwan muslim dibakar. Lagi, beberapa hari yang lalu, Iran juga mengirimkan Satelit Omid, serta sesumbar akan mengirimkan astronot pada 2021.

Kemajuan pendidikan tak terlepas dari tradisi keilmuan yang baik. Sementara tradisi keilmuan yang baik sangat bergantung pada filsafat. Jadi, kenapa kita tidak mulai berfilsafat?***