The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Turkey turns Islamic

TURKEY’s secular establishment will have to brace itself for sweeping changes because of the landslide victory for the moderate Islamic party in the national assembly. The country’s constitution seeks to separate religion from the state. However, the right-wing Justice and Development Party [AKP] has left other parties way behind in the race. It is in a position to form the government on its own and what is more important has the numbers to introduce changes in the constitution. Turkey’s armed forces have usually played the role of protecting the country’s secular image. They would have been more happy had the centre-left Republican People’s Party [CHP] won the mandate to rule. But the popular vote in favour of the AKP does not necessarily mean that it would have a free hand to rule. To begin with, its leader Mr Recep Tayyib Erdogan was disqualified as a candidate and therefore cannot become prime minister. The victory of the right-wing party has made the traditionally “acceptable” parties raise doubts about the true character of the AKP. Even the military establishment believes that Mr Erdogan is hiding the real Islamist face of his party behind a facade of phoney Islamic liberalism. Its supporters insist that AKP is not Islamist and that it stands for democracy, economic growth, social justice and good governance. But the ban on head scarves for women may see the AKP and the military come into direct confrontation. On the face of it, a political faceoff over the wearing of scarves by women may appear to be too trivial to even merit notice. But not so in Turkey where the scarf is a symbol of Islamic fundamentalism.

The last Islamic-led coalition government was forced out of office by the military establishment when it tried to make women wear scarves. But the AKP has not only won, but also has the numbers to change the constitution. In Turkey the numbers do not count for much when it comes to protecting the secular character of the constitution. The establishment is not going to hand over the right to rule to the AKP without studying all the options that the mandate has thrown up. Mr Erdogan knows that he will have to move with great care. As of today, he is making all the right noises. He has announced plans to tour the European capitals to advance his country’s claim for the membership of the European Union. Although he is silent on who will become prime minister, since he stands disqualified, his new found interest in international affairs itself is being viewed with suspicion by the military high command. The EU itself is also not sure how to react to the AKP’s landslide victory. Brussels’ low-key response to the election results in Turkey is in tune with its apprehensions about accepting it as a full member of the EU. On the flip side is the possibility of helping Turkey get out of the ominous shadow of the fanatical Islamists by helping Turkey become part of a forward-looking EU. Ankara has been official candidate for membership since 1999, but has yet to begin accession talks because of concerns about its human rights record. Can the AKP prove to the world that it has no Islamist agenda to implement and that it would indeed set its human rights record straight for joining the EU?

OPINION

Russia’s separatist problem
Chechen war comes to Moscow
M.L. Madhu

Moscow and Russia as a whole went through a very tense and terrible time a few days ago when on October 23 night a group of more than 50 Chechen rebels, including 18 women suiciders and foreign mercenaries, seized a Moscow theatre, a former house of culture, where a popular musical “Nord-Ost” (North-East) was being staged. More than 700 spectators and about 100 actors, including a number of children participating in it, musicians and other theatre workers, were inside the theatre when they were taken hostage. Some of the theatre workers managed to escape by jumping out of the windows but most of the others along with the spectators, including about 75 foreigners, remained at the mercy of the separatists or terrorists. This group was led by Movsar Barayev, a nephew of recently killed Chechen field commander Arbi Barayev. Many people thought that he wanted to avenge his uncle’s death, but he denied this saying that “we want the end of Chechen war, that the Russian federal troops pull out of Chechnya immediately and its freedom recognised.”

The rebel group mined the theatre hall from all sides and huge amounts of explosives were placed at different corners which could be exploded at any moment, if the specialised forces or commandos tried to storm the theatre hall to release the hostages. Hostages were allowed to use their cell phones to intimate their relatives about their plight and later they were ordered to ask them to demonstrate against the war in Chechnya. Relatives did it.

It was a situation of big dilemma for President Putin, his government and the security forces.

Efforts were made to end the crisis by some Russian Duma or Russian Parliament’s Lower House members and leaders of the Union of Right Forces Party such as Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada, leader of the liberal Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinski who have long been advocating a negotiated settlement of the Chechenya problem. Popular singers Kobzon and Alla Pugachova — favourites of all Russians and the Chechens — state Duma deputy from Chechnya Aslanbek Aslakhanov, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and a doctor, Rashal, who had treated Chechen children a number of times in Chechnya, were also allowed to negotiate with the hostage-takers and convince them that their demands could not be met immediately, that it was a long process and they should negotiate and release the hostages. The Russian authorities assured the rebels that if they released the hostages unharmed, their safety would be guaranteed and no action would be taken against them. But all these efforts did not succeed and only a few children and women were set free.

The rebels kept the hostages in a highly tense and critical atmosphere for 50-57 hours without food and allowed only some water and juice to be sent inside the theatre under their strict supervision. On October 25 night they declared that if their demands were not met by midnight, then they would start shooting 10 hostages every one hour. According to the official version, they started implementing their threat on Saturday at about five in the morning. Two hostages were shot down and shots were fired on those few who tried to run towards the main gate in panic to save themselves. At this time the sound of a few explosions was also heard from inside the theatre.

Thus the moment had come for the special forces and commandos surrounding the theatre building to go into action to save the hostages. At 5.30 a.m. special task forces started pumping gas into the theatre to incapacitate the rebels. After half an hour or so the commandos entered the theatre building in two groups — one from the front door and the other from the basement. The commandos encountered some resistance, but by bursting hand grenades in the lobby and side rooms made their way to the stage, where the terrorists were not fully incapacitated by gas. Thus most of the fighting took place on the stage. The special task troops were able to complete the whole operation in less than one hour. Fifty hostage-takers were killed — 32 men and 18 women believed to be the widows of those who were killed earlier in the Chechen war.

Immediately after the completion of the operation, dozens of ambulance cars started arriving at the theatre’s main gate and doctors, nurses and other rescue workers started bringing out the hostages either on stretchers or helping them from both sides to walk up to the ambulance cars. Not only tension, starvation for 57 hours and lack of fresh air had weakened them so much as the gas which was pumped in the theatre. About 117 released hostages are believed to have died by this gas poisoning.

A good deal of controversy has arisen regarding the use of the gas and especially about the fact that hospitals and their medical staff were not kept alert and informed in advance for such an eventuality. Nor were they instructed about the medicines and methods to be used for the treatment of such patients.

President Putin visited an emergency care hospital where hundreds of freed hostages were being treated. Later in his televised address to the nation he said: “We hoped that all involved in this ordeal would be freed, but each one of us understood that we had to be prepared for the very worst.”

This incident has raised many questions about the future peace prospects and tactics of war in Chechnya, which has now come to Moscow.

One big question being raised is about the working of the federal security services. How did they allow 50 or more (search is on for those who might have escaped) well-armed rebels with a large amount of explosives to come to the centre of Moscow unnoticed and capture the theatre with hundreds of spectators? Where is the guarantee that such or even some worse incident will not take place in future? Obviously, nobody can provide any guarantee against surprise attacks by terrorists, but this incident has highlighted the need for greater vigilance, more active and sophisticated work of the security forces.

The writer, a keen observer of Russian affairs, is based in Moscow.

The lessons for India from hostage crisis
T.V. Rajeswar

The audacious act of hostage-taking by Chechen militants in a Moscow theatre was a desperate gamble which miserably failed. The manner in which the crisis was resolved and the Chechen militants eliminated holds an important lesson to the world, particularly India.

The small Caucacian autonomous region of Chechnya in southern Russia straddles the region between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Its population is about 1.2 million and its capital Grozny has about 4,00,000 people. The Chechens were always known to be wild and lawless. The rebellious Chechen mind had been deeply influenced by Islam but under the Communist regime of the USSR, it was subdued. With the disintegration of the USSR in 1990-91 and the emergence of the erstwhile Russian provinces as independent states in Central Asia, Chechnya made a bid for sovereign status. There are about 1050 oil wells in Chechnya, though many of them are not functional. Crucial oil lines from Central Asia also pass through Chechnya carrying the valuable black gold.

President Yeltsin ordered a military operation in 1995 in Chechnya to put down the rebellion. Mr Yeltsin and his chosen successor, Mr Vladimir Putin, were firm that Chechnya would not be allowed to secede particularly since it would trigger similar demands from the semi-autonomous republics of Russia in the Caucacian region such as Dagestan, Tartarstan, Bashtostan, etc. They are all Muslim pockets, and after the decline of the Russian power they had been increasingly exposed to Islamic fundamentalism and the infiltration of armed Islamic militants.

The Chechen revolt assumed alarming proportions from early 1999. Chechen rebels, supplemented by an incursion of about 2000 armed militants from West Asia, extended their revolt to the adjoining Dagestan as well. The Chechen gangs were getting financial support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey and a large section of Pakistani militants, led by one Abu Abdulla Zafar, had also joined the Chechens. Mr Putin intensified the Chechen campaign which led to the Chechen President, Aslan Mashkadov, declaring that Chechnya was in a holy war against Russia.

It was at this juncture, in October, 1999, that the European Union sent a delegation to Moscow offering its services to mediate between Russia and Chechnya. Russia quite expectedly dismissed the suggestion outright. It was typical of the European Union and other Western countries to offer their services for mediation, without understanding its serious implications. The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) was not far behind in its advocacy for mediation. A delegation of the OIC, led by Iran’s Foreign Minister, arrived in Moscow in December, 1999. Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK and President Clinton had also cautioned Russia to go slow in handling the Chechnya problem.

The general approach of the Western countries to problems like Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and even Kashmir was always presented to the world as well-meaning and aimed to help the ethnic and religious minorities who were supposedly suppressed by the central authority. After the break-up of erstwhile Yugoslavia, which Marshal Tito has built up assiduously over the years, only Serbia remains, still retaining the name of Yugoslavia, though it is only a ghost of its former self. Bosnia’s emergence as an independent country was primarily because of the fact that it had Islamic character. This may happen again in the case of Kosovo in the foreseeable future.

The eyes of the Western democracies, and the USA in particular, opened after the September 11 attacks in the very heart of America by militants of Al-Qaida under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Since then America is perpetually in a state of war against terrorism, and everything happening around the world in which Islamic militants are involved is part of the war. The bombings in Bali, Indonesia and the Philippines and even the serial sniping in the Washington region, in which one of the accused Americans is a converted Muslim, are all grist to the anti-terrorist mill. It was, therefore, not surprising that the Western countries were all keenly watching the unfolding of the Chechen hostage crisis in the Moscow theatre. When it was resolved through unorthodox and so far untested means, the Western democracies could only applaud, though not so openly. As a prescient commentator put it, “Welcome to the New World.”

It was clear that the Russian armed forces and security agencies had meticulously planned their moves. The fact that as many as 800 hostages were held inside the theatre and that any approach to them was difficult, with gun-toting militants who had also packed themselves with explosives, was a damper. It also had its advantages since the militants were reduced to sitting ducks inside the closed theatre, once it was decided to pump in the as yet undisclosed sleeping gas which quickly put all those inside to sleep. Though as many as 117 hostages died due to the gas effect, the fact of successful rescue of the vast majority of the hostages speaks very highly of the success of the operation. It is also noteworthy that although all the Chechen militants, numbering about 50, including women who had strapped themselves with explosives, were killed, at least two were reportedly arrested.

After seeing the Russian rescue mission in Moscow, one looks back with a sense of shame at the manner in which we handled the hijacking of IC-814 on December 25, 1999. After the hijacked plane landed at Amritsar airport and remained there for nearly three hours, why was it not disabled, either by shooting at the tyres of the aircraft or a couple of trucks placed in front of the aircraft to prevent it from taking off? The captain of IC-814 was said to be delirious and shouting that the hijackers were threatening to shoot all the people unless allowed to take off without further delay. By 7 p.m. the National Security Guards had also arrived at the airport but no orders were given to them to storm the aircraft. The Crisis Management Group headed by the Cabinet Secretary and consisting of all the top officials, including intelligence chiefs, wavered and failed to give orders to storm the aircraft. The reason was obvious: there was no political will at the top and hence no orders were given. When the aircraft eventually reached Kandahar, Afghanistan, it was too late and became the most shameful chapter in India’s history of crisis management.

One shudders to think of what would have happened if the militants who stormed Parliament on December 13 last year had succeeded in getting into the building and taken hostages. Thanks to a few brave security guards and policemen, what would have turned out to be a most disastrous event was averted. But if such contingencies arise again on Indian soil, are we sure of strong and quick action, without worrying about collateral damage to innocent lives? The answer is doubtful, only because the NDA government, consisting of nearly two dozen partners and presided over by an executive with different pulls and pressures within cannot take prompt and strong action.

It was typical of the European Union, now presided over by the tiny country of Denmark, to organise a Chechen conference in Copenhagen on October 28. Vanessa Redgrave, a former actress and known champion of lost causes, was the prime mover of the International Campaign for Peace and Human Rights in Chechnya. Clearly, the Chechen gang, led by the notorious gangster, Movsar Barayev, in the Moscow theatre raid on October 25, expected to end the hostage crisis on its own terms and thereafter proceed to the Copenhagen conference as heroes. Russia and Mr Putin gave a resounding slap on the face of these so-called peacenics, indirectly stoking Islamic terrorism.

Mr Putin’s electrifying declaration, at the end of the hostage crisis, deserves to be reproduced: “Russia would never make deals with terrorists or give in to any blackmail. International terrorists were increasingly brazen and ruthless, threatening to use weapons of mass destruction. I declare with full responsibility that should anyone make an attempt to use such weapons against Russia, it would respond with measures commensurate with the threat and will strike at terrorists, organisers of their crimes, their moral and financial sponsors wherever they may be. I stress again wherever they may be.” India would do well to study the whole operation and draw a few lessons for future guidance.

The writer is a former Governor of West Bengal and Sikkim.

ANALYSIS

BJP gets a dose of its own medicine in UP
S. Nihal Singh

Has the Bharatiya Janata Party come to the end of the road? The longer it rules at the Centre through a coalition, the more ground it seems to be losing in the states. Despite the recent celebrations on being in power in New Delhi for three years, there was little to cheer about. And its whole strategy of teaming up with the Bahujan Samaj Party in the all-important state of Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha election seems to be going awry.

Tragically, all the BJP seems to be left with in the states is the bedraggled banner of Mr Narendra Modi and the political obscenities he and other even more strident members of the Sangh Parivar are given to propagating. There are murmurs of protest from the BJP leadership which are interpreted by the regional Gujarat players as signs of encouragement.

The BJP is being administered a dose of its own medicine in Uttar Pradesh; how it came to power in the state some six years ago is indelibly written in the country’s political history. Now Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party is playing games to take advantage of dissent in the BJP segment of the six-month-old Mayawati government. UP legislators, never paragons of virtue, are swaying in the storm, judging to a fine degree where their advantage would lie. Mayawati’s full-page paid advertisements of self-praise in newspapers are no substitute for good governance. The manoeuvring that is taken for party politics in UP and mass transfer of officials leave little time for governance.

Thus far, only the Congress has emerged out of the UP melodrama with some honour by refusing to be stampeded into supporting Mulayam Singh in his toppling game. Regional parties have their compulsions to seek power in any manner they can, but the dilemma for national parties such as the Congress and the BJP is how far to demean themselves in the quest of power.

Here lies the rub. The BJP is not a national party in the sense the Congress is but aspires to be one. In the meantime, a string of assembly elections has shown how the BJP is losing votes and states. Whatever the results in Gujarat, BJP tactics there are signs of its desperation, rather than strength. The problem for Atal Behari Vajpayee and his team is that if Mr Modi is the public face of the BJP, it impacts on the party’s ability to rule at the Centre and on India’s place and status in the world.

Only in Jammu and Kashmir has the BJP shown some wisdom by holding the kind of elections that were conducted and in supporting the new dispensation that emerged, to the near decimation of the party. For its pains, it has thus far attracted the opposition of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Recent efforts to resolve the contradictions in the Sangh Parivar left the impression that the RSS would be able to influence government policy.

Tentatively, it had seemed only recently that the BJP had decided on a two-point plank to prepare for important state elections next year and the subsequent parliamentary election. One arm of this policy was to take the party to the right by emphasising its roots, in short the Hindutva platform. The other was to build as many opportunistic alliances as possible with a view to gathering votes to the detriment of the main opposition Congress Party. The central arch of the latter platform was the alliance with Mayawati’s BSP, now coming apart at the seams.

After three years in power in New Delhi, no one expects the BJP to be either disciplined or practise any moral code. But the level of indiscipline the party faces in UP — whatever the outcome of the present toppling games —marks a new low. Some six years ago, the BJP had successfully played the opportunistic game in the state and recent developments are an indication that two can play the same game. Given the history of previous BJP-BSP divorces and the obvious unhappiness of the party’s state leaders, it is no surprise that every BJP legislator and Independent is demanding his pound of flesh.

There are no easy answers for the BJP to resolve its dilemmas. It came to power at the Centre by making blood-curdling calls for arousing Hindu voters. Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani’s rath yatra speeches are a revelation to listen to today. Having achieved power, the BJP’s objective has been to subsume its philosophy in the Hindutva creed to give it greater flexibility in governance.

As the pogrom in Gujarat has shown, a modulation of the Hindutva theme invites two problems: protests from the RSS, the party’s mentor, and the ability of a man of the ilk of Mr Modi to run away with the platform in the manner of Mr Advani’s old rhetoric. The central party leadership is too weak or unwilling to rein in Mr Modi, afraid as it is of losing another state election, and its response to RSS contretemps is to try to placate it to the extent possible.

Rewriting school history textbooks is both an expression of the BJP ideologues’ convictions as well as a sop to the estranged elements of the Parivar. Many of the BJP leaders have been members of the RSS — Mr Modi was an office holder — and have been taught the value of implanting ideas in young minds to mould a future society. Historical accuracy is thus sacrificed for enhancing the glories of the so-called Vedic period and one of the landmark events of the twentieth century, the 1917 Russian Revolution, is registered as a mere coup.

The BJP’s attempt to add some vitality and purpose to the party structure was partially frustrated by many leaders’ reluctance to leave comfortable ministerial berths. Indeed, party members’ addiction to power in a remarkably short time has been a revelation. What then is the party leadership to do? The next phase of planning seems to have been postponed till after the results of the Gujarat election. Until then, the party will attempt band-aid solutions. The first priority is to keep the BJP flock together in UP, banking as the party has been on the barter deal with Mayawati — her chief ministership in UP for support for BJP candidates for the Lok Sabha election. What happens if UP unravels in the meantime? The BJP will cross that bridge when it comes to it.

REALPOLITIK

Wages of power politics
P. Raman

“If some parties can’t control their own MPs what can we do?” Mr L.K. Advani had lamented when Narasimha Rao was engineering defections from parties like the Telugu Desam. NTR’s failure to keep his flock together had then smashed the opposition hopes of ousting the minority Rao government. A decade later, Advani, now himself leader of the ruling party at the Centre, has become the victim of a worse kind of mass defection from his party in UP.

The issue in UP is not Mayawati’s survival. The state had witnessed many such mindless horse-trading and crude government changes. What should concern us is that the cancer of defection and ugly power struggles have begun gnawing into the body of the party once acclaimed as disciplined and loyal. This writer has been witness to the RSS and BJP/Jana Sangh bosses persuading the functionaries to stand for elections. Such has been their spirit of sacrifice and self-negation.

The same functionaries are now merrily indulging in wranglings, monstrous display of individual lust for power and utter defiance of the central leadership. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, we had rightly blamed the Janata parivar and minor parties for the collapse of every anti-Congress coalition. The Left and the BJP were considered as solid formations. While the former still remains unbreakable, the BJP legislators are proving to be as bad as the old the Janata crowd.

It is high time for the BJP leadership to feel concerned about the decline of the cadre calibre. It had the warning signals from Karnataka, MP and Chhatisgarh. But in UP it is not the sin committed by a few greenhorns who had entered the BJP during its post-98 satta parva (power era). The revolt is led by old Jana Sangh veterans thus revealing that the cancer has spread to the core of the party’s psyche.

The outright defection threat by close to one-third of the BJP MLAs in UP and the high command’s utter helplessness to discipline them signal crumbling of an entire edifice. The revolts by Kalyan Singh and Shankersinh Vaghela were born out of a power struggle. In UP almost every BJP MLA who failed to get ministership is going out on the streets. Lalji Tandon, the main target of the ‘BJP Bachao Samiti’ of legislators, explains that all 26 ministers allotted by Mayawati were chosen unanimously by the four senior state leaders. “How can we make all 88 MLAs ministers?” he asks. As many as 28 BJP MLAs had attended the first rebel meeting. This is close to one-third of the total of 88 BJP MLAs.

They met the Samajwadi operators and did not hide their intentions. Instead of handling the issue politically, the BJP leadership resorted to all sort of dirty tricks. In a signed memorandum to the Prime Minister, the rebels alleged sale of ministership for money. If true this is a serious charge. Who received money? Since Mayawati had left the choice of ministers to the BJP, it can be only be some one from the latter. Who is this some one? It would be ruinous for the central leadership to put such open allegations under the carpet because it involves the very image of the party.

The other charge was more atrocious. The BJP rebels rushed to the Governor to complain about the widespread misuse of government machinery to threaten them into submission. Their homes were raided, they were being implicated in false cases and they were under physical threat — the same crude methods borrowed from the Indira days. Venkaiah Naidu’s dynamic leadership did not have any effect on them. When all methods failed, Kushabhau Thakre, the war horse discarded as old, was to be hastily rushed to tame the rebels. Vajpayee and Advani failed to please them. Even at the early stages, it was obvious that all that had stood in the way of the UP coalition’s collapse was the Congress dithering.

In this defining moment, it is imperative on the part of the RSS/BJP leadership to go in for a heart search to find out the reasons for this rapidly gathering crisis of confidence enveloping the movement. The normal remedies like distribution of election tickets to the more dependable loyal ones won’t work here because the tested traditionalists themselves are leading the fight for ministership. They have their own argument. If the BJP as an entity could pursue single-minded power politics to retain the government at the Centre, why can’t the individual MLAs resort to similar methods for their gains?

All this has implications beyond UP. If allowed to grow, the malaise will spread to the entire body politic. Even to other political parties. Only a drastic surgery by the parent RSS could remove this malignant growth which has been the direct outcome of the post-98 programme of power-at-any-cost.

Compare this with the astonishingly cautious approach by the Congress in dealing with emerging crises. Whether we like it or not, the Congress under Sonia Gandhi has established an efficient and harmonious decision-making system and discipline enforcement machinery. When got trapped, it did not hesitate to compromise in Kashmir. Instead of jumping to share power, it forced a specific common minimum programme for the complicated Kashmir so that the party would not be charged with compromising on national interests.

In UP the party was sharply divided over putting its weight with Mulayam Singh Yadav. Yet adopted a middle path. It resisted the temptation of a few ministerial posts and thus warded off the stigma of being a party to toppling a ‘dalit’ government.

However, if Mulayam could effect its fall, the Congress would support a secular government. True, dissidence remains endemic in Congress units, especially in states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Yet the leadership has been able to put them fairly under control.

Maybe due to Sonia Gandhi’s own inexperience or lack of confidence, she has established a system of widest possible consultations on emerging issues. Often the discussions drag on to the extent of being inordinately slow. Even in Gujarat, Vaghela has been imposed without much of a protest from the traditional veterans. Even if they tried, the observers could buy peace. This could be done only on the strength of the wider acceptability of the central authority. Death of those like Rajesh Pilot and Jitendra Prasada and exit of the NCP group had made this process easier.

To be fair, in the past two years there has been hardly any instance where decisions which could be described as hasty were taken. To be fair, again, unlike her predecessors she has not allowed any coterie to dominate decisions. Fotedars and Arjun Singhs are being counter-balanced by Manmohan Singhs and Pranab Mukherjees. Without much of a noise, the party has been able to virtually bury its Pachmarhi decision. Already, the Congress is sitting in coalition in four states, including Laloo’s Bihar.

This presents a rather comic irony. While things are fast falling apart under veteran colleagues of 50 years, the inexperienced foreign-born is providing a relatively orderly leadership. That too without the benefit of the power backup at the Centre. Apparently, the UP revolt of the loyals is not a case of leadership failure but the inevitable consequences of the power-at-any-cost culture. Or call it “janataisation” of the BJP.

Handling spouse’s back pain

Paying too much attention to a spouse’s back pain can make it worse, and leaving the spouse alone can make it better, according to a study presented by German psychologists.

Patients with back problems showed almost three times as much brain activity when their spouse was in the same room, but that activity dropped when the spouse left, according to research presented on Sunday at the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Heidelberg.

“It’s as if the spouse has become a stimulating cue for the pain,” said Herta Flor, the psychologist who ran the study.

In Flor’s study, people with chronic back pain were split into two groups. In one, the pain victim was married to someone who responded to the discomfort with massages, medicine and other attention.

In the other, partners downplayed the pain, sometimes leaving the room or distracting the person with other activities. Flor said that was the best course of action.

“A spouse can be overly supportive almost to the point where they’re enabling the pain,” said Dr Eugene Melvin, an Orlando pain specialist. “Just a little bit of pain on the patient’s part can cause a severe over reaction to the point where they don’t let the patient do anything for themselves.” AP

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The six articles of faith in Islam are :

1) God 2) The angels of God 3) The books of God 4) The prophets of God 5) The day of judgement 6) Predestination

—S.G. Champion, The Eleven Religions.

***

The path of seven stages of Sufism are: 1) Repentance 2)Abstinence 3) Renunciation 4) Poverty 5) Patience 6) Trust in God 7) Satisfaction

—Kitab al-Luma

***

The ten states of Sufism are:

1) Meditation 2) Nearness to God 3) Love 4) Fear 5) Hope 6) Longing 7) Intimacy 8) Tranquility 9) Contemplation 10) Certainty

—Kitab al-Luma

***

The five pillars upon which Islam is commonly said to rest are:

1) The recital of the Kalima or confession: there is but one God and Mohammed is the Prophet 2) Observance of the five daily periodhs of prayer 3) The giving of alms 4) The fast of Ramadan 5) Pilgrimage of Mecca

—S.G. Champions, The Eleven Religions

***

Satan flows in man through the veins;

narrow them, therefore, by hunger and thirst.

—From the Islamic Traditions.

***

The ten Buddhist commandments which are binding on members of the Sangha are: 1) Not to destroy life 2) Not to take what is not given 3) To abstain from unchastity 4) Not to lie or deceive 5) To abstain from intoxicants 6) To eat temperately and not after noon 7) Not to behold dancing, singing or plays 8) Not to wear garlands, perfumes or adornments. 9) Not to use high or luxurious beds. 10) Not to accept gold or silver

—Vinaya Mahavagga, I, 56

***

God accepts not the prayers of those who pray in long robes.

—Mishakat-el-Masabih.

***

Wherein does religion consist?

It consists in doing as little harm as possible, in doing good in abundance, in the practice of love, of compassion, of truthfulness, of purity in all the walks of life.

—Ashoka’s Edict