Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream
Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream Diary 1963 - Murshid Sam's Living Stream
Diaries 1963November 21, 1963Henry Hazlitt,c/o Newsweek,444 Madison Ave.,New York, N.Y.In re: Does Foreign Aid Aid?Dear Mr. Hazlitt:This is, perhaps, the most important letter I have ever written to you and yet it does not needa reply. Yesterday I made the most vehement talk in my life and also got the best response, but thebackgrounds are more important than the ego.The immediate subject was whether we should give aid to India in its struggle with Chinaand a group of us who had been to Asia sat together for the first time at the luncheon of the WorldAffairs Council here in San Francisco. We had noticed that our views were similar and now we findthat our experiences are similar (a) having been to Asia; (b) rejected by our fellow-citizens who ignoreus and deduct from the press, official sources, etc., “popular views.”All of us have been to Pakistan. All of us have millions of dollars poured into that country forprojects which are going into disuse because there is no skilled labor to operate them. Letters to theAFL-CIO to use foreign aid to pay displaced skilled workmen to go to these lands both to maintainexisting structures and to train local workmen have been ignored.Visit to Atkinson which carries on the largest engineering project in Pakistan finds that an enormousamount of money has to be used to institute polytechnic training and even then one is not surethat men so trained—with the “foreign aid” money—will stay on the job. They could get better jobselsewhere. I have seen no evidence that either Mangla Dam in Pakistan or Assouan Dam in UAR isgoing to be a going concern because there is not available sufficient and proper skills to maintainsuch structures in view of numerous other projects going on.It is just two years ago when I was to Thanksgiving Dinner with all the “experts” we havearound Lahore, West Pakistan. I was the only one present who knew the history of the country. Ihad met one hundred times as many persons as all others present combined. But my presence wasnecessary because too many of them were employed by rival or overlapping agencies and weretherefore not on too good terms with each other.I won’t go over the personal experiences but if I were a poor observer, then were my variousassociates who had been abroad, and sometimes to the same places, but always with the same conclusions.I brought out two things in my speech: (1) That parts of the world which never in history belongedto any “India” have now been annexed to India and we are sending funds and men to defendthese artificial boundaries of a non-ally.
Diaries 1963-2I have before me “Toward Economic Communication in Asia” by one Davie Wightman of theUniversity of Birmingham. It lists over thirty international and UN agencies, the major potion ofwhich receive goodly sums from the United States Treasury. Yet practically every one of these projectsor commissions is overlapped or rivaled by some more recent U.S. agency.I came out strongly for financial aid to India—yes through the World Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund etc. I have seen vast natural resources untouched. My present jibe is that India needsto develop its external Golconda (opening up the mines which were simply abandoned) and its internalGolconda (its heart) to the world. We are wrong, no doubt—and to me there is no doubt aboutit—in even proposing a cultural exchange with Russia which has almost nothing to give us, andrejecting cultural exchanges with Asian nations which have everything to give. But if we are going tooffer financial aid, it should come through venture capital to re-open diamond and gold mines, obtainmineral concessions and explore the Mountains—not only the Himalayas. In Hyderabad I foundthe first office of an internal Geological Survey, but if you mention this everybody goes wild.The time has come either to get back of the UN agencies or to withdraw from it excepting tofinance the tenth in accord with our vote in the upper chamber; in other words, if we are going intothe foreign aid business we should stop financing the UN bodies in the same spheres.If “Newsweek” is correct in this same issue, we are or have helped France financially whichwill ally itself with China to cut our throat. And if an associate power does this, how about someothers? The world has turned, I believe, without humankind and nations receiving external financialhelp to carry on functions.I have seen our Four H boys go abroad, mingle with the people, and nobody accepted theirreports. And the only Peace Corps volunteers I have seen were accompanied by a number of pressrepresentatives. Who was paying those press representatives and why?We are losing in Cambodia. The last thing we can get into our heads is to accept cultural exchangewith Asian nations at any level (we are too concerned with cultural exchange with “Russia”).The whole Buddhist world is dominated by a super-body—I met the leaders in Japan and Thailandand knew them in Ceylon, Malay, etc. Instead of having Buddhism taught by Buddhists, we haveeven accepted the findings of men who are not even scum. A Japanese spoke at a university on Buddhismrecently—everybody knew about “Buddhism” but when he asked where that “Buddhism”was practiced, what were the ceremonies and the organization, not one could answer. Fortunatelythey accepted him and applauded him. But this is not official.
- Page 98 and 99: Diaries 1963August 17, 1963Dear Sal
- Page 100 and 101: Diaries 1963September 3, 1963My dea
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- Page 104 and 105: Diaries 1963-2Scientific Ventures.
- Page 106 and 107: Diaries 1963-4I got in hot water du
- Page 108 and 109: Diaries 1963September 17, 1963My de
- Page 110 and 111: Diaries 1963September 23, 1963Bodhi
- Page 112 and 113: Diaries 1963-3angels. And maybe som
- Page 114 and 115: Diaries 1963October 5September has
- Page 116 and 117: Diaries 1963-2Reason for writing at
- Page 118 and 119: Diaries 1963-4In the few moments wi
- Page 120 and 121: Diaries 1963-2It is quite possible,
- Page 122 and 123: Diaries 1963-2While appealing for f
- Page 124 and 125: Diaries 1963-4And there is also the
- Page 126 and 127: Diaries 1963-2At the present time t
- Page 128 and 129: Diaries 1963-2.I have had some pers
- Page 130 and 131: Diaries 1963-4His whole institution
- Page 132 and 133: Diaries 1963-2Plans for Near East.
- Page 134 and 135: Diaries 196358 Harriet St.,San Fran
- Page 136 and 137: Diaries 1963-3Or again. Many Orthod
- Page 138 and 139: Diaries 1963November 9, 1963My dear
- Page 140 and 141: Diaries 1963November 11, 1963My dea
- Page 142 and 143: Diaries 196358 Harriet St., San Fra
- Page 144 and 145: Diaries 1963-3Alan Watts has been b
- Page 146 and 147: Diaries 1963-2But if USIA, Fulbrigh
- Page 150 and 151: Diaries 1963-3The whole Buddhist wo
- Page 152 and 153: Diaries 1963-2I have since heard th
- Page 154 and 155: Diaries 1963-2Milton Fireman has ru
- Page 156 and 157: Diaries 1963-2Well Krishnaji is not
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Diaries <strong>1963</strong>November 21, <strong>1963</strong>Henry Hazlitt,c/o Newsweek,444 Madison Ave.,New York, N.Y.In re: Does Foreign Aid Aid?Dear Mr. Hazlitt:This is, perhaps, the most important letter I have ever written to you and yet it does not needa reply. Yesterday I made the most vehement talk in my life and also got the best response, but thebackgrounds are more important than the ego.The immediate subject was whether we should give aid to India in its struggle with Chinaand a group of us who had been to Asia sat together for the first time at the luncheon of the WorldAffairs Council here in San Francisco. We had noticed that our views were similar and now we findthat our experiences are similar (a) having been to Asia; (b) rejected by our fellow-citizens who ignoreus and deduct from the press, official sources, etc., “popular views.”All of us have been to Pakistan. All of us have millions of dollars poured into that country forprojects which are going into disuse because there is no skilled labor to operate them. Letters to theAFL-CIO to use foreign aid to pay displaced skilled workmen to go to these lands both to maintainexisting structures and to train local workmen have been ignored.Visit to Atkinson which carries on the largest engineering project in Pakistan finds that an enormousamount of money has to be used to institute polytechnic training and even then one is not surethat men so trained—with the “foreign aid” money—will stay on the job. They could get better jobselsewhere. I have seen no evidence that either Mangla Dam in Pakistan or Assouan Dam in UAR isgoing to be a going concern because there is not available sufficient and proper skills to maintainsuch structures in view of numerous other projects going on.It is just two years ago when I was to Thanksgiving Dinner with all the “experts” we havearound Lahore, West Pakistan. I was the only one present who knew the history of the country. Ihad met one hundred times as many persons as all others present combined. But my presence wasnecessary because too many of them were employed by rival or overlapping agencies and weretherefore not on too good terms with each other.I won’t go over the personal experiences but if I were a poor observer, then were my variousassociates who had been abroad, and sometimes to the same places, but always with the same conclusions.I brought out two things in my speech: (1) That parts of the world which never in history belongedto any “India” have now been annexed to India and we are sending funds and men to defendthese artificial boundaries of a non-ally.
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