This is by far the most rational, systematic and deep analysis regarding the strategic, symbolic and psychological importance of JF-17 for our national psyche I’ve ever read. And I’m genuinly grateful to Mangus Ortus Novem for not just bringing it forward as it is but also using it to firmly place our future developments within the framework of ongoing work on JF-17.
As Mangus Ortus Novem has shown that projects such as JF-17 design and development has over the years transformed our national psyche from feeling incompetent, dependent and as someone who would amount to nothing to someone who can make things happen even regarding the most complex technologies such as fifth-generation aircraft engineering.
When we are little and are unable to walk, our mind-body has no experience of walking. The act of walking or running is not stored in our mind and body, and is NOT something that we can actually do. It seems impossible. Since impossible is by definition something that we have not experienced as reality as of now and therefore has not registered it within our mind-body as something “real”. What is not real is also impossible for us to have, do, achieve or have mastery over. That’s how we experienced “what is not real”.
Same way, when we learn something say engineering and things seems impossible to master even after graduating from a reputable university, we find it impossible to ever be able to become competent enough to create something as advanced as the Western or increasingly developed Eastern world. This is because our mind-body does not have YET the appropriate inner experience of having the competency, confidence and previous experience ( in our mind-body) of having done something of that caliber. What we have not experienced, cannot create an internalized perception of reality for us and as a result to our unconscious appears something foreign, out of reach, impossible and unattainable. Since what we can attain in the future or what we can experience in the future comes from our experiences from the past. To quote Mangus Ortus Novem we have a hole in our unconscious where experience of such level of competency, achievement and sense of supremacy over the enemy does not exists. Or may be he meant something more profound which I am yet not wise enough to understand.
Design and development of the JF-17 along with our other successes is filling such a hole. As we move past from JF-17 to Azm, we will experience a new reality where even the most complex and unattainable becomes possible, leading us to experience power, control, agency and competency led confidence adding to our conscious and unconscious repertoire of self-empowering experiences and beliefs.
Outer growth will lead to inner growth. Though its better to first have inner freedom from self-imposed limitations and leverage that to achieve outer successes. But since we have never tried to free our minds first so that we could have achieved outer success that a free mind naturally attains (i.e. free from limiting beliefs). Therefore instead of working deep within and creating a free mind that is not bounded by our perception of other supposedly advanced countries perhaps by working on projects such as JF-17, we have taken the other route where we gradually work on external reality and based on our successes there, release the inner self limiting beliefs over time.
While Islam asks us to free up our mind and body from the self-limiting believes first and then go boldly for the impossible if rise of Islam depends on it, perhaps in our weak state of faith, its better to work gradually on complex projects outside and gain inner freedom over time based on successes achieved on such projects. Kind of atheist way to do it but still better than not doing it at all. At the end we will still have sufficient confidence and can do attitude to go higher in the future. May be one day we will be so liberated deep within that we will do it the Islamic way (i.e. engage on projects with absolute determination and can do attitude, mastering all that is required regardless of the complexity if such successful execution of such projects aids Islam)
Some Illustrated examples of inner freedoms are as follow;
Barrett Sniper Rilfe: Ronnie Barrett was an American photographer. He had no background in engineering at all. Yet he didn’t have any inner limitation. So he ended up creating perhaps one of the world’s best-known sniper rifle. We have tons of engineers and still due to our own inner limitations have not even tried to create something as well-known and as successful. Ronnie Barrett was NOT the genius nor was better in any way. He didn’t even have engineering expertise for God sake. Yet when you’re free within, you end up achieving without (i.e. in externa world) that you require for whatever purpose(s) you have in you mind.
Chinese Submarin US aircraft Carrier: US claimed that Chinese submarines are too noisy, easily detectable and pose no threat to Americans aircraft carriers. What Chinese did was simply to show them the reality rather than what their fan boys were trying to prove on the Internet. On 26th of October, a Chinese Song-Class submarine surfaced within five miles of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean, The carrier was surrounded by a dozen of ships in a protective formation, but nevertheless, the Chinese sub managed to slip through unnoticed. It came as a surprise that the Americans were unable to detect the lone submarine earlier, for their extensive defense screen included a submarine and anti-submarine helicopters, all responsible for protecting the battle group from an underwater attack. It’s important to recognize that those were very old technology Chinese submarines. The Modern submarines are far more advanced and far more capable. I guess certain Chinese forgot to accept the deep rooted inferiority complex that often is displayed by some around the world.
P.S. those like this china vs US debate this is just an example about something else and NOT a statement regarding who has better navy or not. I don’t care about that. What I have got to do with Chinese navy or US. Time has not stopped yet and world will exist in one or 2 decades later. We will see who is what then. Meantime I have no concern with US-china axis.
Germans after world war 2: after the World War II Germany was completely destroyed. Countless German woman’s were raped and millions of German scientists engineers and technicians were either forced to work for the Eastern Bloc in East Germany or were shifted to the Allied countries. Yet they went on to master the relevant science and technology once again, re-created the same number of scientists and engineers, developed themselves to the same level within two decades. Both Pakistanis and German have access to similar university courses, books as well as research papers. Pakistan may not be industrially developed yet but at least our engineers and scientists have the option of mastering theoretical, applied and computational science at the same level of expertise if they choose to or go even higher (e.g. attain superior mastery of abstract mathematics than German engineers). That is if they believe that they can attain the same or higher level of mastery that their Western counterparts have, they will attain it (and many of us do). I mean after all, every single book on fundamental science and engineering as well as covering the latest research is now available online and off-line. All we need is work on learning them with open and free mind. Yet somehow some people in Pakistan and within the Muslim world chose not to. They think and believe its impossible and try to convince others with the same. That primarily comes because of their own inner natural order of things that keeping them enslaved deep within their minds. That is most people believe that European and Americans are meant to rule the world and they are extremely uncomfortable if that order changes or even on such suggestions. This believe is unconscious off course (at least for many) yet they rationalize it consciously by arguing over it hours after hours, trying to impose it on everybody. They believe their own logic and think others can be convinced by it. They want that “order of things” to continue either because they have deep rooted inferiority complex in front of Europeans, and based on that inferiority complex they are more deeply attracted to their supposedly superior woman etc. while as a man surrendering to “European men” or they feel so incompetent deep within that they project that incompetence onto the entire non-Western world as whole. That is according to them Chinese or others will never be able to match the Western world as if it was the reality that is meant to happen. But technology has reached a point called inflection point meaning what was created in the past several decades, much more advanced will be created and achieved within the next decade. By 2030 we do not know who will be the most advanced in what area and who won’t be. We do not have access to such data related to specific technologies. Any analysis is projection of our inner believes and not reality. Making up things based on past projections is no longer valid.
Anyway the point here is not to compare Chinese with Americans or Pakistan with anyone else and so on but to point out that at least we Pakistanis can master at the same level of theoretical, applied and computational level in any field of science and technology if we let go of her inner self limiting beliefs and false “natural order of things”. That then can be leveraged to rapidly industrialized Pakistan. This is about Pakistan and not china or other Asian/non-eurpean nations.
We must also debunk western “clever ploys” which are used to keep and reinforced such limiting believes. For example there no such thing as IQ as an indicator of real human intelligence. IQ testing is based on Western schooling system where children are taught to solve problems in a certain way, then they test them based on those certain prior training. Obviously the child who has been trained to think and solve geometric, logical and reasoning problems will be able to perform well on IQ tests having such questions.
On the other hand in countries like Pakistan where half the population has never been to school and even more than half the girls never even attended the primary school, will not be able to successfully accomplish test for which they have never been trained for. They have the intelligence but lack the training. Not to mention our primary school curriculum and pre-primary school curriculum still lags behind at least in many government schools. So if you average out IQ over the children who never been to school and children who have been to poor schools naturally you end up achieving a lesser IQ rating. Furthermore most of these IQ were estimated subjectively by some people based on our industrial performance during 60’s when Pakistan was just few years old no industry what so ever. In reality Pakistani children are as intelligent as the most intelligent race of people in the world having even genome of such supposed races as part of their gene pool. if they are given the proper training first, they will do just as good if not better (since we in Pakistan have higher gene diversity which can lead to higher intelligence in general). IQ is NOT intelligence testing but testing of previous training and problem solving gained at pre-school, and late schooling.
Our brain is a self organizing system, meaning based on prior training, experiences and knowledge gained, our brain changes its neural architecture so that next time its more efficient on such learning and training tasks. If you have never been trained on such a task before, you will never do well because you have not gone to that brain structure transforming training suitable for such tasks . Brain is a neuroplastic organism and remain so throughout our life. its keeps changing its neural circuitry based on its learning experiences. Furthermore, the more it learns a certain kind of learnings say mathematical, it changes its structure so that it becomes much more efficient performer and learner of what it has been exposed so far (e.g. when forced to master mathematics, over time with helpful tutoring it self organizes to become good at mathematics, as long as it does not have inner limiting beliefs which may impede/slow down the required changes in the brain).
Meaning whenever we start learning something complex and we find it hard and yet continue to push ourselves to learn that complex stuff with learning aids (e.g. teacher, books etc.), over time our brain transforms itself to become that kind of learning and mastering machine specialized for such tasks and it becomes easier the next time we do it. In plain English our intelligence rises when we push ourselves long enough, learning a complex field of knowledge. We become smarter and smarter the more we push ourselves in learning more and more complex stuff.
As these examples illustrate much of the limitations lies within ourselves. We decide what we cannot do or can do. Yes Western countries do their propaganda try to make other people less intelligent, less competent and cherry pick their failures from their past in an effort to undermine their future growth but it’s our job to stand up against those false perceptions of reality and become something much superior than we ever been before.
It is done by boldly going for complex projects as PAF is doing. This is the right strategy.
So by all means what PAF is doing will gradually add to our external worldly successes and thereby shattering our inner self limiting beliefs over time. Which will lead us to achieve even greater successes much faster (i.e. so called law of higher returns applied here).
In my final comments I would say that Pakistani Air Force is truly doing one of the greatest service to Pakistan not just for our Armed Forces but most importantly in transforming our previously limiting sense of self into a more and more liberated inner self as a nation and even as an individuals. A self that is competent, capable, increasingly more confident and equally importantly has superior functioning and performance within our local geophysical reality.
Therefore such projects ranging from JF-17 to Azm have importance far beyond than just getting an aircraft. They are shaping Pakistan and Pakistani perception of reality as well as our sense of self (i.e. what we are, what we can be and what we will be).
If PAF had not decided to go for say project Azm at all and I had written here that with effort and some cooperation we can design and engineer a 5th generation stealth aircraft, people would have considered it be an impossible idea. Won't they?
SO such steps by PAF are changing the experience of impossible in our mind. That's perhaps is the most remarkable aspect of this whole thing.
So Thank you PAF. For serving and advancing this country of ours in so many ways. I and others too I am sure are genuinely humbled by such bold initiatives by Pakistan military.
