Assalamoulaykum,

We are happy to present you the ninth issue of our journal and newsletter Constellations. Click HERE to download.

Our central theme this issue is of war and peace, with dedicated pieces on: nuclear industrialisation, universalism and exclusivism, cultural schizophrenia, intra-community conflict and arms race.

The Ayman series continues with a feature on renewable energy and the environmental thread is developed through a poem from the point of view of a chicken, and an announcement of an exciting book on Islamic perspectives on Genetically Modified Food. The Iraq War series dwells on the politics of the war and the key individual players involved.

We have three interviews this quarter, to promote intra-ummah dialogue on issues of mature thinking on science, materialism and pan-Asian Muslim activism.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What is development?

• What are the impacts and traps of the development industry?

• What are the alternatives?

• I simply want to 'make a difference', not get caught in energy sapping discourse...
  

As a compound of development and dementia, the term developmentia challenges the ideology of development as a social good and makes the idiocy of the development industry clear for us in order that we act more wisely. It is a much needed idea in a world where costly marketing campaigns, political coercion and failures of imagination have dulled our abilities to nurture a world to His pleasure and conduct islah.

Developmentia has subjects and prosecuters but also intermediaries; those in its crosshairs, the developmented and  much mediatised beneficiaries. It describes a common institutionalised attitude that prevents actual improvement and selfhood.  Methods that it employs include; cooption of talent, manipulative science, suffocation through technocracy, resource wastage and strategic misdirection. It can be difficult to see as it is normally camouflaged as virtue.

Developmentia is not just about the development industry, it is manifest in fields of learning, war, governance, social work and religion. Since conception, IMASE and OtherAsias have pursued this as a joint initiative, bringing arts and science back together for enhanced creativity and scope.  At present the team is collecting eyewitness accounts of developmentia and creating visual resources.

The initial public face for the project is through the developmentia blog. www.developmentia.tumblr.com  Featuring a timeline, keywords, misconceptions and a reading list,  it is regularly updated with text, comment and multimedia, providing multiple points of entry to this work in order to bring about wider consciousness of developmentia.

If you have any experiences you think you might like to share with us, we invite you to get in touch.

Contact: fuad 'at' imase.org