THE education of a ruling class (when it is at all educated) must be fundamentally different from that of the ruled- What is expected of thejn is vision, guidance, a sense of direction. The rest should follow, propagate the race, pursue profit and do an honest day's work.

Consequently, rulers should never have to compete in the market-place. The market does not reward the peculiar skills and knowledge they must have. The salary (and respect) that a history professor receives, for instance, can provide no incentive for a young leader to study the subject. Yet a statesman must learn useless things Me must know what Bismarck meant when he said. We shall not go to Canossa' As things are. he isn't likely to get a good job on the basis of such

erudition. Unless a statesman feels — and the stress is on the word feels — the truth of such remarks as "when the streets of Damascus were lined with lamps. London Was a village", he wouldn t feel that mystic union with Islamic history and comparative culture which must be his guide to the future of our nation.

The descent into the bazaar must be resisted with especial alertness when the buyer is a foreigner. The sight of a ruler selling out to a foreigner demoralises his people. Secondly, when rulers compete against each other for foreign laurels, the state is threatened. As a rule, when rulers compete.-the foreigner sleeps well; but when they compete on his terms, the foreigner snores! Laissez-faire

for hoi polloi. by all means, should be our slogan, but not for the best among equals.

One appreciates, then, why it was enjoined that a Mussulman should not did against another Mussulman. Envy and Jealousy, not camaraderie. are the diseases that faster in the market place. These are plebeian emotions, of which the patrician among us should be ashamed, for they strengthen the enemy.

Therefore, when, every year, the Economist magazine lists the top 100 British jobs and en gages in an orgy of self-disgust that most are filled by the Oxbridge set. we should not sympathise. We should admire the English for choosing the best to rule over them, rather than trusting the market to throw up talent into the slots. Now and then, -however, when talent presents itself, the patriciate must be quick to recognise it and seize it. Witness John Major. (A question-mark hangs over him. but the elite must take chames).

Unfortunately, the biggest market for every commodity, from ladies' underwear to Ph.Ds in economics, is the Western world. This results in a massive perversion of the imagination. Take art. for Instance. Dhaka was recently graced by the presence of an eminent Bangladeshi painter who had made it in Paris. I came across one of his paintings on the wall of a businessman's house. Neither he nor I understood it. yet them it was. If I could paint, one of my large-scale paintings. I'm sure, would show Mehmed the conqueror overcoming the last of the Byzantine emperors. Constantine Palaeologus. the latter fighting bravely to the end. That is art that both the businessman and I (and anyone familiar with Islamic or European history) can easily understand. Perhaps someone will commission such a work, or the government hold competitions on the theme with a lucrative prize for No. I — but I doubt it.

Yet the Japanese have enriched themselves by exporting everything to the West, except their pride. Surely there's a lesson In there somewhere. Or perhaps it's a question — what should be our attitude towards the foreigner?

Like the answer to all profound questions. It is simple once grasped, so it should not be easily forgotten. Our attitude towards the foreigner should resemble that of the highwayman. Me never asks, how can I ingratiate myself with this c)iap? Or. how can I earn the respect of that rich man? He merely

wonders, how can I relieve him of his. wallet? In our relationship with outsiders, we should emulate the professional indifference Of the looter, and remain equally impersonal. We shall christen this, the Japanese way

NOr should we feel guilty about the Japanese way. for this was precisely the attitude of the East India Company, as it is behind the market-opening manoeuvres of Mlckdy Kantor with respect to Japan, and as it was behind the oil-seek dispute between the EU and America last year. Everybody does it — except us.

A word of warning at this point is in order. In trying to rise above the market, the rulers risk themselves to the opposite danger : snobbery. Behind every snob, there's confirmed failure. In resorting to snobbery, one does not repudiate the market, but affirms it.. Only a decadent being will wish to adjudge himself a success or a failure. Having, failed, he'll take to sizing up people according to whether the colour of the tie matches the socks, the accent of their English, there taste in music, and every other superficial quality of the foreigner without his Inner virtues. And Such a ruling class will deserve to go — though unhappily it actually may not — the way of the French-speaking Russian aristocracy. or. more recently, the tuxedo-sporting Communist patrons of the Bolshoi, The Bangladeshi aristocracy — especially the so-called 'intellectuals' — are falrjy advanced down the decadent garden-path. led by you-know-who.

But what about the principles that should underlie the content of pur imports? If we are in danger of exporting our pride, then we are in danger of importing the idea that we deserve no pride. From the primary products of the marketplace — the glory of division of labour and the concomitant equality of all in buying and selling — the intellectual factories will make for. and the traders sell, us the finished products : a splintered vision and the doctrine of the equality of all men. But. in sooth, a whole vision will reveal that some pigs are more equal than others.

A splintered vision is a preoccupation with micro-issues, such as. gender, secularism, free speech, et cetera, et cetera. Intensive navel-gazing then leads to feelings of inadequacy : that women enjoy fewer rights here than in the West Germany is a secular country and ours is not. et cetera, et cetera, until, at least, the whole personality of the ruler has shivered into

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