Nobody lost a lot of sleep over the contents of the report, and no uncomfortable questions were asked of anyone either. The failure of naked human rights abuse in the world’s conflict zones and occupied regions to rouse significant concern shows how violence in the world’s conflict zones has become routinized in our collective consciousness. The world’s collective conscience is sensitized to human rights violations in places that routinely experience them.  This silence implies a tacit sanction of occupation and its accompanying practices and doles out licenses to kill for trigger-happy men in uniform that help to maintain an arbitrary hold on suffering populations. We accept the brutality that is the work of human hands and the expression of men’s lust for control, dominance, power as an indelible destiny that some of the unfortunate ones among mankind have to live with. And life goes on.

Mirza Waheed, a Kashmiri journalist and author of the novel ‘The Collaborator’ writes:

Brutalized people are made to behave normally as an acquiescent citizenry… The Indian State wants the world to believe that Kashmir is an integral part of India, and hence speaks often in the language of conquest. Dehumanized conflict management impinges upon the lives of ordinary people. This is a system that allows the executor to live in comfortable moral ambiguity, and wants the victim to renounce all claims to asserting his identity. This is what violence, torture, brutality are meant to do_ to reduce a person, a mind, a collection of minds to a spiritless body; the complete destruction of the will of the victim, which ensures a people are kept in submission and slavery…

While it is possible to understand and even perhaps empathize with victims whose interminable suffering kills their hope and gradually renders them numb and insensate to the blatant injustice that happens around them, this is not so easily condonable in the case of those who are distanced from conflict and watch it as third persons on television screens. The 60-odd years of the reign of terror in the Occupied Valley , the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the illegal detentions, disappearances and the Draconian laws to justify these and give cover to perpetrators; and most importantly the state’s refusal to bring violators to book are a damning sentence on Indian state policy on Kashmir. This is important particularly given Indian aspirations to regional dominance and permanent membership to the United Nations Security Council. These blood-drenched statistics  signify an irredeemable loss of India’s ‘high moral ground’ as an aspirant to global power and prestige.

It all adds up to a grotesque illustration of, and a powerful indictment on, the state of the world’s collective conscience and our failure to apply ethics to international affairs. The Kashmiri is doomed to suffer as long as ‘War on Terror’ realpolitik holds hostage universal ethics, human rights, justice and common decency. In the post-9/11 global dynamics, India has closely allied its Kashmir policy with the larger anti-terror narrative of the U.S by selling Kashmir as a classic case of ‘Islamic militancy’ and “cross border terrorism” against a Secular-Democracy, garnering the world’s sympathy and deflecting attention from its own dirty tactics. A world dumbed down by a media governed by corporate interests and powerful lobbies readily swallows the narrative, and Kashmir sinks deeper into oblivion.

The U.S has chosen to bury its head in the sand regarding Kashmir. This exposes the meaninglessness of its rhetoric of democracy, self-determination, freedom, human rights etc, and the sheer hypocrisy of its claim to higher moral ground. The global recession that has hit the U.S economy hard accentuates the importance of the Indian market for the U.S, underscoring the need for stronger bilateral ties. Keeping mum on Kashmir serves everyone’s interests or the interests of everyone that matters.

Pakistan, on the other hand, caught miserably as it is between a rock and a very hard place, has very noticeably loosened its hold onto Kashmir, with its focus shifted to its Western border and the bloody, nationwide fallout of its blundering into the northwestern tribal areas. The War on Terror has concentrated itself in Pakistani territory, with Pakistan desperately trying to play up to its “most allied ally” status while an increasingly suspicious, imperious United States threatens to “go it alone” as the trust deficit gapes wider.

Kashmir is the tragic casualty in the new alignment and dynamics in the subcontinent. Amnesia is imposed on Kashmir by India with tacit approval from the U.S, and pathetic, inaudible whimpers of discontent from a hapless Pakistan.

However, in a way, this new state of affairs comes with opportunity. Kashmir has previously been caught between a ceaseless tug of war between India and Pakistan with a terrible national egotism and ideologically loaded stances defining the narrative. With Pakistan loosening its grasp[3], the indigenous, homegrown Kashmiri narrative acquires greater authenticity. Kashmir emerges as an indigenous, independent struggle for freedom and self-determination springing out of its saffron fields_ regardless of Indian intransigence, Pakistani ambivalence and American caprice. Allegations by India of the Kashmir struggle being sustained by Pakistan have defined the Indian position on Kashmir and have been used to justify its highhandedness and its relentless militarism in the region. The theory loses ground as Kashmir emerges boldly as an independent movement of its own and on its own, in the face of Pakistan’s diminishing influence and national distraction.

It is this new, emergent trend that the occupier is frightened of and tries to eradicate through desperate measures: mass arrests, custodial murders, cover ups of evidence of diabolical deliberation behind all these. As India aspires to regional dominance and a permanent UNSC seat, it naturally has to be conscious of keeping up an image befitting of the world’s largest secular democracy that it goes about as. This requires gagging the voices from Kashmir and hushing up the noise made by human rights groups; it involves burying corpses in unmarked mass graves in the thick of the night, and whitewashing the blood stains.

India’s desperate strategy to crush the bolder, genuine Kashmiri counter-narrative is to create victims or potential victims out of all, using constant fear of the arbitrary occupier that creates a sense of helplessness destroying aspirations, hopes, courage; killing the resisting spirit and the will to act in defence. This impels the cycle of violence to continue endlessly and indefinitely, with little moral qualms given India’s powerful media and its global influence.

However, this false, dishonest, morally bankrupt narrative must be defeated by the Kashmiris through their stronger, deeper, genuine counter-narrative that goes beyond Indo-Pakistan conventional wrangling, beyond shifty and capricious interests of Someone Else, beyond cosmetic face-lifts by oppressor nations aspiring to global power, beyond spineless leaders and dysfunctional organizations:

“For me, what gives hope is the rise of more and more young people articulating their own narrative, their own experiences, their own policies…” (Mirza Waheed)

For someone as myself coming from a deeply fractured and messed-up society steeped in violence, unrest and social injustice, the material and moral ‘superiority’ of liberal-secular societies in the Northern-Western hemisphere is often referred to as an enviable standard and veritable benchmark. The reckless frequency of the usage of loaded terms like ‘advanced’, ‘developed’, ‘progressive’, ‘civilized’ for specific social contexts rooted in Enlightenment positivism suggests an unquestioning and facile acceptance of an ascendant social paradigm that draws power from the political-historical narrative — following the Fall of Egypt in Napoleon’s wars in the East — of the superiority of the post Enlightenment ‘West.’

Societies are shaped by underlying intellectual, philosophical and moral traditions that shape social phenomena and direct social change. The 18th century Enlightenment with its structuralist underpinnings is the predominant factor shaping the social lives of individuals in communities belonging to Europe and North America. The Structuralist sociological perspective conspicuously marginalizes non materialist phenomenological and interactionist elements of sociological thought and those that take a critical view of Structuralism. According to Structuralist-Functionalists, a consensus around values is vital for social order and stability. This implies general agreement among the large majority of the members of a society over its basic values. Speaking of societies in Europe and America, this stabilizing consensus is developed around Utilitarian values that promote ‘the greatest good of the greatest number’, while the Positivist-Structuralist premise defines this ‘greatest good’ in material terms — economic good, incomes, jobs, health insurance, education, benefits, pensions, etc. –the boons of the modern welfare state.

Structuralism, concerned with social structures and institutions rather than individuals, has an inbuilt majority-oriented outlook. What is ignored out of the neat formula for happiness is the not-so-great number of those who do not constitute the favoured and dominant ‘majority’ and therefore do not pledge loyalty to the values that create a system which does not offer them dividends in the same measure as significant others.

Consensus on values comes about when individuals benefit as members of a society and are socialized into it to the extent that they learn to desire only that which the society provides. However, the socialization process for creating value consensus is not always neat and perfect, and cracks do appear. In Utilitatian-materialist societies, economic crises, inequalities, etc. weaken the socialization process so that some individuals identifying themselves with minority groups do not rally around the society’s core values to generate the value consensus considered necessary for stability and order. Hence they experience alienation. Given the rising incidence of racial profiling and ethnocentric calls for ban on immigration by racist-supremacist groups like the English Defence League, the alienation gradually turns into an ‘otherization’ of members who do not smoothly and naturally merge into what is classified as the ‘majority’ — white, British, urban, middle-class.

The ethic of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ leaves marginalized minorities out of the bigger picture. This also explains the attempt by disgruntled minorities to make their sense of alienation be seen and heard by asserting it in spectacular ways. The unsuspecting shock and horror over the events also exposes the extent of unawareness of, and insensitivity to, the raw sentiment that festers in multiracial, multiethnic British society. Tony Blair in his article. “Good Headlines but Bad Policy” (The Guardian, August 21), carefully reminded us of the horrific events being the acts of a “minority”.

Without contesting this fact, it may be argued that the tenor and the overall meaning of the writer was a subtle trivialization of the tremendous street sentiment at the heart of which lies the deep social alienation, resentment and discontentment of a significant minority. In an attempt to salvage the narrative of the high moral ground of secular-liberal British society, the counter narrative of a marginalized and restive minority is slighted. While the ‘majority’ cleaning up the clutter, as Blair points out, reinstates hope, yet ignoring, trivializing or slighting the almost palpable existence of pent up frustrations among a sizeable section of British population is a grave mistake and shows we learnt little from the events.

However, even a Blair, desperately trying to save the face of British society, could not altogether brush under the carpet the real issues that stare Britain in the face: “the country’s problems stem from too many dysfunctional households… this is a phenomenon of the late 20th century. You find it in virtually every developed nation.” However, an insightful approach into understanding the collapse of the family in Western society and the discrediting  of the family as an institution is necessary, of which not much has been said other than attempts to highlight the general decadence and its origin in dysfunctional families. It has a lot to do with general moral decline and an inadequacy of the education process (whether by families or by schools) that carries the ideological baggage of positivist Enlightenment thought and has discarded the universal moral premise considered sacrosanct in traditional societies.

Saeeda Ahmad is an inspiring social entrepreneur and social activist in UK. As a Muslim, she looks at the riots with rare insight through her faith. She writes:

This year has indeed been a year of much reflection and big change in a very short space of time where civic participation, ethics, Islam, Muslims and many other things have affected us not just as British Muslims but Muslims internationally. From an Islamic perspective some of the key tenets in our faith can help understand the riots: Self accountability, gratitude, hope and aspiration, self responsibility, social and civic responsibility, Defence of others people and property.

These are subjects in their own right but need to be adequately addressed. A different poverty in the UK and in the developed world exists than that in poor countries. It is the poverty of spiritual values. In a developed secular country there may be a state that caters for people’s need. It does not replace the human requirement for accountability, hope and compassion towards others. The idea of ‘don’t worry, social services will bring you a meal if something happens to you (as long as you meet their criteria) doesn’t make me feel great and excited for my old age.

Also valuable is a critical outlook afforded by alternative social theory. Interactionists have something to say on the matter as they emphasize that the tenuous stability that Structural-functionalists imagine through the generation of value consensus is a blinkered view. Society is not an objective entity ‘out there’, nor is it a monolith. To understand that every individual relates to society based on his individual subjective social experience is essential. For those who lead wretched lives in the streets, Britain may not be the egalitarian welfare state committed to social justice even in the presence of voluminous statistical data to verify that. When this individual’s authentic subjective experience of society is slighted as an aberration and not understood as deserving of serious redress, it will seethe as frustration, anger and even violence.

Marxists offer an insight into the false and deceptive nature of Functionalism’s “value consensus”, which they see as imposed from above — from the privileged, empowered class. The compulsive acceptance of the same by the lower classes guarantees a perpetuation of the privileged status of the moneyed elite. The stability this creates is false, privileging a section of the society over and above another, creating an exploitative stratification. However, this will inevitably give rise to frustration and discontentment as “class consciousness” gradually develops. Any event, even small, may then trigger off a string of events till the false order collapses like a house of cards.

As an important ‘Aside’ from the sociological discourse the dramatic events stirred, mention must be made of the strong case for religious faith that has powerfully asserted itself. It perhaps lies beyond the pale of this debate but provides some important keys to a deeper and more insightful understanding of the issues at hand. When human life and human society is centred around the utilitarian-materialist premise that is the legacy of the Enlightenment’s positivist enthusiasm; when the resultant definition of happiness is considered the be-all and end-all of life, the lack of material security or a drop in material benefits takes away all meaning and worth from life.

A N Wilson, in an important article “Legacy of a Society that Believes in Nothing”, (The Daily Mail, August 13), mentions the case of popular British showbiz icons who, at the height of popularity, ended their lives out of a deep sense of inner emptiness and meaninglessness; he also comments on the morals of a society that reveres their degenerate private lives.

When it is understood that the truly valuable things in life are those you can never buy (in a cutthroat consumerist culture), deprivation, suffering and injustice seen as part of a larger Pattern no longer devastate and madden. They are gracefully accepted even as the right to protest and claim legitimate rights is asserted. This is what was so beautifully and powerfully demonstrated by Tariq Jehan, father of Haroon Jehan,  one of the Birmingham youth of Pakistani origin crushed to his death as he defended his people. Jehan’s simple yet resounding statement in the wake of his personal tragedy strikes at the heart of the matter. Until the secular-materialist pretense is shed off and the ascendant positivist underpinnings of society reassessed giving due recognition to the “feeling in the heart” and the “moral law within”, a true qualitative improvement and meaningful, all-inclusive progress in our individual and social lives will remain a distant, elusive dream. As Pascal said, “above the logic in the head is the feeling in the heart; and the heart has reasons of its own that the head cannot understand”…

The mass furore over the construction of a Muslim community centre blocks away from Ground Zero is symptomatic of a serious malaise. Public sentiment often manifests in funny ways, but what is worrying is that this has not very seriously bothered many of America’s stout guardians of values, its face-saving rhetoricians.

Protestors against the construction are not terrified by the prospect of bombs hidden away in the mosque’s secret chambers, but are offended by the symbolism of it, and this sheer audacity of America’s alienated Muslim minority.

The name ‘Ground Zero mosque’ is an inaccurate, exaggerated and dramatic construct indicative of the desire by some elements to exploit the widespread Islamophobia in the U.S in order to obstruct a venture essentially courageous and needful.

I say ‘needful’ because of its true symbolism that has escaped many who have been swept away by the tide of Islamophobia. If any community has borne the brunt of what happened on 9/11, it is the Muslims. Not only do they suffer America’s wars in tottering Afghanistan and devastated Iraq, but also the assault on civil liberties jeopardizing Muslim identity globally, Islamophobia in all its facets_ discrimination, racial profiling, stereotyping, bias and a sightless demonization campaign. The construction of an Islamic Community Centre could be America’s conciliatory overture to the marginalized Muslim community, its initiative to start the healing process. The Centre could function as a sacred space for a victimized community to work to restore its true image and ethos, to highlight the role and contribution of Islam in society, and to actively engage with the American community. The United States, priding itself for its liberalism, must yield that necessary sacred space.

President Obama’s outright support to the venture may help salvage his personal image among the Muslims, but it offers little consolation in the face of stark realities Muslims in America have to grapple with. A recent opinion poll shows over 53% Americans hold Islam in a very negative light_ and the government cannot shy away from responsibility for having contributed substantially through its propaganda machinery to rising anti-Islam sentiment in the U.S since 9/11. The American public is almost exclusively informed on national and global issues by influential media giants run by powerful lobbies. The indicators of rising Islamophobia in the U.S speak loudly about the media’s relentless campaign of dehumanizing and othering of the Muslim persona, and its failure to justly differentiate between a religion followed by billions and the actions of individuals in a particular context who claim to belong to it.

Even more telling is General Petraeus’s take on the matter. In his view, what makes the heinous task of burning scriptures worrying is its consequences that may threaten the U.S military abroad. By this logic, it is the consequences for men in uniform that render the act wrongful, not the act in itself; not the hurt this barbarism will wreak on the sentiments of billions of Muslims worldwide, not that this atrocity flies in the face of the most basic values of human civilization and violates the most fundamental rights of billions. Petraeus’s sentiment was echoed in what White House representative Robert Gibbs said of the matter: that ‘any type of activity that puts our troops in harms way would be a concern to this administration.’ Again, the reprehensibility of the act lies almost exclusively in the fact that it may endanger the lives of American troops. The logic exposes the narrow, narcissistic, nationalistic arrogance that puts the bloated Self over its perceived Other; that makes some lives more valuable than others, ‘óur values’ more inviolable than ‘theirs’.

There has been great concern and speculation in the U.S media over the death of an American soldier in the wake of an uprising in Southern Afghanistan sparked by the news of the 9/11 burning plans. The General shudders to think of what may happen if the images of burning sacred books end up being ‘used’ by terrorists to ‘incite violence.’ He forgets that it is not the ‘use’ of the resulting images that is the trouble, but the act in itself. And any Muslim knowing this could happen in the heart of the United States of America cannot but feel confounded over the state of a nation that allows that to happen.

The United States must stop presenting its warmongering as a result of misguided and ill-advised policies as if it were a clash between ‘our’ values and ‘theirs.’ It must get real and face the fact that it is not hated for its values, but for the lack thereof.

Petraeus enlightens with an analogy that the proposed act is like the Taliban’s, and that ‘The Taliban do the same (burn sacred books?!).’ This sweeping statement again takes as given the myth that the wars going on are about values, religions, scriptures and not policies. The Taliban’s fight never has been about American, Western or Christian values. The logic used here implies that if it was not for images being used to threaten American interests, deranged fanatics like Terry Jones may attack and insult what is most sacred to Muslim sensibility, stab in the softest part, strike where it hurts most and crush the very heart and soul of the world’s 3 billion Muslims! The Taliban may be a reviled demon everybody loves to spit on. However, by attempting to strike a comparison between this global enemy and the despicable lunatic from Florida, Petraeus makes the contrast in their respective moral standing only too obvious.

Because, for a Muslim who takes his religion seriously, it is inconceivable to desecrate or even disparage any religious scripture or symbol. It is a core Islamic belief to acknowledge the Divine origin of all revealed religion. The Quran says: “Do not revile those who they invoke apart from God.. .” (Surah Anaam, verse 108). Muslims_ or even the Taliban for that matter_ cannot by any means respond to Jones’s lunacy in equal measure for the demand their faith makes on them. The universalism and pluralistic vision of Islam originating in its basic texts revealed 1400 years ago sets a standard that secular, liberal American society would take ages to reach. The fact that it can allow sick-minded hate-mongers like Jones to not only exist in society but actually propagate and promote their devilish cult with impunity while conventional self-congratulatory lip-service to pacify a minority’s raw sentiments goes on in the backdrop, ought to explode the bubble of what the U.S ‘stands for’. It ought to lead to a serious rethink, for it is about the very soul of America.

Kadmon‘s comment is interesting and reflective of the mindset that prioritizes things on the basis of expediency, puts interest before rightness or wrongness — a mindset only too rampant in the kind of world ours is. I like her choice of words… ‘less righteous’ and ‘wiser.’ Lesser righteousness, it implies, is directly proportional to wisdom – the only wisdom known by the world out there, of course, being maximization of interests; ‘ínterests’, in turn, are defined by whatever accentuates national power and international clout. ‘All do good who work towards that end’ — making sure a lot of suspicion is not aroused for one’s motives, and rhetoric provides effective cover.

At times, however, the rhetoric too can do little to hide the crudeness, the brazenness, the bad taste. The official Israeli statement after the tragedy said: “Israel had no choice but to stop the flotilla from breaking the blockade…. While Israel was forced to take action in international waters, its actions are supported by international maritime law… personnel attempting to enforce the blockade were met with violence by the protesters and acted in self defense to fend off such attacks.”  Washington, not surprisingly, mumbled that it was ‘working to understand the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.’

What is visibly amiss is a reference to morality and to basic human values. What is absent is a consciousness of the fact that lives of real human beings was involved –both in besieged, oppressed Gaza, and in the ship that carried volunteers on an aid mission. What is absent is that same understanding Shakespeare expressed ages ago in his memorable lines:  “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Only the names and identities change, the roles switch, never the human essence.

In my study of International Relations (upper case), just as in my layman’s observations of contemporary international relations (lower case), I have always encountered a cold rationalism, a rock-hard empiricism, a lack of propensity for, and a sneering denigration of, the normative dimension. I have encountered, as Kadmon stated, an overweening emphasis on being ‘worldly-wise’ in the pursuit of selfish  (national) interest, and an unconcern towards the ‘rightness’ of an act. It is the way of the world, we are told. And it sure is. But the normative question of ‘does it really have to be so?’ is not asked. The rules have been set, compliance demanded.

As we grew more sophisticated and complexly technical in our theoretical groundwork and jargon, and as we devised fancier research methodologies, we convinced ourselves that to be authentic and credible, one had to be harshly amoral, ‘value-free’. This moral ambivalence or ‘neutrality’ characterizes International Relations discourse. It separates in most cases, raw fact from its accompanying context and deeper implications that emerge from the simple understanding that we deal with human beings and their lives, histories, cultures, attitudes and values. The flotilla attack is condemnable not because it was unwisely planned and unwisely executed, but because it was wrong. And it was wrong not because it was stupid, but because it was disproportionate, unprovoked aggression against virtually defenceless peace activists in international waters, and that it killed innocents who had no intent to confront and attack.

Kadmon’s stated cliché is the very heart of the matter.  

The ‘value-free’ approach to I(i)nternational R(r)elations has been standardized, and lies at the base of both neo-realist and neo-liberal approaches, think tanks, research institutes, opinion and policy-making circles that hold the strings, set the directions, orient policy, initiate and inform decision-making. Out of the many such entities dedicated to the dissemination of valueless International Relations, many happen to be run and influenced by lobbyists subscribing to the neo-Conservatist and Zionist worldviews.

The mainstream media too stems from these sources ideologically and otherwise. Roughly the same groups and individuals own it and set the trends that govern both domains. Care is taken to preserve an image of ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’_ euphemisms for the moral vacuity that gapes behind the coverage of international affairs by the popular news media. Objectivity and neutrality in the wake of blatant inhumanity, violation of international law, oppression and injustice is criminal; in fact, it is not really possible for a sensate human being to remain coldly ‘neutral’, and wherever one finds a decorous attempt at dispassionate ‘neutrality’, one smells prejudice and bias. You have to take sides when one party is the victim and the other the perpetrator, and the flotilla incident does not leave us guessing at all. You have to realize your moral obligation and your duty as a human being. You have to stand by the truth and not escape from your moral duty by claiming to be ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’.  Indifference and nonchalance in matters like this is tragic.

Media biases in covering the aid flotilla incident were glaringly obvious and have been highlighted by several independent writers. The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) expressed its deep apprehension and anger over the BBC coverage regarding the freedom flotilla. The BBC’s coverage of the event was clearly lopsided, and any fool could see that. The incident was portrayed as a sort of battle, an action-reaction phenomenon, not as piracy in the high seas, not as slaughter of peace activists in international waters, not as state terrorism. The official account of the Israeli deputy foreign minister was presented, which stated that the flotilla organizers’ intent was violent. Israeli spokespersons received ample air time to tell their side, while the counter argument was merely made mention of in passing. The viewers did not have versions to even choose from, so relentless was the assault on hearts and minds. The American mainstream media had a similar tenor. Not surprisingly, therefore, opinion polls show that nearly half – 49 percent – of likely U.S. voters believe that ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists were to blame for the deaths that occurred when the Israel Defense Forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last week, according to a new Ramussen poll survey. To set the record straight, one only needs to know that Israeli officials from the Israeli Defence Force had made clear their intent to thwart the passage of the aid flotilla towards Gaza. One only needs to see the bare statistics of the fatalities to know who was the victim and who the perpetrator.

This may have come to the fore this strikingly now, but the media biases in covering the Palestine-Israel conflict have been ever-present. The terrible plight of Gaza has not been adequately brought to light in its full intensity except in statistics quoted in opinion pieces on independent blogs and websites. Perhaps we have grown too used to the Palestinians in particular and Muslims in general being killed off like flies. It is nothing to be shouting about from the rooftops.

The ‘analysts’ and ‘experts’ on the Middle East, diplomats and heavily paid crisis managers too have not realized in full the gravity of the plight of the Gazans since the three-year-old siege with any zeal and commitment — too bored by now, perhaps, of this weeping sore of history since over sixty years. This plays right into the hands of political leaders who pay no more than lip service. U.S rhetoric on the issue has turned positively meaningless, utterly predictable and pathetic. Puppets and dictators installed throughout the length and breadth of the Middle East measure carefully what, and how much, is to be said or done for Palestine, maintaining a cautious balance on the tightrope — keeping their bosses in the U.S happy, not alarming Israel and effectively taming and toning down the public opinion of millions of frustrated Muslim masses at home. If that is wisdom for you, I wish we were a bit less wise.

The flotilla has brought into the limelight the shocking reality in Gaza the world has quite forgotten. The blockade cripples the lives of 1.5 million people of Gaza. While Israel maintains that basic needs are met with the aid supplies that Israel allows, the fact is that these do not meet even 20 percent of the populations’ needs. The result has been 80 per cent population living in abject poverty and misery, and hundreds of deaths from lack of medical equipment and other necessary items. Ismail Patel writing for Al Jazeera states:

 Never mind the fact that the blockade has been accompanied by near constant attacks from the Israeli army and navy, which totally eclipse any home made rockets from Gaza. The death toll speaks for itself, with four civilian deaths on the Israeli side and over 2,000 on the Gaza side since June 2007. This is not a just conflict between Israel and Gaza, it is an annihilation of one group of ill-equipped people by one of the mightiest armies in the world.

Israel has worked hard both through its ‘wise’ state policies of censorship, propaganda, blockade and its influential lobbyists all over the world, to keep the terrible plight of Gaza eclipsed from view. Israel’s allies have been willing accomplices. Amnesty International complained in its annual report for 2010 that the U.S. and members of the European Union had obstructed international justice by using their positions on the UN Security Council to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes allegedly committed during last year’s Gaza war. The rights group also accused Israel of continually violating human rights in the Gaza Strip. It cited Israel’s ongoing economic blockade as violating international law, leaving Gaza residents without adequate food or water supplies. (reported by Haaretz News Service, May 31, 2010.) If that contorted logic of ‘self defence’ for Israel is wisdom for you, I wish we were a bit less wise, and just a bit more righteous.

What makes the peace activists and aid workers on board the flotilla truly heroic is that they forced the world to look squarely at the plight of Gaza and managed to expose the ruthless ways of the occupier. They are heroic for their determination and resoluteness to challenge the brutal siege that makes Gaza what a journalist called ‘the largest open air prison in the world.’ What makes them heroic is their courage to confront the unabashed aggressor and through their personal sacrifice, to awaken the world’s sleeping conscience. They dared to confront the humongous Goliath with the conviction and moral power — allegorically speaking – of David’s lone slingshot. And just like that unequal confrontation eons ago in a distant history which, as later events unfolded, brought the mighty enemy to his knees, so will this little pioneering mission gather the unmitigated strength of humanity’s conscience and spearhead a formidable, global resistance from those who insist on retaining their humanity and defending their right to think, feel and act morally. Turkey has been jolted awake, and the world’s senses still reel from the shock of the brazen violation of law, human rights and basic morality that was witnessed. It will go a long way, to teach us that it is more important to be ‘a little more righteous’, and that this,  in fact, is the highest wisdom. As a friend wrote, ‘I can see the winds of change blowing.’

Jamshed Dasti may be just another ‘poor player strutting his hour upon the stage’, but he is certainly not an anomaly. He typifies a kind. He and the many others of his ilk who occupy the seats of power are mere symptoms of a deeply flawed, perverted, politically immature and democratically stunted order. Strictly speaking of technicalities, while the transparency of the elections that brought these to the fore cannot be doubted, the inadequacy of any ‘free and fair’ elections held in Pakistan or any other nascent post-colonial republic as an indicator of a ‘democratic’ set-up stands proven.

It is to be noted that Mr. Dasti had vigorous, almost audacious support from the ruling Peoples’ Party, unequivocally expressed by the Prime Minister himself. The inability of the system to cough up and spew out elements like Dasti, the bad taste of the average voter and the exposition of the abysmal state of our collective morality expressed through poor democratic choices is all there to see.

Ignorance and corruption that Dasti embodies defines the country’s political trends and leadership even as we still reel from a long military dictatorship and feverishly revel in the country’s first ever truly democratic and transparent elections and a much-awaited return to democratic governance. Understandably therefore, the current regime’s rhetoric is typically loaded with references and invocations to democracy in the midst of a torrent of crises emerging from neglect and myopia that cripple the common man. Critics of government policies are invariably dubbed ‘enemies of democracy’ by pathetically vengeful politicians clinging on to power that does not befit them.

Further away from home, it is again the democratic ruse that does the trick. Inept, corrupt, parasitic and weak regimes are propped up with support from powerful nations. Poor governance is invariably ignored while doling out millions of dollars of aid for ‘sustaining democracy’ — particularly if that ‘democracy’ happens to be docile to Western interventionist moves. Governments not winning favour with the West for resistance to interventionism, on the other hand, are condemned for undemocratic credentials.

Foreign aid to support fragile ‘democracies’ almost invariably goes no further than the pockets of the corrupt ruling elites and parasitic bureaucracies, hardly more than a minuscule fraction ever filtering down to the masses whose votes these ‘democracies’ claim to draw authority from. The donors in most cases, couldn’t care less, and make no secret of it. Similarly, a ‘lack of democracy’ is reason enough to declare a state failed, a rogue element unworthy of standing amidst the comity of the civilized. This very same ‘lack of democracy’ then becomes the grounds and justification for interference and intervention “for democracy’s sake”, meddling in domestic affairs and facilitation of destabilizing elements from both within and without, in order to secure regime change on more favourable lines.

Iraq and Afghanistan, being the two cases in point as sites for contemporary Wars for Democracy, are hardly the success stories of the Democratic Project the warmongers would have us believe. What we do have, however, are pro-U.S ruling elites on life support by NATO troops, floundering in the midst of an unruly, chaotic morass and increasingly proliferating resistance. The failure of the democratic project in countries ‘not democratic enough’ is rudely flung in the faces of the architects of war, making the global rhetoric on democracy appear facile and ludicrous. Yet we insist on chorusing the refrain, refusing to grow up and grow wise.

Given the West’s sanctification of democracy as the Greatest Good, and its self-righteously global imposition of Democracy with missionary zeal, it is rather surprising to know that a large number of political thinkers from the Western tradition have not viewed democracy favourably as a system. Plato believed that democracy of the vote was a self-destructive system because, as Will Durant interprets him:

The people are not properly equipped by education to select the best people and the wisest courses to take. To get a doctrine accepted or rejected it is only necessary to have it praised or ridiculed in a popular play. The crowd so loves rhetoric and flattery, that at last the wiliest, calling himself the ‘protector of the people’, rises to power. In democracy we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. The people blindly elect the lesser of two evils presented to them as candidates by the nominating cliques. To devise a method of barring incompetence and knavery from public office and selecting and preparing the best to rule for the common good_ that is the problem of political philosophy.” In our own tradition, we know offhand the verse by Iqbal that says something to the effect of, “Democracy is a system of government in which men are merely counted, not weighed.

There is also the more extreme sentiment on the other hand, of Democracy being denounced as outright kufr (disbelief) and a rebellion against God. Of late, with the rise of reactive militancy in the Muslim world, such sentiments have been exacerbated. Notwithstanding conceptual disagreement over what I think is a flawed premise, I do understand the reactionary nature of this sentiment vis a vis the United States and its allies’ brutal, relentless and uncalled-for exploitation and intervention in the affairs of the Third World in general and the Muslim World in particular — all in the name of Democracy.

Besides, the West has, quite untruthfully, presented democracy to be an exclusively ‘Western’ value which automatically makes the West more ‘progressive’ and ‘enlightened’ than the ‘Rest’, ignoring the undercurrents of liberal-democratic thought clearly identifiable in traditions and doctrines not entirely ‘Western’. So when Maulana Sufi Muhammad boldly stated that the democratic system was ‘Disbelief’, creating a furore in the length and breadth of the country, I was not really taken aback, though I would not really side with the Maulana.

That is because when I take an insightful look through the pages of Muslim sacred texts and early history, (precisely the first Islamic state that all Muslims look up to as the ideal to be emulated), I find values and principles that are curiously akin to ‘Western’ democratic norms and principles. I find it impossible to see the system of Islam as it were when first established, as an antithesis to democratic values. How could it be so when the values most fundamental to Islamic politics – social justice, equality of rights and opportunities, empowering the public voice, creating a participatory culture, to name a few — are common also to democratic theory? The prioritization of public welfare, human rights and justice that democracy emphasizes are more strikingly obvious in the narrative of Muslim history in its first few decades than in any other tradition.

It may be misleading to call the first Islamic State at Madinah a ‘democracy’, as the term in its modern context, originating in Western post-Enlightenment thought, cannot be patched on to an altogether different context, system and ethos. However, it is certainly fair and safe to say that the Islamic state includes in it aspects essential to democracy.

According to Khalid El Fadl, the concepts of rule of law and limits on authority in Islam ‘embrace the core elements of the modern democratic practice.’ He enumerates the following social and political values central to a Muslim polity laid out in the Quran: * Justice through social co operation and mutual assistance (Chapter 44 verse 13; Chapter 11 verse 119), * non-autocratic consultative method of governance; * institutionalizing mercy and compassion in social interaction (Ch. 6 v. 12, 54; 21:117, 27:77, 29:57).

He further states:  “Muslims must therefore endorse forms of government that promote these values… Several considerations suggest that democracy protects individual basic rights… and by assigning equal rights of speech, association, suffrage to all_ offers the greatest potential for promoting justice.”

This said, it is important to understand that despite embodying democratic values in essence, the Islamic system does not make an electoral exercise on a ‘one man one vote’ basis mandatory. Surprising as it may be, this periodic balloting exercise isn’t really the ‘point’ of democracy anyways – the ‘point’ being to empower the vox populi, to give socio-economic and legal equality and make the rulers accountable to the law and to the people. In the course of Islamic history, oftentimes voting was used to choose leaders or decide particular matters where recourse could be taken to garnering public consent. ‘Ruling by consensus’ is an unequivocal Quranic directive which defines Islamic governance. Rulers could not take office until the people’s representatives expressed loyalty to them ‘as long as they ruled by the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet (PBUH).’

However, there are some important distinctions from contemporary Western parliamentary democracy that need to be recognized:

a) the vote in most cases was not general but by a select group. This does not rule out general, open voting as ‘un Islamic’, but rather emphasizes the fact that the eligibility to vote rests upon the person’s ability (freedom to choose and understanding to make that choice on the right criteria). What counts is not the size of the voting franchise but that the vote ought to truly represent popular choice rather than be a democratic facade over a flawed, corrupt and stratified society. The people eligible to vote in the history of Islam truly enjoyed public confidence, were well-recognised, trustworthy and pre-eminent. Their associated tribes and communities reposed trust in them, and they acted with regard to the popular will invested in them. Therefore, though technically the exercise was short of a general vote as we know it today, it truly represented the people’s will. When the masses rise to the level of this high standard of eligibility through the achievement of a just, egalitarian society, general voting may certainly be the best measure of the public will. Before the level is reached, the holding of general elections may be more of a semblance of democracy to show the world than a real step towards democratic culture.

b) candidates eligible to stand for voting have to be chosen/selected either through nomination by the leader of the community or by the people of respect and eminence in knowledge, on the basis of their character, knowledge, ability, service to Islam and repute among the people. Putting oneself forth or voluntarily standing for election or any sort of canvassing is not permissible in Islam. This is in order to do away with elements who may seek public office as a convenience and privilege, a means for self-projection, popularity, etc. Islam understands the assumption of public office as not just a public trust but a sacred trust, a duty toward God, a responsibility, a position of intense scrutiny and accountability both towards people and towards God. It is a position of vicegerency to God and His Prophet (S), and considering what it entails, the earliest Muslims never coveted it. Rather, they shrank from the enormity of the trust. The Prophet (S) is reported to have said, ‘We do not accept for office one who covets it.’

c) Central to the Islamic understanding is the premise that ultimate sovereignty belongs to God, not the people. Apparently, here is a radical shift from democracy. While it is true that democracy accords such sovereignty to the people and so parts its ways with the Islamic understanding, yet the true nature of this Islamic principle of ‘sovereignty belongs to God’ is that absolute supremacy for the Law of Allah translates into dignity for His slaves through protection of rights, welfare, equality, justice which are the ultimate worldly aim of the Divine law. Hence, it is obvious that even in this case of a clear difference with democracy, there exists in essence the shared vision and mission of provision of rights, bestowing of dignities through equality and justice. The difference, however, is that while Western democracy invariably follows the popular will to maximize the ‘greatest happiness for the greatest number,’ in Islam the aforementioned values are a result of the establishment, through human effort and agency, of Divine Shariah Law, and are the means to attain His Pleasure in the life hereafter.

Back home, the quagmire of corruption, nepotism and injustice gnaws into our body-politic, this being to some extent a result of our superficial and narrow understanding of democracy as ‘the holding of elections’. The current regime, we know, makes a huge deal out of its democratic win which incidentally ended an era of dictatorship. The rhetoric of the most corrupt politicians is punctuated with references to democracy. The truth that we fail to understand is that democracy is a value more than a political procedure, and that the holding of free and fair elections is the culmination and natural expression of the achievement of a thoroughly democratic culture. It goes from down and then up, and not vice versa. Elections cannot be implanted from the top onto a corrupt, exploitative and deeply unjust system and democratize it magically. For a democracy to work, it has to start at the grassroots. However, letting the rotten system remain while we electioneer every few years will only bring forth, in a predictable sequence, those who can win the vote by throwing their weight about, demagoguery, influence, clout, intimidation or ingenious electioneering theatrics. Voting works to deliver an authentic democracy in a society where stomachs are full, fundamental rights respected, opportunities equally available on merit, access to justice for all, supremacy of law, accountability and the right to dissent.

In my country votes are still cast largely on the basis of filial and tribal ties, baradari system, bullying, or canvassing tactics. This immaturity is reflected in the win of the fake degree holder, Jamshed Dasti, to public office, and the unabashed support for him shown by the highest democratically elected office holders of the ruling clique, including the Prime Minister, himself. It is a mockery of the rule of law by the so-called representatives of the people. Our political immaturity is reflected in our thinking that it is democratic enough to hold intermittent elections. Electoral antics can wait till the task of nation building is achieved by empowering the truly worthy sons of the soil who are marginalized and unacknowledged for their failure to play along the devious ways of narrow electoral democracy.

But I can dare to hope and look forward to a gradual political maturation, the grounds for it being amply present in the phenomenal reinstatement of the judiciary not so long ago, by a massive civil society effort. The fiercely independent judiciary’s proactive role in erecting a system of checks and balances will hopefully go a long way to materialize a fairer socio-political order on the basis of stringent, indiscriminate accountability. A regime that resists this heartening change, defies and obtrudes it, in no way qualifies as a democracy. Realizing this means we take a step further towards that much-needed political maturation.

The Monster returns. He’s unconventional, though. Not with the horns and the fangs and all. But with dark circles, the sunken, dimmed eyes, the creased-up face with his advancing years, the silver in his hair. Sun-beaten, sun-worn, threadbare — my definition of the Monster. The definers have hammered the definition on me with authoritative finality. I succumb — like everybody else. I ought to believe he is dangerous. I am supposed to condemn him, get frightened of him, loathe him, spit in his face, and righteously pronounce him horrendously sinful, perverted, hideous, damned, hell-bound, with all the wealth of jingoistic and religious rhetoric at my disposal. I cannot but obey. I join the chorus. Like everybody else.

And I kill me softly. I stifle the human essence, the still small voice that resists. The voice that questions. The militant voice — always politically incorrect. It questions ‘why?’ It does not allow me the comfort of following the crowd and biding my time. It discomforts me with the instinct to seek out the answers for myself. It makes me wonder why I have to buy the definition and believe that the pathetic grey man was a vile monster. It makes me wonder why, after all, he was a monster, perhaps — or so it seems?

I do not judge. I do not allow myself the terrible privilege. I just wonder, and want my right to ask questions. I want my right to feel, to understand. I want my right to be and stay human. And I simply wonder what went wrong…

In 2001, when the United States pounded Afghanistan with their firepower just across the border on a flimsy pretext, my people here in Pakistan were hurt too, because the national boundary running through the northern tribes does not cut across eon-old tribal affiliation. With the Pashtuns on the other side of the Durand Line under occupation, the Pashtuns on this side considered it a tribal obligation and religious duty to assist. That is the ethic running in the blood of the Pathans — the ethic they grow up with, just as their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers had grown up with it. You cannot hope to extort it from the hearts of men. The freedom they prize is a treasure they would not give up for the world. This fierce defence of their freedom is something you simply cannot hope to extricate. Not with all your arsenal, your marines armed to the teeth.

The United States and its ‘non NATO ally’ failed to understand this simple truth. Afghanistan bled, and Pakistani tribesmen, those once-upon-a-time heroic sons of the soil suffered with it. Yet we did not fall to brutalizing each other. The myths, on the other hand — Terrorism, Extremism, Fanaticism, Fundamentalism, Enlightened Moderation — continued to proliferate, and the Great Fiction encroached upon sanities. Yet we did not fall to brutalizing each other.

Till, a couple of years down the line, the Former General imperiously ordered an operation in Waziristan. It came to pass. In the thick of the darkness, in the hush of the night. The country taken by surprise. In clandestine moves, the trigger-happy military men advanced and we waited with bated breath. The usual collateral damage. Men, women, children, masjids, madrassas, schools, earthen huts. With a fell sweep, on orders of a Dictator. We still did not fall to brutalizing each other.

Things took their logical course and the resistance began. A Pashtun resistance. Earlier, aggravated by their country’s alliance with the US and the establishment of American military bases in the north to assist the NATO-sponsored slaughter and occupation in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns had expressed resentment. Their government had refused to budge. Now, they were cannon fodder, officially. And for Somebody Else’s interests.

Faced with a guerrilla resistance in a rugged terrain by ruddy mountain dwellers imbued with the tribesman’s fighting spirit, the khakis were in a quagmire soon enough. To save face, and the little that was left, they sought reconciliation with the irate tribesmen. It materialized, with pledges on both sides — the tribesmen agreeing to put down arms and let go the foreign militants (stationed in Pakistan ‘officially,’ and by Washington’s invitation, since the Soviet-Afghan war); and the Army agreeing to end the operation. We dared to hope.

Till the drone zeroed in on what we call Sovereignty. And on human lives — madrassas, schools, wedding parties, followed by official apologies for ‘misguided missiles’ or ‘intelligence failure.’ Collateral Damage. Full Stop.

In 2006, before the TTP (Tehreek Taliban Pakistan) was ever heard of, right after a successful settlement between the government and the tribal leaders which promised a durable peace in the restive north, American UAV ‘drones’ battered a village searching ‘militants’, leading to several civilian deaths. And so the talks derailed, the guns were picked up again. With blessings from Washington. The TTP raised its head shortly afterwards — a group much more militant and even violent in character than the original Afghan Taliban of yore who do not very proudly profess association with these Pakistani neo-Taliban. The TTP was a child begotten of the vicious cycle of violence and injustice.

The Pakistan govenment’s complicity in the intermittent and incessant drone attacks is poorly disguised by pathetic foreign office spokespeople. First there were the official apologies. Then, the flabbergasted attempts to explain the bloody ‘deal’. And soon enough there were none. Just the raining missiles and the human mincemeat. And handshakes and high-profile visits.

But the victims do not forget their dead. They are not taken in with prettily phrased official apologies which cannot bring their dead back. The hurt festers. It turns poison. It maddens. It dehumanizes. It turns men into suicide bombs. It makes life pointless, worthless. It makes the world a cruel, hateful place. It ignites the sense of honour and incites a burning revenge. And it makes my maddened countrymen, brutalized by unashamed tyrants, fall to brutalizing one another.

And it is as simple as that.

Blending into the chorus, soaking up the definitions, the headlines, the jingoism and the propaganda, the simple fact gets lost somewhere in the morass of our sensibilities. We righteously condemn, we judge, we toss our heads from side to side with disapproval and nod it up and down in assent. Just where and when we are wanted to. And we harden up to this simple fact, failing to understand. Failing to question. Dehumanizing ourselves.

Journalist Hamid Mir recounted his firsthand experience of visiting the injured in a primitive hospital in Waziristan after a US airstrike. A young boy, having lost his limbs, informed that his mother too had died in a similar attack, and that, in her dying moments, she had instructed him to avenge in Islamabad — where the decisions to maim and kill are made — what was done to her in Bajaur. Years later, his elder brother was caught in Islamabad attempting to blow himself up in a high-security area.

It is as simple as that. It is, plainly, human nature distorted brutally out of shape. It is, plainly, the work of our own hands. And it shall come to pass.

A ‘Winter Soldier’ working for the US Army in Iraq decided to quit the job, among several others like him. Addressing a meeting of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, he said: ‘Let me reverse the equation for a while. Let me ask you, that if a foreign force was to land in America on the excuse of democracy or freedom or whatever it may be, would not every patriotic American come out of his house with a shotgun? Would we not resist? What would you do?’ His voice trailed off in the midst of uproarious applause.

It is as simple as that. It is about being able to reverse the equation, and asking oneself ‘what would anyone do?’ It is about overturning the definitions and refusing to buy the propaganda. It is about refusing the official amnesia imposed on us all.

And it is not about Islam. It is not about an ‘Extremist Ideology’ out there to take you over by storm. It is not about monsters and demons. It is not about bloodthirsty suicide bombers with an inbuilt genetic drive to bomb the hell out of you. It is about human beings like you and me. It is about human beings horribly gone wrong. It is about the sinned-against who become sinning in this dreadful mire of poverty, disease, lawlessness, corruption. It is about naked, barbaric injustice and oppression. It is about human beings being made ‘as flies to the wanton boys.’

And it is as simple as that. As simple as Newton’s third law of motion. An equal and opposite reaction. To every action of ours.

So I refuse to sit in judgement. I refuse to self-righteously condemn. I refuse to sing along. And I demand my humanity, my right to think for myself, my right to question, my right to reclaim the Truth. ‘And if anyone of you would punish and lay the axe on the evil tree, let him see to its roots. What judgement would you pronounce on him who slays in the flesh and yet is slain in the spirit? And how persecute you him who is a deceiver and oppressor and yet in himself is aggrieved and outraged?’ (Kahlil Gibran).

I stand the risk of being misunderstood and misjudged. I do not condone the ongoing violent attacks in civilian areas all over Pakistan which victimize innocents. I cannot possibly justify them, nor can any human being in his right mind. But I think I can understand why. I can dare just that much.

And this understanding is important. Because it is through understanding that you reach the heart of the matter, and it is reaching the heart of the matter that you find the solution and begin the healing process. And the heart of the matter is the simple truth about human nature. The heart of the matter is to understand. The heart of the matter is looking to the roots. It is as simple as that.

To begin the healing, we need to set the record straight that this war never was ours, and that the critical transition from ‘theirs’ to ‘ours’ is the triumph of the mighty empire that seeks to export its wars to lands it can buy over with a few billion dollars. We need to face the wrongs we have done. We need to realize that there is no profit in the billions made out of the blood of innocents. We need to realize that violence begets violence. We need to realize that we willed this all, and that ending this vicious cycle of violence is our responsibility, because ‘a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent assent of the whole tree. So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong but with the secret will of you all.’ (Kahlil Gibran).

We need to realize that armies and weaponry can never win this war — just like it never could in Vietnam, or in Iraq, or even in Afghanistan. And we need to realize that it is never too late or too impossible to sit down and talk things out with your own people, no matter how alienated they are. The troops must be withdrawn, the operation must end and we must get talking. These aren’t monsters, these were my countrymen, and it is never too late to get talking — only my enemy would tell me otherwise.

There isn’t another way. The other option is to let this madness go on, making madmen of us all. The other option is the madness turning visible in all the horrors of spiraling violence — bombs going off in the midst of my thriving cities, the gored flesh and the pools of blood, the gripping fear, the haunted, deserted roads. Just like the death and destruction reigning the dirt-streets of some unnamed village in Waziristan. It comes full circle.

Every bomb going off adds to the horrible, crippling Terror that sinks into my bones. The fear and hysteria is of far more import than the death and destruction. When I am frightened to hell, I am easily manipulated, and when I am easily manipulated, I am owned, controlled, made to do what Somebody requires of me. I lose my sovereignty, my identity, my everything. I become the etherized patient spread over the operating table. Somebody Else’s operating table.

And every bomb going off strengthens the case of the Somebody Else who tries to tell us their war is ours, and that we must do their dirty work and shut up with the billions of dollars of aid doled out. Every bomb going off will be quoted in Somebody’s speeches, telling us with triumphalism and authority how terribly important it is for us to stay the course, to keep on this self-destructive path. It will keep us terrorized so Somebody can promise us security with his Blackwaters and Dynacores. It will keep us impoverished so Somebody can win us with promises of aid. It will keep us enslaved so Somebody can convince us only they can truly liberate. And it will keep us repeating the old refrain: ‘Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, and War is Peace.’

It is as simple as that.

This ongoing crisis of sovereignty became critically intense when Pakistan, following the September 11 attacks, allowed the United States to conduct military operations in Afghanistan from Pakistani territory and dramatically increased the influence of the United States over national policy making, against the popular will. According to Ajay Behera writing for The Hindu, “Such developments have led to a dilemma regarding a clash between Pakistan’s national security policies and its very sovereignty. This development, however, is entirely self-generated,”¹ as a result of critical foreign policy choices made by the Musharraf regime after 9/11.

Musharraf, flaunting his ‘moderate’ and ‘progressive’ credentials, wanted a pretext to break free from the country’s ties with the Taliban regime, and , at home, with Islamic groups hitherto supported and sustained by the military and intelligence. 9/11 provided Musharraf with the pretext to achieve this by force and with support from the country’s Western allies and its secular-liberal elite. However, while this was to be done in order to restore sovereignty ‘for the supreme national interest’, in actuality it undermined the internal sovereignty of the state. Pakistan’s engagement in the US-led War on Terror and its operation in Waziristan leading to civilian damage was widely opposed and decried for being done under ‘diktat’ from the United States.

The War on Terror came home, but was seen as America’s war imported to the country by a sell-out pro-Western regime. Regular drone attacks by American spy planes resulting in huge collateral damage reinforced the image of the US as “an ally with a predatory footprint on sovereignty… The US-operated drone has become a powerful symbol of US violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity.”² A backlash from the fiercely independent tribal areas began, engulfing the entire country, with suicide attacks and targetted hits on security and law enforcement agencies. In the midst of it all, a clumsy, failing government seemed utterly helpless to stem the tide, at best ‘looking Westwards’ for assistance in doing the West’s ‘dirty job’. Pakistan was at war with itself, its very sovereignty and national integrity at stake. It must be added, however, as Ajay Behera wrote in 2002, that the situation is inherently paradoxical, as “Pakistan has been forced into this situation by the Americans, yet it depends on their support to overcome it… While Pakistan tries to restore its internal sovereignty from the militants, it is gradually losing its external sovereignty to the United States… And, as the state is perceived to be losing its external sovereignty to the US, anti-US and anti-ruling class feelings are bound to grow. Pakistan’s self-generated dilemma will persist.”²

The United States needs a rethink on policy vis a vis Pakistan, disassociating it from its strategy in the occupied state of Afghanistan. If the United States truly wants a stable Pakistan, as it has claimed too often, it needs to look for options that respect the sovereignty of the country and take into account public unease against alliance with “a partner that makes a target out of another partner.”² Carrot and stick tactics do not work, and the massive public disapproval of US aid through the Kerry-Lugar bill should send that message to Washington. Washington’s policies have invariably centred around sitting regimes, the military and the intelligence, which is one reason that explains public disquiet over alliance with the United States. With all the frills and flounces of a ‘change’ in policy towards Pakistan, none seems to be on the horizons any time soon: “For now, the broad dynamic of seeking a partnership on strategic goals with reference to terrorism remains the same as under Bush. It remains driven by military tactics and the diplomatic management of negative outcomes… the Pentagon still remains the font of policy planning as well as execution.”² The war in Pakistan, however, is not winnable by military might_ just as it never was winnable in Vietnam, or Iraq, or in Afghanistan.

There are lessons, on the other hand, for policy makers in Pakistan. To rescue diminishing sovereignty, the ‘democratic’ representatives of the people must realize that true sovereignty, (in its temporal aspect), in any democratic state, resides in the people, and that public sentiment must be taken seriously. The spontaneous outpouring of public anger over the government’s role in the War on Terror expressed during the visit of Interior Minister Rehman Malik to the International Islamic University after a terrorist attack should be a wake-up call. Pakistani leaders need to see how the Kerry-Lugar Bill is in fact a litmus-test for the state’s representatives to salvage its threatened sovereignty. They need to rise to the occasion and reject the unpopular Bill with a single voice to “prove their worth as people who are capable of promoting and protecting the interests and dignity of the citizens of the country. Otherwise, whether democracy or dictatorship, Pakistan’s parliament is merely a rubber-stamp which follows the will of a handful of individuals who exercise their authority overlooking constitutionally defined institutional mechanisms.”³

To surmount the challenge to sovereignty, we need to redefine it and see for ourselves where it truly lies. Does it, as Washington’s neo-imperialists would have it, lie with the most powerful in might and main in the global arena, legitimizing military adventurousness and aggrandizement? Or does it, as our own ideological guides would tell us, lie in honouring and living by the ideological premise that defines us, and in empowering the people to whom the nation belongs? It is in reaching our answers through the signposts all along history’s boulevard that hope for winning back true sovereignty lies. We have arrived at the crossroads, where the ‘two roads diverge in the wood’, and the fatal choice confronts us. It is to be Now or Never.

1. Ajay Behera, ‘Pakistans Dilemma’, The Hindu, May 22, 2002.
2. Sherry Rehman, The News, May 14, 2009.
3. Nasim Zehra, ‘Kerry-Lugar Bill: A Critique’, The News, October 17, 2009.

With all the talk of the Clash of Civilizations, the need for an alternative paradigm which does not use a fallacious abstraction as a justification to extend power and influence is underscored. With the current state of things as they stand, we may be moving towards the clash that Huntington predicted, but the understanding that such a clash is not inevitable, and that it does not have to be so, is extremely important. Such a clash, if approaching, can and must be prevented. There is need for understanding, co operation and dialogue on both sides. Unity and tolerance for each other, respect for cultures or religions that may be different is required. Intellectuals, writers, scholars, academics, the media and political leadership have a very important duty to highlight the grounds for co operation between cultures and civilizations.

This said, however, the imperatives of a successful and effective framework for dialogue between civilizations must first be established, otherwise all attempts to create an alliance between civilizations through dialogue will be little more than chasing an illusory ideal. Dieter Senghaas points out the flawed strategy in contemporary attempts at bringing civilizational representatives to the talking table. He contends that participants in the dialogues sponsored by the West (as in fact all dialogues have been, so far) are not true representatives of the sides to the conflict. Particularly, Muslim representatives in the Dialogue are almost invariably those of the West’s choosing — believers in a ‘moderated’ Islam which does not enjoy any sizeable following in the Muslim world: “On the whole, the Muslim participants are not hard-boiled representatives of Orthodox Islam. They are all the representatives of a ‘modern’ Islam (whatever that means).”³ On the other hand, Senghaas notes, Western participants are rather naive and unaware of the Muslim standpoint, with little to offer. Such a dialogue, as Senghaas terms it, is ‘intellectually exhausted’, leading to a dead end.

Another danger the West needs to guard against for a genuine dialogue between civilizations is the belief in one’s own culture to be essentially unique and exclusive. The West must pull itself out of the Cold War mentality of creating and bloating up enemy images in order to direct an ambitious foreign policy at an adversary — real or imagined. The West should reject attempts at demonization of the enemy and understand that its version of modernity cannot be imposed on the Muslim world. It must allow other communities to develop according to their own orientation and essential values. Besides, the West must engage with authentic, popular representatives of the Muslim world: “An intellectual debate should rather be dealing intensively with the concepts of the democratic representatives of the Islamic world… How do writers, scientists, politicians, the representatives of social and especially religious groups envisage a desirable political constitution for their increasingly complex societies?”⁴

On both sides of the current divide, voices of conciliation, tolerance and peacemaking need to be empowered over and above the call to isolate and avenge. Religion has a very significant role in the process of reconciliation. A number of religious personalities, scholars, organisations and institutions are engaged in the task of reconciliation, peacemaking and rapproachment through religion. However, their contribution and potential has largely been unacknowledged and unrecognized: “We do not know most of these people, nor do we understand their impact, because we in the West have had a tendency in the modern period to view religion as only the problem in the human relations of civil society, never part of solutions.”⁵ However, it is also true on the other hand that religion is also misused for generating violence, hatred and conflict. Religion, therefore, has the potential both for peacemaking and conflict resolution as well as violence and conflict. It is the peacemaking and conciliatory role of religion that ought to be highlighted and emphatically asserted, through interpretation of the sources of religion:

At the end of the day, it will come down to interpretation, selection and the hermeneutic direction of religious communities. That, in turn, is deeply tied up with questions of the economic and psychological health of their members, the wounds of history, and the decisions of key leaders to direct their communities’ deepest beliefs, practices and doctrines towards healing and reconciliation or towards hatred and violence.⁵

This can help create a global civil society based on the sanctity of human rights and the necessity of conflict resolution. However, to truly accord that position and role to religion, it must be learnt that “Religion does not kill. Religion does not rape women, destroy buildings and institutions. Only individuals do those things.”⁶ This is particularly true for the West to understand in its perception of Islam which has, unfortunately, plummeted sharply after September 11, 2001, bringing the prospects for a clash closer. Instead of viewing violence as an intrinsically ‘Muslim’ phenomenon, the West needs to take responsibility for ill advised policy victimizing Muslims that has raised apprehension and mistrust in the Muslim world.

In his speech at the ‘Dialogue Between Civilizations’, President Khatami spoke of Islam’s role in peacemaking and arbitrating between civilizations:

I should also highlight one of the most important sources that enriched Iranian thought and culture, namely Islam. Islamic spirituality is a global one. Islam has, all through the history, extended a global invitation to all the humanity. The Islamic emphasis on humane quality, and its disdain for such elements as birth and blood, had conquered the hearts of those yearning for justice and freedom…⁷

Several writers and intellectuals throughout history have recognized the extraordinary potential of Islam as an arbiter between civilizations through its emphasis on equality, justice and brotherhood that goes beyond all distinctions of nationalism, race or creed. According to H.A. R Gibb:

But Islam has a still further service to render to the cause of humanity. It stands after all nearer to the real East than Europe does, and it possesses a magnificent tradition of inter-racial understanding and cooperation. No other society has such a record of success uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavours so many and so various races of mankind … Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of East and West is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition. In its hands lies very largely the solution of the problem with which Europe is faced in its relation with East. If they unite, the hope of a peaceful issue is immeasurably enhanced.⁸

Ample evidence for the aforesaid is present in the sources of Islam. According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet (PBUH), in his Last Sermon made to the entirety of his living followers at that point in time said:

O people! Verily, Allah says, ‘O mankind! We have indeed created you from a single male and a female, and then We made you into nations and tribes so that you may recognize (or identify) each other. Indeed, the most honoured among you in the Sight of Allah is the one who is the most righteous.’(In the light of this verse), no Arab has a superiority over a non Arab, nor does a non Arab have any superiority over an Arab; and a black does not have any superiority over a white, nor is a white superior to a black, except by one thing: righteousness. Remember, all human beings are the sons and daughters of Adam (A.S), and Adam (A.S) was made from dust. Be warned! All (false) claims of blood and of wealth are under my feet.⁹

The huge stumbling block towards an understanding of Islam as an egalitarian, emancipatory, humanistic tradition in the West is the Orientalist lens with which the West has always viewed Islam. Due to a very flippant, superficial understanding of it, violence in the Muslim world is seen as intrinsic to Islam and Muslim society, while the role and responsibility of the West in provoking militancy through its policies is overlooked. This mindset becomes obvious in the Palestine-Israel conflict, a weeping sore in the modern world which embodies in itself all the prejudice, misunderstanding, hate, mistrust with which human beings have viewed others on the basis of difference in religion or race or country. Karen Armstrong states,

It is not sufficient for us in the West to support or condemn parties to the conflict. We are also involved and must make our own attitudes our prime responsibility… Crusading is not a lost medieval tradition: it has survived in different forms in both Europe and the United States and we must accept that our own views are blinkered and prejudiced. The prophets of Israel, the parents of all three faiths, proclaimed the necessity of creating a new heart and a new soul, which was far more important than external conformity. So too today. External political solutions are not enough. All three of the participants in the struggle must create a different attitude, a new heart and spirit. In the Christian West we must try to make the painful migration from our old aggressions and embark on the long journey towards a new understanding and a new self.¹⁰

Overcoming this stumbling block requires acknowledgement of the West’s debt to the Orient and to Islam, and reaching the realization that Islam in fact is central and not extrinsic to Western civilization. In his speech to the Muslim world, U.S President Barack Obama mentioned Europe and America’s debt to Islam:

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar University — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, ‘The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.’ And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States.¹¹

The West needs to reinterpret history and do away with the narrow, parochial understanding of an exclusively ‘Western’ individualism that its history celebrates. It needs to acknowledge the debt, for only through that will mankind be able to seek the common thread buried beneath the morass of clash and conflict. Effort needs to be made to create the realization in the Western mind, of the historically attested fact that “The Western heritage is not simply Judaeo-Christian, but rather Judaeo-Christian-Islamic. Islam belongs to the same Abrahamic family of religions as Judaism and Christianity, and modern Western civilization has inherited a large part of Islamic intellectual and scientific culture.”¹²

The task ahead is to overcome the stumbling blocs in order to acquire a balanced world view, through which to strive to reach a middle ground on the basis of a system of sharing, exchange and intercultural communication between civilizations on an egalitarian basis. At the heart of the process is the understanding that we may be different, but we also share our humanity, and must make the most of this shared, indissoluble bond.

This does not mean, however, that personal identities ought to be diluted, distinctions erased, barriers eliminated. That is neither practical nor advisable. What is needed is a delicate balance between civilizational (inclusive of religion, culture and all other identities short of singular humanness) and human identity. Edward Said reiterated the same concept when asked what commonalities can unite the human race:

There are already commonalities that need to be recognized. I do not, however, suggest that differences should be eliminated. Things cannot be flattened out and homogenized. However, the other extreme is that everything is clashing. I think that is a prescription for war, and Huntington says that. The other alternative is coexistence with the preservation of difference. We have to respect and live with our differences. I do not suggest a unified, simplified, reduced culture, but the preservation of differences while learning to coexist in peace.²

The potential and promise of Islam in fostering the ‘fraternity’ or the ‘alliance’ between civilizations is immense, as in fact, Islam has achieved this tremendous undertaking at several high points in its history. Spain under Muslims is an ideal worth emulating. Malaysian Professor Osman Bakar states,

Was not the civilization built in Spain by Muslims, Jews and Christians under the banner of Islam a universal civilization? A number of Jewish and Christian thinkers think so. Max Dimont makes the remarkable claim that the Jewish Golden Age in the medieval period coincided with the Golden Age of Islam, thus implying that what Muslims, Jews and Christians had built together within the Islamic civilization was truly universal in nature. There exists among some European scholars nostalgia for the Andalusian culture and civilization. They wish to return to the universality of Andalusia because post modern Western civilization has become particularistic and exclusionary.¹³

Despite the essential differences between Islamic and Non Islamic tradition, historically Islam has never had ‘adjustment problems’ or difficulties in creating pluralistic societies where peoples of diverse religious traditions have lived together and prospered. In fact, Islam has a rich pluralistic tradition unsurpassed by any other civilization. It has a vast experience of interaction and alliance with non Muslim communities. Instances of conflict between Muslims and Non Muslims have never been, it must be observed, over ‘civilizational differences’. The idea, therefore, that Islam’s differences in worldview with non Islamic civilizations makes a clash inevitable is falsified by the history of Islam itself. Rather, the history of Islam presents a veritable model of a ‘world civilization’, as stated by Professor Bakar:

Huntington’s view that the idea of the possibility of a universal civilization is exclusively Western conception is not supported by history. It is a historical fact that Islam built the first comprehensive universal civilization in history even if we go by all the modern criteria of universality. Islam was the first civilization to have geographical and cultural borders with all the major contemporary civilizations of the world, and it was Islam that had the most extensive encounter with other civilizations.¹⁴

Where, then, does a Clash emerge? It emerges as a corollary to interventionist, adventurist, exploitative policies vis a vis the Muslim world by the ascendant West steeped in the compulsions of its espoused Materialism and Capitalism. The Clash is not inevitable, but it can become possible if such policies are mindlessly and relentlessly pursued by the West and if the Muslim world does not engage in self criticism and undertake a rediscovery of the pristine message of Islam. As long as the West keeps pursuing its ill advised course, insecurity and militant responses will proliferate among the Muslims. In such a case, Muslim opinion leaders will be compelled to rally together their people for strengthening, fortifying and gearing up for the West’s assault on what is most precious to them. Given the insensitivity and superficial grasp of the West over the prevalent mood in the Muslim world, the vicious cycle of hostility will go on. This is exactly the self-destructive path towards the Clash of Civilizations which in the long run will be in the interest of none.

1. Michael Dunn, ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the War on Terror,’ 49th Parallel, Vol.20 (Winter 2006-2007).
2. Remarked by Professor Edward W Said in his 1998 lecture titled “The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations” at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States of America.
3. Senghaas, Dieter, The Clash Within Civilizations, Routledge, London, 2002., p. 105.
4. Ibid, p. 107.
5. Marc Gopin, “Religion and International Relations at the Crossroads,” International Studies Review, Vol III issue III, Fall 2001.
6. Stated by Giandomino Picco, quoted in United Nations Year of Dialogue Between Civilizations 2001, Introduction, www.un.org/dialogue
7. “Empathy and Compassion,” The Iranian, September 8, 2000.
8. H.A.R. Gibb, Whither Islam, London, 1932, p. 379.
9. Quoted by Martin Lings, Muhammad (SAW): His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, Vermont, Rochester (USA), Inner Traditions, 2006.
10. Karen Armstrong, The Crusades and their Impact on Todays World, New York, Random House, Inc, 2001, p.539.
11. ABS-CBN News, Text of Obama’s speech to Muslim world, June 4, 2009.
12. Osman Bakar, Islam and Civilizational Dialogue, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya, 1997, p.42.
13. Ibid, p. 10.
14. Ibid.

With ‘all that jazz’ about values, democracy and freedom, it is, after all, the rhetorical machinery churning out buzzwords for sale. Noam Chomsky demonstrates how phrases like “free speech,” the “free market,” and the “free world” have little to do with freedom. “Among the myriad freedoms claimed by the U.S. government are the freedom to murder, annihilate, and dominate other people. The freedom to finance and sponsor despots and dictators across the world. The freedom to train, arm, and shelter terrorists. The freedom to topple democratically elected governments. The freedom to amass and use weapons of mass destruction-chemical, biological, and nuclear. The freedom to go to war against any country whose government it disagrees with. And, most terrible of all, the freedom to commit these crimes against humanity in the name of “justice,” in the name of “righteousness,” in the name of “freedom.” Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that the freedom of the Americans is “not the grant of any government or document, but… our endowment from God.” Arundhati Roy comments: “Basically, we’re confronted with a country armed with a mandate from heaven.

Perhaps this explains why the U.S. government refuses to judge itself by the same moral standards by which it judges others. Its technique is to position itself as the well-intentioned giant whose good deeds are confounded in strange countries by their scheming natives, whose markets it’s trying to free, whose societies it’s trying to modernize, whose women it’s trying to liberate, whose souls it’s trying to save. Perhaps this belief in its own divinity also explains why the U.S. government has conferred upon itself the right and freedom to murder and exterminate people “for their own good.”

Bush concluded his 20th September 2001 speech hence: “I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people. The course of it is not known yet the outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know God is not neutral between them. We are assured of the rightness of our cause and confident in the victories to come. May God watch over the United States of America.” Interestingly, the operation in Afghanistan was named ‘Infinite Justice’, which Muslims objected, was only a Divine attribute. The name was then replaced by another fantastical one, explosively overblown with self-righteousness and cocksure certainty of success: ‘Enduring Freedom.’ Some rhetorical mastery!

CRUSADE RHETORIC

Closely allied to this dimension is the use of the rhetoric of a moral crusade on the lines of traditional Christian rhetoric of a type that may have come from Pope Urban the Second in A.D 1099. Mainstream newspapers started developing a mindset for religious war. Abidullah Jan writing in ‘The Genesis of the Final Crusade’ lists some such article headlines: “This is a Religious War: September 11 was Only the Beginning”, “Yes, this is About Islam”, “The Core of Islamic Rage”, “Jihad, 101″, “Islamic Terror”, “Holy Warriors Escalate the Old War on a New Front”, etc. On September 16, 2001, the BBC reported Bush had declared a ‘crusade’ when the president remarked, “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a long time.” With the ripples of outrage it created in the Muslim world, the apology duly came. However, five months later, the President repeated the word while addressing US troops in which he termed the war as ‘an incredibly important crusade to defend freedom.’ George W Bush, who describes himself as a ‘born again Christian’, has been quoted by Bob Woodward in his book Plan of Attack describing himself as a ‘messenger of God’ ‘doing the Lord’s will.’ Jan states, “Regurgitating the threat to the sanctity of ‘our way of life’ and ‘our values’ is part of the plan to make people feel threatened.” It is important, of course, to use rhetoric to heighten insecurity, so that the rationale to keep the War on Terror going stays pumped up.

PREPOSTEROUS HORROR

Rhetoric has effectively generated fear in the American public mind. The Department of Homeland Security is at pains to prove that ‘the threat to U.S interests from someone, somewhere in the world, has increased.’ The Anonymous writer of Imperial Hubris comments, “We hear experts warning audiences watching CNN that the next al Qaeda attack on our country will involve WMD. The warnings are then complemented by more otherworldly advice to buy duct tape and plastic sheets to wrap their homes and make them airtight, WMD proof fortresses. When faced with vague threats, Washington does what it always does: it scares the hell out of people.”

IDEOLOGIZATION OF THE WAR ON TERROR

The use of rhetoric has helped the ‘ideologization’ of the War on Terror. This has eclipsed the true ground realities and the actual root causes of the conflict, turning attention away from them. Particularly regrettable is the inability to understand terrorism as a desperate reaction by the socially outcast, economically deprived and politically oppressed. Terrorism, in fact, is a tactic used by disaffected individuals and communities, not an ideology. Instead, terrorism is seen as an opposing, challenging, hostile and ‘barbaric’ ‘evil ideology’ opposed to all that the West stands for and believes in. This is extremely misguided and helps divide the world into opposing ideological camps, lending strength to the dangerous ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis. George W. Bush expressed the grandiosity of this ‘clash of ideologies’ in a statement: “We’ve entered a great ideological conflict we did nothing to invite.” Journalist Margie Burns comments on this: “This statement should sound alarm bells for the nation and the world. What does Bush mean by an “ideological conflict”? All previous grandiose Bush pronouncements on global conflict have focused on terrorism and the “war on terror.” Bush is trying to present terrorism as an “ideology,” in an us-or-them global conflict, with Terrorism replacing Communism. Every thinking person knows that terrorism is not an “ideology.” Terrorist acts are a tactic. We know by now exactly who uses them, too: individuals and small groups use guerrilla tactics when other tactics are not available to them, against a much stronger governmental power or foreign power.” The New York Times reported on July 25, 2005, “The Bush administration is… pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission.”

JINGOISM

The ring of patriotic jingoism defines America’s rhetoric. It hedges in moral judgement within its own delineations, defining values as ‘American’ or ‘un American.’ Arundhati Roy writes in her book War Talk that the term ‘anti-American’ is used in order to discredit and inaccurately define its critics. “Once someone is branded ‘anti-American’ (like anti-Semitic), the chances are they will be judged before they will be heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of hurt national pride. To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it’s a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you’re not a Bushie, you’re a Taliban. If you don’t love us, you hate us. If you’re not Good, you’re Evil. If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” This is the ‘imperial hubris’ the Anonymous writer mentions in his book by the same name–the arrogance and self-centredness in interpreting events and people outside the United States. After the July 7 2005 bombings in London, G8 leaders denounced it as an attack on ‘our way of life’, and declared that they would never let the ‘Islamists change our values.’ The connection that the rhetoric of “Islamist terrorism” makes with Muslims and Arabs has led to dangerous racial profiling and has damaged the image of Islam and Muslims in the Western public mind. Discrimination and prejudice against Muslims in the West is on record high levels.

THE ‘WHY DO THEY HATE US?’ DEBATE

In his 9/11 address, Bush said: “The US was targeted for the attack because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.” In his historic speech of 20th September 2001, President Bush explained why the United States is hated: “They hate our freedoms–our freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other… the terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life… Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of freedom depends on us.” This rhetoric of ‘they hate us for our freedom’ became a trumpeted theme in the mainstream media, insulating the American public from any recognition or realization of the elements of self-interest, opportunism and exploitation in American foreign policy that affect so many lives–many of them Muslim. Arundhati Roy states: “People are being asked to make two leaps of faith here. First, to assume that The Enemy is who the US government says it is, even though it has no substantial evidence to support that claim. And second, to assume that The Enemy’s motives are what the US government says they are, and there’s nothing to support that either.” In fact, motives are quite the opposite. The U.S is not hated for what it is, but for what it has done. The smokescreen of rhetoric, however, keeps a dispassionate analysis of the real grievances of America’s ‘enemies’ at bay. Roy said in a speech commending Noam Chomsky: “If people in the United States want a real answer to the question of ‘why do they hate us?’ (as opposed to the ones in the Idiot’s Guide to Anti-Americanism, that is: “Because they’re jealous of us,” “Because they hate freedom,” “Because they’re losers,” “Because we’re good and they’re evil”), I’d say, read Chomsky on U.S. military interventions in Indochina, Latin America, Iraq, Bosnia, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. If ordinary people in the United States read Chomsky, perhaps their questions would be framed a little differently. Perhaps it would be: “Why don’t they hate us more than they do?” or “Isn’t it surprising that September 11 didn’t happen earlier?”

The Anonymous writer [later revealed to be Michael Scheuer, a senior CIA officer -- Ed.] of Imperial Hubris calls the robotic repetition of ‘they hate our freedom’ “errant and potentially fatal nonsense.” He states: “There is no record of a Muslim urging to wage jihad to destroy democracy or credit unions, or universities. What the US does in formulating and implementing policies affecting the Muslim world is infinitely more inflammatory.” The US must recognize this to be able to redress the grievances of the Muslim world that are not without basis. However, such rhetoric deflects attention to the real causes and prolongs America’s Beauty Sleep. Eyes Wide Shut. In the backdrop, the corpses keep piling up.

DEHUMANIZING THE ENEMY

Empathy is absolutely necessary to be able to understand the terrorism phenomenon and begin a curative strategy. It is a natural humanizing element we all are gifted with, enabling us to understand one another as simply sharers in a common essential humanity. Rhetoric checks empathy by presenting the enemy as subhuman, evil, beastly. It ensures that the ‘human connection’ is not established, dehumanizing the enemy. Rhetoric tends to talk about the other side as the abstract ‘enemy’ or as a subhuman, demonic ‘Axis of Evil.’ Rhetoric has worked hard to deflect sympathy from victims of the West’s brutal wars and misadventures since decades. It has divided the world into ‘The West and the Rest’, and presented the West to be on a divinely assigned mission of liberation against subhuman lower-order creatures who must be taught some civilization. In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.” Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts.” Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “‘grasshoppers’ who could be crushed.”

Kyle Fedler says, “When we demonize our enemies we see ourselves as totally righteous and the abstract enemy as totally evil.” (‘On the Rhetoric of a War on Terror,’ September 2001). This is what makes the methods and means of the war on terror brutal, without moral restraints, conducted in the self-assuredness of a high moral ground. Again, it is rhetoric that comes to the rescue when human rights are blatantly violated. This is what the euphemism ‘collateral damage’ was invented for–or the 150,000+ dead [This is a low-ball number; Iraq, alone, is listed as having over 1.3 million excess mortalities since March 2003 -- Ed.]] of Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem of America’s high-tech killing machines destroying so much of life other than specific targets is solved through the use of imaginative language.

GREY AREAS

The line between ‘terrorism’ and ‘counter terrorism’ (or ‘the war on terrorism’) becomes indistinguishable here. Kyle Fedler writes: “Invoking the language of war permits the direct and intentional killing of innocent people. So how is this any different from terrorism? If terrorism is the direct and intentional killing of innocent people with the purpose for achieving a greater goal they are not directly linked with, is this not just terrorism?” The underlying logic of terrorist attacks, as well as “retaliatory” wars against governments that “support terrorism,” is the same: both punish citizens for the actions of their governments.

The power of rhetoric which comes with all the authority and glamorous technology of the world’s hyperpower has indeed taken a heavy toll on public opinion. It has in fact, with its skewed up morality, perverted the integrity of the human conscience, head and heart. As a result, prejudices are established as fact, myth as reality. The masses are benumbed to the terrible atrocities in the guise of the ‘War on Terror.’ And questions cannot be asked. As Bush the Senior had said, “What We Say, Goes.”

Xinjiang will always keep up the intensity of its crackdown on ethnic separatist forces and deal them devastating blows without showing any mercy.

— Wang Lequan, Chinese Communist Party Xinjiang Secretary, quoted by China News Agency, January 14, 2003

China is guilty of fierce repression of religious expression, and intolerance of any expression of discontent.

– Rebiya Kadeer, Uighur rights activist, writing for the Washington Post.

The 2008 Olympics held in Beijing helped bring into the limelight the plight of ethnic minorities in China, subject to ‘gross human rights violations’, according to Amnesty International. This said, however, there was a clear duality in the international perception and approach to the two issues of ethnic persecution in China: the Tibetans and the Muslim Uighurs of the Xinjiang region in the North-West. While the Tibet issue received international attention, building up pressure on the Chinese government, the ethnic unrest in Xinjiang remained eclipsed and went quite unnoticed, even to the extent that Al Jazeera TV had to call it ‘China’s Other Tibet’* in order to garner public attention. This international inattention and apathy makes sense in the context of the War on Terror, considering the fact that China’s diplomacy has successfully managed to present the Uighurs’ struggle as ‘terrorism’. Regardless of the international attitude towards it, facts on the ground seem to support what Uighur human rights activist Rebiya Kadeer stated in an interview to Kate Mc Geown of BBC, “I believe the Uighurs are the most persecuted people in the world.”

Amnesty International reports on March 17, 2005: “Since the late 1980s, the Chinese government’s policies and other factors have generated growing ethnic discontent in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Thousands of people there have been victims of gross human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, unfair political trials, torture and summary executions. These violations are suffered primarily by members of the Uighur community and occur amidst growing ethnic unrest fuelled by unemployment, discrimination and restrictions on religious and cultural freedoms. The situation has led some people living in the Xingiang Uighur Autonomous Region to favour independence from China. Crackdowns in the region have intensified since 9/11, with authorities designating supporters of independence as ‘separatists’ and ‘terrorists’. Muslim Uighurs have been the main targets of Chinese authorities. Authorities have closed down mosques, detained Islamic clergy and severely curtailed freedom of expression and association.”

The holding of the Olympics in Beijing was used as a justification of a hard-hitting crackdown in Urumqi and other sensitive areas in Xinjiang. Uighurs have been jailed for reading newspapers sympathetic to the cause of independence. Others have been detained merely for listening to Radio Free Asia, an American-sonsored English-language station. Even the most peaceful Uighur activists, if they practise Islam in a way that the authorities deem inappropriate, risk arrest and torture. China regularly dubs Uighur historians, poets and writers “intellectual terrorists” and sends them to jail. In June 2003 Abdulghani Memetemin, a teacher and journalist, was sentenced to nine years in jail for “providing state secrets for an organisation outside the country”. What he had actually done was help the East Turkestan Information Centre (an NGO based in Germany and run by exiled Uighurs), with its work by sending it news reports and transcripts of speeches by Chinese officials. In 2005, Nurmemet Yasin, a young intellectual, was sentenced to a decade in prison for writing an allegory comparing the Uighurs’ predicament with that of a pigeon in a cage.¹

Amnesty International has documented that, since 2001, “tens of thousands of people are reported to have been detained for investigation in the region, and hundreds, possibly thousands, have been charged or sentenced under the Criminal Law; many Uighurs are believed to have been sentenced to death and executed for alleged “separatist” or “terrorist” offences.” AI has further reported that once imprisoned, detainees are subjected to types of torture from cigarette-burns on the skin to submersion in raw sewage. Prisoners have had toenails extracted by pliers, been attacked by dogs and burned with electric batons, even cattle prods.¹

Those held and routinely tortured usually have flimsy charges against them. Human Rights groups say many of those arrested ‘may have done little more than merely practice their religion or defend their culture’, says M J Gohel, a terrorism specialist at the Asia Pacific Foundation in London.² The joint report ‘Devastating Blows’ by Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China reveals that more than half the detainees in Xinjiang’s labour camps are there for having engaged in ‘illegal religious activity.’ Sharon Hom, the Executive Director of Human Rights in China says ‘Religious regulation in Xinjiang is so pervasive that it creates a legal net that can catch just anyone the authorities want to target.’³

Rebiya Kadeer was a successful Uighur entrepreneur who founded a trading company in Xinjiang and rose to a position of prominence. Her company helped train Muslim Uighurs and give them employment opportunities. She and her husband became spokespersons for the rights of the Uighurs, and used their international connections to further the cause. In 1999, Kadeer was arrested as she entered a hotel to deliver a speech on human rights, and sentenced to eight years in prison on the charge of ‘providing secret information to foreigners’, which happened to be some news clippings about human rights abuse in Xinjiang she wanted to pass on to her husband in the United States. These ‘secret’ documents, however, were from newspapers that were publicly available. Human rights groups globally campaigned for Kadeer, and her sentence was shortened. She was released in 2005 and today champions the Uighurs struggle as an advocate of their rights in USA. In a June 2005 interview with Kate Mc Geown of BBC, Kadeer says, “Since I came out of jail I have never stopped fighting for the freedom of my people. In prison I witnessed personally the torture and persecution of many Uighurs who were totally innocent of the crimes they were said to have committed. I wasn’t allowed to get a lawyer… My struggle is peaceful. I focus on human rights. China has used 9/11 as an excuse to crack down. It is easy for the government to say the Uighurs are terrorists, because they are Muslims. Many Uighurs have been falsely persecuted for this.”

While the unrest in Xinjiang is decades old, China always looked at it as a sort of ‘national embarrassment’, deflecting international attention and keeping mum. M J Gohel of the Asia Pacific Foundation says “China has been shy about the whole problem. It has now come out of the closet.” The ‘coming out of the closet’ comes as a policy change in the wake of the War on Terror, which provides the Chinese government with an opportune moment to gather international support. This it is doing by presenting the unrest in Xinjiang as terrorism, fomenting a link with terrorism elsewhere around the globe which the United States has committed itself to fight. Both Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China accuse China of ‘opportunistically using the post 9/11 environment to make the outrageous claim that individuals disseminating peaceful religious and cultural messages in Xinjiang are terrorists who have simply changed tactics.’⁴

The international connection is easy to establish as Xnjiang enjoys deep ethnic, religious and cultural ties with neighbouring states including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. China has utilized this natural connection to the hilt. The government claims foreign nationals are in the region. At a press conference, Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan warned that the province was “under attack… In Xinjiang, the separatists, religious extremists and violent terrorists are all around us_ they’re very active.”⁵ Post 9/11, China has busied itself with convincing the world that there is indeed a direct link between the US-led War on Terrorism and China’s indigenous fight against separatists in Xinjiang. With Islam as the mainstream religion in Xinjiang, the ‘common link’ is easy to establish.

The common link has enabled China not only to seek international approval for its counter-terrorism methods but also to demand support and assistance for the same. China has already named more than 10 groups who it claims are supporting separatist ‘terrorism’ in the region, and all of which are based abroad. These include, besides the already banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement, the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation, the World Uighur Youth Congress and the East Turkestan Information Centre. The last two groups are based in Germany, and have been operating peacefully and legally since years.² Mike Dillon, Xinjiang expert at the University of Durham says, “Whether the other groups on the list even exist is open to doubt. And whether groups demanding independence have links abroad is open to doubt.”² Dru C. Gladney, President of the Pacific Basin Institute agrees: “The ETIM has no truly effective links with Al Qaeda, at least not any more, and is most probably defunct by now, as far as we know.” Like several others, Andrew Nathan of Columbia University believes China is by far exaggerating the danger separatism in Xinjiang really poses.⁶ Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer emphatically states, “I vehemently deny that our struggle is connected to Al Qaeda. I believe history will show we were never terrorists. My people will win.”⁷

The fruits of China’s diplomatic labours are manifested by international unconcern and apathy towards the issue. The United States, usually bitterly critical of human rights abuse in China, has apparently agreed to maintain strategic silence over the issue. When compared with international censure over Tibet, the duality of standards becomes only too clear. One reason for this is that the Uighurs lack effective, dynamic leadership that can advocate their cause internationally. They do not have the Nobel Laureate ‘Dalai Lama’ that Tibet has. The other reason that goes deeper, is the connection China has been able to establish with global terrorism, which makes world public opinion apathetic. The connection, sadly, is fomented conveniently because Uighurs share their religion with other separatist groups around the world that are branded ‘terrorists’. International propaganda against Islam churned for politically expedient reasons in the context of the War on Terror demonizes Muslim populations struggling for rights. It takes away sympathy and concern over rampant human rights abuse, making criminals of us all.

Nicholas Bequelin is pessimistic about future prospects for a peaceful resolution for the oppressed Uighurs due to international unconcern: “There is absolutely no international pressure to change policy in Xinjiang now. So why would China make any changes?”⁶

1. Fahad Ansari, “Plight of the Uighurs“, IslamicAwakening.com, September 9, 2008.
2. Quoted by Tim Luard, “China’s Changing Views of Terrorism“, BBC News Online, December 15, 2003.
3. “China ‘Crushing Muslim Uighurs‘”, BBC News Online, April 12, 2005.
4. “Devastating Blows“, Human Rights Watch, April 2005.
5. Quentin Sommerville, “China’s Grip on Xinjiang Muslims“, BBC News Online, November 29, 2005.
6. Quoted by Preeti Bhattacharji, ‘Uighurs and Chinas Xinjiang Region’ Council on Foreign Relations, September 29, 2008.
7. Rebiya Kadeer in an interview by Kate Mc Geown in June 2005.