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If Baluch militants are attacking the State, verbally and physically,
it means they do not have a stake in the country anymore. Stake holders
will never destroy their own possessions no matter how deep the conflict.
"When
you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to loose…" the famous
last stanza from Bob Dylan's song of the sixties, 'Like a Rolling
Stone' so vividly explains the desperation of a destitute person.
Destitution can be of any dimension - economic, social, moral, political,
whatever. It is relatively easier to countenance rationality with
an affluent station in life, although US foreign policy direction
under President Bush is enigmatically defying it. Perhaps that could
be a case of intellectual destitution or a blaze of economic greed
that is blinding the vision of the establishment and corporate America.
Western democracies are liberal political systems not based solely
on free elections but also rule of law, the separation of powers and
basic human rights, including private property, free speech and religious
tolerance. In the west, these traditions of liberty and law developed
over centuries, long before democracies came into existence. Today
the US is taking upon itself to introduce a democratic order in the
world per force and the consequences are less than encouraging in
Iraq and Afghanistan. A crash course in history of democracy will
prevent political do-gooders from believing that liberty can be brought
about by democratisation alone.
Farid Zakaria, in his book 'Future of Freedom', challenges the blind
pursuit of liberal democracy as a means to freedom of people in the
third world countries. He argues that democracies can turn intolerant
and elected officialdom can become suppressive with greater legal
impunity, as evidenced in Pakistan so persistently.
The current situation in Baluchistan is instructive in the failure
of the global process of development through removal of inequities,
a fundamental that democracy promises but never fully delivers. Inter-country
disparities have exacerbated intra-country inequalities in the poorer
countries. After the Second World War, the end of colonisation transferred
control of economies to powerful oligarchies in the third world countries
ruling through western style bureaucracies and governance mechanisms.
Also the fiscal and monetary mechanisms to regulate international
trade were left in place. The western governments allowed themselves
to be deluded by the illusion that the ruling elites in third world
countries are in essence replicas of western counterparts and would
deftly create a self-perpetuating spiral of growth through education,
productivity, enhancement of disposable incomes and consumerism, as
it had been done in the West, where political stability was to a large
extent a function of credit-based consumer society.
A man with a credit card, a house and a car thinks twice before agitating
for change; not so a penniless unemployed young man with no future.
A man next to a warm hearth watching TV with well fed children feels
no heartburn against Bill Gates with his billions. He may even have
a stake in Microsoft shares. The case of a man on rickety bike with
four children watching an official whiz past in a Mercedes is not
so open hearted.
In rebuilding economies after the War, western societies had a deserved
semblance of equitable distribution of wants, while in the third world
countries the oligarchs laced their pockets with ill-gotten wealth
and exploitation of masses. The developed world kept its eyes half
shut to the failure of leaders of poor countries in developing liberal
societies in exchange for geopolitical alliances in a bi-polar world
and collusion of oligarchs in imposing inequitable global trading
rules, creating room for exploitation of the resources of poor countries
by richer ones. In many third world countries socialistic ideals took
roots during the seventies and eighties but the socialist leaders
were mostly using ideology as a new tool of exploitation. USSR exported
the socialist 'do-it-yourself' political kits, slogans and all, to
many despots around the world in a battle against capitalism. The
fall of the Russian Empire set in disillusionment against socialism
as a failed system.
Meanwhile many dictators, under capitalism, created a middle class
that pressurised governments to open up political systems, which paved
a foundation for democracies. Many South Asian and Latin countries
followed this pattern of democratic growth. These dictators were not
trying to create democracies but in modernising their countries they
ended up doing so inadvertently.
Most Muslim countries did not follow this pattern and remained ensconced
in repressive systems under demagogues. The dearth of liberty or economic
well being bred resentments against the rulers whose retrogression
was perceived to be countenanced by western powers for strategic support
(as in case of Pakistan) or economic gains (as for oil producing Gulf
States). The frustrated populist sentiments found new expression in
resurgence of theological fundamentalism and the nineties witnessed
the phenomenal growth of covert fanatical militant groups targeting
the west as the real enemy. The rise of Taliban, Al-Qaeda and 9/11
is history that we all know. US is putting the cart before the horse
in trying to democratise Muslim countries with historical links to
the nebulous, State-less and anti-west creed of frustrated Muslims.
Fanaticism has a weakness of burning itself out in the long run out
sheer fatigue (like Iran or Libya for instance) but for those who
have nothing, like the Palestinians, there is no other path. Such
fanaticism has time on its side because the cost-benefit ratio of
covert insurgency is very high - Vietnam, Afghanistan and now Iraq
for example).
The ring of desperation in the rhetoric of Baluchi nationalists is
beginning to sound ominously familiar. And so is the belligerent tone
of Pakistan's military establishment. While conceding to negotiate
the demands of Baluchis, it is being implied that their backwardness
is a consequence of their own inferiority of socio-economic evolution.
It is a very dangerous posture as it also suggests that since they
are not our equal in some ways, they don't have equal rights. There
is a false assumption here that superiority is a state of existence
instead of what it really is, a state of responsibility.
If Baluch militants are attacking the state, verbally and physically,
it means they do not have a stake in the country anymore. Stake holders
will never destroy their own possessions no matter how deep the conflict.
I had written a few month ago about five fatal fault lines in the
society - inter-provincial conflicts of interests was one of them.
The government must take account of these fault lines and not let
the fissures get so wide that it starts loosing stakeholders in the
State of Pakistan. There are other fault lines where things could
get worst in not too far a future. Dylan is right, there is nothing
to loose for those who feel they have nothing. Enlightened self-interest
would perhaps be a more urgent need for the present government than
enlightened moderation.
Iqbal
Mustafa
email: mustafa@hujra.com
Archives available at www.hujra.com
1080 words
17 February 2005
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