Is imperialism benign and necessary?

THE great modern empires have never been held together by military power alone but by what activates that power, puts it to use, and then reinforces it with daily practices of domination, conviction, and authority. Britain ruled the vast territories of India with only a few thousand colonial officers and a few more thousand troops, many of them Indian.

France did the same in North Africa and Indochina, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese and Belgians in Africa. The key element is imperial perspective, that way of looking at a distant foreign reality by subordinating it to one’s gaze, constructing its history from one’s own point of view, seeing its people as subjects whose fate is to be decided not by them but by what distant administrators think is best for them.

From such wilful perspectives actual ideas develop, including the theory that imperialism is a benign and necessary thing. In one of the most perceptive comments ever made about the conceptual glue that binds empires together, the remarkable Anglo-Polish novelist, Joseph Conrad, wrote that “the conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion and or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea — something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to.”

For a while, this worked, as many colonial leaders thought mistakenly that cooperating with the imperial authority was the only way. But since the dialectic between the imperial perspective and the local one is inevitably adversarial and impermanent, at some later point the inevitable conflict between the ruler and ruled becomes uncontainable and breaks out into all-out colonial war, as happened in Algeria and India.

We are still quite a long way from that moment in American rule over the Arab and Muslim world. At least since World War II, American strategic interest there has been to assure (and ever more closely to control) readily accessible supplies of plentiful oil, and, second, to guarantee at enormous cost the strength and regional domination of Israel over any and all of its neighbours.

Every empire, including America’s, regularly tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, and that it has a mission certainly not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate the peoples and places it rules directly or indirectly. Yet these ideas are by no means shared by the people who live there, and whose views are in many cases directly opposite. Nevertheless, this hasn’t prevented the whole apparatus of American information, policy, and decision-making about the Arab/Islamic world from imposing its perspectives not just on Arabs and Muslims but on Americans, whose sources of information about the Arabs and Islam are woefully, indeed tragically, inadequate.

American diplomacy has been permanently impaired by a systematic attack conducted by the Israeli lobby on what are called Arabists. Of the 150,000 American troops in Iraq today, scarcely more than a handful know Arabic. David Ignatius makes this point in an excellent piece on July 14 entitled “Washington is paying for its lack of Arabists,” in which he quotes Francis Fukuyama as saying that the trouble is that the “Arabists not only take on the cause of the Arabs but also the Arabs’ tendency for self-delusion.” In the United States, the knowledge of Arabic and some sympathetic acquaintance with the vast Arab cultural tradition have been made to seem a threat to Israel. The media runs the vilest racist stereotypes about the Arabs.

Several generations of the Americans have come to see the Arab world mainly as a dangerous place, where terrorism and religious fanaticism are spawned, and where a gratuitous anti-Americanism is mischievously inculcated in the young by badly-intentioned clerics who are anti-democratic and virulently anti-semitic. Ignorance is directly translated into knowledge in such cases.

What isn’t always noticed is that when a leader there emerges whom “we” like - e.g. the Shah of Iran or Anwar Sadat — the Americans assume that he is a courageous visionary who has done things for “us” or “our” way, not because he has understood the game of imperial power, which is to survive by humouring the regnant authority, but because he has been moved by the principles that we share. Almost a quarter of a century after his assassination, Anwar Sadat is, it is not an exaggeration to say, a forgotten and unpopular man because most Egyptians regard him as having served America first, not Egypt.

The same is true about the Shah. That Sadat and the Shah were followed in power by even less palatable rulers indicates not, as we would like to believe, that we were right, but that the distortions of imperial perspectives produce further distortions in the Middle Eastern society that prolong suffering and induce extreme forms of resistance and political self-assertion.

This is all particularly true of the Palestinians, who are now considered to have reformed themselves by allowing Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) rather than the much excoriated Arafat as their leader. But that is a matter of imperial interpretation, not of actual reality. Both Israel and the US regard Arafat as standing in the way of an imposed settlement on the Palestinians, that will obliterate all their past claims, and that will represent Israel’s final victory over what some Israelis have called its “original sin,” which was to have destroyed the Palestinian society in 1948 and disposed the nation of the Palestinians who remain stateless or under occupation until today.

Never mind that Arafat, whom I have criticized for years and years in the Arabic and western media, is still universally regarded as the Palestinian leader both because he was legally elected in 1996 and because he has acquired the legitimacy that no other Palestinian approaches, least of all Abu Mazen, a bureaucrat and long time subordinate to Arafat who does not have any popular support at all.

Moreover, there is now an independent and coherent Palestinian opposition (the Independent National Initiative) both to Arafat’s rule and to the Islamists, but this gets no attention because the Americans and the Israelis wish for a compliant interlocutor who is simply in no position to give us trouble. As to whether any such arrangement can work, that is put off to another day. This is the shortsightedness, indeed the blindness and the arrogance of the imperial gaze.

Much the same pattern is repeated in the American view of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and all the others. The trouble with these views are that they are so incompetent and ideological; they provide the Americans not with ideas about Arabs and Muslims, but rather with the way they would like the Arabs and Muslims to be.

For a great and enormously wealthy country to be producing the kind of mismanaged, poorly prepared and incredibly incompetent occupation of Iraq that is taking place today is a travesty, on intellectual grounds, and how a moderately intelligent bureaucrat like Paul Wolfowitz could be running policies of such colossal incompetence and, at the same time, convincing people that he knows what he is doing, boggles the mind.

Underlying this particular imperial perspective is a long-standing orientalist view that will not permit the Arabs as a people to exercise their right to national self-determination. They are thought of as different, incapable of logic, unable to tell the truth, fundamentally disruptive and murderous. Since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, there has been an uninterrupted imperial presence based on these premises throughout the Arab world, producing untold misery - and some benefits it is true — for a huge majority of the people.

But so accustomed have we become to the blandishments of the US advisers like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, who have directed their venom against the Arabs in every possible way, that we somehow think that what we do is the correct thing because that’s the way the Arabs are.

That this happens also to be an Israeli dogma shared uncritically by the neo-cons who are at the heart of the Bush administration simply adds fuel to the fire. And so we are in for many more years of turmoil and misery in an area of the world one of whose main problems is, to put it as plainly as possible, US power. But at what cost, and to what end? — Copyright 2003, Edward W. Said

Quicksand in Liberia

PRESIDENT Bush continues to say that before he dispatches U.S. troops to Liberia — if he does so at all — President Charles Taylor must leave the country. Taylor is still there. Were American forces to be sent, their job would be keeping the peace between government thugs and rebel criminals.

But there is no peace to keep. Those are two powerful reasons against intervention. A third, overarching reason is the absence of US national interest. Even if Taylor were to flee and a new ceasefire were to take hold, great caution would be required before plunging the United States into the middle of a civil war, no matter how heart-rending the photographs of refugees.

—Los Angeles Times

US justice, Guantanamo style

THERE are some 700 Muslim prisoners from 43 nations held at Guantanamo Bay, the US military base in Cuba. In the words of the distinguished British playwright Harold Pinter, ‘At this very moment 700 people are chained, padlocked, handcuffed, hooded and treated like animals in a concentration camp’.

To the shame of the Muslim world, there has hardly been any talk, let alone criticism, of this in the Muslim countries whose nationals are so abused. On the contrary, some countries have obediently and happily ‘delivered’ their citizens and others to the US authorities. The cause of these wretched prisoners has been taken up by human rights, civil liberties, and other activists, mainly in the countries such as the UK and Australia, which have but a handful of their nationals among the total.

The perpetrators of this travesty of justice are none other than the erstwhile champions of liberty, democracy and freedom, the United States of America. How has this come about?

The events of 9/11 were indeed traumatic. The whole world sympathized with the US, not the least many Muslim countries. But the actions pursued by the US in the name of their own security have since driven a deep wedge not only between the US and the Muslim world but also much of Europe, Latin America and Asia. The military conquests of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq have left the victors with little glory.

Even worse, however, is the US indulgence in the legal subterfuge of ‘enemy combatants’, which has left the 700 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay with no rights under any law except the rules laid down for their trial by military commissions.

After 9/11, the US sought not justice but vengeance. In this they have acted contrary to international law and their own national laws, to say nothing of the established human rights and morality.

The US has admitted that its military authorities had to secure convictions and could not do so under ordinary laws. For this reason the Presidential Executive Order of November 2001 stated that it was ‘not practicable to apply...principles of law and the rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases in the United States’. Accordingly, the procedure for military commissions was devised.

To this day, after nearly 18 months in many cases, no charges have been framed against the 700 prisoners. Moreover, some of the procedures have still not been clarified and finalized. Nevertheless, President Bush has announced that six of these ‘bad men’ are to be put on trial.

From the patchwork of procedures that have so far been put forward, a grotesque picture has emerged. This has resulted in the 11,000-strong National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers of the US maintaining, ‘In view of the extraordinary restrictions on counsel, with considerable regret, we cannot advise any of our members to act as civilian counsel at Guantanamo’. According to the head of the Association, every barrier has been raised to prevent effective representation.

Under the procedures laid down, the military authorities can monitor all client-lawyer discussions in order to secure intelligence. Although the prosecution cannot use such information in the case itself, these rules hardly permit open and free discussion with the counsel.

Moreover, the rules provide that the military authorities must approve all lawyers’ contacts with the media, which effectively eliminates the possibility of any complaint by lawyers to the media.

Then again, no appeals are allowed to courts outside the chain of military command. The lawyers for the detainees are required to agree specifically to make no effort to move the US courts, as has been done in the past.

Thus, not only is the prisoner to be tried by the military, but any appeal must also be heard by the military. This is the same military against whom the accused have waged war and whose commander-in-chief has already condemned them as ‘bad men’.

In these proposed trials, a totally different standard of evidence is allowed before the military commissions. Instead of the normal high standards set for admissible evidence in criminal cases, these commissions can accept evidence which is merely of ‘probative value to a reasonable person’. This would, for example, make acceptable as evidence documents whose origins are not properly verified, and what would otherwise be rejected as rumour or hearsay evidence.

The procedures fly in the face of a cardinal principle of criminal justice, which normally allows the accused full access to witnesses and to evidence against them. Even the lawyers, paid for by the accused, can be denied access to secret or sensitive information by the military commissions.

The importance of this last point has surfaced in the trial before a Virginia district court of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 9/11 hijacker who was on the ground. The Pentagon has refused to make available depositions from another Al Qaeda suspect who is also under US detention. The court has ruled that the prosecution must make available to the accused what the Pentagon terms classified information. The government is appealing on this issue, and has announced that it will abandon the trial and declare Moussaoui an ‘enemy combatant’ if the appeal fails.

Though some of these points may at first sight appear somewhat technical and ‘legal-speak’, it does not take too much to understand that justice is not being done, nor being seen to be done. The head of the US Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers has reportedly stated, ‘I personally would not want to dignify what in my opinion is not a legitimate court’.

Some one dozen prisoners have recently been released and returned to Pakistan from Guantanamo Bay. Presumably, despite all the ease of trial procedures, there was no evidence or case against them. Yet, neither the US nor Pakistan has done anything to compensate them. One former prisoner has recently filed an independent claim for $10 million.

It has also been announced that, as far as the British prisoners are concerned, they will not face the death penalty if found guilty. This ‘concession’ was granted after the British public mounted a concerted campaign in support of its Muslim nationals. The death penalty is not countenanced in the UK and other European countries. But the situation remains otherwise far from satisfactory.

For the rest, there has been little progress. It appears that the US has at the moment no plans to charge most of the 700 prisoners. Not less worrying is that there is no indication as to where the prisoners will be incarcerated when found guilty. If the plan is to keep the prisoners in Guantanamo after conviction in order to ensure that they indulge in no further mischief, then the prisoners will remain without proper contact with their families for many years.

If the US and its allies think they will end terrorism by these means, then they should think again. Just as modern technology has refashioned war, so has it become a new tool for dissemination of information and ideology. The world cannot be saved by an unending spiral of violence and arbitrary and unaccountable action.

There are many American individuals, institutions and organizations that still cherish the real values of the founding fathers of that great country. It would take a considerable collective effort by all of them to garner further support and improve the situation.

The US should not, in the name of the war against terrorism, sacrifice what they have long held dear, that is, civil liberty and the due process of law. Celebrated actresses like Susan Sarandon and her actor husband Tim Robbins should not be vilified and boycotted for upholding such values.

The Americans have been shocked and mesmerized by their own feeling of insecurity post-9/11. While to some extent this may be understandable, they nevertheless need to wake up. They must work positively to avoid a situation where the provocative 1993 thesis by a Harvard professor about the clash of civilizations becomes a reality.

Both the US and the leaders of the Muslim world should endeavour to prevent the growing prejudice against the Muslims becoming an all-consuming reality. Muslim leaders should play a positive role in the manner of Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia. They are as much to blame for the present situation as the neo-conservatives behind the Bush administration.

If there had not been a million marchers in London protesting about the war in Iraq, then, notwithstanding all the precautions of armoured vehicles at Heathrow airport, there could well have been some sort of attack in the UK. In fact, the head of British intelligence has publicly stated her concern that this might happen. The people of London can thank those marchers for preventing such an attack so far, despite Prime Minister Blair playing a junior partner to President Bush.

Worldwide protests calling for justice for Muslim prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, and demands for an equitable solution to the Middle East, offer more protection and promote greater security than the feats of Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.

The world cannot be secured by force alone. History has repeatedly shown this, and also that no empire or power lasts for ever. The US should pay heed to these elementary lessons of history, and play its due role as the great builder, not the great bully, of the new world.

Minaret with a view

THE absence of advertising made the impact that much sharper. It helped of course that the brand name was known, if only as a potentially hostile entity. But it is a presumption to imagine that Maulana Fazlur Rahman appeared at the Wagah border and entered India for a four-day visit without forethought.

He came suddenly, but he did not come from nowhere. He began his first journey to India from a new space in the Pakistani consciousness, and one that is growing. The Maulana does not look burdened by fame, because his mind is clearer than his reputation. Media loves a tag, and ‘Father of the Taliban’ is as good as it gets. Maulana Fazlur Rahman is the leader of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Islam, a successor organization to the Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Hind, which of course continues to function in India.

This is not the place to delve into the complexities of the various movements inspired by the Islamic clergy in undivided India, but it would be broadly correct to say that the Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Hind has a very powerful anti-imperialist tradition, having fought the British consistently through most of the 19th century. The battle was both ideological and military; it preceded the mutiny of 1857 and continued long after it, provoking the British administration to ask what became the consuming question of the time: Are Muslims bound by their religion to oppose the Raj? For these mullahs preached that a jihad against the British was a Quranic duty, no less — and violence flared up periodically against British rule all through the 19th century.

They belonged to the same school of thought as the wandering ideologue Jamaluddin Afghani, a Persian who found periodic refuge in Istanbul but drifted across the world urging Muslims to confront western, and by extension Christian, imperialism. Tides as strong as this prompted the British administration in Calcutta to set up what might be called a pro-British Muslim party after the formation of the Indian National Congress, whose purpose was to thwart an incipient nationalism by dividing Hindus and Muslims.

Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan served that role with all the power of his intellectual brilliance and of course personal integrity. But Afghani, who spent two years in Hyderabad, was furious at the politics of Sir Sayyid and accused him of being a dajjal, or a betrayer of Muslims.

To take the story forward, the Jamiat-i-Ulema did not believe in partition, and thereby came close to Gandhi and the Congress. It remained true to its line, even when the fires that divided India went out of the control of both protagonist and antagonist. It is useful to remember that the disciples of Afghani created the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which continued the anti-imperialist tradition at one level, and spawned numerous groups that spread across the Arab world, taken over by Britain and France after the collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1918.

Partition obviously changed the politics of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam in Pakistan but it never lost its essential anti-western thrust, nor did it surrender the dream that the Islamic clergy would lead that challenge to the West. Although there are no exact parallels, in a sense, the JUI’s philosophy was the Sunni equivalent to the themes argued so passionately by Ayatollah Khomeini in the Iranian revolution. It was no accident that Imam Khomeini quoted Jamaluddin Afghani with approval.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s views on South Asia and the threat he perceives from the United States must be seen in this historical context. But history cannot be an artificial interventionist; it must be justified by contemporary facts to become relevant. An increasing number of politicized Muslim activists draw a definite conclusion from the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.

They believe that neither war has been justified by the reasons offered for them, and that the reasons have proved to be palpably false. In neither case did the United States argue that it was the nature of those in power that had persuaded it to invade the country and replace the regimes. It could not, because Washington had done business with both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, without asking the former about fundamentalism and the latter about tyranny.

Saddam was not any less brutal when Washington and London gave him billions of dollars in food credits, and looked the other way while he evaded arms sanctions during the war Saddam launched on Iran. Discussions with the Taliban on an oil pipeline through Afghanistan were not broken when the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed. The Taliban had developed a comfortable relationship with Washington, which is why they allowed American Christian missionaries to operate in Afghanistan when they were in power. The Taliban cooperated with Washington to ensure that the missionaries left the country unharmed before America and Britain attacked.

Irrespective of what anyone else might argue, Maulana Rahman believes that there is no proof that the Taliban, or Osama bin Laden, were responsible for 9/11. Nothing has emerged from even the interrogations at Guantanamo Bay that links Osama directly with those who flew the aircraft into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A speech glorifying war against America is at best circumstantial evidence. Maulana Rahman is certain that the Taliban was punished only because it believed in Islamic rule, not because it was guilty. George Bush needed a scapegoat, and found one with a beard. The Jamaat proclaimed Osama a hero in the successful election campaign that brought them within an inch of power in Pakistan.

There may be genuine doubts about this view, and perhaps also unexpressed self-doubt among the believers. But Iraq became the incontrovertible proof that they needed. America has become the latest in a long line of colonizers, in a process that began in the early 19th century and seems set to continue into the foreseeable future. Even ardent supporters of the Anglo-American war now are beginning to concede that the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument was a shoddy excuse. Tony Blair, the eyes-wide-shut evangelist, now pontificates that history will justify his decision because the war removed a tyrant. By such standards the British army is scheduled for busy days ahead.

The pressure of a lie can become unsustainable in a democracy, as the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, who is believed to have blown the whistle on doctored intelligence to the BBC, indicates. Hubris requires only one tragic flaw to destroy a hero: Tony Blair is less than a hero, and has more than one flaw. Even George Bush is beginning to put some distance between the two.

But that is not the real issue. The Bush-Blair problem is that the response in Iraq and Afghanistan, and among those young men ready for another jihad, will be determined by what the latter believe. If they believe, as they are beginning to do, that America is determined to become the new master of the Muslim world, then they will take up arms. Saddam Hussein’s statue came down in early April; Bush declared the war over some three weeks later. He did not suspect that the war may have only begun.

Maulana Fazlur Rahman is certain about American intentions. Some of the harsh conservative rhetoric has helped create such certainty, particularly when rhetoric has become policy. He reflects a growing view that the last thing Pakistan needs is American intervention, on any excuse. This is a total shift from the traditional Pakistani policy on Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan believes that India has played out a neat trap: to the world Delhi says that Kashmir can be resolved by a bilateral dialogue, and when a bilateral effort starts, Delhi treats Kashmir as an internal problem. Pakistan has been pleading for American intervention, with or without a UN camouflage, since the early 1950s. After Iraq, India has become less of a problem than the United States.

This is a remarkable turnaround. This is what Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was suggesting, in his typical oblique way, when he launched his present peace initiative from Srinagar with a throwaway line that the world had altered after Iraq. He did not elaborate. He did not need to. The signal was picked up. But any journey towards understanding (peace is too ambitious a word, as yet) between India and Pakistan is a journey through a minefield. There are two reasons for guarded optimism, however.

The first is the care with which the principals are walking. This is critical. Any attempt to leap forward will create serious injuries that can so easily become septic. Let both sides, at every level, bare their suspicions, glare from their corners and get the snarls out of the way. Let every difficulty be bared and discussed, and if the pace of change is only a crawl, so be it. Better to crawl and survive in a minefield than rush and die.

The second reason is that the ground is being prepared. You cannot build peace in a greenhouse; this is a field that has to be furrowed with care, watered abundantly, and then permitted patience before a crop appears. The sudden visit by the ranking leader of the Pakistan opposition and his three colleagues, was one such vital exercise in a patient process. Maulana Fazlur Rahman did come to India to solve the problem. He cannot. He came here to be a part of the solution, rather than remain a part of the problem.

He came silently. He will return accompanied by the faint whirr of hope.

The writer is editor-in-chief, Asian age, based in New Delhi.

Recognition only after consensus

PRESIDENT Bush probably never realized the kind of reaction he would evoke in Pakistan when he asked his most loyal ally in the fight against terrorism to recognize Israel.

The question is being discussed on a variety of forums, in deference to President Musharraf’s plea that the debate should be serious and shorn of the emotionalism of the extremists.

Some of the arguments for recognizing the Jewish state are emotional, others pragmatic. Some others are based on a cold rational approach backed by statistics. The emotional line goes something like this. Both countries were created around the same time, and on the basis of religion. Israel was to provide a home for a tribe that has, suffered considerable persecution and needed a territory to absorb the resulting Diaspora. And Pakistan was created to provide a home for the Muslims of the subcontinent.

The emotional argument, however, is a pretty dodgy one. In spite of considerations of time and religion, there nevertheless appears to be a deep-rooted hatred for Israel at almost every level and in every stratum of society in this country, and much of the anti-American feeling, especially in the religious parties, is a spin-off of the superpower’s unequivocal support for the Jewish state.

The grossly unjust and brutal treatment of the Palestinians, who have been reduced to second class citizens in their own country, is something that the Muslims the world over find difficult to digest.

The pragmatic line is that Israel is a formidable military power and a manufacturer of sophisticated weaponry and is anxious to do business with the countries that have large markets. Retired Pakistani air force personnel still remember, somewhat wistfully, the time in 1965 when the air force was desperately short of spares for its F-86 fighter aircraft, and could have easily obtained them from Israel.

The argument covers also what Walter Lippman once referred to as living in one’s ‘pseudo environment and creating counterfeits of reality.’ In this case, this would involve eroding some of the hostility that the Jewish policy makers in the United States harbour against Pakistan. The argument also circles around the belief that recognizing Israel would neutralize, to some extent, the India-Israel military nexus, which had added a new dimension to Pakistan’s foreign policy objectives.

The pragmatists have already pointed out that the vastly improved relations with Washington have also had a fallout in Tel Aviv, and the anti-Pakistan propaganda by the Jewish lobby in the United States has been toned down, possibly in anticipation of Pakistan’s recognition of Israel. Their view is that the ill-treatment of the Palestinians should not be a sufficient reason for Pakistan not to recognize Israel. After all, Pakistan has fought three wars with India, and is regularly accusing the Indian army of committing serious human rights violations against the freedom fighters of Kashmir. Should Pakistan, therefore, cease to recognize India?

The mujahideen have waged a bitter struggle against Afghan troops backed by Soviet military commanders, the argument continues. Should Pakistan therefore not recognize Afghanistan and Russia? And what about France? Can the ulema forget the tortures that were inflicted on that band of gallant freedom fighters led by the courageous, fiery Jamila Bouzpasha when the Muslim Algerians were fighting for independence? Or the Italian commanders, who used to regularly toss Muslim chieftains, bound hand and foot, out of aeroplanes in Libya and Eritrea? Should Pakistan stop recognizing these countries?

While the animosity is certainly there, there are nevertheless pockets of opinion moulders, particularly in the business and the professional classes, that maintain that it might not be such a bad idea to take the plunge. These liberal elements, however, find it difficult at times to understand the reaction of not just the ulema in Pakistan, but also the mandarins who determine policy in political and military governments.

When the Serbs first started shooting unarmed Bosnian civilians in the streets of the capital, and the CNN displayed the gory details, the religious scholars didn’t say a word. The incident was treated as another political aberration on the part of the uncouth Europeans. But when the news channel showed the Bosnians at prayer, and the ulema discovered with a touch of serendipity that the Bosnians were actually Muslims and prayed the same way that they did, young men from the madressahs were ready to trot off in droves to Belgrade, to fight the heathen Serbs who were killing the people of Sarajevo, and the people in Lahore and Rawalpindi opened their doors to the refugees who would soon be displaced. The same sort of thing happened in Chechnya.

But when it comes to bringing back the hundred and fifty thousand odd Pakistanis who are still languishing in prison camps in Bangladesh, the ulema, the government, the military, and the people at large, maintain a stony silence. These are the patriots who fought the Indians and the Mukti Bahini, side by side with the Pakistan army in 1971. Successive governments have swept the problem under the carpet by variously describing them as ‘stateless citizens’ or dismissing them as Biharis. These unfortunate people are Pakistanis and have more right to live in this country than the millions of Afghans who have now made Pakistan their home. Could it be it’s because the Bosnians, Chechens, Palestinians and Afghans are Aryans? Qazi Hussain Ahmed should mull over this fact.

The rational argument, supported by statistics, is more cogent. 32 members out of the 57 of the Organization of Islamic Conference have recognized Israel and are having diplomatic, commercial and political relations with it. Among the 32 are such heavyweights as Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. And the list includes among others Albania, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia, Nigeria, Gabon, Senegal and Gambia. And 161 out of 191 member countries in the United Nations have recognized Israel. So why is Pakistan dragging its feet?

The answer could, perhaps be, that there are still many Pakistanis who feel recognizing Israel at this juncture may not be such a good idea, and may end up as another meaningless statistic. There is evidence to suggest that the Israelis are not exactly jubilant about the prospect of exchanging diplomatic ties with a country dominated by the military, where the government is shaky, and the religious opposition is continually opposing the state’s foreign policy.

And then there is always the question of Kashmir. Mightn’t Pakistan’s recognition of Israel, a country that is continually persecuting the Palestinians, be interpreted by some Muslim countries as a tacit acceptance of the status quo and as a cue to accept Kashmir as a part of India and treat the Line of Control as a permanent boundary? There is need for a proper national consensus. Recognizing Israel strikes at the very root of the Muslim psyche and is not the same as recognizing Zimbabwe or Botswana.

So many questions have to be tackled. Would recognition ensure a guarantee that Israel will not attack Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal? Would the IMF and World Bank agree to write off Pakistan’s foreign debt? And most important of all, will Israel guarantee the formation of a Palestinian state, perhaps in 2005? Meanwhile, President Musharraf would do well to put the issue on the back burner and pursue good relations with Pakistan’s eastern neighbour, who has, at least, made the first gesture.

Email: a-mooraj@cyber.net.pk