KARACHI, April 12: A two-day international workshop on Peace Through Culture of Peace concluded here on Tuesday with stress having been laid on the need for changing the mindset paradigm for promoting the culture of peace, resolving the outstanding disputes including Kashmir, and overcoming the menace of terrorism. The participants agreed that resolution of Kashmir could herald real peace in South Asia.
The workshop was organized jointly by the Department of International Relations, University of Karachi, and the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
In his paper on India’s peace initiatives in South Asia, Dr Saleem Kidwai of the New Delhi-based Centre for American and West European Studies expressed the view that India, as the strongest nation in the region, should take the imitative to explore new terrain.
There is a tremendous scope for initiating a process of, what can be termed, ‘composite unilateralism’ among the countries of South Asia, as the pragmatic way to promote the notion of common security. He said India could also take the initiative to strive for and construct a newer and better framework for political and economic cooperation in the region.
The road to peace in South Asia, he said, was a thorny one and required determination, perseverance and courage to tread on. As the peace initiatives were paying rich dividends to the people of the entire region, and a fresh approach was being attempted to deal with contentious issues, there was a visible unrest in some quarters. “Therefore, attempts are being made to create an atmosphere of confusion in which the peace initiatives may get obfuscated. India and Indians have considerable goodwill for their neighbours officially and unofficially, too.”
Under these circumstances, South Asia has reasons to look forward for better times in the 21st century. However, the prospects of peace in South Asia would also depend on whether the international community, led by the US, particularly continues to learn lessons from its past follies, according to Dr Kidwai.
Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema’s paper was on Towards Peace in Kashmir: Pakistani Initiatives. He noted that since the advent of the 21st century, attitudes seemed to have been considerably improved and references to Kashmir now appeared to be taken in stride quite comfortably. He said he could not ignore the feelings of mistrust and hostility between India and Pakistan which was perhaps more prominent than in the conduct of their foreign affairs as mutual fear and suspicion had conditioned the whole international outlook of the two nations.
Mr Cheema said that India and Pakistan could not afford to remain hostile forever. “They cannot change the geography, but they can certainly adjust their foreign policies in order to move towards the muchdesired normalcy. Similarly the Kashmir dispute cannot be whisked away. It must be resolved in order to make South Asia a peaceful region.”
To expect the desired advent of peace between India and Pakistan without resolving the Kashmir dispute was indeed an unrealistic pursuit, he said. “Being a core dispute, it has the capacity to pull back whatever advancements may have been made in other areas and is likely to corrode achievements in other areas if no progress is registered in the core dispute. Therefore, it is imperative that efforts are concentrated upon the resolution of the Kashmir dispute to the satisfaction of all the parties involved - Pakistan, India and the Kashmiris.
Dr Moonis Ahmar’s paper was on Promoting Peace Through Confidence-building Measures Between Pakistan and India. He emphasized that since the peace process between India and Pakistan was in its formative phase, the CBMs could logically play a pivotal role in keeping the lines of communication (trackI, II and III) open and would gradually replace mistrust, suspicion, tension and hostility with cooperation, stability and trust.
Whether it is the intractable Kashmir dispute, or the nuclear issue, Siachen, Sir Creek, conflict over water resources or other unresolved issues, India and Pakistan cannot proceed for fullfledged normalization in their relations unless both the countries in theory and practice adhered to the principle of CBMs at the state and nonstate level.
If peace is the ultimate goal, then the two erstwhile neighbours must at least implement some of the CBMs reaching between the two from time to time.
Mr Imtiaz Alam, Secretary General of the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) spoke on The Role of Media in Promoting the Culture of Peace in the Region, and said: “there cannot be a free media unless it refuses to become nationalistic and not become imbedded.”
In this context, he referred to the media in Pakistan, and said “one man is using brute force and because of the fear of ‘bhaijan’ and ‘mamoonjan’, freedom of expression was obscured.”
Mr Alam said that media had an important role to play in tipping the balance but it was essentially attuned to domestic market and defend the powerful and the dominant. He said that rulers did not want the media to be really free because if media got freedom, people would get information which the rulers wouldn’t want them to get by exploiting ‘national interest and religion’.
David Adam’s paper was on Culture of Peace as the Best Alternative to Terrorism. He was of the view that it was important to begin with a clear definition of ‘terrorism’ because this term was so often manipulated for political reasons.
At this particular moment of history, he said, there was a mirrorimage similarity in the positions of the United States and the European Union, and their commercial media on one side, and of the ‘terrorist organization’ Al Qaeda on the other. Each side accuses the other of being the ‘true terrorists’. One contradiction concerns the religious justification for each side’s claims. He considered the atom bomb attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the key terrorist acts of the 20th century, which provided the moral umbrella for all terrorist acts since then.
Mr R. A. Ariyaratne’s paper was on Peace Initiatives in Sri Lanka. He emphasized the need for taking a fresh look at Sri Lanka’s protracted conflict and elusive peace along the lines the objective rather than ‘perceived reality’. He called for a new thinking paradigm to go deep into many slippery concepts like, deprivation-grievance-rebellion continuum, hurting stalemate as a window of peace opportunity, asymmetrical devolution, and regional autonomy sans power sharing at the centre.
Shaheen Afroz of the Bangladesh International Institute of Strategic Studies dealt with Saarc’s Role in Building a Regime of Peace in South Asia.
Papers were also submitted on the Gandhian politics and Bacha Khan’s politics of non-violence for transforming the society from a deep violent syndrome to a culture of peaceful co-existence.
