The Fata lull

CALM has returned to the Mirali sub-district of North Waziristan, at least temporarily. The authorities say they are considering a request by the militants for a ceasefire, but the residents of Mirali — the town which has borne the brunt of the fighting — say the ceasefire went into effect when some tribesmen acted as mediators. That the truce is confined to Mirali became clear when the militants fired rockets on the Miramshah fort on Tuesday. This way the militants demonstrated both firepower and defiance. The security forces would perhaps not have raised the force level if the militants had not stooped to animality. In every war, there is a thing called prisoners of war. Even if the war is between an army and a guerilla force, POWs are accorded the status due them. Hezbollah and the Palestinians did not torture the Israelis taken prisoner last year. But here is a guerilla force claiming to fight for Islam, and it tortures to death and mutilates the bodies of the prisoners it takes. This act of barbarism on the part of the militants was no doubt a major factor in the authorities’ decision to raise force level, even if this meant heavy civilian casualties. The militant leadership must, therefore, share part of the blame for bringing death and destruction to the civilian population caught in crossfire.

Finally, there are some points that the nation should be clear about: one, this is not just a war Pakistan is fighting on behalf of the world; it is our own war. If the world and the donors benefit from its success, that would be incidental; the success of the war on terror or its failure will determine the shape of our society. A retreat on this front could perhaps turn Pakistan into the kind of country Afghanistan was during the Taliban rule. Two, considering the death and destruction Fata-based militants and suicide bombers have caused, the nation has no choice but to have the courage to take on a ruthless enemy that is using religion as a cover for terror. This means the nation expects the government to see to it that the writ of the state is established in Fata. Three, it is true that the option of talks must never be abjured. But Pakistan must talk to the militants from a position of strength. In the past, the ‘deals’ and the talks did not produce results because the government appeared to give an impression to its enemies as if it was talking from a position of weakness. Four, do those who accuse Islamabad of not doing enough realise how many casualties Pakistan has suffered and the efforts it is making to crush the terrorists in Fata? Does their hackneyed and cliché-ridden advice take into account the kind of guerilla-friendly mountainous terrain that exists in north-western Pakistan? And are they really providing Pakistan with the kind of equipment, training and funding needed for a job of this nature? Besides, what is their record across the Durand Line? Why are not they doing more to crush the militants there? They must answer this question before doling out unwanted advice to us.

The unravelling Indo-US deal

REGARDLESS of the real motives behind New Delhi’s suspension of its civilian nuclear accord with Washington, the move is bound to elicit comparisons between the foreign policy stances of India and Pakistan. It is obvious that New Delhi is not troubled by the prospect of annoying Washington when, as pointed out by critics, its sovereignty is compromised by the accord. Although associated with the Soviet camp during the Cold War, it has always emphasised non-alignment as an integral part of its external relations. This, together with its stress on nationalism and an uninterrupted history of parliamentary democracy, helped it to formulate an independent foreign policy stance over the years. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s record on this score has left much to be desired. Its membership in the 1950s of Seato and Cento continued to define the direction of its foreign policy long after the end of the two pro-US organisations in the 1970s. It gave unstinted support to the US in the latter’s proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The fact that it continues to pay heavily, both in economic and social terms, has not deterred it from carrying out the US agenda in the war on terror where it is perceived by many to be engaged in a conflict with its own people. Not even a change of heart on the part of the US, observed earlier in the form of sanctions and admonishments which Pakistan still receives for not ‘doing more’ in the conflict, has prompted the establishment to rethink its loyalties.

Nevertheless, it would be unfair to project the Indian decision to defer the deal as one stemming from a solely principled stand, especially as one does not know whether it is a political ploy at this stage. Also, it is rather strange that a deal so vigorously pursued by the Congress government for two years and that was until recently touted as ‘good for India, and good for the world’ should now be on the verge of collapse, especially after pressure from the Left coalition partners. Does the government really think that India’s energy demands can be put on hold or has it succumbed to political expediency at the prospect of losing its power in a snap poll if the Left withdraws support? The question continues to be debated.

Muslim-Christian dialogue

IN a letter, leading Muslim scholars have appealed to the Christian world for a dialogue because the ‘survival of the world’ will be at stake if the followers of the two religions do not come to an understanding. Addressed to Pope Benedict and the leaders of various Protestant and Orthodox churches, the letter, written by 138 leading scholars representing all Islamic sects, said the Christians and Muslims should come together on points that were common to the two faiths, as ‘the world cannot be at peace’ without a Christian-Muslim understanding. The call comes at a time when Muslim-Christian relations are passing through a troubling phase. The consequences of the 9/11 tragedy and America’s war on terror have been compounded by the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, besides the unresolved Palestinian question.

Another factor contributing to the growing distrust of Islam in the West is the Muslim over-reaction to western provocations. The Lal Masjid affair and the goings-on in parts of north-western Pakistan clearly show how ignorant and semi-literate clerics can exploit the innocent and the uneducated in the rural areas to advance their brand of Islam. The suicide bombings that mostly kill civilians, the kidnapping and often murder of aid workers and journalists, the demolition of the Buddha statues, and the opposition to girls’ education and even to polio drops for children serve to retard rather than advance the cause of Islam. In fact, such outlandish acts help the western media portray all Muslims as fanatics and Islam as an intolerant religion. The Muslim scholars are right when they ask the Christian world not to wage war against Muslims. But an equally greater task before Muslim intellectuals is to focus on Muslim societies. The Muslim world needs democracy, education, science and technology, higher living standards and egalitarianism. Without these attributes of a civilised society, it is difficult to see how the Muslim world can resist political extremism and religious militancy.

Analysing violence and war

War is the father of everything. – Heraclitus (535-475 BC)

THE questions people ask about violence and war are phrased by their preconceptions. Why are some developing countries prone to violence?

There is an implicit assumption that violence and war in developing countries is a deviant condition. Developing-country violence is painted as an aberration in a more normal world of liberal peace exemplified by the prosperity and stability of the developed world.

The mainstream liberal perspective in the study of violent conflict creates binary oppositions between the chaotic barbarism of the South and an idealised image of the bourgeois civilisation of the North. This inquisition continues with identifying and comparing the supposed variables that produce violence.

Generally, these are the essentialist ideas of ethnicity, tribalism, identity, primordial animosity and inequality working as over-rationalised factors in deciphering the distance of violent-prone societies from the enlightened orderly ones.

The commonly held belief is that western liberal states have outgrown destructive violence or that their violence is only defensive and perverse. On the other hand, people see violence and wars in the developing world as a function of backwardness, of a democratic deficit, a lack of modernity and a failure to grasp the value of liberalism. This is a simplistic, flawed and a dangerous view of history and human relations.

It asserts the notion that unless a modern democratic state escapes violence, it is decidedly incomplete. In fact the Abu Ghraib torture images, the illegal detention and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in selfish wars are evidence that western liberal society is no different from ours.

Violence, therefore, is not just an aberration. Violence does not always signify a reversal of progress and development. No major institutional and structural change has ever been smooth, peaceable and democratic. Violence is simply a norm in development and it is part of potential development. Liberal interpretation crudely regards violence and war as products of the pathology of underdevelopment.

In recent years, within the liberal tradition, orthodox economic theories of violence and war have proliferated. At the heart of orthodox economics is the application of the idea of maximising behaviour by rational individuals making choices.

For example, let’s take three common determinants of violent conflict in mainstream economic theory: poverty, unemployment and the disproportionate number of young men. In these models, the poor are no more or less inherently prone to violence than anyone else. However, the poor choose violence more often than those who are better off because they have a comparative advantage in violence. This is what they do most efficiently, i.e. at least in terms of cost, because the opportunity cost of violence is relatively low for the poor.

Poor people do not forego much by selecting violence, precisely because there is little else on offer for them anyway. The unemployed, particularly the youth, then find it a better trade-off to engage in violence as other opportunities are scarce.

What is problematic about this theorisation of the causation of violence? There is no empirical value to these arguments. Firstly, there is no evidence to make the assumption that poverty is so gruelling that the opportunity cost of being killed is very low. It is akin to saying that the poor engage in war because their life is cheap! War involves both killing and getting killed — the dangers are equal for all. It is not always the poor or the worst off that are engaging in violence.

Secondly, there is no reliable way of measuring that it is actually the presence of young men that leads to the outbreak of violence more than any other factor. There is ample evidence of the coercive recruitment of young people in contemporary armed conflicts. A clear example of this is the aggressive and threatening recruitment drive of the Pakistani Taliban in the Tribal Areas for suicide bombers and fighters.

Individual motivations are constrained by a range of factors including economic incentives, political conditions and social pressures. Similarly, individuals display a variety of complex compulsions other than utility maximisation that constrains the choices they make. In essence, a model focussing explicitly on individual rational choice behaviour is bound to be flawed.

Basic elements of a richer analysis of contemporary armed conflict can be found in the alternative approaches of historical political economy. Individuals and the choices they make do matter in conflict. However, these occur in specific conditions and within social and historical features of change.

The subtleties of each contemporary violent conflict in the developing world raise the concern that no universal theory of war and violence is possible. The causes and mechanisms of violent conflict are not only multiple, they also vary. For example, the emergence of Pakistani Taliban and proto-Taliban militants in the NWFP and the tribal areas is shaped by the organisation of political power and economic production during colonialism, state building and regional conflicts.

These are the historical processes and empirical realities within which the study of conflict has to be based. Abstract economic models cannot capture the contingencies of the political and economic dynamics of violent conflict. Moreover, this includes moving beyond the perception of conflict as a socially wasteful and retrogressive phenomenon. The western democracies of today have all been born out of brutal periods of civil war, economic disparity and political turmoil.

The other analytical level at which to understand conflict is at the level of class formation, class relations and primitive accumulation. For example, the Balochistan insurgency can be understood as a conflictual process through which the ruling classes have been able to forcefully acquire tracts of resource-rich land and deprive hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of livelihood and subsistence by displacing them.

The brutal acquisition of land in Balochistan signifies usurping the means of production of peasants leading to a process of proletarianisation. This is very much a trend in the other parts of the country where land relations are under stress and property rights are coercively usurped by ruling elites.

The Okara farms issue and contested mega urban development schemes are further examples of such asset transfers that are occurring within the continuum of peace and violence in the country. These are all instances of primitive accumulation that is indicative of capitalist transitions that have always been violent.

In other words, war and non-war violent conflict displays symptoms of an enabling environment for the transition to capitalism and the reproduction of capitalist relations. Understanding violent conflict in the developing world as a characteristic of political and economic transition allows us to identify its role in the processing of new institutions, political relationships and specific social transformations.

However much it is denied by contemporary theoreticians, the effectiveness of violence is perhaps a deeply held belief, which is why a lot of people choose violence as it works.

We have to move beyond a retrogressive view of violence that seeks the fantastical elimination and prevention of conflict and war. Attractive mainstream theories and models look good on paper but hardly capture the diversity and dynamics of violent conflict.

We have to move towards a more plausible understanding of the political, economic and social functions of conflict, violence and war in our society. It is through exploring its historical functions that we can arrive at a better understanding of both its productive and adverse effects.

Pashmina in peril

The Rising Nepal

THE country’s export trade has been facing a severe crisis since the last couple of years. The volume of export in terms of quantity and commodity, according to statistics provided by the Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC), is sliding. Recently, the TEPC has identified 14 major new products having huge export potential…

Out of the 14 items, five of them — including tea and pashmina — have been identified as having unparallel potential. Lack of a proper definition and accreditation, according to a study report, has exposed Nepali pashmina to grave risks of losing the leading European and Japanese markets.

Nepali pashmina as of now is supplied in the international market without any brand name or identification. But nobody has taken this issue seriously. Japanese and European markets are the major destinations for Nepalese products.

Nepali pashmina encountered an unpleasant situation in Japan in June this year when it restricted the entry of pashmina products demanding definition and standard certification. And many other countries in Europe are mounting pressure on Nepalese exporters for the same.— (Oct 13)

A legitimate question

The Himalayan Times

IT is right to seek a compromise formula by extending the special session of the parliament by a couple of days. The stalemate continues between the Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist over the questions of whether the interim parliament or the constituent assembly (CA) should settle the future of the monarchy and whether the country should go to the polls on the basis of full proportional representation or the mixed electoral system.

Both sides appear to stick to their positions — so far. Countries highly important to Nepal seem to be firm in the view that the CA alone should clinch the issue…

The Maoists have sounded positive about compromising on one demand if the other is fully met. Probably, there will not be so much external opposition to whether the electoral system is partly or fully proportional.

Therefore, for any realistic resolution of the crisis, it seems, the agreement should be sought on full proportionality. A parliamentary republican resolution would be just a collective commitment of the seven political parties to republicanism… each one has already made republicanism its chief election plank…— (Oct 15)