Historians believe that the world could have been spared of some of the worst atrocities of fascist dictators and notorious barbarians, had they not been grievously wronged and disgraced by the so-called civilized powers.
Had the Treaty of Versailles not been so unjust in heaping humiliation, loss of territories and heavy reparations on Germany, Hitler would never have been able to muster the whole nation to wage a war that caused such immense suffering to humanity. Romans treated Carthage, with similar contempt and suffered the consequences at the hands of Hannibal, who wreaked havoc over Italy for 15 years to avenge the undeserved humiliation of his people. Genghis Khan had huge expanse of steppes land for his hordes and had no need to take on the disciplined armies of sedentary empires.
It was Sultan Muhammad II of Khwarism who chose to dare and insult the Khan by having his ambassador of goodwill executed, robbing a large Mongol caravan, killing the traders and sending back two officials of the court with their beards shaved off. What followed was a disaster to the centuries-old Muslim civilization, which it has yet to recover from.
The bloodbath of innocent people at the hands of villains of history is, no doubt, reprehensible — so is the blatant injustice meted out to them earlier by their civilized adversaries. The court historians, however, conveniently sweep it under the carpet, as the horrifying game continues to be played by the so-called enlightened modern society. Centuries of colonialism have deprived a number of nations of the fruits of Industrial Revolution and rendered them incapable of defending themselves against their powerful oppressors armed with technology and weapons of destruction.
After the withdrawal of the colonial powers, they became the targets of American intervention, which was focussed at defeating the advance of Communism and ensuring cheap supply of fossil fuel to keep their oil-guzzling juggernaut of capitalism satiated. The rulers of these soft states, trying to recover from the bleeding of the colonial masters, fell easy prey to the promises of development and American protection of their thrones, dictatorships and sheikhdoms in return of serving their new masters.
Their population was aroused, trained and armed on the forums of Islam or Christianity to fight against the godless communists. The USA committed numerous covert acts of terror in this period, which included assassinations, coups d’etat and insurgences backed by CIA. These are documented and known to the whole world, but hidden from the majority of American populace.
Now that the dust has settled after the end of colonial loot and the exploitation of cold war, a great mass of humanity finds itself not only abandoned and impoverished by their erstwhile ‘benefactors’, but also left at the mercy of their inept, corrupt and self-serving rulers. The fundamentalists are none other than those who were recruited and trained to fight and offered sacrifices in the proxy wars for the USA, and are now demanding their land and freedom of their brethren. The militants are none other than the demobilized irregulars of the CIA, who are asking for their wages of equality and dignity that were promised to them. Finding no recourse to justice, they have no option but to raise a noise, which the world can hear. In their desperation, they play on their own lives, not caring for others’.
People of the world must hear them out and give them a fair deal as dictated by human conscience. They must see through the game of their rulers supported by the big businesses, who urge them ostensibly to fight for the sanctified notions of democracy, liberty and equality, as they deprive others of exactly the same values. The only ones to profit are the corporations, and the only losers are the people.
Forgetting their own injustices of the past, they paint their victims as the dark forces of ignorance and evil. In order to cover up the duplicity, they have to weave an intricate web of lies and deception around the vulnerable minds of its citizens through an Orwellian state propaganda in collaboration with the media owned by the vested interests.
The policy of engineering information and excluding the other side of the story, deprives the people of their right to know the whole truth. It prevents them from employing their intrinsic sense of justice in expressing their will. It is like sending the jury out while the defence is arguing the case. One wonders how a common church-going and God-fearing American would vote, if he knew of all the dark deeds of their leaders. Would he approve assassinations of foreign leaders in the interest of American business, or extracting interest money from starving masses on loans given to their corrupt leaders? Would he allow his government to wage wars directly or through proxies, and to kill thousands of innocent citizens to ensure cheap supply of oil?
President Eisenhower acknowledged the government’s propensity for war as well as people’s yearning for peace in the same observation in 1959 when he said: “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.”
This wisdom seems to have fallen on deaf years. Anthony Lewis of New York Times (April 12, 1986), truly reflected the mind-set of the American establishment when he argued that it was quite proper to kill “innocent civilians, or murderous states will never fear retribution”.
Noam Chomsky’s retort to this remark in his essay Culture of Terrorism (1988) was not only classic, but also prescient in foretelling the disaster that America was to face three years later. He wrote “Within the disciplined Western intellectual circles, few could comprehend that on the principle Anthony Lewis enunciates, innumerable people around the world are entitled to bomb Washington, causing tens of thousands of casualties in retribution for the acts of terrorist commanders who operate there with impunity”.
Thomas Bailey, a respected American historian justifies mass deception in the national interest: “Because the masses are notoriously short-sighted and cannot see danger unless it is at their throats, our statesmen have to deceive them into an awareness of their own long-run interests.”
Ironically, the reality proved to be contrary on September 11, when the danger came down at their throats not because of the people, but due to the State’s own short-sighted policies. None other than Prof. Samuel Huntington of Harvard University revealed how the truth and justice are deliberately subverted in the pursuit of world domination. He said in 1981, “You may have to sell (intervention or other military action) in such a way as to create the misimpression that it’s the Soviet Union that you are fighting. That is what United States has done...”.
In the present circumstances, it does not take much of imagination to substitute the word ‘Soviet Union’ with ‘terrorism’, which is the new stick USA has found to beat the world. (Why Islam has not yet been made the official synonym for terrorism, as Huntington would have it, may be a matter of tactical prudence).
Given the preponderance of American interest over the rest of the world and the human values, the US President regularly defies the world opinion unilaterally. He would refuse to reduce the carbon emissions today with impunity, and reject the establishment of an International Court of Criminal Justice tomorrow ,with the will of an intending criminal. He would demand publicly the removal of one elected world leader here and order murder of another one there. When proved guilty of one of the many crimes of military intervention and killings in Nicaragua by the International Court of Justice, the US President rejects the verdict with contempt and daring. He appears to draw his strength from the electorate, but in reality it is rooted in their ignorance which is assiduously cultivated in conspiracy with the intellectual community, as demonstrated by the aforementioned examples.
Employing cunning and force may yield short-term benefits, but is bound to be disastrous in the long run. European nations have learnt this wisdom the hard way after centuries of bloodshed. By jointly agreeing on a rational policy of sharing in preference to capturing, they have banished internal wars from the continent for the first time. As they make advances to an era of tranquillity and prosperity, they offer food for thought for the rest of the world to benefit from.
The world community comprises nations just as a nation comprises individuals. While justice is considered essential for peaceful resolution of disputes between two individuals of a community, it is disregarded in a much more serious situation of two nations who are out to destroy each other. The spirit of justice in international affairs is as simple as the age-old golden rule, which commands — not to do to others what you would not have done to you. American Declaration of Independence referring to British rule justify insurgency: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations.... evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government... for their future security.”
But America refuses the same right to Palestinians, not remembering that if the sauce that is good for the goose is not good for the gander, it is injustice, and one has to pay for it.
War has been the compulsion of the rulers, who gain from it, but peace is the need of the people, who yearn for it. Only the people of the world can restrain and guide their rulers to be just and caring towards humanity — not for the sake of morality, but for the long-term benefit of their own and mankind. While injustice breeds in the darkness of manufactured information, justice thrives in the light of truthful and complete information. Information is more accessible now than ever before, thanks to new technology and shrinking size of the world. The youth of the world are already talking and listening to each other over the head of the manipulated media. They are realizing that the fate of humanity is inter-connected — not only through the skies, the seas and the air but also through the power games their leaders play.
The dissidents in Europe have already gate-crashed in the political preserves of the old order to bring their governments round to caring for the world and its environment. Joined with their counterparts in other countries, they are raising voices against the oppressive regimes of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO against the poor of the world and influencing their policies. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and Human Right Groups are cutting across national borders and talking of mankind rather than nationalities. A great pluralist movement is already on to liberate the world from injustice.
Let the meek and the mighty of the world communicate to know each other’s pains and join hands to let it snowball into the old world-order. Let the self-serving and the war-mongers calling the shots be identified and replaced by leaders of peace and vision. It may not lead us to Utopia but can certainly promise a better and more endurable world.
Historians believe that the world could have been spared of some of the worst atrocities of fascist dictators and notorious barbarians, had they not been grievously wronged and disgraced by the so-called civilized powers.
