DAWN - Editorial; November 9, 2005
Breaking the impasse
THERE are signs that the Iran-EU-3 impasse on the nuclear issue is to be broken. Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Mr Ali Larijani, has sent a letter to Britain, France and Germany calling for the resumption of their talks which were suspended in August. After assuming the presidency two months ago, the hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had resumed uranium enrichment-related activities that had provoked a strong reaction from the EU-3. Not only was the dialogue called off; the IAEA’s board of governors also adopted a resolution requiring Iran to be reported to the UN Security Council for non-compliance with the NPT. In this situation, the persisting deadlock seemed to have made any compromise unattainable. Hence Iran’s move to seek negotiations is like a bolt from the blue and will be widely welcomed. Equally significant is Iran’s gesture to open its military base at Parchin to inspection by the IAEA’s inspectors.
One hopes that the EU-3 will not stiffen their stance at this stage to bring pressure to bear on Tehran. On receiving Mr Larijani’s letter, the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, immediately demanded that Iran should suspend its enrichment-related activities for talks to begin. This has been a sensitive issue and should be set aside for discussion when the two sides meet. In that respect, the EU foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, was more circumspect when he said that the EU would respond favourably and didn’t want to go any further in its demands at this stage. The most immediate need at the moment is to kickstart the dialogue. Then the problematic issues can be resolved through negotiations. It would not do to push Iran against the wall and then expect it to negotiate on unequal terms. The fact is that the disagreement between the two sides is based more on mistrust and lack of mutual confidence than on any substantive issue that would affect the strategic interests of any of them.
Iran has been insisting that its right to have a nuclear fuel cycle be conceded as the NPT itself recognizes the right of all signatories to have a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. Since the technology for a fuel cycle has dual uses and can be employed to manufacture weapons as well, the nuclear powers have been attempting to deny it to Iran. In fact the United States has been very vocal in proclaiming that Tehran is on its way to making nuclear weapons. This Iran has denied vehemently attributing its need to be self-sufficient in nuclear fuel to the sanctions imposed on it by the US and the West’s refusal to supply Iran the technology it needs.
These are not issues that cannot be sorted out. The European parliament has only recently adopted a resolution recognizing Iran’s right to a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. The EU-3 could start their dialogue from this premise and negotiate a comprehensive inspection regime by the IAEA to ensure that Iran does not use its nuclear technology for military purposes. Iran has already signed the Additional Protocol of the NPT and seems inclined to accept the monitoring of its programme. Iran will have to agree to some constraints as a quid pro quo for the nuclear technology it is seeking to acquire. This is essential as a confidence-building measure. But the EU-3 must also assure Iran that its interests will not be ignored.
Question of accountability
EVEN a faint glimmer of accountability is watched by us here with envy and admiration. Thus, the Congress Party of India’s decision to take foreign affairs away from Mr Natwar Singh, but let him remain in the cabinet as minister without portfolio, may be a bit of a sop to the opposition, but at least it shows some sensitivity to public opinion. Mr Singh and the Congress have won dishonourable mention in the UN-sponsored oil-for-food scandal inquiry report. It has been alleged that the foreign minister’s son claimed to represent his father and, according to our New Delhi correspondent, perhaps the Congress, in obtaining oil from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq at below market prices and then selling it at a profit. Mr Natwar Singh has denied the charges, and Dr Manmohan Singh’s government has ordered an inquiry into the UN inquiry, which has also tainted Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s son and which, as our correspondent points out, has served to divert attention from the US invasion of Iraq and its bloody, unsettling aftermath.
The opposition had seized on the report to demand Mr Natwar Singh’s head; there are hints that the Congress right-wing may also have been looking for an opportunity for some Natwar-bashing, given the ideological clash within the party. The Indian government has found a temporary way out by removing the minister from active service. Only recently, a British cabinet minister, David Blunkett, resigned following a furore over his links with a technology firm said to be in a position to bid for government contacts. Other examples abound in Britain and other countries. We are a little more thick-skinned. We don’t feel obliged even to come up with honest answers to questions raised in parliament. A general lack of transparency, particularly in matters relating to defence acquisitions, means we don’t even know what’s going on. Ministers and their families can run commercial enterprises without anyone bothered about a clash of interests. Officials named in FIRs and investigation reports can continue to remain in suspended animation and not feel answerable to anyone. That’s why we are so moved by even the most superficial show of accountability anywhere.
Image and reality
ISRAEL is reportedly seeking a better image for itself in the Arab world through the Arab media. Even if belatedly, it seems to have realized that in spite of the western print and electronic media being on its side, it has failed to cast itself in a good light in the Arab world. On the whole, European and American media are extremely partial in presenting the Arab-Israeli conflict. Invariably, it is Israel which “retaliates” while it is “Palestinian terrorists” who attack. Nevertheless, the truth has a way of making itself known as is evident from the revealing reports released from time to time by Amnesty International and other rights groups. In Israel itself, peace activists have been drawing their people’s attention to the horrors of Palestinian life in the West Bank and until recently in Gaza. In one sense, Israel is lucky, for Al-Jazeera, in spite of being Arab-owned, covers the Israeli version of a given incident so as to give both sides of the picture to its viewers. This is in sharp contrast to Israeli television where the Palestinian point of view is blocked out.
Israel now feels the withdrawal from Gaza has given it an opportunity to present a “soft” image to the Arab-Islamic world. It is not as simple as that. Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people are so horrific and spread over such a long period that a mere withdrawal from an occupied area is not going to endear it to the Arab-Islamic people. A Palestinian state is still a dream. As Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said the other day, a Palestinian state is unthinkable until the next generation of Palestinian leaders. This being Israel’s policy, it is hard to see how the Arab media can be won over to create a better image for itself.
Iqbal: a mirror of Indian Muslim psyche
In this he perceptively observes, “Perhaps the right way to look at Iqbal is to see in him one who reflected and put into vivid words the diverse currents of ideas that were agitating the minds of Indian Muslims. His sensitive poetic temperament mirrored all that impinged upon it — the backward looking romanticism of the liberals, the socialist leanings of the younger intellectuals, the longing of the militant Muslim League for a strong leader to restore the political power of Islam. Every Indian Muslim, dissatisfied with the state of things — religious, social, or political — could and did find in Iqbal a sympathizer with his troubles and his aspirations and an adviser who bade him seek the way out by self-expression.”
This means that despite being a creative thinker, Iqbal was addressing the situation at hand. The ideas he enunciated, though intrinsically creative in themselves, and abiding in appeal beyond a particular time and place, were yet primarily meant to salvage the bleak Muslim situation in India and the world at large. This makes Iqbal, in a sense, oriented towards the Indian Muslim psyche and situation.
This framework makes his periodic forays into discussing and suggesting solutions to the problems of the Muslim world at large and his consuming concern with the “Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam” (1930) — a logical extension of his role as a modern Muslim ideologue, attempting to analyze and see Muslim India’s problems and predicament on a wider canvas and in a total context. After all, Iqbal regarded India, if only because of the Muslim numerical strength, as “the greatest Muslim country in the world”, to quote his own words. These tasks, both critical and onerous as they were, he fulfilled squarely.
His emotion-leaden and soul-lifting poetry was the medium Iqbal chose to bring his people a new awareness of the depths of degradation to which they had fallen, to diagnose their ailments, their predicament and the prime cause of their decline, and to warn them of the dire consequences if they failed to mend themselves in good time. A more effective medium he could not have possibly chosen.
For one thing, poetry is the most powerful medium for touching the deepest emotions of a people and for driving a message into their subconscious. For another, the Indian Muslims had been among the most poetry-oriented people in the world, with a long tradition of readily taking to heart what was written in verse. Political orations may stir an audience into action, but their impact is bound to be restricted to a particular audience, and dissipate with time and events. In contrast, a poetic message seeps through the ethos of a nation, working on its psyche all the while.
Hence Iqbal achieved through his poems what a thousand speeches could not. But for the silent mental preparation that had gone on for long decades, the people would not have responded to the call of political leaders — in this case, especially of Jinnah during the 1937-47 epochal decade. No wonder, the pandals of the League sessions from Lucknow (1937) onwards were plastered with Iqbal’s couplets, calling on Muslims to rise and take their destiny in their own. Iqbal was quoted oft and on to rouse Muslims to a new awareness of their destiny. All this had an electrifying effect on the audience since Iqbal, though generally complex and couched in an appropriate idiom, was, straightforward and yielded clear guidelines.
Besides being a poet of extraordinary merit, Iqbal was a thinker of a high order. Thus, while Syed Ahmed Khan, Maulana Mohammad Ali and Jinnah provided political leadership to Muslims, Iqbal took upon himself the task of setting the intellectual tone for Muslim thought and action. (previously, this was done by Sir Syed’s, writings and the Aligarh school). In addressing himself to this task, Iqbal brought a revolution in Muslim thinking at various levels; he also made a significant contribution to keeping them stolidly anchored to their pristine ideology and historical legacy.
His role in awakening the Muslims to a new consciousness began in 1899 when he recited a poem at the annual session of the Anjuman-i-Islam, Lahore. His moving “Nala-i-Yatim” was symbolic of the echoing cry of the faceless masses of the Indian Muslims, who had long felt themselves sidelined neglected.
Like Syed Ahmad Khan and Jinnah, Iqbal had started out as an Indian nationalist, but ended up at the threshold of Muslim nationalism. While the former two came at this threshold directly, Iqbal did it via the pan-Islamism route. With Muhammad Ali, he shared the passion for pan-Islamism. In terms of ideological orientation, these three trends at various stages in Iqbal’s poetic and public life represent his point of convergence with the three most important political leaders Muslim India had produced during the ninety years of British imperial rule (1858-1947). When Iqbal sailed for Europe in 1908 for higher studies, he had gone there as an Indian nationalist, but he returned in 1911 as a pan-Islamist. His European sojourn had acted as a catalyst, enabling him to look at events and developments in a wider perspective. Thus, he came to be disillusioned with the very concept of nationalism, which had spawned inequality and discrimination (even as the European credo of laissez-faire had between man and man) and bred racial discrimination.
What pained him most was the impact of nationalism on various Muslim countries, eroding the pan-Islamic concept, enfeebling the Muslim world and laying it open to European aggression, and exploitation. To the ailments the Muslim world was afflicted with, Iqbal found the solution in Islam and its message. In order to reach the innermost recesses of their consciousness, he invoked the past glory of Islam, telling Muslims of the accomplishments of their ancestors. In so doing, he tried to fight off the prevalent slough of despondency, raising drooping spirit of Muslims and replacing it with a sense of soaring confidence.
Next, he grave them a message of hope. He told them that they could still redeem themselves if they could only recapture their soul and regain their pristine moral and spiritual values. He emphasized the imperative need to develop human qualities and the right type of character. He attributed their degeneration to their taking to a life of passivity and resignation for several generations. That debilitating trend could be reversed by opting for initiative and endeavour which, he believed, Islam stood for. To him, an active, struggling non-believer was preferable to a sleeping Muslim.
But if Muslims were to be beckoned to a new destiny, they must first be confirmed as Muslims and they must own up their pristine values. This was all the more necessary in the context of the rise of positivism and skepticism, which posed a serious challenge to the modern Muslim.
To Iqbal, “the task before the modern Muslim is to re-think the whole system of Islam without completely breaking with the past”. And this crucial task he undertook in a series of lectures since compiled as “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1930).” In these he argued that Islam represented a philosophy of action, for faith without action was a life bereft of any significance.
A true Muslim should always be on the move: he should have an energetic and an active interest in the material reality around him; he should cultivate the sciences and mould the forces of life rather than submit to them. To him, “here on the path halt is improper,/As in rest remains concealed the death;/Only those on move have gone ahead./And who tarried get to be trampled!” Again: “from Khizr you should ask the secret of life,/ Through ceaseless efforts all things exist here!”
That mnas toil and labour, ceaseless efforts and relentless exertions alone will lead to success — to new vistas, greener pastures and goals. He wished Muslims to become dynamic, enterprising and assertive as in early Islam. He wished them to realize, own up and raise their “khudi”, and his doctrine of ‘self’ was meant to strengthen through moral and intellectual power lying within oneself which can enable him to master the world around, besides fulfilling Allah’s will.
Thus, Muslims could remain Muslims and yet enjoy the fruits of modern science and civilization. Yet another crucial task still remained — that is, to spell out the destiny for Indian Muslims. This Iqbal did in is Muslim League Allahabad (1930) address. Here, for the first time, he set out to delineate and address their psychic needs and political aspirations. As a piece of political discourse this address was unique: it spelt out in some detail the intellectual justification for the Muslims’ aspirations for a separate nationhood and a separate national existence.
Seldom does a poet exert such profound influence on the course of history and in changing the destiny of a nation. But Iqbal did because his accomplishments extended far beyond the realm of mere imagination and into the sphere of objective realities, because in the final years of his eventful life he donned the mantle of an ideologue, besides being a national poet.
And, to be sure, all of Iqbal’s efforts throughout the whole span of his active life were directed towards the regeneration of Muslims and the resurgence of Islam.
The writer was founder-director of the Quaid-i-Azam Academy (1976-89), and authored ‘Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation’. (Mahir Ali’s column will appear tomorrow.)