ISLAMABAD, April 2: Speakers here at a seminar agreed that the ongoing war on Iraq had badly smeared the image of America by ignoring the UN body.
The seminar “Give Peace a Chance “ was organized by Strengthening Participatory Organization(SPO) here on Wednesday.
Prof Khawaja Masud said America was no longer a super power. The real super power is now the awakened public opinion against war, he added. People have risen against American aggression and are chanting slogans like “Down with America”, he said. He said the war was not aimed at eliminating weapons of mass destruction but driven by lust for capturing Iraqi oil reserves.
Referring to the geo-political situation in the world, he said the bipolar world had died with the fall of Soviet Union giving way to unipolarity.
However, he added that it was ridiculous to think that unipolarity still held sway and it had already been challenged by the new powers like China. The world is now multi-polar, he said and added that now developing world should not succumb to American pressures but chalked out independent policies by keeping in mind the multi-polar nature of the existing world.
Dr Fauzia Saeed, the country director of ActionAid, said the war did not present a Muslim versus non-Muslim scenario as both Christians and Muslims were protesting against the war. She regretted that this aspect was not getting enough limelight. “Another thing which has come out very clearly from the war is that there lies wide gaps between the opinion of the people and the stand taken by their respective governments.”
She said the third point emerging from the war was the very absurdity of the whole phenomenon. “First America said it was meant for disarming Iraq, then shifted its stance to overthrowing Saddam and now talking of rehashing Iraq.” She pointed out that only Iran and Syria in the Muslim countries had vehemently denounced the war on Iraq.”The rest of the Muslim countries have bullied to the extent that they could not dare to take principled stance,” she said. She said the Pope John Paul had condemned the war but the Imam of Ka’aba was silent over the issue. She asked the people striving for social change not to make their processes even-focussed.”We should take this war as one episode in the whole drama of the world”, she added. Dr Saeed categorically told them “keep one eye on Iraq and keep other eye on the longer change. She also said wars should not be romanticised.
Dr Haider Nizamani, a researcher at SDPI, said America had lost the war of ideas and was isolated in the world. He dwelt on a 30-page long document “US strategy for combating terrorism” released by America on 14 February. He said the pillars of American campaign for countering terrorism were three Ds that is defeat, diminish and defend. He said all the most wanted men so far dubbed by America were Muslims, which serve to fuel the speculations that the war is motivated against Islam. He said the report had acknowledged the root causes of terrorism like poverty, ignorance and social injustice but America had done nothing concrete to redress these issues in the world.
Dr Mehboob Sada, the director of Christian Study Centre, said the ongoing war was not a clash of civilizations but a clash of interests. When the two civilizations come into contact, they do not clash but contribute to each other, he maintained. He said in the last few years a new global civilization had emerged with the spread of jeans, cyber nets, Mc Donald, fried chicken and modern inventions.—Junaid Bahadur