"Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall"- were famous words uttered by president Ronald Reagan in a speech on June 12, 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. These words were seen as a spark that would light the fuse that would bring the cold war to an end. The words were spoken meters away from the one structure that so profoundly symbolized the great divide, The Berlin Wall. It seemed like his words acted like dynamite in pushing a movement over the edge. Two years later a chain of events across eastern Europe caused the wall to breach uniting a divided people forever.
This month the twentieth anniversary of this defining moment was celebrated across Europe and the international media was abuzz reprising that moment and deciphering history and the sequence of events that changed the world. The true hero who lit the fuse was Mikhail Gorbachev who had come to the conclusion that the soviet union and its policies were unsustainable and counterproductive. He was rapidly putting into motion changes that even the so called democratic leaders of the west were openly afraid of. He was convinced in dismantling the status-quo for good. He was no longer interested in keeping the eastern block under the soviet shadow, as he was relinquishing to the will of its people. So when the moment came for the wall to be breached he stepped aside and let history take its course.
A united Germany to many brought back visions of the past they were uncomfortable with. According to records, Margaret Thatcher and George Bush Sr. were both not keen on seeing the wall come down. They were afraid of the balance of power shifting in the aftermath and how that would play out. And the famous Ronald Reagan speech, was more of a ruse, a distraction he was seeking from his domestic voes surrounding the Iran-contra scandal. But to his credit his Hollywood charisma bore fruit. He reclaimed some of his lost glory with the speech and achieved mythic status among many of his supporters. To some extent he even prodded the movement a little to gather steam.
The Berlin wall fell twenty years ago. In the decades since many walls have gone up and those that existed before have grown stronger and wider. India and Pakistan point nuclear warheads at each other, threatening to wipe out the one people that they are. North Korea seeks nuclear weapons to escalate its feud with the south. Israel builds a wall around Palestinians to keep suicide bombers at bay in the process confining a people much like they were in another part of the world. America builds a fence along the Mexican border to keep people away from seeking a better life. Humans have even managed to build walls on oceans. Countless electronic walls go up censoring expression and freedom of thought. Psychological walls seem to divide people more than ever on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, gender and sexual preference. Humans seem hell bent on devouring their humanity taking us to some dark places.
What is surprising is that while millions of words were generated and billions of bytes of information exchanged about the fall of the Berlin wall, no head of state took the opportunity to utter any Reaganesque words asking for all walls to be torn down in the interest of our very survival. We all know that when the Himalayan glaciers melt away and the polar ice caps seize to exist, no wall will be able to hold back people who will seek help from those spared. Nature sees no walls, all it sees is six billion ants digging theirs and their children's grave. It is what it is.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
An ever elusive End Game
In search of an end game Pakistan launches a massive military offensive against the Taliban (its own people) and America deliberates on its next move in Afghanistan. Once again all eyes are on the subcontinent. This is a region that has seen unprecedented upheaval in the last few decades, as armed conflicts have chewed up countless innocent lives and continue to do so at this very moment. From the Maoists in Nepal and India, separatists in Kashmir, Tamils in Sri Lanka, Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Uighars in north western China, one thing is clear. These are all uprisings against the establishment started by indigenous people centered around issues of land, self determination and in protest of lack of acceptable governance. Whether somewhere along the way these movements were hijacked by groups with more devious intentions, is as debatable as the establishment's claim that they have done everything to keep their citizens content and hopeful for a better future. It all depends on whose point of view you want to buy into.
The Talibanization of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a direct result of allowing a region and a group of people to descend into destitution and medieval standards of living. After the Soviets left Afghanistan the world turned its back and allowed it to take its natural course. Which was for the warlords to take control of a power vacuum and maintain a brutal status-quo with the help of a smorgasbord of nefarious groups all benefiting from the poppy trade. The drug trade flourished and formed the very backbone of the problem we face today. It took an attack on Manhattan for the world to wake up.
The Talibanization of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a direct result of allowing a region and a group of people to descend into destitution and medieval standards of living. After the Soviets left Afghanistan the world turned its back and allowed it to take its natural course. Which was for the warlords to take control of a power vacuum and maintain a brutal status-quo with the help of a smorgasbord of nefarious groups all benefiting from the poppy trade. The drug trade flourished and formed the very backbone of the problem we face today. It took an attack on Manhattan for the world to wake up.
Suddenly the Taliban were in the news who were no different than the Saudis. They were as brutal and medieval in their ways in implementing the Sharia, its just that they did not have oil under them to gain global legitimacy. They were practicing a form of government which had gained popular support because it at least delivered security and a semblance of a nation. The only miscalculation they made was to give Osama Bin Ladin a place to pitch his tent. This as we know drew the wrath of America, which went after two nations in search of a small band of terrorists with all the force at its disposal, resulting in the murder of innocent lives on all sides, which goes on unabated to this date.
The Maoists in India and Nepal share some similarities in their genesis with the Taliban. First and foremost they grew out of some of the most impoverished, medieval and backward parts of the nation, where discrimination and neglect had pretty much pushed a population over the edge. The Maoist or Naxalite movement as it is popularly known in India, started in the late 60s with a peasant uprising in a small village called Naxalbari in northern West Bengal. The movement orchestrated by the communist party over the years evolved into a nexus between, armed guerrillas, political factions, ideologues and other power brokers who all had something to gain by undermining the establishment. One thing is indisputable, the movement gathered ground because it had formidable support from the rural and tribal folk of the region who were being victimized by a feudal system decades after independence. In the 80s the movement also had popular support from the ideological urban youth who had lost faith in their government and believed in a sense of justice. For long the establishment skirted the Maoist movement as a local law and order issue only to wake up recently to realize it is the most serious internal security threat facing the nation.
The Maoists have been waging a guerrilla war for nearly four decades now and are finally making international headlines. In Nepal they have been successful in taking over the government. As the Indian government prepares to tackle this problem head on, violence which is already a daily part of life in these backward areas has become more pronounced and will exacerbate. The Maoists and their political wing has been outlawed and the various factions are too far gone to enter into a political settlement. As the big guns take on the small guns, and extra judicial killings become the daily norm, India begins to go down the same slippery road Afghanistan and Pakistan are on at the moment.
In the south the Sri Lankan government declared victory over a three decade long guerrilla war by crushing the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) with brute force and brutality. What went on during the final stages of the war was hidden as journalists were banned from the war zone by the Army. So the killing fields remain a mystery and the human loss and the nature of the war remains heavily disputed. More than 69,000 people lost their lives during the course of the long war which again started as an armed struggle for land, self determination and an end to ethnic discrimination. The Tamils for whom the guerrilla force LTTE said they fought for, have origins on the island nation which are as old as the majority Sinhalese. But they had been discriminated all along and so began their struggle for an independent piece of land they could call their own.
The LTTE started as a popular movement and somewhere along the way got hijacked by the megalomaniac misgivings of its leader and lost traction and direction. From a guerrilla group the LTTE became a terrorist group recruiting child soldiers and pioneering suicide bombings wreaking havoc amongst its own people and the nation. They were ultimately snuffed out early this year in a bloody battle. The aftermath of the war resulted in the creation of the largest internment camp for internally displaced Tamils fleeing the conflict. More than 40,000 Tamils languish in a camp imprisoned by the Sri Lankan government with the pretext that some of the LTTE members could be hiding within the refugee population. And so the Tamils suffer inhumane conditions on their own land prompting many to call it a deliberate act of slow genocide. Again the international community relinquishes its responsibility as there is no vested interest here. Another Darfur in the making, another armed conflict gone terribly wrong.
All these conflicts show that on a human moral level, they can never be justified, cause the casualties of war are always those who are at the lowest rung of the food chain. Armed conflicts on the other hand are always good for business, the arms business. All guerrilla groups are always well funded. They have easy access to weaponry. The LTTE had even managed to procure airplanes to fight the government. So someone is making money at the cost of wreaking mayhem. On the other hand the establishment always has an enemy they can use to scare their people into supporting their agenda. And so the battles rage on.
The reason why we do not have violent uprisings threatening to overthrow the establishment in the materially developed west, is because even in the most desperate situation a citizen can hope for a better future. They can still rely on their state and their legal system for some help. In most places where there is armed conflict, the people put their faith in who ever gives them immediate relief, and in most cases it is never the government. When the devastating earthquake hit Pakistan last year, it was the political wing of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba that provided relief in the eyes of the people. In parts of India the Maoists have forcibly taken land from the feudal landlords and redistributed it among the landless Dalits (out castes), bringing a sense of Robin Hood style justice to centuries of oppression.
In the west poverty is more of an emotional state than a physical one. Where as in these impoverished regions of the world poverty and neglect is all that is left. When you have nothing to lose you have little concern in causing harm to those who have everything to lose. Using bigger guns in these regions in search of an end game, is making a situation that is dire even worse. In a recent poll in Pakistan people in the affected areas were asked who they considered a bigger threat, the Taliban or the US. Overwhelmingly people said the US. This goes to prove that a military solution can never be a solution, it can only be a band-aid that burns and leaves deep open wounds. Democracy at the barrel of a gun does not last long.
In todays world more than ever, where you live does decide whether you live or whether you die. This very aspect gives people clarity to understand where they stand in relation to the planet. It is what it is.
The Maoists in India and Nepal share some similarities in their genesis with the Taliban. First and foremost they grew out of some of the most impoverished, medieval and backward parts of the nation, where discrimination and neglect had pretty much pushed a population over the edge. The Maoist or Naxalite movement as it is popularly known in India, started in the late 60s with a peasant uprising in a small village called Naxalbari in northern West Bengal. The movement orchestrated by the communist party over the years evolved into a nexus between, armed guerrillas, political factions, ideologues and other power brokers who all had something to gain by undermining the establishment. One thing is indisputable, the movement gathered ground because it had formidable support from the rural and tribal folk of the region who were being victimized by a feudal system decades after independence. In the 80s the movement also had popular support from the ideological urban youth who had lost faith in their government and believed in a sense of justice. For long the establishment skirted the Maoist movement as a local law and order issue only to wake up recently to realize it is the most serious internal security threat facing the nation.
The Maoists have been waging a guerrilla war for nearly four decades now and are finally making international headlines. In Nepal they have been successful in taking over the government. As the Indian government prepares to tackle this problem head on, violence which is already a daily part of life in these backward areas has become more pronounced and will exacerbate. The Maoists and their political wing has been outlawed and the various factions are too far gone to enter into a political settlement. As the big guns take on the small guns, and extra judicial killings become the daily norm, India begins to go down the same slippery road Afghanistan and Pakistan are on at the moment.
In the south the Sri Lankan government declared victory over a three decade long guerrilla war by crushing the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) with brute force and brutality. What went on during the final stages of the war was hidden as journalists were banned from the war zone by the Army. So the killing fields remain a mystery and the human loss and the nature of the war remains heavily disputed. More than 69,000 people lost their lives during the course of the long war which again started as an armed struggle for land, self determination and an end to ethnic discrimination. The Tamils for whom the guerrilla force LTTE said they fought for, have origins on the island nation which are as old as the majority Sinhalese. But they had been discriminated all along and so began their struggle for an independent piece of land they could call their own.
The LTTE started as a popular movement and somewhere along the way got hijacked by the megalomaniac misgivings of its leader and lost traction and direction. From a guerrilla group the LTTE became a terrorist group recruiting child soldiers and pioneering suicide bombings wreaking havoc amongst its own people and the nation. They were ultimately snuffed out early this year in a bloody battle. The aftermath of the war resulted in the creation of the largest internment camp for internally displaced Tamils fleeing the conflict. More than 40,000 Tamils languish in a camp imprisoned by the Sri Lankan government with the pretext that some of the LTTE members could be hiding within the refugee population. And so the Tamils suffer inhumane conditions on their own land prompting many to call it a deliberate act of slow genocide. Again the international community relinquishes its responsibility as there is no vested interest here. Another Darfur in the making, another armed conflict gone terribly wrong.
All these conflicts show that on a human moral level, they can never be justified, cause the casualties of war are always those who are at the lowest rung of the food chain. Armed conflicts on the other hand are always good for business, the arms business. All guerrilla groups are always well funded. They have easy access to weaponry. The LTTE had even managed to procure airplanes to fight the government. So someone is making money at the cost of wreaking mayhem. On the other hand the establishment always has an enemy they can use to scare their people into supporting their agenda. And so the battles rage on.
The reason why we do not have violent uprisings threatening to overthrow the establishment in the materially developed west, is because even in the most desperate situation a citizen can hope for a better future. They can still rely on their state and their legal system for some help. In most places where there is armed conflict, the people put their faith in who ever gives them immediate relief, and in most cases it is never the government. When the devastating earthquake hit Pakistan last year, it was the political wing of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba that provided relief in the eyes of the people. In parts of India the Maoists have forcibly taken land from the feudal landlords and redistributed it among the landless Dalits (out castes), bringing a sense of Robin Hood style justice to centuries of oppression.
In the west poverty is more of an emotional state than a physical one. Where as in these impoverished regions of the world poverty and neglect is all that is left. When you have nothing to lose you have little concern in causing harm to those who have everything to lose. Using bigger guns in these regions in search of an end game, is making a situation that is dire even worse. In a recent poll in Pakistan people in the affected areas were asked who they considered a bigger threat, the Taliban or the US. Overwhelmingly people said the US. This goes to prove that a military solution can never be a solution, it can only be a band-aid that burns and leaves deep open wounds. Democracy at the barrel of a gun does not last long.
In todays world more than ever, where you live does decide whether you live or whether you die. This very aspect gives people clarity to understand where they stand in relation to the planet. It is what it is.
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