Author: M.V.Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: August 18, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/170806-features.html
British Prime Minister Tony Blair who, one
understands, is on his way out, gave an important talk on the country's future
foreign policy at, of all places, the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on
1 August 2006. It is important in many ways. Perhaps Mr Blair, realising that
his days as Prime Minister are numbered, felt free to pour out his heart.
Retirement blues have their use. Perhaps,
Mr Blair too,felt that it is time the world knows what exactly is happening
in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon where blood is freely shed.
But while he dealt mostly on the Middle East
countries, he apparently forgot the terrorism being practised by the thugs
in the Pakistan Army who have been financing subsidiary bodies like the ISI,
SIMI and a host of terrorist organizations.
Blair admitted frankly that while terrorism
was being openly practised in Chechnya, Algeria and by outside forces in India,
it was ignored in the past by the western world because "we did not feel
the impact directly". Even more honestly he said: "We rather are
inclined to the view that where there was terrorism, perhaps it was partly
the fault of the government concerned" (read `India'.
Blair went one step further and said: "We
were in error. We were not bending our eye or our will to it as we should
have". Wisdom has apparently dawned on Mr Blair, even if somewhat late
in his life.
Now he thinks that what is happening is a
clash between two forces in Islam: one which believes that Muslims have departed
from their proper faith, were being taken over by western culture and were
being governed treacherously by Muslims complicit in this take-over and another
which is mainstream moderate Islam which wants to move ahead with the times,
through modernising itself.
According to Mr Blair, what we are seeing
is a war between reactionary Islam on one side and moderate Islam within and
outside of it, on the other. As Blair saw it, the fanatic, reactionary Muslims
had become aware that in order to fight moderates in their own midst, they
should be seen fighting the West.
That, he said, was the explanation for the
attack on the New York Twin Towers on 9/11. He might have said that Samuel
Huntington was right when he wrote about the clash of civilisations.
What happened in New York on 9/11 was merely
duplicated in Mumbai on 7/11; it could also explain what happened in the UK
on 7/7 and in Madrid on 11/3. Terrorists, if Blair is to be believed are attacking
modernism, not nation states.
That does not sound true of what happened
in Mumbai on July 11 or in Delhi or Ayodhya and elsewhere in India over the
last few months. On the streets one only sees becapped and bearded Muslim
men and burqa-clad women.
If Blair really believes in what he said in
Los Angeles, then he must persuade his friend in the White House, George Bush,
to stop giving military aid of any kind to Pakistan and see that its army
is reduced to ineffectiveness so that it will never against be the official
arm of the fundamentalist forces.
Instead of working towards cutting down the
power of the Pak Army, the US is giving Musharraf F-16 warplane complete with
spare parts which, as in the past will be used only against India.
What sort of strategy is this? Let this be
said Musharraf is no Kemal Attaturk. He never was and he never can be. He
must be the most untrustworthy man who ever ruled over Pakistan, the man who,
when Nawaz Sharief was talking peace with Atal Behari Vajpayee in Lahore was
secretly making war in Kargil, all the while encouraging the ISI to wound
India with a thousand cuts, asking New Delhi simultaneously to provide "proof"
about Pakistani involvement! How can anyone trust this man?
Musharraf will never, never betray Osama bin
Laden because, if he hasn't been able to do so by now, it merely means that
he will not do so any time. So what should India do?
An Indian diplomat is arrested under wild
charges, blind-folded, handcuffed, taken to an undisclosed destination and
after five hours returned to Indian diplomats summoned to the Pakistani Foreign
Office. How much of insults and horrors do we have to suffer at the hands
of Pakistan? Was all that done to provoke India?
If so, to what purpose? To show that Musharraf
can take India on? To tell the West that he would not go its way but has an
agenda of his own? And what is his agenda?
Does he realise that granting that Pakistan
nuclear weapons can demolish cities like Ahmedabad, Baroda, Mumbai, Jodhpur,
Delhi and even cities further away, India, by way of retaliation can level
down all of Pakistan to dust? And what would Musharraf have gained thereby
from that?
Tony Blair does not sound very convincing.
One thing is clear: Islam wants to stand up to western progress of which it
is not only in mortal fear but in anguishing jealousy.
But the question again arises: How will that
help Islam or the Islamic nations? At Kargil India clearly showed not only
that it can rise to any occasion, but can also win. The days are gone when
Pakistan used to think that it can conquer India though sheer fear. It has
done everything it could possibly do.
In the forties, fifties and right up to the
nineties, it sold its soul to the US, received massive military and diplomatic
support to attack India, fought three wars and won none. Then it took to terrorism
in Jammu & Kashmir executing a pogrom against Kashmir Pandits of which
Hitler would have been proud. That also failed.
Since then it has sought to sow seeds of hatred
in India by attacks on the Indian Parliament, on Diwali crowds in Delhi and
on suburban trains in Mumbai with no success whatever. Now we are told by
Tony Blair that the fight is not really between Pakistan and India, but between
two sets of Muslims, one liberal and one fundamentalist. Some analysis that.
The fault lies with the West. It chose Pakistan
to fight its dirty wars against the Soviet Union and having won that war,
it has deserted the very terrorists it once fully aided. The terrorists now
feel betrayed and they are hitting out at all and sundry, not knowing what
happened to them.
And it is India that has been at the receiving
end of the stick, thanks to western, notably American, duplicity. Even if
we are to believe Tony Blair, the way to resolve the inner Islamic conflict
is not by supporting reactionary Pakistani forces but by decimatingthem. But
this can only be done with the tacit Chinese cooperation. Has the West discussed
the issue with an open mind with Beijing?
Islamabad is increasingly turning towards
China for help. This is where the trouble lies. India does not want war, certainly
not a nuclear war. But it may be pushed into it, howsoever reluctantly. This
is where the West can help.
By helping India to contain Pakistan is for
the West to help itself. When will Tony Blair learn that simple lesson and
share it with his pal, Bush? The sands of time are running fast. It is not
Iran or Iraq that are the enemies of the West.
The `enemy' if the truth is to be told, is
its own friend, Pakistan. Think it over, Tony. Don't live in a dream world
any longer.
