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Now that President Pervez Musharraf has decided to emulate Genereal Zia-ul-Haq and land up in India to watch a cricket match, there is a sense of astonishment at the enthusiasm with which this symbolic gesture is greeted in the West.
Whether it is the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus link or the phenomenal flexibility shown by India on the question of passports required for the crossing, the presiding deities of international opinion seem to go ga-ga at the mere mention of the so-called peace process.
Even if an enduring settlement proves elusive, there is a feeling that the sheer momentum of the process can help evaporate tensions and facilitate a working peace. In any case, it can always avert a nuclear war that the West once believed was imminent.
For the West and the English-speaking world in particular, the faith in the peace process rests disproportionately on the experience in Ireland. It has been some eight years since the streets of Belfast experienced a bout of boisterous street rioting.
And though odd events like a celebrated bank robbery and a pub murder continue to agitate the politicians, Northern Ireland has been experiencing a much-needed respite from violence. Of course, it may be a pure coincidence that the financial assistance for terrorism, which flowed from the Irish diaspora in the US, has dried up since 9/11.
A short visit to Belfast last week confirmed the impression that the bad old days may be finally over. There were no border checks or even a policeman in sight at Lifford in County Donegal as our car drove into Northern Ireland.
Apart from the yellow lines on the sides of the road being replaced by white lines, the distances now reading miles instead of kilometres and the Euro being replaced by the British Pound, there was absolutely no hint that an international border crossing had been effected.
Oh yes, on the Irish side the road signs said Derry; in Northern Ireland it is Londonderry. I presume this is what is called a `soft border.' Belfast was a living example of how the peace process has translated on the ground. For nearly three decades this city had gone into terminal decline.
First there was the collapse of the shipbuilding industry that, employed 33,000 people in 1945 but now provides a livelihood to only 300. Then the Irish linen industry which once produced the most exquisite damask, collapsed, losing out to Third World competition.
Finally, the troubles in the city and all the televised images of violence led to a flight of remaining capital. By the 1990s, Belfast was part of the rust belt where crazy gangs of over-politicised youth slugged it out on the streets, killing just for the heck of it.
Politics became the passion precisely because there was nothing else to do. The Falls Road and Shankill Road in West Belfast were the ghettos of discord. The former was Catholic and fiercely pro- IRA.
The latter was Protestant and committed to a British identity for Ulster. Both communities lived on slogans and welfare handouts; there were just no jobs to be had.
Today, both areas have become tourist attractions. The competitive murals proclaiming historical wrongs and celebrating martyrdom still attract attention, but only from tourists. The Republican murals celebrate the martyrdom of Bobby Sands and express solidarity with Palestine; the Unionist murals invoke history through Oliver Cromwell and proclaim No Surrender.
The old military stations have been `decommissioned', and the tourist taxis also stop there to look at the disused fortifications. The centre of attraction, however, is the peacenik graffiti on the `peace wall'. For the buffs, there is even a special museum and library where the entire sectarian conflict is minutely documented. The interesting feature of the peace process is that few of the political grievances have been frontally addressed.
The six counties of Ulster won't join the neighbouring Eire in the foreseeable future and the Unionist majority will not let Tony Blair or any other British Prime Minister for that matter abdicate its last remaining imperial responsibility.
To use an analogy familiar to the subcontinent, the Line of Control has been frozen. A complex problem has been left to a future generation to untangle.
Instead, the politics of conflict has been bypassed by robust economic activity. Eire has shed its image of a Third World country in Europe and has been re-christened a Celtic Tiger. It is at the heart of Europe's experiments with new technology.
It is India's foremost competitor in software, BPO and pharmaceuticals. Its tax rates are low and its workforce is skilled, motivated and relatively inexpensive.
On its part, Belfast is experiencing an exhilarating bout of urban renewal. Its urban culture is being reshaped and its skyline redrawn. It is becoming a popular tourist destination, which, in time, will even boast of a museum dedicated exclusively to the `Titanic'.
The ship was built in Belfast. Like Glasgow, Newcastle and Liverpool, Belfast has become the frontline of a Cool Britannia, even if the Victorian facade of the grand buildings is only a cover for a supermarket. There is even a gay pub that flaunts a life-sized statue of Lenin. Yes, the Irish haven't lost their sense of humour.
There are jobs to be had in Belfast and there is lots of money to be made in Dublin. There is visible prosperity in the island and the Americans are encouraging it enthusiastically. Used to buying a one-way ticket to America, the Irish are now scripting a success story within Ireland just as we are doing in India.
To use Donald Rumsfeld's terminology, this is the New Europe that is actually working. Like the Chinese, the Irish have put their poetic passion for God and politics on hold.
That is what the peace process is
essentially all about-the triumph of capitalism over tribalism. An India
that is just about waking up to its entrepreneurial potential may find
the Irish experience extremely instructive. Unfortunately, what Ireland
also suggests is that it takes two to make a peace process succeed. As
of today, I am not so sure about Pakistan.
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