HVK Archives: Threat to civilisation
Threat to civilisation - The Observer
P P Bala Chandran
()
September 25, 1998
Title: Threat to civilisation
Author: P P Bala Chandran
Publication: The Observer
Date: September 25, 1998
Defence minister George Fernandes may have had his reasons for
identifying China as India's enemy number one. In any case, the
statement need not appear as too specious or unrealistic to
anybody who has been a keen observer of the subcontinent's
geopolitics. However, it has lost its relevance in the changed
circumstances brought about by a few far-reaching developments
in central Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistan, more precisely its activities in Kashmir, of course,
remains a cancerous threat to India's sovereignty. Nawaz Sharifs
government has only compounded that threat by turning the
country into an Islamic fundamentalist state. But the burden of
our theme here is not so much about Pakistan going
fundamentalist as about fundamentalism itself. Whatever the
feedback the foreign office wizkids get from our embassies, the
fact is unavoidable, that resurgent Islamic fundamentalism in
the region is becoming the most immediate and the most serious
threat to the whole continent, to begin with, and if let
unchecked, to the whole world. This is the loud and clear
message that should be decoded from the Taliban's relentless
conquest of Afghanistan.
By the time this column appears, the whole of the mountain
country would have come under the complete control of the
madrasa soldiers. But even before that inevitable process is
completed, the impact of such a pernicious development is being
felt across the continent.
To begin with Iran, which has already come under the Taliban's
ominous shadow. Ever since he became the President of his
country, Iranian President Muhammad Khatami has been battling
Islamic fundamentalists. Now with the latest flare-up caused by
the Taliban's killing of nine Iranian diplomats and the fall of
Bamian, a Shia-majority enclave in Afghanistan, President
Khatami has to wage war against the same Islamic
fundamentalists, this time from across the border. Although the
expected flare-up has not happened yet, despite the fact that
Iran has already deployed nearly 75,000 of its elite troops
along its eastern border with another 200,000 battle-geared and
ready to be deployed, there is no gainsaying that the eye-ball
to eye-ball situation can ignite a full scale war between the
two Islamic countries. With the Islamist vigilante groups within
Iran acting as the Taliban's fifth column, Khatami would be
fighting a losing battle against his Sunni adversaries.
Now to come to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) or
the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union including
Russia, the danger paused by fundamentalism is equally
dangerous. In fact, of all the CIS states, the position of
Russia is particularly vulnerable, mainly because of the
ambivalence and geopolitical compulsions of the other members of
the CIS family, all of which have Islam as the common bond with
the Taliban militants.
So far, only Tajikistan has agreed to join the Russian defence
umbrella by letting a Russian infantry division to be stationed
in its territory as a bulwark against a possible intrusion by
the Taliban. With a 1500 km-long border with Afghanistan,
Tajikistan's action is dictated more by its own vulnerability
than by any love for Russia. In a possible Taliban attack,
Tajikistan will be the first one to be gobbled up by the
fundamentalists. Hence the Russian umbrella.
As far as the other three states, namely Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Kazakistan, are concerned, all of them are
tentative about accepting a common defence strategy with Russia
as the leader.
In other words, with Afghanistan in its pocket, and, Iran
weakened by domestic fundamentalists, the Taliban might turn its
sight on the economically crucial CIS states. Once these Islamic
states fall, the Russian underbelly would become the softest
target for the Taliban militia. What options does Russia have,
then? Will it embark on another (mis) adventure like the one it
made in 1991? Will it, with the selfish, but understandable,
intention of safeguarding its own territorial interests against
a ruthless enemy, re-annex its neighbouring states to revive the
old behemoth called the Soviet Union? Such possibilities are not
implausible but are replete with serious and far-reaching
ramifications of continental proportions.
Even China, the only monolithic state that, on the surface of
it, at least, appears invincible to any fundamentalist
incursions cannot breathe easy if the Taliban and the
fundamentalism it represents gains the upper hand in the ongoing
mountain war. Already, the Muslim majority province of Xinjiang
in the north-eastern China is festering into a fundamentalist
sore. Attempts to bring the Muslim insurgency down have only
intensified the fundamentalist fervour of the province's Muslims
who would only be too willing to accept the patronage of the
rampaging Taliban militia.
Pakistan has only made it easier for the fanatics to take
control, not only of the religious, but even the socio-political
and economic lives of the Pakistanis. In any case, Sharifs
decision to turn the country into a fundamentalist state is only
an acceleration of a process that was bound to happen sooner or
later. Where does it leave India and other non-Islamic nations
in the sub-continent? Now is the time for all the smart alecs
in the South Block to put on their thinking caps and come up
with some strategy.
It cannot be done by shooting paper missiles and inane protest
notes from their ornate desks. In order to evolve an effective
strategy against a wily and resourceful adversary like the
Taliban and, its natural allies, there has to be an equally wily
and resourceful counter-block of our own natural allies. Once we
can convince all those potential victims of the Taliban, such as
Iran, Russia, the CIS states, China and, why not, even Pakistan
- which still has, mercifully, a sizeable population with
liberal dispensation - about the universal need to stop a
medieval monster in order to save the world as we know it, it
will be easier to form a grand alliance of all civilised forces
against it.
Samuel Huntington's projected scenario of a world where only
four religious groups - Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and
Buddhism - surviving the vicissitudes of civilisation and time
is far more acceptable. than a world which is whiplashed into
savagery by mindless bigots.
It is the bounden duty of every civilised nation and individual
to serve as the foot, soldier in this crusade, the result of
which will decide the course, the world should take - to the
21st century after Christ or before Christ. This is a war where
all enemies should forget their petty geographical nuisances and
form a common front against the father of all enemies, namely
Islamic fundamentalism. Your enemy's enemy can be your friend,
but the Taliban and the bigotry that it preaches is nobody's
friend and everybody's enemy, including the Muslims.
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