This article is in fact the ‘Prologue of my work of about 200 pages comprising prologue, Foreword and 13 chapters which I started after Western attack on Iraq in March 2003 and completed in October 2003: Labbaik Allahhumma Labbaik: What is Pakistan’s role when the Muslim world is confronting America and allied West including Israel in a struggle for the Final Solution’? It was partly (prologue, Foreword and 7 chapters) published in Urdu in March 2004 in Pakistan. For presentation here as an independent article, the Prologue has been accordingly updated. – Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor 23-04-2018, Lahore.
What various nations of the world say about issues connected with American invasions on Afghanistan and Iraq and its so called “War on Terror” is not at all indicative of how they actually feel about them. For them an unnecessary and unwanted situation has been created. As any abnormal behavior ends, there is embarrassment everywhere. In fact these nations have been left with little or no option. I cannot believe that the Japanese, for example, are comfortable by sending their troops into Iraq.
Now one may realize or not there is always a punishment for any abnormal behavior. Already all over the world perceptions of the people about America have changed. And this is more so in the Muslim world. So a punishment is already being inflicted on America. Taking a bit longer view than Musharraf, it is our duty, now, to see that within the prevailing environment what concrete steps can be initiated for the benefit of Pakistan, the Muslim world and the world in general.
In relation to each other where different nations or more appropriately peoples of the world stand today? For the first time during whole of the human existence on this earth they all stand today in sight of each other. Do they know each other? Not always needing to know, wrong perceptions and prejudices carried over from the past and weaknesses and defects in cultures, as every culture has its own peculiar weaknesses and defects, have hindered their knowing each other. Therefore, as yet, they do not know each other fully. But the process of knowing each other is in operation as never before. So, there is hope for the better.
As in the past, this process cannot proceed uninterrupted. Whatever level of civilization we have anywhere in the world today has been achieved by painstaking bit by bit work by generation after generation of people, interrupted, stopped, reversed or deviated at almost every step by those who were selfish and powerful but not inclined towards civilized behavior. Therefore at every step ahead also there are real problems.
Every day all of us perform so many ‘normal’ tasks that without them our life stops then and there. Why it never comes to our minds how such tasks became normal for us is because we grew up with them. At certain stage these tasks must have been new and difficult for our predecessors. This is how civilization has been built.
So building civilization and undermining it has gone on and on throughout history. No doubt, with great losses (sacrifices) at every step, humanity continued to build brick by brick and the end product is what we have today. But there are surely and clearly defects in what has been built. Is it not for this reason that at least the enlightened part of humanity have the general feeling that there are dangers around and that things can go wrong unpredictably. How to dismantle what has been built that should not have been built?
And if we feel endangered for the future, it only indicates something has not been built yet. The dangers we confront today, sometime, brings to the mind the disarming idea that all this ‘development’ was not required after all or that it should have been delayed until man had become more mature to handle things. As if things were in somebody’s control to predetermine by design the course of history! And that is what exactly we must struggle to accomplish now. We have to come out of the chaos of conflicts and set the course of history right or more precisely of what in the future will become history, otherwise humanity is in perennial danger. Although one can visualize this possibility, but then there is a big threat that may derail everything. America is armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction!
It should be understood that technology is far ahead of politics. Technology has given in the hands of man such destructive power that by pressing buttons, they say, practically all humanity can be destroyed. The technology in the hands of man is new and the latest of late twentieth or of twenty first century but the man is medieval. He is selfish and can kill others in a state of rage or pre-meditatively even when more beneficial alternatives are available as he is unable to see any larger meaning in our lives on this earth. These traits of man are very very old.
The culture to sit on atomic and other deadly weapons, now they collectively call ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or WMD was initiated by America, reared and led by America and is now maintained by America. Writing in 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev says, “at almost all its stages the Soviet Union has been the party catching up. By the beginning of the seventies we had reached approximate military-strategic parity, but on a level that is really frightening.” Earlier the Americans had even tasted their use on the civilian population of Japan, when, in fact, they were not threatened! The explanation can be that they were in rage and therefore dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In 1398 Timur occupied Delhi. “Some resistance by the inhabitants provoked a general massacre. The city was thoroughly plundered for five days, all the accumulated wealth of generations being carried off to Samarqand,” because Timur was in rage! “The appalling atrocities of Timur’s raid destroyed all semblance of government in Upper India.” No regular government was established at Delhi until fifteen years after Timur’s departure.
American crime of nuclear bombing Japan went unpunished. And today they are comfortable with their WMD arsenals. Practically it is nothing but a great gamble. And gamblers do not work for civilization. The situation is intolerable.
But American “democracy” is rotating in a vicious circle of its own and is not opening up to the most crucial question of our time – disarmament. For instance, in the present ongoing election campaign in America disarmament as an issue does not exist. Further their ideologues have made the ruling circles culturally blind and the result is that they plunged themselves into the present conflict with the Muslim world with a passion. If those who undermine civilization can take control of state power in America through “democracy”, do not be surprised if they try to mutilate it further at the first available chance transforming America into a more militarized dictatorship, apparently civil, with war agenda, for the time being, against other Muslim nations. I believe Zionists are working overtime to accomplish their anti-civilization designs. After 9/11, you can expect some ’10/11′ when they explode a nuclear device in some Christian country or Israel and blaming Muslims unleash another and more ferocious war – this time with nuclear weapons.
So we feel that nuclear armed America where Zionists are free to play their games is the biggest threat for the Muslim world today. Peoples of America have to act here and now and not let crimes against humanity and civilization happen in their name. Peoples of the world have a historical job to do – to disarm America of its WMD arsenals.
‘Non-proliferation’ is a deception. We must not be distracted by Dr. A. Q. Khan, Libya, North Korea, Iran or whatever. Possession of weapons of mass destruction by the United States is the “mother of all crimes” of our time. Peoples of the world must unite to eliminate this crime from the face of the earth.
Those not inclined towards civilized behavior undermine civilization. And they, the under- miners, bend things according to their preferences. They exclude and marginalize others. But whatever built wrongly is rejected and dismantled by humanity in due course of time as it cannot pass the test of history. Those who built apartheid in South Africa were not inclined towards civilized behavior. And Mrs. Thacher, for instance, being supportive to them proved herself to be an anti-civilization British Prime Minister. Nelson Mandela and his comrades who defeated apartheid made their contribution to civilization to the last limits of possible human endeavor.
In our part of the world, Mahatma Gandhi stood on the right side of history. During the struggle in pursuit of his goals, he did not create new problems for history – a civilized way of doing things. But the politics of Jinnah and his Muslim League injected violence in the body politic of the country while the British, a ‘civilized nation’ looked on. History was diverted to another, naturally, a dangerous route. The consequences proved to be very grave. Estimates vary: 200,000; 225,000; 250,000; 500,000 or more no one would ever know how many people lost their lives during those terrible weeks in the Punjab” in the autumn of 1947. “The number of refugees, at least, would be known … till the full complement,” for Punjab again, “of ten and a half million had been reached,” and so this migration became “the greatest migration in history.”
If powers of states have proved, perhaps, to be the most powerful tools to build or undermine civilization, the performance of individuals as leaders and their movements, as you can see, have benefited civilization or damaged it at very deep levels. Either way the effects seem to have been far more lasting than actions of states. It is more than half a century now but we have not been able to rectify the problems and their consequent complications which were created while South Asia was moving towards 1947. To further update the overall picture you can place somewhere here Narendra Modi of Indian Gujarat and his likes in the BJP. When a society or a culture is once dented, it cannot be undone then and there and many have to pay a price. Even subsequent generations have to share the burden. There is no short cut. The lesson is not to let individuals who do not understand civilization control your destinies. The question is how to do that? The poverty of politics and politicians is amazing. Even those who operated once at the center of the world stage lacked simple basics that build civilization and are crucial for our survival on the face of the earth. “From London, Winston Churchill, so long a foe of Indian freedom commented”, on the events of 1947 in India, “with ill-concealed satisfaction on the spectacle of people who had dwelt in peace for generations under the ‘broad, tolerant and impartial rule of the British Crown,’ throwing themselves on each other ‘with the ferocity of cannibals’.”
A great leader for the British was so narrow-minded! Had he understood civilization, his concern would have been the failure of the British in a peaceful hand-over. But he shows his contempt for the people of India who were actually their victims. Today they blame Palestinians who too one time became their victims! When Tony Blair and Bush talk of “civilized world” they mean primarily the West. All over the world people struggle daily to maintain life and relationships that help to maintain it. What you call this, civilized or uncivilized behavior? The non-white world has to prove to them that they are civilized too! Such are the leaders of the West who are bringing “civilization” to the Middle East! Thus prejudiced they avoid to comprehend the larger canvass of the reality of our world. They have preferences beyond which they deliberately avoid to apply their minds. They have no need to entertain other ideas, which disturb their preferences.
So up above the people there are forces in all countries of the world that act selfishly and divert peoples’ energies from enriching civilization. First by creating war situations and then making wars, Tony Blair and Bush represented such anti-civilization forces in the United States, Britain and Israel in particular and in the West generally. I urge all good men and women of the world to consider that a new opening for the peoples of the world is in sight. On the one hand the quality of leadership of these ‘vanguard’ countries, exposed now, is so bigoted and shabby while on the other consolidation of opinion against America in the Muslim world is indeed very deep. And further the reaction of the peoples all over the world is clearly anti-war with a reliable content. I believe that collectively all this is indicative that the struggle of humanity for life and civilization is about to have some new and crucial breakthrough against the establishments and their narrow and selfish nationalisms. I feel we are in some this sort of situation today.
Many may not agree with me but this is such a time in the history of mankind that we can think big. To aspire for big things is really no more a dream. America can be pushed back to its ‘homeland’, disarmament can be achieved, the religions finally can coexist in peace expanding their knowledge about others, and collective world security is achievable. And peoples of the world who are in sight of each other are really waiting to be allowed to shake hands and work together.
If communists have failed, it does not mean that exploitation of man by man is no more an issue. And imperialism, the highest form of exploitation, has not finally won. Even then those who serve imperialism, feeling powerful, think they have answers to everything under the sun. But it is beyond their comprehension that those who are selfish have nothing to do with the genuine answers to the collective problems of humanity? When genuine answers are out of their reach, what else are they offering to the world?
Under imperialism’s dispensation there is ‘growth rate’ within widespread poverty. Under the specter of their weapons of mass destruction, there are engineered conflicts and wars! They have transformed so called independent countries into their governorships. To this end they have used knowledge man was able to attain because so many struggled to the limits of their capacities! It is absolutely imperative that the selfless struggle for alternatives must find new awakening and vigor.
I believe a ‘World Civilization Front’, is the need of the hour. “Every system that produces abuse also produces its apologists. Always, it is the victims – if only because they are the victims – who must identify and analyze the abuse that penetrates their lives.” “Therefore the great task of resisting the madness of the United States and the West it is leading has fallen on
the Muslim world.” Under attack, they have to take the initiative before rest of the world joins them. ■