The terrible happenings in Pakistan

This blogger watches with trepidation the events unfolding in Pakistan. Taliban is a terrorist organization, its rising influence in Pakistan is of grave concern. Al Queda incubated in Taliban. The idea of having working relation with Taliban although looks practical and pragmatic is a dangerous step. Taliban is a negative force and a threat to humanity. They can only create hate and violence, at the core is bunch of male chauvinist pigs. They have created untold misery to common people. This blogger though hopes splinter groups are able to mend their ways but remains a skeptic, since power has emboldened their regressive attitude and intolerant world view as was witnessed in Afghanistan. Secondly does peace means lack of violence?. Afghanistan under Taliban was quite peaceful place as compared to now.

Ogden Nash’s poem “A Plea for Less Malice Towards None” has these lines:
Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,
But hating my boy is an art.
This is the premise Amartya Sen’s book “Identity and Violence” tries to explore. He asks this question in one of the chapters. “How does this ‘art’ work?”.

“The illusion of singular identity, which serves the violent purpose of those orchestrating such confrontation, is skillfully cultivated and fomented by the commanders of prosecution and carnage. It is not remarkable that generating the illusion of unique identity, exploitable for the purpose of confrontation, would appeal to those who are in the business of fomenting violence, and there is no mystery in the fact that such reductionism is sought…”. He writes further “the martial art of fostering violence draws on some basic instincts and uses them to crowd out the freedom to think and the possibility of composing reasoning. But it also draws, we have to recognize, on a kind of logic-fragmentary logic”. In one of the earlier chapters he writes “the intensely anti-western nature of some of the non Christian fundamentalist movements in the world may make it implausible to suggest that they are, in fact, deeply dependent on the West”. He goes on to elaborate (it is a great book to read and strongly suggested).

This blogger believes that dependency on West for hate got a boost with policies of Bush administration (the world is paying a terrible prize for this man’s follies. Shouldn’t he be tried for crimes against humanity?). Instead of focusing on Afghanistan and trying to neutralize Taliban he has only helped Taliban by giving it wider acceptability and making hero out of Osama by his superior West posturing, attacking a nation that had nothing to do with Al Quaeda and killing innocent people (if one recalls during those heady days even small timers like Berlusconi had suggestions on Western superiority. Our man is back now. His agenda is defining that hateful West. It is amazing but I never thought Italians are such dumb people!!). The reason why Taliban grew stronger has more to do with these anti West ideologies that have got lot of acceptance in recent times. The confrontationist approach it seems has been abandoned for peace as one gathers from the dealin Pakistan. John Nash, the mathematician and game theorists (the ‘beautiful mind’ guy) discussed more than a century ago, the central issue is not whether a particular arrangement is better for all than no cooperation at all, which would be true of many alternative arrangements. Rather, the principle question is whether the particular divisions to emerge, among the various alternatives available, are fair divisions, given what could be chosen instead (from ‘Identity and Violence’).

Taliban is a threat to international peace. The acceptance of Taliban by Pakistan is an indication on how much this hate filled ideology has infiltrated into that society. It is a dangerous situation, it will lead to further radicalization. Destruction of schools and the killing of journalist in Swat the other day is only an indication of things to come it seems.