Introspect, USA

Reports suggest that in America’s hour of crisis Islamabad may be leading Washington by the hand into the complicated warrens of the Taliban. Are the creators of the Taliban now inserting themselves into the situation as America’s interlocuters? Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested as much in his press conference. He said contacts had been established with Pakistani diplomats in the US as well as in Islamabad. Are the Pakistanis about to pull wool over American eyes? Or are they about to be pressurised to a point where they will have no option but to clean up their act in Afghanistan and possibly even Kashmir.

There is a soul of goodness in all things evil, Shakespeare said, should men observingly distil it out. I have little doubt that America will come out stronger from the horrors that have been visited upon it. And, what is more, it will also come out wiser.

That touch of recklessness in its unilateralism, I like to imagine, will be curbed as the country’s leaders and thinkers sink into grave reflection. ‘‘We are going to go after the bastards,’’ said Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, without having the slightest clue as to who the ‘‘bastards’’ were. With an elegant wave of the hand President Bush has silenced this sort of Ramboism. We shall be patient, he said. But once the culprits have been identified without a shadow of a doubt, Bush continued, not only will the perpetrators of terrorism but those who harbour them will be subjected to punitive action.

It is interesting the NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson and other leaders in Brussels have thought of activating Article 5 of the NATO charter which regards an attack on one member an attack on NATO. Already suggestions have been made that it should be a larger coalition, including others, even Islamic states. In other words, we may be moving away from piecemeal responses against terrorists to more considered, co-ordinated action. Dropping Cruise missiles blindly in search of Osama bin Laden or destroying an innocuous pharmaceutical factory in Sudan may demonstrate power but not its intelligent use. Invoking Article 5 of the NATO charter may well resume a consultative approach which must, logically, end up with greater credence to the UN.

The great tragedy inflicted upon the US must lead to introspection on how the world order ought to be shaped. Unilateralism on NMD, the Kyoto Protocol, International Criminal Court, which came across as demonstrations of unbridled power, will from now onwards — if continued — be perceived as American isolationism. The caste system in global peacemaking and peacekeeping, the eternal quibbling over Article 6 or Article 7 of the UN charter must end.

The UN has been relegated to the role of the poor man’s peacekeeper under whose auspices Indian troops (among others) keep the peace in Southern Lebanon and Eritrea-Ethiopia. The big boys co-ordinate their role in the Balkans as Americans, NATO, EU or OSCE, in that hierarchical order. Even in Balkans, in Macedonia to be specific, the Americans will not send in their troops but provide logistical support. The British will lead the peacekeeping contingent but keep the Gurkha battalion in the forefront. None of it looks like the precursor of an equitable world order.

Of course terrorism must be crushed wherever it rears its head, but how do you crush a faceless enemy. How do you cope with an enemy who comes at you determined to die? Supposing you are able to determine that Osama bin Laden is the source of the plan executed in New York and Washington, how will you find him? The might of the Indian state has not been able to find a sandalwood smuggler in the jungles of Karnataka; Sri Lanka is out of its depth trying to locate Pirabhakaran. There is no deliberate, ironical twist in this observation. I am posing the question in all innocence.

If flow of funds from the large American Roman Catholic community to the IRA in Ireland is a source of concern to the British government, imagine how the Indians have been bled in Kashmir by a continuous injection of militancy into Kashmir by Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf calls it a ‘‘freedom struggle’’. By his definition what happened in New York and Washington is also an extension of the ‘‘freedom struggle’’ being waged by the Muslim ummah wherever it perceives the Americans on the other side.

Let’s face it, the West has so far dissembled on Pakistan’s support to militancy in Kashmir. This despite all the goodwill towards India is recent years. Why this inclination to look the other way whenever Pakistani complicity in Kashmir is pointed out? Reasons lie in history. A cold war ally, a frontline state during Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; it would go nuclear if not helped; it will turn fundamentalist. A fundamentalist state with nuclear weapons? The real doomsday scenario!

The West, I dare say, has never understood long term effects of the interplay of religious and social dynamics on the sub-continent. The essential truth has been dismissed as a cliche.

The authors of the Pakistani state have conferred on Pakistan a problem of national self definition: we are here because we could not live with the Hindu majority. Unfortunately for Pakistan, the arithmetic on the subcontinent is extremely awkward. There are more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan. To sustain its national self definition it must continue to manufacture a double distilled, triple distilled Islam, totally divorced from the tolerant ethos of the subcontinent. This Pakistani project, in perpetuity, with Kashmir as a means, has the effect of weakening India’s secular fabric. The cause and effect, if unchecked, will be catastrophic.

Pakistan has two choices. Either it will seek friendship with India — something Gen. Musharraf appears to be in serious pursuit of — and become a prosperous, moderate state. Or it will continue on that unstoppable spiral towards becoming the world’s most dangerous militant state. An American leadership, mellowed by the tragedy, must act in the best interests of humanity.

As Prime Minister Vajpayee said, terrorism is not divisible. I have drawn American attention to where terrorism causes me to bleed without for a moment being forgetful of two images that will haunt me for a long while. Those planes slamming straight into the twin towers, of course, but even more poignant the image of that boy in Palestine, Mohammad, frightened, cowering behind a shelter, shot by an Israeli bullet in full view of TV cameras.

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