‘Swords into shovels’ Part I
Subarno Chattarji
Overview and issues:
The earthquake that devastated Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and parts of Indian administered Kashmir was duly covered with varying degrees of professionalism and empathy by the world media. A survey of twelve opinion pieces and/or editorials from the US and Canada reveals a concentration on four major issues and a remarkable homogeneity of responses. This media consensus was reflected hopefully and uneasily in the Indian media and I will refer in passing to The Times of India to indicate breaks in this majority view.
The four issues are: the quake as a harbinger of Indo-Pak peace; the need for the US to play an increasingly proactive role in disasters worldwide; the need for stricter building codes and greater safety especially for children; media coverage of disasters and information overload. Six of the 12 articles under survey had a dominant focus on the new possibilities of peace created by the earthquake. Three articles did not mention the peace spin off.
Indo-Pak peace: positive possibilities:
The most fervent plea for change in the relations between the two countries as well as rejuvenation within Pakistan came from an American of Pakistani origin. Mansoor Ijaz, ¿There Are Opportunities for the World in this Disaster¿ (National Review, October 11, 2005) combined his vision of a new sub-continental future with the idea of a more caring America: ¿This is one time the opportunity should not be lost. […] there is a regional need for Pakistan and India to engage with each other in a way that for once genuinely benefits the people of Kashmir by using the humanitarian crisis as the face-saving cover to resolve their half-century old feud. […] and there is a grand opportunity for America to redefine itself as the caring and supportive nation it has always been, but that nobody in the Muslim world seems to see anymore.¿ The failure of Indo-Pak rapprochement arising out of the quake is now evident. It may have been obvious from the beginning because the burden of expectation placed on the event was excessive, naïve, and sentimental. One has only to read of Ijaz¿s hope that Musharraf will live in tents with the victims of the quake and that Pakistan will reinvent itself to realize the extent of naivety on which these formulations are based. For someone who ¿co-authored the blue-print for a ceasefire of hostilities in Kashmir between Muslim militants and Indian security forces in the summer of 2000¿, this article is simplistic in ignoring terrorism and Pakistan¿s reluctance to accept Indian aid and help across the Line of Control (LOC).
Ijaz is on more controversial ground in his rose-tinted image of the US ¿as the caring and supportive nation it has always been¿. While no national history is monolithic it is plausible that Native Americans or Ijaz¿s Muslim brethren might disagree with his characterization of the US. The US has always thought of itself as a caring and supportive nation but the gaps between its self-conception, its actions, and policy imperatives that drive those actions need to be examined carefully (as indeed they have been). Ijaz refers to the Muslim world being willfully blind to US charity. He ignores the non-Muslim world - Britons, French, Germans, and Spanish, for instance, - who also detest US foreign policy. We need necessarily to analyze these oppositions to understand how US foreign policy impacts on lives around the globe.
Ijaz seems to imply that the earthquake will wipe out problems just as it snuffed out lives. Out of these deaths Pakistani civil society, Indo-Pak relations, as well as America¿s image in the Muslim world will all be magically transformed. ¿If we can replenish our military assets to fight wars against terrorists, we can do the same to insure the livelihoods of men, women and children, no matter their creed, color, religious beliefs or ethnicities, to safeguard mankind from the wrath of nature.¿ This expression of solidarity is both desirable and sentimental because it refuses to analytically work towards creating genuine transnational, transcultural bonds. At best it is well-meant and politically correct at worst it is disingenuous in its erasure of histories of conflict and domination, particularly vis-à-vis the US.
Ijaz¿s projection of Indo-Pak peace onto the quake aftermath was not an exception. An unsigned editorial in the Christian Science Monitor, ¿Remember the children in Asia¿s quake¿ (October 11, 2005) expressed the same hope: ¿Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf should now look at other ways to allow his nation and India to cooperate their postquake actions, while also using the tragedy to call for a total end of violence in DIVided Kashmir.¿ Some militant organizations did call for a ceasefire but they have since been violated.
Another unsigned editorial, ¿A chance to repair political fault lines¿ (Denver Post, October 11, 2005) saw hope in Pakistan accepting Indian aid: ¿Unlike the United States, which rejected Cuba¿s aid offer after Hurricane Katrina, Pakistan said yes.¿ That it did so after delays and reluctantly does not figure in the analysis. Too much was read into Pakistan¿s acceptance of aid which was neither substantial nor likely to lead to a Kashmir solution. This editorial along with others drew hopeful parallels with Greece and Turkey and Aceh as examples of disasters healing wounds.
A third unsigned editorial, ¿Swords into shovels¿ (Houston Chronicle, October 11, 2005), drew on the Biblical resonance to stress: ¿Nature, for its part, changed some realities. The earthquake that reached Islamabad and India-controlled Kashmir has devastated the geographical base of Kashmir¿s insurgency.¿ Initial reports did stress the deaths of militants as well as the decimation of their infrastructure. While this was not immediately verifiable Indian intelligence agencies and media did not report a significant drop in militant activity.
Exceptions to hope:
In fact the killing of state education minister, Ghulam Nabi Lone underlined dismal continuities. As Saleem Pandit wrote: ¿It [the assassination] was an obvious attempt by terrorists, steadily losing ground in the face of peace initiatives by Pakistan and India, to show they¿re still around. Already unhappy with the Srinagar-Muzzafarabad peace bus, they were uncomfortable with reports lapped up by India that their camps across the border had been damaged in the earthquake¿ (¿Now, a Terror Temblor,¿ The Times of India, October 19, 2005).
In a companion piece Anand Soondas, outlined some reactions to the killing. He quoted one Farah Yusuf, a doctor: ¿"It is the most dastardly and un-Islamic thing to do. For a people already numbed by the earthquake, the militant attack, and its corresponding promise of new offensives, couldn¿t have come at a worse time." People are especially shocked because they had let a comfortable thought seep into their system - that the destroyed militant camps in Muzaffarabad would automatically reduce bloodshed. They were encouraged in such a belief after some militant leaders across the LOC announced they would suspend terrorist activities keeping in mind the largescale devastation cased (sic) by the quake¿ (¿Valley¿s reaction: Disbelief, anger,¿ The Times of India, October 19, 2005).
It could be argued that Pandit and Soondas had the advantage of writing after the event, that Mansoor Ijaz could not have foreseen this horror. However, there were more circumspect articles written soon after the quake. Pranay Gupte stated the obvious: ¿The attention of the world¿s anti-terrorism agencies has been largely directed toward Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, North Korea, and Sudan. These rogue states are cited as being the incubators for global terrorism. But South Asia - and specifically Kashmir - has served as a much more hospitable, and widening, sanctuary for terrorists¿ (¿Nature¿s Terrorism,¿ New York Sun, October 10, 2005). Gupte did not go on to analyze the history of the insurgency. He also wrote about an ¿unwritten and abstract axis¿ between India, Israel, and the US against Islamic terrorism. This axis elides specific causes for terrorism in Kashmir, and paints Pakistan as a rogue state (as mainstream English language media in India, such as India Today, often does). In his assertion that the problems of terrorism will not disappear with the earthquake (a valid idea) Gupte goes to the extent of essentializing Kashmir as a hub of terrorism. Everyone from Osama bin Laden to Ramirez Sanchez (¿The Jackal¿) is purported to have found refuge in Kashmir. It is the type of argument that often sees all of Islam as jihadi in intent if not in deed.
An unsigned editorial in the Montreal Gazette, ¿Help now, blame later¿ (October 12, 2005), did not go to the extremities of either Ijaz or Gupte. It did express regret that an opportunity for building bridges had been passed up: ¿A glimmer of hope amid all the destruction and chaos was detected when Pakistan finally accepted aid from India. […] The earthquake provided Musharraf with the opportunity to reach across the DIVide, but he lacked the political courage to take that chance.¿ What the Daily Mail called Musharraf¿s disappointing ¿lack of imagination¿ is lamented.
Similarly The Washington Post was cautious: ¿If there is any silver lining to this tragedy, it¿s that it may shock people into fresh thinking. This can lead to innovations, such as insurance schemes that create incentives to build safer places, or it could lead to geopolitical progress¿ (Editorial, October 12, 2005). The operative ¿If¿ and ¿may¿ in the sentence is indicative of limited possibility and hope.
These limitations were clearly stated by Avijit Ghosh: ¿Earlier this month, when violent tremors convulsed India and Pakistan, the perennially bickering and warring sub-continental neighbours seemed to be united in human tragedy. […] Now nine days later, experts on Indo-Pakistan relations as well as former diplomats feel that the two countries have missed out on a glorious chance of reaching out to a larger, wider audience on a people-to-people level¿ (¿To Pak, with love: Any takers?¿ Sunday Times of India, October 16, 2005).
By October 22 Musharraf was in a bind: ¿Domestic analysts and aid officials are telling the Musharraf regime to jettison its fixation with F-16 fighter planes for now and accept India¿s offer to mount joint operations to save tens of thousands of quake victims¿ (Chidanand Rajghatta, ¿India is quake-hit Pak¿s best hope,¿ Times of India). That disasters do not always lead to peace overtures was evident: ¿Islamabad has been leery of allowing Indian rescue operations, evidently fearing that the sight of Indian choppers bailing out victims will demolish its claims to Kashmir.¿ By October 23 India and Pakistan had agreed to five points on the LOC where people on both sides could cross over to meet relatives or for medical aid. This tortuous settlement gives the lie to the rhetoric of hope expressed by Ijaz and others.
The only North American article amongst the ones surveyed that was not starry eyed about peace was an editorial in Newsday. ¿As a grim aside, and a reminder that earthquake-devastated Kashmir is a disputed region in the grip of a fierce Islamist insurgency, suspected Muslim militants killed 10 Hindus in quake-hit villages. With the toll of nearly 30, 000 deaths stunning the world, the senseless gratuity of such slaughter is truly appalling¿ (¿One disaster after another,¿ October 11, 2005). While articles in The Times of India have the advantage of being written after Ijaz wrote his piece, it is interesting that the Newsday edit was published on the day Ijaz¿s paean to peace and brotherhood was. The vision of the impending peace DIVidend seemed to have obliterated Ijaz¿s perception of present slaughter.
To be concluded.
Contact: chattarji_s@yahoo.com