Peace The Final Frontier

One fascinating aspect of human species is the ability to inflict acts of violence against its own members. The violence takes many, all too familiar, forms; wars, riots, stealthy murders, serial killing, torture, bullying etc. The difference between these is mostly of scale and motivation, but the very fact that we, humans, can kill another, not for absolute survival, but for ego or wealth is quite unique among the animal kingdom. In order to attempt any peace initiative, people has to understand, that violence is an intrinsic human trait, and peace cannot be achieved by appealing to altruistic ideals alone.

History of mankind is a fascinating story of how violence and the desire for peace have co-existed in various ages in spite of being so contradicting. But close examination would reveal that the motivation for violence as well as peace is quite the same. It is the desire to become superior to others. Human societies perpetuate violence to get power over another, but they also realize that in order to become powerful, peace time is also critical, mainly to grow in sufficient numbers with good skills so that they can outsmart the other clan/nation. All nations have been at war over considerable periods of their histories. Nations that today are epitome of peace and tranquility have had their own bloodbaths, e.g. Scotland Vs England; England Vs France, and going further Romans Vs Persian and so on and so forth. Yet alongside the warriors of each nation, several forces have continued to work for peace, as perpetual war is as harmful for the superior party as it is for the inferior one.

At the individual level, what is observed that some persons have a higher propensity for getting violent than others. But one thing is quite certain that given sufficient motivation, all humans are capable of violence against fellow humans. Again history is relevant here. Murders have been committed by all kinds of humans, men, women, even adolescents, rich, poor, educated illiterate, single perpetuator as well as killers operating in group. The underlying power motive is generally disguised by other factors, so we have violence in the name of religion, race, gender, family honor, and land etc. Sometimes we come across murders that are stripped of these veils, where a person kills just to experience the power of taking life from another. We generally classify them as psycho killers, though in my opinion they are psychos simply because they could not camouflage their power motive with something more understandable by the rest of the society.

The desire for peace in modern states has evolved in response to experience of great wars of the 20th century. At the individual level as well peace has become more desirable on account of the well being it brings for an average person within a modern state. We need to realize that this desire for peace both at nation as well as individual level is relatively modern phenomenon, and as such it cannot be expected to replace our original programming for violence. On a practical basis this is how peace is enacted: a nation builds effective governance & justice systems to ensure peaceful existence within its boundaries, and try to develop all sorts of bilateral and multilateral agreements to reduce chances of wars. Yet the desire for power over others cannot be eliminated, so there is always a readiness to undertake armed conflict if stakes are high and chances of success appear sufficient. This inherent contradiction exists in all nations, and in many cases in smaller groups of tribes or regional entities.

The mayhem we see in our part of the world is also a manifestation of a power struggle. It started as USA’s imperialist designs no doubt, but it also unleashed the monster which was already lying within the social fabric of Pakistan and Afghanistan, namely the desire of extremists to impose their will on others. The war against USA gave them some legitimacy with the populace and even today a large number of Pakistanis have mixed feelings about the Taliban fighters. But increasingly the violence perpetuated by US army is being overshadowed by the terrible acts of violence of the Talibans.

Although the present situation appears to be too bleak to initiate talks of lasting peace, it would be a good idea to examine how a peace endeavor may work in practice. First of all the concept of “long lasting peace” is a myth. Peace prevails as long as all stakeholders assess that peace time is better for them than war and killing. Secondly the reality is that it is the winner of the war that is in a position to bring in peace, and a corollary of the same is that the party with the highest expectation of winning will not offer peace until and unless it has won the war. If we accept this analysis, it is bad news for Pakistan. Presently there are three main stakeholders; USA, Taliban, and Pakistan Army. The Talibans are absolutely clear in their goals and they also measure their success not just as worldly gains but also as rewards in hereafter, however they have less fire power. The US army has massive fire power and resources, though they are somewhat unclear in their goals. Unfortunately the Pakistan army does not possess the consensus on goals, and their ability to fight guerrilla war and terrorism is also limited. Unless something is done to change that, Pakistan would be the weakest of all three stakeholders, and as such will not be in a position to lead any peace initiative.

The operation in Waziristan is a very temporary solution, and its only aim should be to halt immediate attacks, but ultimately the peace has to be negotiated, whether we like to talk to Talibans or not. The important thing is to negotiate from an advantageous point, which at present seems quite difficult. One solution is to demonstrate to the local population what material benefits to their lives can be achieved from a peaceful existence. Here again the conditions are not conducive, how will you convince a poor family in Waziristan that a better life awaits them, when people in the big city like Karachi are dying in stampede for flour. At the moment we are left with empty rhetoric about peace, and our media and politicians try to appeal to the goodness of people to forego support of Talibans, this is not going to work, mainly because some of the people genuinely believe that goodness is in fighting, and those who do not believe that (and hopefully these can be in large numbers) cannot find any tangible benefit in truly ending their sympathies for the fighters.

While the hardened fighters may be beyond reform, a lot can be done for the remainder of the population, provided the government and NGOs are willing to work for the long haul. That would mean, bringing in access to education & health, women emancipation, and better employment opportunities into these areas. Peace would have to be earned. It is usually not a natural state of being.