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Hawks and Doves
(November 3)
One thing among many others that the war against terror has done is to shake up traditional standards of ethical judgment. After a point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to say what is just and what is not. This is particularly so as all common yardsticks seem to have vanished or else made diminutive by the powerful forces and furies unleashed in the wake of September 11.
The supposed keeper of this yardstick, the United Nations, has miserably failed to live up to
its responsibility. It is rather ironic that the source of today's confusion can somewhat be traced to the weakness of this organization and its current chief, and yet it is they who have been awarded the Nobel 'Peace Prize for this year.
We have no doubt about the commitment to humanitarian work of a number of the UN's many different organs. But in its unquestionably most important function of arbitrating international disputes, it is no better than a mere puppet in the hands of the rich and powerful. And so
we have a war today, which one of the protagonists' call a "holy war" and the other is convinced
it is a "just war".
The tragedy again is, the UN, and a larger part of the world, seem to have different yardsticks for even the issue at hand --terrorism. There does not seem to be a consensus on what constitutes terrorism. The uproar caused by the remark of a UN official on a tour of India that Kashmir is a "tormented country", is a case in point. The line that divides people fighting for their political rights and terrorists in the present scenario seems to be very arbitrary. It seems to
depend on whom these people are fighting.
Hence Afghan fighters were fiercely independent mujaheedins while they were fighting the erstwhile Soviet Union but when they turn against the West, they become terrorists. Derivatives of such shifting yardsticks have also been applied in the case of the LTTE, IRA, and the whole list recently announced as terrorists by the government of India under its
new ordinance, the POTO.
There is also a clear divide between the hawks and doves on the issue. The hawks seem to see peace only in their terms
and they are not ready to accommodate anybody else's viewpoint. They have no patience for those who believe mere absence of violence
is not peace. That peace involves much more. It's a comprehensive and consensual status that does not unduly hurt anybody's sense of justice. And since no two vision can be identical,
hence the importance of dialogues and tolerance.
We cannot believe that conflict resolution is a matter of exterminating opposing views. As for tackling terrorism, we believe that alongside seeking retribution for acts of terrorism, understanding and rectifying the causes of terrorism is equally important.
We are not about to argue that the atrocities committed on September 11 were anything short of terrorism. It was terrorism. But we continue to hold steadfast to our belief that innocent lives anywhere in the world are sacrosanct. We do not look to any scripture for the definition of good and evil. We subscribe to the humanist's vision that
the building blocks of ethics must begin from the axiom that life is goodness and that this value is universal. Deny this assumption and all else becomes inconsequential.
(Courtesy:
The Imphal Free Press)
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