One of the challenges faced by David Ben Gurion upon the formation was the State of Israel was to find a way to bring together the Jews speaking different languages to one common platform. He overcame the challenge by forming the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). By making military training mandatory for the citizens of Israel, Ben Gurion was able to bring together Jews speaking different languages (Russian, Polish, German, Austrian) to speak one common language - Hebrew and was able to bring about in them a feeling of belonging to the newly formed State of Israel. Another infant nation that faced with similar challenges that time was Pakistan.
Pakistan was carved out of the British India and included the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, North-West Frontier Provinces and East Bengal. Interestingly, religion was the only common factor among the people of the Pakistan - a country which was was formed with the intent of creating a state for the Muslims of the British India, for the population of Pakistan could still identify themselves as Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns, Balochs, Bengalis and the Urdu speaking Muslims who had migrated from India. The people of India however did not have this problem as they continued to associate themselves with India as they had done earlier. A Punjabi or Sindhi who had migrated eastward during the partition was still Indian after the partition as he was before the partition.
In the newly formed state of Pakistan, the Punjabis were the most influential and therefore the most dominant - the recent events in Pakistan are testament to the influence that the Punjabis still hold in Pakistani politics. And this sort of dominance was to be a reason for discord among the regional groups in Pakistan. First the Balochs resisted the idea of joining Pakistan but were eventually forced to join the state after military action from Pakistan. The Balochs again tried to break away in the sixties and seventies and are even to this day a cause of heartburn for Pakistan. Then in 1971 the Bengalis revolted and broke away to form their own nation as the Bengalis realized that despite being numerically superior in population it was their western compatriots who called the shots. It becomes critical therefore for Pakistan to come up with a formula which would bring its population together by temporarily shifting their focus from their daily issues towards a larger cause.
The successive governments in Israel were able to retain the support of its people by constantly reminding them of the threat from outside. The fear of an external enemy justified elevated taxations and the hardships of the mandatory military tenure. However after the Six Day War the Israelis saw that idea of Israel's enemies as a means of their government to justify its militaristic ambitions. One of the reasons Israel was late in mobilizing the IDF reserves during the Yom Kippur War, despite receiving several inputs on an impending war, was the reluctance of Golda Meir administration to play the external enemy card again, lest it should anger the Israelis had these inputs turned out to be a false alarm. Many in Pakistan are however more than eager to buy the idea of "Anti-Pakistan forces" that are trying to destabilize their country and THAT is the bonding factor among the people of the country that has not yet seen a democratically elected government complete a full term.
As Ben Gurion so successfully illustrated, wars have always been a reason people come together - to fight a common enemy; but they are also the reason nations break up - when people realize that this enemy is a myth created to distract them from fighting against the real problems. The concept of the "Enemy in the East" is a must for Pakistan during this phase of political turmoil, sucessive goverments - Democratic or Dictatorial will continue to thrive by propagating this idea. For an enemy can make people forget their internal difference and will get them to come together against the foreign force, therefore any peace efforts in this region can only be temporary since Pakistan can keep itself from disintegrating only by seeing India as an enemy, rather than as a friend.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Andyman...great stuff!!!
ReplyDeleteReally liked the way you correlated the situations across the world.
I think in all such situations effective leadership also plays a very important role in uniting the masses and defining the way forward.
Today we are waging modern war where the enemy has countless forms and the battle is never ending.
We are witnessing a pragmatic shift in the behavior of certain masses who are getting united for a cause defined by their leaders ..you call it a cult or extremism for that matter but the fact is ultimately the leaders of the group are defining their behavior.
We might come to a situation where it will be really difficult to define who the real enemy is.
However most of us would like to see an effective leadership aiming for the long lasting peace and ultimately unity among the masses will determine the success.