Peace, trust and impartiality

By Manabi Majumdar

THOSE OF us who condemn at once the recent terrorist attack on innocent lives in the United States as well as the American war hysteria in Afghanistan still have to respond to the reasonable charge that ``alternative is the best criticism''. What alternative course of action can we suggest to check the carnage being perpetrated by either rogue ``warlords'' or rogue ``states''? The simple answer is: peace activism.

Indeed, several ardent initiatives are being undertaken in different parts of the globe to establish a people's forum for peace and dialogue that, in turn, will encourage more people-to- people contact. The fervent hope is that such face-to-face interaction will cultivate friendship and trust among people who may otherwise fall into the trap of xenophobia - the fear of outsiders. For example, many groups are working in the Indian subcontinent to develop friendly relations among the citizens of South Asia, especially between the people of India and Pakistan, with the aim of influencing their Governments' policies in more reasonable directions.

There is indeed a strong intuitive appeal to the argument that if we can pierce the ``veil of ignorance'' that separates the citizens of different countries, get to know more about people's aspirations and predicaments in ``foreign'' lands and learn to trust one another, we will be more inclined to collectively engage in the resolution of conflicts. However, much as we advocate ``personalised'' trust as an important route to solidarity, collective endeavour and peace, we need to acknowledge its limits too on a number of counts.

First, mutual trust and mutual suspicion may co-exist and even thrive together. For example, in parts of Europe, especially in areas enjoying economic boom, there has been a right-wing resurgence in recent times. These are precisely the regions where several civic groups are highly active. But the vibrant civil society that has fostered strong ties within the members of various ``community enclaves'' has not been successful in cultivating a similar bond across communities. Hence, we hear the pronouncements from the far-right Austrian politician, Mr. Joerg Haider, or the British Conservative leader, Mr. William Hague, openly advocating a crackdown on foreign immigrants, while encouraging civic ties among the resident communities at the same time.

Second, trust-proneness is not a linear function of greater knowledge about other communities and groups. One has to only recall with sadness that when the communal carnage devastated our subcontinent during Partition, or when the Sikhs in Delhi or the Muslims in Mumbai were attacked in the more recent past, the communities concerned had a fairly intimate knowledge of and a fair degree of interaction with one another. Yet animosity and communal tensions could be instigated by ``..playing on some people's fear and pandering to some people's prejudices.'' Proximity is not an automatic antidote to suspicion, fear and hostility.

Third, more information and greater contacts may make us, for perfectly valid reasons, more sceptical about the intentions of some groups, instead of doing the opposite. While keeping our basic faith in humanity intact, we have to be wary of misplaced trust or tolerance in fundamentalism of all hues. Unfortunately, however, even with a fair amount of information about the aims and activities of various terrorist organisations, especially in the oil-rich regions of the globe, covert business transactions were none the fewer, at least until very recently, between American oil companies or arms industries and the former. So continues the uninterrupted flow of weapons and drugs across continents, and in their wake violence, terrorism and death. Therefore, knowledge about ground realities alone is not enough to prompt people to disengage from actions that may suit the narrow self-interest of particular groups but have sinister consequences for the general public.

Similarly, and finally, public knowledge about grave injustices and inept policies do not necessarily catapult us to sensible action. Otherwise, why are we, at least a large part of the public, inert and inactive even after having a vivid knowledge of the predicament of the starving people in our country on the one hand and of the availability of adequate foodstocks on the other? Insensitivity or animosity often emanates from ignorance, but not always. Not infrequently, it is common knowledge that spawns it; we get so used to entrenched inequalities that we often relegate them to the status of everyday trivia, not sufficiently momentous for action.

The above points give us grounds for being both cautious and optimistic. The optimistic message is that interaction among people within and between nations and greater awareness of the ground reality are helpful. After all, people have to be able to work together without hostility to engage in cultural exchanges or in bilateral and multilateral trade. In South Asia, for example, mutual dependence in cultural and economic terms is very likely to foster peace and security.

Peace activism has to pitch its case at a much wider level, on a more universalistic scale. It has to tap into a far deeper human resource than just social or cultural capital, namely, ``generalised'' and moralistic trust in the human tribe as a whole. Simply put, it has to appeal to the rule of impartiality. Impartiality is not a plea for indifference or lack of sympathy to others; on the contrary it requires just responsiveness on a universalistic scale.

In a sense, such generalised notion of trust and morality blurs the distinction between ``us'' and ``strangers''; it insists on treating ``them'' with the same dignity with which we treat ``ourselves.'' Those with whom we have not had a chance to develop friendships are not necessarily our foes. In short it insists on human dignity as a central social value.

The impartiality principle, so defined, puts around us a double bind: it guarantees freedom of all human beings; by the same token it restrains our innate tendency to dominate and control others. It enables us to be free but not to control. In both its liberating and limiting roles, the rule of impartiality is non- discriminatory and universalistic. It is this vision of a community of humans, glued together by a commitment to freedom as well as self-restraint, that is needed for peaceniks to establish a universal and stable relationship among people across the globe.

Moreover, the task of peace-making does not end by reaching out to fellow human beings outside our national borders and cultivating solidarity with them; in tandem we have to look inward and address all manners of injustices and inequalities that distort our social fabric. Peace and inequality are incompatible. Thus, the apparently disparate struggles for global peace on the one hand and local equality on the other mesh together at a deeper level. More concretely, for example, fighting for the freedom of women and children in Afghanistan or the livelihood security of famished farmers in India becomes inseparable components of a genuine peace movement. After all, we cannot expect to achieve peace when women suffer from grave physical dangers or farmers commit suicide due to severe economic insecurities.

In sum, a peace programme that aims to combat terrorism and violence of all hues will have to spread downward to local communities and outward to global communities not only to develop greater personalised contacts among people, but more importantly to advocate and nurture impartial and universalistic concern for all human beings.

(The writer is with the Madras Institute of Development Studies. The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily of the Institute.)

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Killing caste by conversion
Next     : Conversion no solution