The forces of love and hate

Why malign Malala’s message?

As Malala finished her speech in the UN’s general assembly passionate and courageous, the distinguished audience stood up, stirred by her sincerity and millions around the world shed a few tears moved by her message.

The message was simple and basic. Human beings can only have sustainable growth on the basis of peace, love and learning. The opposing forces – violence, hatred and ignorance – will never sustain for long period of time. How can this lesson ever be taught to the most powerful who think force, war and terror are answers to the turmoil and trauma the world has been put through. While the big powers rely on wars and weaponry to exercise control, the smaller powers rely on undercover operations and terror to defy and counter control. The common word in both cases is control: control of power; control of land; control of money; control of people; control of minds and so on.

The strange thing is that human beings are split between two desires. One is that they hate being controlled but the second is that they love controlling. This contradictory behaviour has led to conflicts and wars from time immemorial. As history reveals empire building designs of the past, be it the British colonial control or the more recent American imperialism has in the long run been counterproductive. However despite the world being more open, more aware, freer, it is still more closed, more controlling and more suppressed. Just by having cutting edge technology, and remote weaponry or more knowledge available on the net, the world has not become more modern and more civilized; instead it is regressing and more uncivilized. Just look at the number of deaths, murders, crimes being committed in most countries, be it Pakistan, Egypt, Spain, the United States and you realize that today the world is definitely more loveless and peaceless than in times of lesser technology and education.

So are we blaming a more technical world for what we are going through? Are we saying that all this education is turning us into evil geniuses and ignorance is bliss? Not at all. When we blame gadgets and Wi-Fi’s for making dirty bombs, or Facebook for taking away face to face contact, or IPAD for becoming a plaything, we are just doing what human beings like doing whenever they face failure – shifting the blame to somebody or something else. The responsibility of using or abusing these innovations lies on our shoulders and we cannot simply shrug them off and say how mechanical the world has become. Ultimately whether the world has become mechanical or individual depends on what human beings chose it to become.

If the Americans are still bent on using war to assert control, whether on countries or on territories, its impact and results have been predictable. The wars are now left in a limbo, the world has gone into a recession, and there is more terrorism now than ever. The Americans have conceded that dialogue is the way out but insist on continuing to use drones as an option in war against terror in Pakistan. The results of this drone war in Pakistan have also been counterproductive. Forcing wars on countries or part of countries with or without corrupt governments has and will never result in anything except in more resentment, conflict and terrorism.

Within Pakistan, coercive governments like army takeovers have always resulted in long term destruction. Autocratic rulers have enjoyed far longer shelf life than democracies but have ended in huge public disgrace. Similarly parties that are using fear or force as primary power politics will eventually see a backlash. The recent turmoil going on in the MQM is not just a reflection of a recent turn of events against them in the UK but the accumulated oppression that people in Pakistan especially in Karachi have been facing for over three decades. Started as a rights movement for Urdu-speaking Mohajirs in Karachi, they had become a ‘our wrong is right’ party where having militant wing, silencing disobeyers was openly threatened and pursued. Such was the terror that neither the government nor the media dare speak against them. However in a different country like the UK it is a different story. The recent raids on office and residence of Altaf Hussain may seem minor given the not too minor an amount of cash discovered there. The real breakthrough is not the stash but the mindset of public, who felt helpless owing to fear. This investigation has given the confidence to the people and the media to have open and frank discussion on the future of this party. The media and public pressure is bound to put pressure on the government to take some action to safeguard its own image.

Thus politics of hate and violence does capture negative human emotion but its aftereffects are so bitter that that sustainable control is not really possible. Taliban and all terror groups forget the basis of human response. What human beings seek endlessly and embrace wholesomely is love, encouragement, affection and affiliation. Anger and resentment based on a wrong do unite people together for a while, but its manifestation based on revenge and hatred will eventually lead it to a drastic fall.

People change, programmes change, policies change, technologies change but what is timeless and universal are the human values based on peace, love, humanity. A deviation from these may bring short term results but in the long run the yearning for human beings to be human takes over. Organizations all over the world are talking about human beings being the biggest asset, yet treat machines and money with much more respect than humans. Countries all over the world talk about freedom, democracy and human development, yet continue to impose, oppress and promote leaders who serve and subjugate themselves to the higher commands of the bigger powers. It is this contradiction in words and deeds that has made the world a very unpredictable, conflicting and unsure place to live. Thus instead of maligning Malala’s message, it should be seen as a reiteration of a world that needs to learn and practice the art of tolerance , love and forgiveness taught by all great leaders who inspired change not on the basis of force but on the basis of values based on humanity.

The writer is an analyst and columnist and can be reached at [email protected]