The Invisible War in Kashmir

Kashmir: Born to Fight

Al Jazeera (2017)

Kashmir, a majority Muslim state, has been demanding independence from India since the late 1980s. They were promised a referendum on independence in 1947, when India was first divided from Pakistan. After 70 years, they’re still waiting.

The majority of Kashmiri seek full independence, though some seek unification with Pakistan.

The region is currently under Indian military occupation (Kashmir is the most militarized region in the world) and virtual martial law. Kashmir’ civilian population is routinely subjected to rape, torture, extrajudicial killings, raids on civil homes and the shutdown of local newspapers.

This documentary profiles a 13 year girl who was arbitrarily beaten and blinded after being shot by Indian security forces. Their brutality against women, children and the elderly is having a clear radicalizing effect on young Kashmiri males.

The Role of Islamic Jihad in Containing State Terrorism

US vs Islamic Militants: Invisible Balance of Power

by Sajjad Shaukat – Ferozsons (Pvt) Ltd 2005

Book Review

Invisible Balance of Power begins with a review of western military history as it relates to Balance of Power theory. The latter is based on the premise that in the absence of an international body capable of enforcing international law, “balance of power” between dominant nations is the only force capable of containing wanton military aggressors with “excessive” economic and political power. Shaukat lays out the novel theory that the rise of stateless terrorist groups has created an “invisible balance of power,” which performs the same function in curbing US state terrorism as the Soviet Union did prior to its collapse.

Shaukat begins by tracing historical balance of power relationships starting with the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, through the rise of European nation states and their complex alliances finally the Cold War balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union. During the 1945-90 Cold War period, the threat of Mutually Assured (nuclear) Destruction was responsible for a lengthy war-free period in the developed world.

Wanton State Terrorism By the US

According to Shaukat, ever since the demise of the Soviet Union, the US has felt free to blatantly and repeatedly violate international law. Among other examples, he cites

• The 1998 air strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan, condemned by Iran and China and their allies as a violation of international law.
• The 1999 air strikes against Serbia, condemned by Russia and China and their allies as “terrorism” and a violation of international law.
• The 2003 invasion of Iraq, condemned by UN Secretary General Kofi Anan as a violation of international law.

US Military Failures in Iraq and Afghanistan

Shaukat also argues that since 2003, the threat of “group terrorism” has replaced the USSR in providing a clear check on US military ambitions. As examples, he points to the US failure to achieve their objective of turning Iraq and Afghanistan into economic colonies to improve strategic access to Middle East and Central Asian oil and gas resources.

Suicide Bombings as a Rational Response to Genuine Grievance

Shaukat also disputes propaganda efforts by Western leaders to portray suicide bombers as psychologically deranged and/or jealous of western democracy and culture. In the absence of an international body strong enough to prevent the US from victimizing weak nations, he feels they are a totally rational Third World response to US state terrorism.

Suicide bombings are always a direct response to genuine grievances, usually state terrorism in the form of massive civilian casualties, shelling, random checkpoint shootings or unlawful detention and torture of innocent civilians.

Shaukat coins the term “coercive diplomacy” to describe the role this orchestrated violence plays in imposing free markets, privatization and denationalization on Third World countries).

The Concept of Moral Force

He goes on to to point out the wide support Islamic militants in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Kashmir receive from Muslim intellectuals in the Middle East with direct experience of US “state terrorism” and “coercive diplomacy. Many of these supporters view the jihad launched by Islamic militants as a “just war,” aimed at correcting a massive injustice.

Future Dangers and Potential Solutions

Shaukat devotes a full chapter to the potential dangers the world faces from a continuation of the “invisible balance of power.” Chief among them is the real risk Islamic terrorists will access and deploy nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

I found his final chapter “Lessons for the US” the most valuable, as it proposes specific solutions for ending the highly dangerous “invisible balance of power”:

1. Foreign policy needs to be based on the collective interest of humanity. There will never be economic justice in a world run by Wall Street bankers.
2. The UN needs to be reformed to give it real power to enforce international law. The weak nations represented by the General Assembly must be given equal power as the Security Council, which is dominated by the countries with the greatest economic and military power.
3. Secret diplomacy must end. Diplomacy must be transparent and open to public scrutiny.
4. The US needs to end its current policy of “encircling” (economically and militarily) the emerging superpower China. US support of India in this exercise greatly increases the probability of nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan.
5. The US needs to return to incremental diplomacy and political solutions, instead of supporting state terrorism in Palestine and Kashmir – both major breeding grounds for the Islamic militants.
6. The US needs to respect the traditions and values of Arab states and allow their democracies to develop from below.
7. The US needs to reduce the debt burden of Third World nations, as poverty and hunger breed terrorism and remain the central obstacle to global security.
8. The US must recognize that less developed nations need economic democracy prior to political democracy. Using economic aid (as well as sanctions and freezing of assets) to dictate political reform is counterproductive. It hurts ordinary people more than their leaders and only further enables terrorist recruitment.
9. The US needs to give up their anti-Muslim policies, which are a major recruiting tool for terrorists.
10. The US must stop using economic aid (as well as sanctions and the freezing of assets) to control political reform – this type of “coercive diplomacy” always hurts ordinary people more than their leaders – and thus further enables terrorist recruitment.
11. The US needs to lead a genuine global arms reduction effort to reduce the likelihood of war.

Sajjad Shaukat is a Pakistani writer with a master’s degree from Punjab University in journalism, English and international relations. His book can be purchased for $9.09 at emarkaz.com

A Film About Economic Relocalization

The Economics of Happiness

Helena Norberg-Hodge (2012)

Film Review

The term “economic relocalization” describes a global movement of loosely knit grassroots networks working to strengthen local and regional economies and systems of food and energy production. Most of the last eight years of my life have been focused on grassroots relocalization activities.

What I like best about Economics of Happiness is learning I am part of a global movement. I hate the title, which suggests the film concerns some kind of airy-fairy New Age spirituality. It doesn’t.

The 2011 film, narrated by Helena Norberg Hodge, is based on her 1991 book Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh and her 1993 film by the same name. The book and both films draw their inspiration from the nearly forty years Norberg-Hodge spent living and working in Ladakh, a small Himalayan region in the India-controlled (and disputed) state of Jammu and Kashmir. Economics of Happiness includes local footage from the 1993 film, as well as substantial documentary footage relating to the world’s current economic crisis and impending ecological crisis (stemming from catastrophic climate change and mass extinctions).

The Psychological Devastation of Globalization

The film opens with the same narrative Norberg-Hodge recounts in her earlier Ancient Futures film. We are shown the “before” image of Ladakh, a rich thriving culture in which residents live in large spacious homes, enjoy generous leisure time and have no concept of unemployment. Then we have the “after” image where, thanks to globalization, cheap (government subsidized) food, fuel and consumer goods have flooded the region and destroyed residents’ traditional livelihoods. Previously pristine communities face rising levels of air and water pollution, while Ladakhi teenagers face continual bombardment with pro-consumption messages.

It’s heartbreaking to see the psychological effect of all this. Most young Ladakhi have come to regard themselves as backwards and poor, while the communities they live in face rising racial tensions, juvenile delinquency and epidemic levels of major depression.

The Destructive Nature of Urbanization

The film goes on to sketch the mechanics of globalization, stressing the deregulation that forces small self-contained regions like Ladakh to open their markets to foreign goods, which quickly supplant local products. Norberg-Hodge paints an even uglier picture of urbanization, an inevitable result of forcing millions of small formers off their land. She stresses that city living is vastly more resource intensive than rural lifestyles. All city residents rely on food, energy and water transported from some distant source. They burn up additional fossil fuels transferring their waste as far away as possible. She stresses that most city residents go along with the massive ecological and social devastation they produce because it occurs on the other side of the world. Thus they don’t see it.

Rebuilding Local Communities and Economies

The solutions Norberg-Hodge offers for all these problems are similar to those proposed by an increasing number of dissident (non Wall Street) economists. First and foremost we must acknowledge that humankind has exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity – that the corporate drive for continual economic growth must end. Secondly people of conscience need to opt out of the corporate economy to facilitate the creation of more efficient and environmentally accountable regional and local economies.

Norberg-Hodge also sees the process of rebuilding local communities as a remedy for what she describes as the “crisis of the human spirit.” She blames this pervasive spiritual crisis on the demise of community engagement that has accompanied globalization and urbanization.  Although the process is most striking in remote regions like Ladakh, where it occurred suddenly, nowhere in the developed or developing world has escaped it.

The film ends on an extremely optimistic note, with numerous examples of international and community organizations supporting people in reclaiming their lives from multinational corporations.

Economics of Happiness can be rented (and watched online) from the filmmakers for $5