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| Tuesday, 1 March 2005 |
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Democratic inclusion as a key to conflict containment by Lynn Ockersz A picture in local national dailies of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, arms outstretched, warmly acknowledging the cheers of a crowd at a public rally in Multan, Pakistan and cautioning those in attendance about the dangers of allowing religious extremists to misuse mosques and religious schools, tended to diffuse some of the gloom spread by the news of a suicide blast in Tel Aviv, last Friday, which claimed a number of Israeli lives at a crowded discotheque.
The two developments highlighted the continuing salience of extremist-inspired violence in an analysis of the politics of the Middle-Eastern and South Asian theatres. Both Pakistan and India which are allies of the US in its "war an terror", are compelled to take a hardline on religious extremist violence although it is becoming increasingly clear that the conventional tools used by states against this species of political violence are proving highly inadequate. To begin with, it needs to be realised that violence of this kind has its roots in the power aspirations of groups who see themselves as being alienated and marginalised. They usually perceive themselves as being outside the formal power structure of a state. These viewpoints are considered the deciding factors in the use of violence by these groups and those analyses are not ill-thought out,which see the inclusion of these groups in the democratic process as one of the means of containing such violence. From this point of view, the recent electoral successes of hardline, religious organisations - accused of violence in the Middle East - in local government elections in the disputed West Bank region, should be seen as a positive development although Friday's killings in Tel Aviv would tend to have a disillusioning impact, particularly after the shoring-up of an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Coming back to Pakistan, we are told that what may be called the religious fundamentalist sentiment in that country is not as widespread as the Western media would have us believe, but there is no denying that these groups would gain in influence and power to the extent to which their political aspirations are denied. In other words, the containment of such groups would go hand-in-hand with the further democratization of the Pakistani state. And what is true of the Pakistani state is true of the Lankan state. It would be superfluous to stress here that one of the most effective ways of containing Lanka's conflict is to adequately meet the power aspirations of its minorities. This would lead us to conclude that the quality of a country's democracy proves a crucial factor in the containment of the violence flowing from its identity-based politics. In Sri Lanka, for instance, a democratic process of sorts is believed to be at work but this clearly falls short of fully satisfying minority political aspirations. But then, again, the resurgent violence in the Middle East could be cited as an example that some "terror" groups are incurably violence prone and so intractable that no amount of democratic accommodation could help silence their bombs and guns. This may seem to be so but the simple truth is that the process of working out solutions to complex political conflicts requires the participation of all stakeholders in it. In the case of the Middle East, Syria too should be considered a party to the conflict. The latter issue requires the careful consideration of Israel and its Western backers. Bringing pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to crackdown on hardline outfits on Palestinian soil, just wouldn't do. This attitude presupposes the applicability of a purely law and order approach to ending the conflict. But, as we have seen, addressing the grievances of all stakeholders, provides the key to conflict containment. |
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