future of feudalism/capital imperialism

future of feudalism/capital imperialism:



Pakistani expatriates in the USA have developed a
>consensus that the genesis of what ails Pakistan can
>be traced to the feudal system our former colonial
>masters imposed on India as corp of supporters which
>they continued to throw crumbs to till the very end of
>their rule. The colonizers declared them and their
>vassals martial race,and used them against their own
>country men for sabotage of the national movement.
>They also used them to fight the inter-imperial wars
>all over the world. They engineered alienation on
>religious grounds, so that what were friendly
>neighbors till yesterday, butchered each other today.
>The more sensitive ones wore a mask while torturing
>and raping. The devious ones invited their
>co-religionists to abduct , bash the heads of, and
>incinerate innocent children.
> The inherent weakness of the political party of the
>Muslims was that it was led by the progeny of, with a
>few honorable exceptions, the same bunch of traitors
> Muslims were historically handicapped. They had lost
>power to the British who naturally discriminated
>against them and patronised the Hindus. The latter had
>already honed their commercial, industrial and
>admnistrative skills under Muslim rule. That was their
>ticket to prosperity.
> After 1857 Muslims were not just discriminated
>against, they were actively victimised. They might
>have been red-indianised but for their large numbers
>and a few souls who were able to critically analyze
>the situation and came to the rational conclusion that
>the only escape for them was through education and
>collaboration with the rulers. If the choice is
>between living on reservations and working for your
>victor, few will opt for the former.
> The reformists did not simply intend to create a
>collaborationost class. They meant to bide their time,
>regain vitality and overthrow the Raj when the time
>was ripe. A lot of nationalist Muslims fought shoulder
>to shoulder with their Hindu compatriots against the
>British. Their ranks included a brilliant young
>lawter- MA Jinnah.
> The Raj was not content sitting on its hands iether,
>and developed a corp of fifth columnists, prominent
>among them the feudal lords and civil servants.. When
>the colonisers could no longer with stand the assault
>of independence movement, they decided to hand over on
>a platter a separate state to their faithful servants.
> Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, knew this and tried
>his best to avoid partition of the country. He held on
>to the concept of a Con-Federal structure with full
>autonomy to the constituent units. The only subjects
>the center would control would be defense, foreign
>affairs, and communications, with further safe gaurds
>such that the majority could not take a critical
>decision with out concurrence of the majority of the
>minority members of the central assembly. He could not
>accept a federal structure because he knew that he was
>burdened with the onus of leading a mass of weak
>reeds.
> But even Jinnah, past master though he was of tactics
>and adept at utilizing the mistakes of opponents to
>his advantage, could not over come the combine of
>British chicanery, the alienation caused by Gandhi Ji
>introducing Hindu imagery and the illusion of Ram Raj
>into politics, the shortsightedness, overweening
>ambition and the low self image of Indian National
>congress leaders who would not accept a weak center,
>and were frightened out of their wits of Jinnah. They
>were,in any case confidant that Pakistan would
>collapse and fall in their lap as an over ripe apple.
>Jinnah had to accept " a moth eaten Pakistan" moth
>eaten to enervate it and sow the seeds of perpetual
>dissension between the two newly independent countries
>with no experience of self government- all to the
>specifications of Imperial design. That led to two
>nations at each other's throat,whose priority should
>have been development of social services, jobs,
>industry and education.
> There are credible reasons to believe that Jinnah did
>not envisage a permanent state of alienation between
>the two countries. He willed most of his assets to
>charitable instituitions in India. He did not even
>sell his house in Bombay, now valued at twenty million
>US dollars.
> India, inheriting the machinery of established
>Government, a fairly advanced infra structure, a
>vibrant enterpreunal class,a much larger and developed
>economic base, and a truly bourgeois national
>movement, could cope much better. Pakistan on the
>contrary was bereft of developed resources,
>administrative machinery or industry. It had a much
>smaller and little developed economic base. Its
>political party was feudal in character, not with
>standing Jinnah and a few Bombay and Bengali lawyers.
>Jinnah openly declared that the country will not
>discriminate on the basis of caste or creed. He
>ordained separation of religion and state. But that
>was not to be. He died and his successors put him on
>a pedestal and hastily forgot his instructions.
> The obscurantist Mullahs, till yesterday, vehement
>opponents of Pakistan, rank opportunists that they
>were, climbed on the band wagon, and as the proverbial
>jackals started feeding on the trough. They also
>potentiated the feudal class and pronounced fatwas
>(religious edicts) against reforms such as civil
>rights, equal status for women etc. Their main thrust
>was, however, against land reforms, the domain of
>their benefactors. The slogan of Pakistan and Islam is
>in danger hamstrung the would be nationalists.The
>country, to offset the greater might of rival India,
>willingly fell into the fatal embrace of
>Neo-Imperialists.
> This should, hopefully define with sufficient
>clarity, the reason India and Pakistan took different
>paths, why Pakistan has been ruled for most of its
>existence by the army and why the Indian army sharing
>the same British heritage has been subservient to the
>civilian authority. India abolished the feudal system
>in 1948. The Eastern Wing of Pakistan abolished the
>system too about the same time India did, as most of
>the feudals there were Hindus. Feudal system still
>survives and thrives in what was then West
>Pakistan-now all of Pakistan.
> Post Independence events are well documented and need
>not be dwelt on repititively.
> Pakistanis, in country and expatriates, differ on the
>emphasis they should lay on the various components of
>the society for perpetuation of the core evils of
>violation of civil rights, subjugation of women, their
>status as commodity to be bartered for land or in
>exchange for blood money, corrruption, poverty,
>illteracy, paucity of social services, expenditure of
>most of the exchequer on debt servicing and armed
>forces, with less spent on health, education and job
>creation than by even the poorest of the third world
>countries. Resolution of the difference is critical as
>on it will depend the adoption of a line of action.
>Just complaining about all the barbaric acts some of
>them "democratically" approved Punchayat ordained
>rapes and murders, police, army, bureucratic
>complicity in the crimes and the supine judiciary,
>corrupt political parties- and protesting from the
>safety of the USA, etc would not help much.
> Let us take up the army first. Do we impute an
>independent class character on it? Army personnel are
>derived from all classes of the society-predominantly
>feudal/peasants, but also from urban bourgoise,
>bureucrats, lower middle class traders, clerks,
>teachers and such officials and an odd one from the
>laborers/industrial workers, peons etc. They are put
>through a designed and deliberate metamorphosis. They
>are broken down, and built up again in the traditions
>of unquestioning obedience, and uniform reaction to
>any given set of circumstances. It is, of course a
>highly regimented body, where free thought is
>sedulously rooted out.
> Pakistan army is highly diciplined. All the
>successful coups have been from the above, with the
>Army chief at the helm. They obey the chief regardless
>of his ethnicity. The chief effectively sheds his
>ethnic culture. The armed forces are thus, a true
>reflection of the society at large.
> Senior civil bureucratic services of Pakistan are
>overwhelmingly of feudal derivation, with a ltttle
>sprinkling of the progeny of urban bourgoise and a
>rare entrant from the other classes.
> Professionals-Journalists, Doctors, Engineers,
>Accountants, Lawyers, Business graduates, Architects
>etc have a higher representation of the urban
>bourgoise than the other groups do.
> Capitalists, not the ones metamorphosed from the
>feudals, have a quasi-national character. They are
>largely in service industries, dependent on and
>beholden to Global Capital. True industries are very
>much in the nature of consumables like aggriculture,
>cotton, plastic, Rayon, and china etc. Heavy industry
>is minimal.
> Industrial workers correspondingly lack substance.
>They are not cohesive, are heavily infiltrated by
>fifth columnists, are led by time servers and easily
>controlled by the repressive machinery of the state.
> A valid querry would be that if the army, political
>leaders and bureucrats all belong to the same class,
>why does the army suppress the politicians? The answer
>should not require the intelligence of a rocket
>scientist. Family feuds are much worse, and country
>cousins kill more frequently for share of the land,
>than urban ones do for money. Bloody feuds over Zar,
>Zan, Zameen (Money, Women and land, the traditional
>causes of friction) antedate industrial revolution.
> What line do we follow? The one advocated by civil
>libertarian reformists would have us agitate, appeal
>to our over lords, encourage people in Pakistan to
>take out processions and if possible create law and
>order situation, to force the Army to allow "free and
>fair" elections. Even if the concept of fair and free
>elections in Pakistan had any more validity than
>voting with a gun on their heads- if you do not vote
>against Sandinistas, we will make sure you will
>starve- in Pakistani context defying the feudal lord,
>Biradari, tribe and clan- even if the police and the
>bureucrats were to abstain from bogus voting and
>stuffing ballots, not a likely scenario, the same
>bunch of nincompoops will return, who will only ask
>that their hands be be allowed in the till too. We
>will simply be enlarging the number of guests at the
>feast of Jackals. They will be toothless jackals too.
>The army controls most most of business, commerce,
>industry, a lot of Housing market (all the defence
>societies), Air line, Shipping, Aggriculture, Banking
>etc. For God's sake they even own tankers that supply
>water to Karachi homes!
> The army officers holding civilian jobs are not going
>back to barracks. Why should they. Remember it was a
>civilian
>Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef who handed over WAPDA to
>the Army. It was the civilian Prime Mninsters father
>and daughter Bhutto who handed over law and order to
>the army. They will pursue the same policies of
>privatizing everything under the behest of IMF and
>World Bank. They will let Global Capital control the
>very lives of the people, pushing cost of living so
>high that life would not be worth living. That appears
>to be the agenda of the International corporations.
> We must not forget that except for the Ghazi of
>Kargil, all army chiefs were invited to take over by
>the civilians. Nawaz Sharif had an "overwhelming"
>mandate, over two third majority in the parliament. He
>had been successful in dislodging a Chief Justice, a
>Naval Chief and lo and behold even an army chief. But
>when push came to shove, no body raised a voice of
>protest when Musharraf sent him packing. No body went
>out on the streets.Most of his minions joined hands
>with the userper. Benazir's PPP leaders, no doubt
>tired of political wilderness, also joined the ranks
>of collaborators.
> I am not prepared to accept that the politicians were
>helpless. I am not prepared to accept the argument
>that people are afraid of guns. We confronted Ayub's
>martial law in 1961, when the army had not yet been
>castrated by the 1971 civil war. People still had a
>modicum of respect for the instituition. Students,
>supported by the people again went out on the streets
>in 1968 and shook the foundations of the army rule. It
>was students who sustained ZA Bhutto, when he was
>hounded out of Pakistan by Ayub. He was living in self
>imposed exile in England making the rounds of pubs-I
>met him in one-lamenting to any one who would listen,
>how Ayub had victimised him, how he had fought for the
>gains the army had made in 1965, how Ayub had betrayed
>the country etc. We held his hand and offered him our
>unstinted support in Pakistan.
> Students are the most politically conscious section
>of Pakistani populace. They would not be taken in by
>the mentally challenged pansies masquerading as
>political leaders in Pakistan. They would not follow
>feckless cowards.
> The only problem with student led agitations is that
>they do not have the stamina for prolonged struggle.
>Radical left is littered with names of might have
>beens, Mantos, Sarwars, Hashmis, Qadris, Sher Afzals
>and Wadoods.
> Pakistan's tragedy is that it never developed
>instituitions. Every generation has to make its own
>mistakes and learn lesson anew. The left, dominated by
>communists, failed Pakistan with its internecine
>feuds. You could count them on fingers of two hands.
>They still broke into Russian/Chinese factions. They
>were swept away like so much jetsam and flotsam,
>leaving progressives in the lurch.
> Politicians are so keen on regaining some measure of
>power, however unreal it may be that, they are
>prepared to countenance Musharraf if only he will take
>off his uniform. This obsession with uniform can only
>be explained if we accept the contention that the
>politocos want only the semblance and not the reality
>of power. Benazir presents a precedent. She debased
>herself by begging for the blessing of General Aslam
>Beg, a collaborator of her father's murderer. Contrast
>this with Mujib's daughter putting her father's army
>murderes on trial. During a security meeting a Lt
>General snubbed her. I read this new item myself. No
>body denied it.
> From the perspectives of expatriates all that a
>civilian Government would achieve would be that the
>hand of a relative some and not the others, will be on
>the till too.
> Should we adhere to NGOisation.Remember NGO's
>function as the covert arm of the Imperium,
>distracting attention from failure of the state to do
>its job. The edge of conflict is dulled. The march to
>revolution is slowed. The incentive to confront the
>jackals is diminished. But for the NGO band aid people
>might rise in desperation. "Marta Na To Karta Kya"
>(roughly do or die).
> There is no free lunch. If you accept money, you
>follow the dicta. Most of the NGO's in South Asia are
>funded from the UNO/USA.
> There is a very good study by Lars Schoultz, a highly
>regarded social scientist from the U of North
>Carolina. He has studied the relationship of US aid
>vis a viv violations of Human Rights. He contends that
>the more egregrious the violations, the higher the US
>aid. He has analysed Latin American countries, but it
>applies equally well to South Asian recepients of US
>aid. It is not that Violation of Human Rights is a
>pre-condition set by Aid mangers. It is that the
>rulers get empowered and get away with
>murder-literally. Zia could not have promulgated all
>the barbaric ordnances if Soviet intervention in
>Afghanistan had not opened the flood gates of US aid.
>For all his affliction with "foot in the mouth
>disease" Musharraf was lauded the other day, by no
>less a person than our own Condi.
> Remember, States have interests and not friends.
>Human rights are not even their medium high priority,
>even in their own country. Why would they put
>themselves out for Vani ( barter of daughters), Gang
>Rape and honor killing in Pakistan. They condone even
>worse in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia. They will
>topple dictators only when they are defied, when they
>calculate that they can get away with it, like bombing
>Libya, invading Granada and Panama, subverting El
>Salvador, Guetemala, Nicaragua and El Salvodor. They
>will take a bit of risk when oil is involved. They
>will pay lip service to human rights when their
>strategic interests are not at stake, example North
>Korea. They will not even slap the wrists of tin pot
>dictators of client states. Banking on them is akin to
>living in a fool's paradise.
> But we have to use the available instruments. We
>participtated in Student union affairs as it was the
>easily accessible vehicle at hand. We have to use the
>NGO path, while looking for a more dyanamic way. True
>and lasting social justice will be obtained through a
>political party of workers, the dispossessed and the
>the politically aware intellectuals.
> If passive criticism of small groups of people over a
>period of time leads to mass and popular movements as
>happened in anti slavery, feminist and civil rights
>movements. Our rallies, protests and seminars might be
>worth it if they they resulted in hieghtened
>consciuosness. Let us, though, not forget that the
>movements were led by a vangaurd with fire in their
>belly, and they were not funded by Governments. In any
>case no NGO has yet lighted the flame of an
>anti-establishment conflagration.
> Does that leave us in a morass of ever deepening
>depression? Are south Asia, Mid East and Africa
>hopeless? Will Far East never emerge out of the slough
>of client statism? Will Palestinains be Red
>Indianised?
> We live in a very small world. We are no longer
>isolated. What ever affects one part of humanity has
>an an impact on all of our species.
> The fate of Red Indians, indigenous people in New
>Zealand,Australia and the "primitive" tribes in Africa
>are, unfortunately norms of history. Humans are
>believed to have dealt with near human neanderthals in
>a similar manner. They became extinct. There is a
>hypothesis in evolution. There is ,at times, a throw
>back to remote ancestors. Some current powerful
>politicians would seem to substanciate the hypothesis.
>Fascism is a throw back too. It tried to exterminate
>Jews.
> But times have changed. In the era of instant
>communications, the Imperium and its agents can not
>get away with what the Europeans, mainly the British
>got away with, in the preceding several centuries.
>Palestinians and Bosnians have not been exterminated.
>They have, indeed, transplanted, as the Jews did, in
>the West and give sustenance to the parent tree.
> For the rest of the under developed world, groaning
>under the burden of the Imperium and their toadies,
>historical process is on their side. They will
>progress from the current feudal/tribal, fascist
>dispensations to a Capitalist society. Democracy will
>follow. Remember, it took European capitalism several
>centuries to break the shackles of the Royalty/feudal
>combine, the latter helping the demise by fighting the
>former. Capitalism inevitably leads to exploitation of
>the workers. They will eventually rise, not with
>standing the insidious impact of reformers and half
>hearted social supports. Capitalists sense the
>impending conflict and throw crumbs, witness the
>welfarism in post depression USA, post WWII Europe and
>post civil rights reforms in the USA again.
> Social justice will inevitably prevail.
> The problem with this scenario is that it will take a
>long time. Attempts at short cuts have not been very
>successful. One was the late and not much lamented
>Soviet Union. But they did not faithfully follow their
>prophet. Marx envisioned a fully industrialised
>society with acute class conflict where workers will
>rise and annihilate the oppressors. Lenin and Trotsky
>and their cohorts did manage to wipe out the
>oppressors, but they were short of oppressed working
>class. Russia was any thing but industrialised. They
>had to, in the first place, overthrow the legitimate
>socialist Government, abolish all the socialist
>measures introduced by that Government and impose a
>fascist dictatorship.
> It is a falsehood to say that socialism failed in the
>Soviet Union. It was never introduced there.
> The other attempt at accelerating the historical
>process was Mao's revolution in China. China wan an
>agrarian society, ruled by feudal warlords engaged in
>incessant skimishes. The country was in fudiciary
>bondage to imperial powers. Japnese aggression, take
>over by Chiang Kai Shek an under study of the
>colonisers and WWII weakened the grip of the
>overlords. That gave Mao and his comrades a window of
>opportunity. They overcame the opposition. But they
>did not have a industrial base or workers iether. They
>had to impose a fascist dictatorship as well. It had a
>more human face, though. Mao sent his opponents to
>farms rather than to oblivion, as Stalin did.
> The third rather more promising example is Cuba which
>has so far been steadfast in a socialist path inspite
>of all the subversions and aggressions.
> A common thread that ran through all the "socialist"
>countries was that they overcame internal and external
>opposition,and made tremendous and fast headway in
>material progress. They were able to institute a
>welfare state, providing basic necessities, food,
>clothes, shelter, health care, education and jobs to
>all. That can not be said of the richest and most
>developed countries. Capitalist and democratic Russia
>had to withdraw all the social wefare supports.
>Capitalist countries were so frightened that third
>world countries would follow the development model of
>socialist countries that poured aid into even India to
>develop it as a show case to rival China. This they
>did with obvious distaste as they hated Nehru for his
>independent ways.
> The current overwhelming trend at Globalisation may
>be Marx's dream come true. In the last several
>centuries it has been the national capital, marauding
>the colonies and warring with each other for the
>spoils. All the European countries, not excluding the
>even lowly Portugal, boasted of vast territories in
>their possession. But the character of Capitalism is
>changing fast. Now there is emerging a conglomeration
>of national capital. Like divine religions they do not
>recognize national bounderies. They don't even bother
>about the concept of nations. They used to allow a
>"trickle" down to their own country men. They don't
>any more.
> The components of International Capital have always
>invested in all countries, Japanese in the USA, the
>USA in the UK and so on. Now they are taking over
>water resources and the land all over the world, they
>have patents on crops and manufacturies, and they own
>mineral rights every where. Client states are crushed
>under the burden of loans euphemisticlly called aid,
>they have to accept IMF and World bank dicta to make
>the life of their citzens miserable.
> But what distinguishes Global Capitalism from
>national capitalism is that the former does not even
>pretend to be solicitous of the welfare of the people
>of the first world.
> The new mantra is out sourcing. They had to pay a
>living wage, health benefits, unemployment and pension
>to workers in the USA. General Motors paid an average
>of $28.00 an hour to its workers. They pay $4.00 an
>hour to a South American worker for doing the same job
>-with no fringe benefits. Delphi would like its
>workers to accept $9.00 per hour instead of the
>current $27.00 per hour. Numerous other industries,
>airlines the foremost, have forced their workers to
>accept a drastic cut in their wages. Countless others
>have moved out of the country. Ninety percent of
>software industry is now in India. Shorn of the
>disguise of reduced wages and benefits, unemployment
>would be rampant in the USA.
> I lived in the UK in 2001-2002. The same situation
>obtains there. They have a smaller economy so their
>unemployment rate is much higher. All the European
>countries are busy whittling away at the social
>support system introduced after WWII. The recent riots
>in France, at the momemt affecting only the
>immigrants, are portentous of worse to come.
> My submission is that when the ordinary humans of the
>first world will become economically destitute, and
>will be reduced to the state of the third world, they
>will rise in solidarity with all the dispossed. Only
>then would the long and tortous historical process
>will be shortened. And Marx may turn out to be a true
>prophet after all.