Charlie wrote:London's Frontline Club Debate on Pakistan:
Owen Bennet-Jones, Ali Dayan Hasan, Anatol Lieven, Farzana Shaikh & Omar Waraich
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20946007
Watched few minutes of this video. Nauseating arguments by Anatol Lieven in support of massive HR abuses by Pakistan Army. His argument is violence is part of a Patriarchal Society like Pakistan.
1) "Pak Army doesnt rule in Bradford where women are abused by Pakis."
2) Even Indian police abuses Indians. Its not sanctioned by Manmohansingh at centre. Violence is a symptom of South Asia.
Thanks for pointing that out. I watched this otherwise boring and generally uninformative video just so listen to Lieven saying that.
Basically his attitude is pretty much like the Brits who came in as racist colonizers and dismisses subcontinental behavior that they don't like as something that is normal for everyone and that the governments cannot be blamed because the behavior of the people of the subcontinent is because of the inability of governments to control their people - or "weak governance".
Pisko wise this is an interesting statement that has a bearing on a lot of other discussions outside this thread.
For me there are several strands of thought that radiate from Lieven's attitude. The atitude he carries is what makes him a professor at Kings college and that attitude allows him to lie and deny and paint some things are more important than others - which is the context of the behavior of people is is fundamentally racist even if it is vehemently denied. Lieven's views are the modern "liberal secular" face of white Christian superiority over heathen "races".
Lieven singles out women's rights and the treatment of women in Pakistan and says that this ill treatment happens in India and in India too the police do not/cannot do anything, so this is basically subcontinental behavior which one should crinkle up one's nose and accept. Shows how rhetoric can make you a professor in the UK and make kaalus hang on to every sound that you fart out. By concentrating on women's rights Lieven has in a verbal "sleight of hand" ignored in one go the genocide and ill treatment of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and the continuing Wahhabandism that is killing Ahmedis and Shias. You see, all these too are things that should be ignored since "the people of the subcontinent behave that way". From Lieven's viewpoint, many Muslims were killed in India's state of Gujarat and many Hindus were killed in Pakistan. So this is subcontinental behavior.
But if you go back the program as a whole - the idea really seeks to support Pakistan as a state despite its dysfunctionality. I am personally veering around to the idea that Pakistan's failure can only be managed by a sort of reabsorption into India as a group of Indian provinces that are economically intertwined with India but do not have the power to destroy the whole.
Lieven is ironically right when he says that human rights abuses occur in India as well as Pakistan. It is what he leaves out that is important. He leaves out the fact that human rights abuses in terms of discrimination against religious and ethnic groups in Pakistan are encouraged by the state and by the Pakistani constitution itself. From a western imperial viewpoint the discrimination between ethnicities and religions is necessary and important because they serve as tools by which foreign forces can exert control over a country. If Lieven were to advise Pakistanis not to discriminate against Hindus and Sikhs, or against shias and they took it seriously - the grip that the West has on Pakistan would vanish in a flash. Lieven too becomes irrelevant. So he sinks down to abuses of women's rights as a safe political bet which dos not upset the geopolitical issues affecting Pakistan and can be compared with India as time wasted on bullshitting. This rubbish can only survive in the small protected environment in which Lieven exerts his alleged "scholarship".
Ultimately Pakistan itself is an artificial creation of the sort one would get if say UP were split off from India and an army supported as a "legitimate" government and "member of the United Nations". Pakistan's future lies in reintegration with India. That of course will upset the entire world order and make a whole lot of countries relatively less powerful than India. Neither the US nor China will welcome the idea and will do their utmost to keep that from happening. Ironically the "Liberal secular" values that the west like to advertise, if imposed on a future India-Pakistan relationship is the most dangerous thing for the current world order and supremacy of the west. Liberalism and secularism are useful tools when applied in western societies, but if India and Pakistan apply those standards in their relationship, it is the west that is screwed.
PS: Doesn't Lieven sound like Mr Bean?
. His so-called ‘Takmeel-e-Pakistan’ rhetoric is still there though. In his heart of hearts, probably, he must have come to the conclusion that his charm is very limited. The so-called shaheens (eagles) of Iqbal are not interested in a long march to New Delhi. There are other more pressing issues encompassing the wretched lives of the youth of our land. Or for that matter, some of them have found a new ‘superhero’ who can take them to the valley of their dreams — sometimes calling them to a ‘Pakistani Spring’ or promising them a ‘tsunami’.