Modern Conflicts: The Question of Contesting Values
The prevalent dominance of the West and its associated oppression will only lead to resistance
DOMINANCE
There are many narratives of modern conflicts prevalent in today’s world. A book “A Century of War: Anglo-American oil politics and the new world order” by William Engdahl, first published in 1992, does speak about the Anglo-American policies and strategies in the world and how natural resources like oil dominates in that domain. While laying the foundation for the creation of Jewish Zionist state (Modern Israel) in the lands of Palestinians, Arthur Balfour convinced the Anglo strategist about the fact that to substantiate the project of the ‘British Great Games’, it is essential to create the Zionist state as its geographical location is strategically imperative and it will secure and ensure grip on the ‘Arab petroleum lands of Ottoman Turkey’.
To understand the larger picture of conflicts in the West Asia, the ‘resource based wars’ narrative can provide better comprehension. The Gulf War, the war in Iraq, Libya and in Afghanistan are basically the projections of military-industrial landlords who by such kind of tactics are able to access the resources available in these regions without any kind of counter resistance. There might have been some problem with the Saddam Hussain in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya vis-à-vis their approach towards the people in their respective states, but to the West and the USA their elimination had different reasons as they were becoming obstacles in their perusal of national interest in the region. The problem with Afghanistan is its geographical location as it can provide easy access to world’s two largest resource rich regions of West Asia and the Central Asia. This is the reason that every big power now and then has wished to control it.
One of the highlighting points in the Philippe Le Billion’s book “Wars of plunder: conflicts, profits and the politics of resources” published in 2012 is about why conflicts are so prevalent in resources abundant areas in the world? The resource wars on oil, timber, hydrocarbons, minerals, water so on and so forth are dominant forces in the genesis of modern conflicts in the world. The conflict in Colombia, a state in South America and Sudan in Africa, are better exemplifications to understand the nature of modern conflicts in the world. The USA government supported its counterpart in Colombia against FARC rebels, guerilla fighters, just to maneuver its strategies on the Colombian resources. The conflict in Sudan between its north and south is also based on the sharing and controlling the oil assets and regions.
The wars in former Yugoslav, Ukraine, and Bosnia are fundamentally resource based. The Caspian oil and its transportation via Black Sea to the mainland Europe was a broader imperative of Clinton Administration in the US to intervene in the Bosnian conflict. The US-Russia ‘New Cold War’ in the Eastern Europe can also be looked from the point of ‘resources based wars’. Even when we look at the South Asia, particularly India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka for that matter of fact, one gets the impression that resources unevenly distributed in the region, not only is the reason of inter-state conflicts but also a fundamental cause of intra-state conflicts. The problem in the North-East of India is about the extraction of resources and its subsequent distribution in the form of its related benefits, as has been beautifully articulated in the book ‘Broken Republic’ by Arundhati Roy. The problem in the Baluchistan of Pakistan can also be put in the same context.
Contesting Values
Once we look at the conflicts, whether in the West Asia, Africa or Afghanistan, other than the resources ‘values’, are also one of the reasons of these conflicts. The Western dominated world particularly in the post world war 2nd period tried to export its values such as democracy, pluralism, freedom and liberal economy to the different parts of the world particularly in the rich resource regions. The ‘Project for the New American Century’, a policy paper issued by influential American think tank in the year 2000, dealt with the policies and strategies to be perused in order to shape the future world as per the American principles and interests (William Engdahl). This policy paper remains the guiding principle to the Bush administration post 9/11 in the United States. It was a dream about the Americanization of the world.
The values were not easily acceptable to different civilizations, particularly to the Muslim world, as there is an inherent contradiction in these values vis-à-vis the values of Muslims, which per se is based on single unified code of Islamic shariat. Pankaj Mishra in his book “From the Ruins of Empire: the revolt against west and the remaking of Asia” published in 2012 has beautifully quoted three eminent intellectuals – Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Liang Qichao and Rabindranath Tagore, who were not pleased to the western ideals and had vehemently criticized their designs in the world. The intellectuals believe that the ‘poison that Europe had pushed down in the other parts of the world has severely impaired its own forever, and Western states were not meant for showing light, which they claim, but to set fire’. This is what US and Europe has done or doing in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and in many parts of the world.
The resistance to the western values, which now is seeming becoming larger, be it Al-Qaida or ISIL or guerilla fighters in South America and Africa or the Confucianism in the China, though can be contextualized in different senses, but the prevalent dominance of west over the rest and its associated oppression is an immediate reason d’être of this resistance. The current radicalism in the West Asia is not a new phenomenon; its roots can be ascertained from the intellectualism of Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutub, an ideologue of ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ and writer of influential book ‘Milestones’, had been a severe critique of western liberalism and its associated values. The Qutb believe that ‘democracy made human beings the final source of sovereignty, rather than god’. He believes that American individualism is basically nurtures ‘sexual freedom’ and ‘animal hunger’. Therefore, the premise of modern antagonism against the west is fundamentally against the western values. The book “World at War: the 2500 Year struggle between East and West” by Anthony Pagden published in 2008 does also reflect the historical discourse and the narratives of ‘value based disagreements and conflicts’ in the world.
Therefore the conflicts prevalent in the modern world cannot be resolved until and unless US-West dominated world does not stop to intervene in other societies and stops its propaganda of emancipation of the non-liberal and non-democratic societies in the world.
To understand the larger picture of conflicts in the West Asia, the ‘resource based wars’ narrative can provide better comprehension. The Gulf War, the war in Iraq, Libya and in Afghanistan are basically the projections of military-industrial landlords who by such kind of tactics are able to access the resources available in these regions without any kind of counter resistance. There might have been some problem with the Saddam Hussain in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya vis-à-vis their approach towards the people in their respective states, but to the West and the USA their elimination had different reasons as they were becoming obstacles in their perusal of national interest in the region. The problem with Afghanistan is its geographical location as it can provide easy access to world’s two largest resource rich regions of West Asia and the Central Asia. This is the reason that every big power now and then has wished to control it.
One of the highlighting points in the Philippe Le Billion’s book “Wars of plunder: conflicts, profits and the politics of resources” published in 2012 is about why conflicts are so prevalent in resources abundant areas in the world? The resource wars on oil, timber, hydrocarbons, minerals, water so on and so forth are dominant forces in the genesis of modern conflicts in the world. The conflict in Colombia, a state in South America and Sudan in Africa, are better exemplifications to understand the nature of modern conflicts in the world. The USA government supported its counterpart in Colombia against FARC rebels, guerilla fighters, just to maneuver its strategies on the Colombian resources. The conflict in Sudan between its north and south is also based on the sharing and controlling the oil assets and regions.
The wars in former Yugoslav, Ukraine, and Bosnia are fundamentally resource based. The Caspian oil and its transportation via Black Sea to the mainland Europe was a broader imperative of Clinton Administration in the US to intervene in the Bosnian conflict. The US-Russia ‘New Cold War’ in the Eastern Europe can also be looked from the point of ‘resources based wars’. Even when we look at the South Asia, particularly India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka for that matter of fact, one gets the impression that resources unevenly distributed in the region, not only is the reason of inter-state conflicts but also a fundamental cause of intra-state conflicts. The problem in the North-East of India is about the extraction of resources and its subsequent distribution in the form of its related benefits, as has been beautifully articulated in the book ‘Broken Republic’ by Arundhati Roy. The problem in the Baluchistan of Pakistan can also be put in the same context.
Contesting Values
Once we look at the conflicts, whether in the West Asia, Africa or Afghanistan, other than the resources ‘values’, are also one of the reasons of these conflicts. The Western dominated world particularly in the post world war 2nd period tried to export its values such as democracy, pluralism, freedom and liberal economy to the different parts of the world particularly in the rich resource regions. The ‘Project for the New American Century’, a policy paper issued by influential American think tank in the year 2000, dealt with the policies and strategies to be perused in order to shape the future world as per the American principles and interests (William Engdahl). This policy paper remains the guiding principle to the Bush administration post 9/11 in the United States. It was a dream about the Americanization of the world.
The values were not easily acceptable to different civilizations, particularly to the Muslim world, as there is an inherent contradiction in these values vis-à-vis the values of Muslims, which per se is based on single unified code of Islamic shariat. Pankaj Mishra in his book “From the Ruins of Empire: the revolt against west and the remaking of Asia” published in 2012 has beautifully quoted three eminent intellectuals – Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Liang Qichao and Rabindranath Tagore, who were not pleased to the western ideals and had vehemently criticized their designs in the world. The intellectuals believe that the ‘poison that Europe had pushed down in the other parts of the world has severely impaired its own forever, and Western states were not meant for showing light, which they claim, but to set fire’. This is what US and Europe has done or doing in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and in many parts of the world.
The resistance to the western values, which now is seeming becoming larger, be it Al-Qaida or ISIL or guerilla fighters in South America and Africa or the Confucianism in the China, though can be contextualized in different senses, but the prevalent dominance of west over the rest and its associated oppression is an immediate reason d’être of this resistance. The current radicalism in the West Asia is not a new phenomenon; its roots can be ascertained from the intellectualism of Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutub, an ideologue of ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ and writer of influential book ‘Milestones’, had been a severe critique of western liberalism and its associated values. The Qutb believe that ‘democracy made human beings the final source of sovereignty, rather than god’. He believes that American individualism is basically nurtures ‘sexual freedom’ and ‘animal hunger’. Therefore, the premise of modern antagonism against the west is fundamentally against the western values. The book “World at War: the 2500 Year struggle between East and West” by Anthony Pagden published in 2008 does also reflect the historical discourse and the narratives of ‘value based disagreements and conflicts’ in the world.
Therefore the conflicts prevalent in the modern world cannot be resolved until and unless US-West dominated world does not stop to intervene in other societies and stops its propaganda of emancipation of the non-liberal and non-democratic societies in the world.
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