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No sustained dialogue By Hassan bin Talal Tuesday, 25 Aug, 2009 | 07:04 AM PST | Legitimacy among people needs a restoration of hope, because it is hope that underpins legitimacy, and it is legitimacy that encourages the dialogue so urgently needed in Iraq and Pakistan. - File photo World Bomb wounds local official, four other people in Iraq 'He fought himself until his blood was extinguished. Only then was he worthy of his people.' - Pablo Neruda In 1969, Pablo Neruda commented that he never saw a division between poetry and politics in his life. While his poems revealed the intimate musings of his soul, they also revealed his strong identification with the greater politics of the day. In 2009, identification with the politics of the day equates to sectarian uprisings and horrific civil wars conducted while the world community stands by incapacitated in the face of human rights disasters. It has been a painful few years for humanity. Extreme violence is still sweeping parts of the West Asia-North Africa region and numerous minor conflicts continue to rage around the world. Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq have all provided fodder for those pundits who argue that religion and religious animosity have played a fundamental and atavistic role in these and other post-Cold War conflicts. The recent killings in Gojra in Pakistan is another example of hostilities towards a minority group. We are suffering today from the results of the war on terror even though the consequences may be unintended. It is not because we are the poorest nations in the world. We have the richest and the poorest. It is not because we are the most populous. There are more people in India than there are in the Middle East. And it is not because we are Muslims. There are more Muslims in Southeast Asia than there are in the Arab world. The current situation comes down to a basic human emotion - fear, and with that, a lack of human security necessary to regroup and rebuild. When people are vulnerable in terms of security, they become vulnerable in terms of their identity. The instinctive reaction to these threats is to take hold of whatever will provide protection, and if that is a group with a violent, fundamentalist doctrine, so be it. Leaders need to recognise that the adherence to, dissemination and defence of one's own religious doctrine, via calm dialogue, is acceptable, while the violation of the rights and interests of others, overzealousness, prosecution of one's own faith, and the denial of the other, is unacceptable and is to be considered the essence of raging sectarianism. Mechanisms of common action between the adherents of different sects and religions have to be found in order to prevent the continuation of these horrors of sectarianism. Is it not time for national unity in Iraq, and for the 'old' Iraqi money which is frozen in foreign banks to be returned to fund the reconstruction of churches, husayniyat and mosques with their application of auqaf and zakat to the suffering and the poor? It is not only meetings between the military and the security services of the world that need to take place (for they are not the only ones that face up to terror and terrorists). Civilian populations need to be given an outlet for sustained dialogue to help develop regional standards, so that the state does not continue to enhance its ability to monopolise legitimate violence within its own borders. After violence is perpetrated governments always make the same statement - that they regret the casualties. So my question to them is, why continue? There is an inability to grasp the growth of effective military action on the ground and the need for an intelligent coordinated political strategy. Organised chaos is not an alternative to involving people in determining their own future. Although we Arabs are individually vocal and articulate, the only way to save face is to work collectively. We assert our individual identity, but not our collective one. There is no collective responsibility in the respective regions of this crisis ellipse. There are no independent economic or social councils in our region addressing supra-national themes such as shared water and energy that meet every quarter and report to governments or the various UN bodies. There are many in the Muslim world who might offer an ear if they are interested in a third sphere of ad hominem representation of government, the corporate world and civil society. One of the beneficial aspects of a third sphere is that it reduces the concern of governments because it engages in dialogue with citizens. If our point of departure is that there is no dialogue between citizens, then the analysis is that universal citizens and/or national citizens do not talk to each other except by way of blogs and twitter on the Internet. I am not suggesting that new technologies should not be taken up to communicate; rather they do not surpass face-to-face dialogue and the gentle art of listening. We are witnessing generations in Iraq and Palestine surrounded by violence and enduring without hope. Their young people, full of energy and the desire for a brighter future, are denied an opportunity to determine their own future, by poor governance as well as continuing conflict. As a result, they are gradually being deprived of their own past. Outside authoritarians and populists cannot and will not decide on or develop the conditions of consensual governments which are reached by political, economic and social means. The 20th century has seen the creation of a set of universal norms which, if implemented, would go a long way towards making war unnecessary. We have witnessed inspiring and successful experiments with active non-violence in struggles for independence and civil rights by unarmed people's movements. We have seen the replacement of authoritarian forms of government by democratic governance and the increasing role of civil society in the affairs of humanity. We cannot afford to lose hope in imagining a future where, through education for citizenship, we can create that long-awaited nahda of states where we call our citizens inhabitants rather than populations; where we remove the labels that so easily create the hatred that leads to divisions of religion or ethnicity (or humanity). There is a need to prevent the political from intruding into our personal lives, yet we relinquish so readily. We must restore the legitimacy of diverse religious beliefs through the ancient wisdom of the sages. Legitimacy among people needs a restoration of hope, because it is hope that underpins legitimacy, and it is legitimacy that encourages the dialogue so urgently needed in Iraq and Pakistan. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
