Mahboob A. Khawaja

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany

Global Peace and Humanity: We, the People are Victims of Failed Global Leadership

Cop 27 has just ended in Sharm el-Shaikh (Egypt) without any candid measures to deal with a readily available “Time Bomb”, of climate change affecting all and everything that is living on Earth. Nations and leaders made promises at COP 26 GlasgowConference but never took practical steps to lower the fossil fuel emissions, greenhouse effects and depleting lifelines of sacred Earth. The media would call this perversion from reality – ‘politics of broken promises, business as usual. Do they not understand the vitality of a healthy Earth and functional systems of Nature within a splendid Universe?  Do they know how the Earth, the seas, water, air and life and all other beings were created?  Have they talked about how the Earth functions, how the water flows and how the seas exist and how oxygen generates and sustains human life?

To avoid any conflict between Man and the Nature of things, the leaders and climate experts must comprehend how the planet Earth exists and moves at its axis and rotates at 1675 km per hour or 465 meters per second which are 1,040 miles per hour. The Earth’s circumference at the equator is 40,075 km. And the length of time the Earth takes to complete one full turn on its axis is 23.93 hours. And how do all living beings get lifelong nourishment within the splendid Universe? Were they all talking and listening and doing nothing to avert the catastrophic consequences of their own failure?  Is that not what happened at COP 26 too? Not to mention the COVID-19 Pandemic and its ongoing critical impacts on all aspects of human affairs. The G20 showcase galvanized the media coverage of the few who could speak and impress others with persuasive voices of ingenuity but without any rationality to console mankind with substantial remedies, be it climate change, the war between Russia and Ukraine, supplies of gas and oil from Russia, food scarcity and global peace, conflict resolutions or future-making. It is repulsive to suppose universal harmony can be enhanced by profligacy, malevolence and the horrors and miseries of unthinkable multitudes.

The sanctity of human life is grounded in the realization of peace, dialogue and co-existence. The ongoing conflict between Russia, Ukraine and the West is one of the single factors in perpetuated global disharmony and socio-economic and political disorder.

To stop the war in Ukraine, the US, the EU, and NATO should have direct face-to-face communication with President Putin. …….It is logical when people of diversity and opposing ideals come to talk directly, tensions and evil mongering are reduced to reason and mutual interest. This has not happened except for military options for weapon supplies and the enlargement of the scope of regional conflict.  Time and history will not forgive nor forget any of the leaders if they failed to agree to an immediate ceasefire and peace deal

Are we living in an era of false truth, feigned piety and alternate transient facts of human affairs? Those occupying positions of influence generate ideas and narratives which are often drawn from people who are ideologues of self-interest, contradictions and misrepresentations across the global landscape.  Dr. Rudolph Hansel (“Returning Man to Nature. Paul Thiry d’Holbach. “The essence of man is to feel, to think and to act” Part II” Global Research: 11/08/22),  shares an in-depth look at Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach (1723-1789), one of the leading figures of the French encyclopaedists, in his book “System of Nature”, published in 1770:

Let man, therefore, cease to seek beings outside the world he inhabits, which are to provide him with a happiness that nature denies him: let him study nature, learn its laws, and contemplate its energy and the unchanging way in which it acts; let him use his discoveries for his own happiness, and tacitly submit to laws from which nothing can escape him; let him refrain from inquiring into the causes which are surrounded for him with an impenetrable veil, let him bear without grumbling the decisions of a universal power which can neither turn back nor ever deviate from the rules which its nature prescribes for it.

Global Leaders Must Listen to Voices of Reason and Intellect for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Effective leaders are people who know their strengths and weaknesses and are always open to listening and learning from the masses. Those who pretend to be wise and super beings are on the wrong side of time and history. Leaders must recognize the limits to time and place for change. Our conscientious culture, hopes and ambitions are evolutionary and continue to be changing and evolving for a sustainable future. Truth is ONE, it cannot be divided into numbers of votaries, that is, We, are One People, We are One humanity under the dreadful impacts and consequences of an invisible enemy set to dehumanize all the mankind on this planet. We should be looking for an informed conscience not a default of an enlightened conscience to restore trust and societal confidence that the COVID-19 pandemic is medically and spiritually treatable, War between Russia and the West (NATO and the EU), Ukraine being the object can be stopped, supplies of natural resources can be restored to normalcy, climate change can be understood and remedies can be implemented, Kashmir and Palestine -Israel future can be resolved peacefully, and we can be reconnected as One People and One Humanity without egoistic politics of the few.

Most contemporary leaders of the world appear to rejoice in self-centred evil-mongering, not wisdom and truth of people-oriented political systems of governance. Ideas and ideals that defy reasoning and truth are gushingly operative in the aerial bombing of the innocents in Syria and inhuman displacement of civilians, forced confinement and torture of masses in Kashmir by Indian-occupied forces, Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Saudi Arabian-UAE led war against the poor people of Yemen, and almost a million forcibly evicted Rohinga Muslims from Mynamar (Burma). The UNO is just a symbolic title, not a force to transform conflicts into peacemaking optimism. We, the People of the globe ask all nations on Earth to recognize our strengths and weaknesses for unity of minds for change and adaptability to the making of a people-oriented future in peace and living together as people of reasoned conscience

We can do it, we are One Humanity– we cannot be divided into segments of geography and history as numbers. We the People, We the Humanity are connected to all other things within the God-given Earth and the Universe to serve mankind. This gives knowledge, soundness and power to reason and forbidden truth in the current global affairs.

We, the HumanityLook for Peace, Solidarity and Security

The planet Earth is not a dead orbiting object but a living entity providing continuous nourishment to human life and existence to all other living beings. When nations and leaders subscribing to political absolutism start acting like God and challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God; historically speaking they become an object of unthinkable natural calamities-earthquakes, wildfires, floods, deaths and destruction. The Divine Revelations (The Qur’an: 40: 64), remind us, who we are and what relationship do we enjoin to Earth and its sustenance that supports our life and existence:

It is God Who made for you the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy; and has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful,                                             

And has provided for your Sustenance, of things pure and good;  Such is God your Lord. So Glory to God, The Lord of the Worlds.

We must connect people to people across the globe to be active participants in delivering a new and more viable common future of unity, happiness and future-making. They used to export weapons to wage wars, now exporting wars and media propaganda and are profiteering from the emerging crises all over the globe. Replacing human consciousness of peace and security with repulsive ideas of despotism, the warlords are corrupting human values, new-age visions and concepts of healthy standards of peaceful co-existence as they see it as a threat to their plans.

Caitlin Johnstone (“We never really had a chance to build a healthy world” Information Clearing House: 09/11/22) is a courageous Australian thinker and writer and author of Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.  She outlines a candid message of human suffering:

And we wonder why everyone’s so dysfunctional and self-destructive. ….We never really had a chance to build a healthy world. Our ancestors went from running away from monsters with sharp fangs to burning witches and heretics to fighting world wars to giving birth to us, and that wave of fear and chaos carried forward right into our own psyches and into the psyches of everyone else on this planet without skipping a beat. If you look at where we came from and how we got here, it’s amazing we’re even as functional as we are.

So we’re all innocent, in the end. Again, we must of course push to bring consciousness to the parts of humanity that have taken a wrong turn — to the war criminals and plutocrats and managers of empire, and all other abusers and the abusive systems which elevate them. But underneath that fierce burst of light there can also be a deep compassion and understanding born of a lucid seeing of how we got here in the first place.

We know fossil fuel emissions, oil spill-overs, deforestation and technological destruction of life and earth can be reduced and managed but none will dare to initiate the remedial measures for change. We know global political problems can be resolved through dialogue but none will take action to communicate to perceived enemies. We know COVID-19 Pandemic could be managed as did Ibna Sina (Avicenna: Canon of Medicine), during the 10th century of herbal medicine. Why are the global leaders, scientists and so-called smart experts shame of not exploring other workable remedies for a sustainable future? Knowledge and sciences are not fixed entities. We the People must reason for an instinctive recognition of social, economic and political injustice across the globe and logically try to transform the world of political wickedness, disharmony, socioeconomic and political deprivation and exploitation into a world of moral, intellectual and spiritual reasoning and be passionate and hopeful for constructive changes in thoughts and behaviours – be it the policing or the masses march on streets and halls of fame, our aim and wisdom must be focused on purpose – a different and a better world of tomorrow and continuous change to be monitored and assessed by the people of knowledge and reason to ensure that we do not cross-over the limits of the Laws of Nature deserving punishment from God –  the Creator and Sustainer of all the lives, the Earth and the Universe that matter to us all as human beings.

How India and Pakistan Lost True Freedom

Europeans went to West Asia pretending to be businessmen and fostered political intrigues and treachery to become the ruler of the Sub-Continent. The conquest and looting of Moghul India in 1857 transformed Britain into “Great Britain.” British and French for a while competed for military and political influence to pave the way for ultimate hegemonic control. Portuguese and Dutch also engaged in trade and a wider scheme of colonization.

The European colonization schemes originated from its socio-economic-political and ethnic supremacy over all other things. They shared a common military strategy to subdue most of the Islamic people from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to North Africa to erect new empires. They subjugated masses to “divide and rule” policies and practices of the European mental microscope which never viewed the besieged subjects as equal human beings to stand beside the colonial Masters. The masses across these continents were not conquered at the doors but first betrayed and then systematically divided and degenerated by the Master European race. They institutionalized the colonization scheme by establishing institutions of armed forces, police and civil service to govern the nations of Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India for a long time to come. Consequently, freedom gained by political movements was lost by the institutionalized scheme of imperialism. Any prospects for change and new beginning were opposed by the institutionalized colonization. H.G. Wells (Outline of History, Book 5) said it right: “So began the first of the most wasteful and disastrous series of wars that has ever darkened the history of mankind.”

Terrorism originates from the Western colonial powers but none would dare to concede it for the FEAR of unknown intellectual, moral and political consequences in contemporary history – this author elaborated the dictum of imperialism (“Western Imperialism and the Unspoken Tyranny of Colonization.”

When the European businessmen explored new world markets for diminishing resources and their armed forces invaded and occupied the vast Islamic world, there were no television, internet, video cameras and stone-throwing public and voices of reason to call them foreign mercenaries, aggressors and terrorists. The colonization scheme of things was not outcome of the Western democratic values to spread freedom, liberty and justice but ferocity of violence and killings of millions and millions of human lives for the Empires to be built on coloured bloodbaths. The European crusaders crossed the channels and unknown time zones to subjugate the much-divided Muslim people as part of their superior nationalism perception and values that Muslims were inferior to the European race and could be used as subjects without human identity and as raw material to build the new Empires.

National freedom looks more like a hypothetical phenomenon rather than a political reality. India and Pakistan continued to be at war and political enemies as if national freedom had no practical meaning. The engagement with dubious past remained active and alive in politics. British colonialists had historic animosity towards Muslims as they occupied Moghul India in 1857 by forcibly removing its last Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and imprisoned him and his family in a garage in Rangoon, Burma where he died. British had small wisdom of seeing beyond the obvious but to Muslims, the loss of the Moghul Empire was the loss of an enriched progressive civilization.

British Educated Political Leaders Sought Freedom from the British Empire

Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Khan though educated in British intellectual traditions but articulated new mission and visions for national freedom as a revulsion against the British colonial political traditions and continuity of British Raj in India. Was this violent and ruthless indoctrination part of the British heritage or history-making efforts to besiege India forever? Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy made sure that Indians will remain loyal and committed subservient to the futuristic blending of so-called celebrated national freedom after the 1947 partition into India and Pakistan. British by design failed to deliver the truth of national freedom to both nations in a universal spirit of political responsibility and political accountability. Hindu mythology believes in “Mahabharata” (Greater India) and teaches school children that ‘Pakistan and Afghanistan’ are part of the “Mahabharata” plan. Abu Rihan al-Biruni, a 10th-century Muslim scholar wrote the first ever book: “Kitab ul-Hind” (Book on India), after living a decade with Hindu priests at various temples; he describes Hindus being extreme nationalists believing to be superior to other human races (caste system) and highly proud and prejudice to other people.

History could not have confined the tyranny and oppression of British imperialism policies and practices – “divide and rule” against the will of the Indian masses. Was it a disguised democracy inflicted on the Indian subjects? Canons of rationality clarify that national freedom granted to both new nations on August 14-15, 1947, was a fake chronology of time and history. Does it not signal a naïve and void imagination of national freedom professed by both nations since 1947? They continue to interact with one another as the most hated enemy of time and history, wars, the threat of nuclear arsenals, Kashmir dispute and worst of all lacking direct people to people contacts or business relationships – all seem to be part of a highly ruptured and purging pursuit of national freedom.

Entrapped Political Freedom and Colonized Elite doing the Wrong Things

Since the partition of 1947, India was overwhelmingly led by religious phenomenon of Hinduism under the pretext of secularism. Pakistan fell victim to military coups indoctrinated by British-trained military Generals making Islamic ideology fake imagery of the nation-state. Under PM Modi, Hinduism is the top priority to divide and rule India by social and political discards and infested hatred against the minority communities of Muslim, Sikh, Christian and so many others. India’s geography is enlarged every day by such religious-political conflicts. Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu extremism, Nehru died a natural death. Mohammad Ali Jinnah died on a Karachi roadside in a broken ambulance and Liaquat Ali Khan, the first highly acclaimed PM was murdered by Punjabi political enemies. After 75 years of lost time and opportunities, Pakistan under the dictatorship of various army Generals dismantled public institutions, devastated social and economic affairs, corrupt and indicted criminals turned politicians; most recently, Imran Khan – a new age visionary elected leader was abruptly dismissed by military intervention to drag the nation into havoc socio-political chaos and degenerating future.

British changed the sub-continent in 90 years, but Pakistan after 75 years has no viable system of political governance. Its home-grown enemies and traitors like ZA Bhutto, General Yahya Khan, Zardari, Sharifs and General Musharraf were more harmful than foreign enemies. The Five individualistic military coups and its by-product leaders flunked the originality of ideological Pakistan. They all escaped legal accountability for stolen wealth and heinous crimes against the people. Along with few military Generals, they were complacent in robbing the nation of its freedom, integrity, security and sustainable future. Pakistan lives in limbo with missing a legitimate system of political governance, public institutions and legal system of justice.

History will see the Leaders by their Actions, Not by their Claims

Contrary to Gandhi’s peace and non-violent political movement, shortly after the 1947 freedom, India invaded militarily and occupied some of the regional states wanting to join Pakistan as was Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad and Juna Gahar. Despite the UNO assurances of a democratic plebiscite in Kashmir, none of these issues were resolved to this day. A panoramic view of New Delhi’s Grand Mosque and famous Taj Mahal at Agra enlightens the foreign visitors with everlasting image of Islamic culture and civilization, not of obsessed Hindu mythology of political domination under PM Modi.

India under the Congress Party of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru evolved some of its political institutions and systems of people-oriented governance. They shared a vision for political change and secularism. At times, power was transferred peacefully to opposition groups. It did not happen in Pakistan as it fell victim to political conspiracies and military interventions losing its ideological originality and intellectual capacity for planned thinking, a system of governance and nation-building. In 1971, with the help of then Indian PM Indira Gandhi, ZA Bhutto and Sheikh Mujib Ur Rehman were installed as the new rulers of defeated Pakistan. Please see: “British Colonialism and How India and Pakistan Lost Freedom” .

How to imagine a New Future and Peaceful Co-existence?

Unless concerned intellectuals and politicians RETHINK for a Navigational Change, the Indian and Pakistani political horizon overshadows dark imagery of catastrophic nuclear and conventional conflicts. They desperately NEED new generation of educated, proactive and honest leaders to make a different future to happen. PM Modi is committed to Hindu extremism; he could be replaced in the next election as more Indian intellectuals are getting worried about national politics, human equality and future-making. If Imran Khan returns to power during the next election, it could be seen as a positive move for peaceful political change and stability away from the corrupt governance by military dictators. But the current chaotic political culture carries a lingering suspicion of naïve and egoistic Generals involvement in political configuration process. The evidence supports the alliance of indicted Bhuttos, Sharif’s, and some military Generals to remove Khan in a defunct National Assembly. If there is a fair system of justice, the current Chief of Staff General should be held accountable for his alleged intervention to oust Khan.

Likewise, Sharif brothers should face accountability for money laundering, stolen wealth and political mismanagement. Imran Khan needs intelligent advisors to plan political change with concerted actions. He lost four years of precious time but he was not corrupt and he did not kill or robbed any national treasury.

At the edge of REASON, a rational thinker and peacemaker would view extremism and violent assumptions of racial superiority as inhuman and immoral, be it Hinduism, Muslims or Europeanism could plague the sense of mystery and endanger the futuristic movement for change, security and normalization of human relationships. Progressive nations produce the best, most educated and intelligent people to assume leadership roles. Both Indian and Pakistani failed the demands of masses and of formative history for a change. PM Modi‘s Hindu nationalism will not move India to nation-building and peaceful future-making, and military Generals and affiliated corrupt and indicted criminals in Pakistan will be of no use to the security and future of Pakistan. The unchallengeable truth arising from the facts of history states that leaders either lead or they are imposters and stage puppets. Proactive vision and truth live in a spatial, pure and simple narrative. Pakistan and India need desperately new, educated and intelligent proactive leadership to facilitate friendship, resolution of major political problems and a sustainable future to exist in peace.