Democracy, The West and Pakistan

Democracy, the west and Pakistan

The basis of all religion, ancient or modern, primitive or developed, naturalistic or divinistic, polytheistic, deistic or monotheistic is the fear of the unknown and attempt at propitiation of powers that be.
Given the current state of knowledge, religious persons are either insecure, devoid of learning, conformist, have an unquestioning mind or had a traumatic-revelatory experience.
Primitive society was organized as a matriarchy, which was a system where women, not men, were the leaders and organizers. It was in the hunter-gatherer stage. Men would go out to hunt. A few men were left behind to do heavier physical work. Women would stay in improvised huts and gather grain, organize life and look after the children. Of necessity most men would at times be away for prolonged periods of time. Polyandry was the norm and social necessity.
At this stage there was no concept of private property, there was little of it any way and it was communally shared. People did not live in fixed abode. Small groups of people moved from location to location where ever they could find sustenance.
At some point in history humans discovered the art of agriculture and that necessitated staying put in place. Work in the fields was physically very demanding. Initially they must have worked with hands alone, later on stone implements were invented. Men being physically stronger, though relatively deficient in stamina-staying power- were more useful in the field. Women would be relatively disabled during late pregnancy, childbirth and the nursing stage. They gradually lost their primacy.
It was more efficient to till one’s own land and use one’s own implements. With settled living the need and concept of private property developed. Men would naturally want to leave their assets to their own seed and legitimacy of birth achieved high value. Women had to accept the custom of one husband and the requirement of fidelity to the man at the pain of being labeled a fallen woman with attendant loss of security and status. (DNA testing to ascertain paternity was far in the future). Men could usually afford only one wife, so monogamy became the norm. But they had a biological advantage. They did not have to carry a baby and thus could hide their infidelity. The profession of pleasure work was invented. With accumulation of wealth dealt with later, polygamy, but not polyandry would come in vogue.
With increasing population, need for security from marauders who did not have fertile lands or were not inclined to work for a living in the conventional fashion, arose. With. They must have initially stood guard in turn. But a point must have arrived when a peasant too tired after working all day must have given a sack of grain to some one to act as his stand in. We have the beginning of security services.
With the size of tribe enlarging tribes, perhaps several tribes coalescing, administrative services were required. They elected chiefs. It eventually became too much for a family unit to grow food, build implements, weave yarn and exchange products. Division of labor is in the offing.
Society was subject to uncertain weather. Floods and drought took their toll. Forest fire broke out. (Fire for domestic use was discovered 7.5 million years ago. They must have discovered that the flesh of burnt animals lasted longer, was more palatable and cooked grain was easier on the stomach. Women staying home must have adopted cooking and used it as a measure of control over men. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach goes back to that time).
Whole communities must have been driven to distraction over natural disasters. Some one must have cried in anguish and lo and behold a flood receded, it rained or the wind settled to make a fire less ferocious. Other people would think that the person (who had cried) must have special access to powers that be. He/she must have demurred, but eventually relented or concluded that it was a good deal and confessed to special powers.
Those were the early days of religion. People worshiped natural phenomenon. They were awed by, and could not comprehend or explain natural phenomenon. They were afraid of and apprehensive of what they would face after death and invented gods who would help them at the end of life, and rites to propitiate the different deities who, they came to believe, caused rain, flood, fire, lightening, earthquake, pestilence, disease, life and death. Spirit men, medicine men and magicians of all kinds sprang up to intercede for lesser mortals with the powers that be.
But religion, if I may hazard the opinion, was in its scientific stage, in the sense that one observed, analyzed and came to a conclusion. It was not based on a super natural power, or entity. It was reasonable to suppose that the same gods governed East and West, North and South. Religious conflicts were rather subdued. People fought over pragmatic issues- land, food and women. Conflict was still in the rational age; they would only occasionally fight for the pre-eminence of their own favorite god, but would soon come to a compromise, venerating both deities. . Adjustment, interdependence, and at worst vigilant co existence were the norm. Allegiance was owed to the family, clan, tribe, community and local ruler, in that order. The concept of nationalism was to come much later.

With increasing knowledge and the explanations it offered of the natural phenomenon, esoteric religion emerged with the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent God. But divinity was humanized in that the god micromanaged human affairs, listened to prayers, punished the guilty, favored the upright and offered heavenly rewards. With all his powers and foreknowledge, why did He not prevent disasters and keep people from doing evil was glossed over by the concept of “free will” and tests and trials to make humans better beings. Gradually society became more complicated with security guards taking the role of rulers (army in Pakistan), priestly order becoming a hereditary vocation, trades men, farmers and artisans making their own class and manual workers being relegated to the bottom of the ladder.
Security imperatives ordained that cities and later whole countries come under the rule of kings. The supporters of the rulers were given land for services rendered and came to constitute the aristocracy. Soon after driven by mercantile interests, countries sought colonies and became empires. There had been empires before too but these were motivated by profit alone.
For various reasons industrial revolution came about in Britain first. That gave birth to the industrialist class. Factories needed capital. Initially the landed class supplied the capital. When factories went into production they produced surplus value, as workers were only a small percentage of the value they created.
Aristocrats and capitalists had an inevitable conflict of interest. Capital joined hands with the monarchy to wrest control of power from the nobility. The working class totally beholden to the industrialist came in handy. Voting right was the only vehicle to empower them. The concept of democracy was born.
Capitalism thus is an economic system in which means of production are controlled and in a large measure, owned by a numerically small group of people- the capitalist class. They dominate the government by maintaining a dominant-symbiotic relationship with mainstream political parties media and academia. Their vehicle of control is Democracy- is a system of government in which People are supposed to be governed by and with their Consent. The term with out further qualifications stands for bourgeoisie democracy in which multi-party elections are held at fixed or regularly irregular intervals under adult franchise. Political parties invariably beholden to financial interests present a platform to attract voters. Liberals throw crumbs at the working class; conservatives do not even do that.
Under Democracy the working class is kept under control with the aid of such sedatives as sports programs, soap operas and distracted by issues such as migration, religious conflicts, wars and ethnic divides. When the working class gets too rebellious they are palmed off with such measures as social security, health care, free education and unemployment benefits.
Democratic governments under different guises and subterfuges serve the interest of the capitalist class. Before the communist revolution in Russia, capitalism did not have a competitor for public mind. They did as they pleased. Hitherto the French revolution had been a spark of progress but that had raised the banner against aristocratic privilege. American revolution had been a fight in the family, British capitalism against the nascent American one. American civil war pitted feudal interest against industrial one. Black labor was released to work in factories in the north and the back of southern landowners was broken.
For all its faults the 1917 revolution in Russia was the first effective working class uprising. Working class movement had been getting empowered since early 20th century. Post WW I labor party gained substantial support in Britain. Political parties with similar agenda made gains in other countries as well.
In 1929 Capitalism came under one its periodic down turns. There had been economic crisis before but society was in transition from agricultural to industrial and land to some extent kept people from starving. Media had not developed so the impact on human consciousness was not as heavy either.
The consequent economic depression made the ruling class scramble. Welfare measures popularly called The New Deal were taken in the USA and in other capitalist countries.
WW II gave temporary respite. But Europe was devastated. Soviet union took control of Eastern Europe. Left and communist parties made great gains in Western Europe. American infra structure was untouched. It poured in billions of dollars to save Europe for bourgeoisie democracy. Progressive movements were pushed back but rulers had to conceded welfare states over much of Western Europe.
Imperial powers had been debilitated and could no longer hold on to colonies. Indonesia sent the Dutch packing. The British had to cut and run, leaving a holy mess in India. Mid East and Iran were being run by satrapies. But Britain could not even prop them up. The USA came in. They tried to assist the French retain Vietnam but cut their losses when the latter were humiliated at. Dien Bein Phu. They however held on to South Vietnam where their own humiliation was decades away. The populist movement had been crushed in Greece. Iran was subverted.
But the masterstroke was the introduction of the concept of “Mutual” defense pacts. Newly independent countries and some of the old nominally independent dependencies were persuaded or coerced to join SEATO, Baghdad pact and CENTO and became a pawn in the cold war. Pakistan had a security imperative, Turkey had been salivating at the prospect of being accepted as a European country for long. India and Indonesia became a thorn in the side of neo-imperialism. Israel took care of Egypt and Syria. North African countries were not very significant.
The only significant setback was the Khomeini revolution of Iran. Saddam, aided and abetted by the USA debilitated the country with 8 years of war in which economies of both countries were destroyed. That, however, did not help Saddam from the gallows.
Muslims were taken in by the rhetoric of Communism as an atheistic creed while capitalist countries were people of the book. Their grievous comeuppance was half a century away.
A combination of its own contradictions and capitalist machinations finally made the USSR implode on itself. Eastern Europe disentangled itself. America was now the only super power.
The welfare state had for long being rolled back through the agency of the likes of Thatcher-Blair and Reagan-Bush-Clinton and another Bush. The people had in the meanwhile been conditioned into thinking that it was all for the best and the best in the world. Freedom meant an opportunity to choose between different brands of soap and shampoo. They were lulled into politically insensate objects with soap operas and celebrity shows.
Now the time was for assets grab out side the traditional sphere of influence of the USA. Remember Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and sundry other countries had been pulverized. Cuba was the lone survivor. (While USA was bogged down in Iraq, Venezuela and Bolivia loosened the strings).
Britain went into Iraq though the public opinion was overwhelmingly against the mis-adventure. USA stayed in Iraq in spite of public opinion turning against it. Dick Cheney, ever the realist when told that public opinion polls showed a large percentage of US population against the war in Iraq responded with a laconic “so”.
The USA invaded Iraq for the ostensible objective of freedom for Iraqis and institution of democracy. They had gone into Afghanistan earlier for the same purpose. The call is for democracy in former soviet republics and former Warsaw pact countries. But they have no problem n dealing with China, no kind of democracy in any sense, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or any number of satrapies. It is rank hypocrisy, unless one redefines democracy as the freedom to do what USA corporations tell you.
Democracy cannot be imposed. A society has to grow to capitalist stage first. That happened in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
India is a special case study. It had developed considerable manufacturing prowess even under colonial rule. Its independence movement was financed by the Hindu capital, which for various reasons had left Muslims behind. Muslim league was on the other hand led by the feudal interests. India maintained democracy. Pakistan has alternated between military governments and feudocracy.
S.Ehtisham