Zubair Abdullah
The present situation of power distribution and geopolitics have raised as many a question on censorship and democracy as it has on international peace. The Ukraine war, suppression of minorities in India and genocide of Palestinians have led to immense suffering. We may have entered a new year but things have gone south for the people under occupation and oppression. While the biggest chaos is the loss of innocent lives and families, the failure of ethics of the supposed liberal democracy of these nations is the biggest nuisance.
The present situation of power distribution and geopolitics have raised as many a question on censorship and democracy as it has on international peace. The war between Ukraine and Russia has entered its third year with neither side showing any signs of backing off, Communal violence and oppression of minorities in India has spread like forest fire. Most disastrous among all of them is the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank ongoing for more than a hundred days. Israeli forces have killed more than 25,000 Palestinian people while displacing 2 million of them. We may have entered a new year but things have gone south for the people under occupation and oppression. While the biggest chaos is the loss of innocent lives and families, the failure of ethics of the supposed liberal democracy of these nations is the biggest nuisance.
The United States’ economic and military might has made it the sole chief of the global power ever since it started to interfere with the region of Middle East to showcase the rise of a ‘Unipolar World’. The fall of the USSR gave the idea that there remains only one global mighty power now and the United States of America has made sure to live up to that name ever since. The US has backed its actions in the Middle East and in other third world countries as acts to promote liberal democracy. On the other hand, regional and international political analysts have always labelled such reasons as a façade.
Façade or not, it comes out as a legitimate claim that the West has long envied the unification of the east and misunderstood the concept of ‘Islamic Fundamentalism’. The western language has linked the latter with terrorism so strongly that Islamophobia has reached new heights in the last two decades globally.
The First gulf war was visually made available to the world when it became the first ever military confrontation that was recorded. Such a new innovation allowed for each and every individual’s opinion on what they saw. While it was America and its allies who carried the war out and also made a movie out of it for the world to see, it was clear there was room for biasness as it was them shown as the saviour even when invading Iraq and dethroning Saddam Hussain came at the expense of thousands of innocent lives.
This number was enlarged by a further million innocent Iraqis in 2003 when the US carried out another attack, just more destructive and with a different excuse, WMDs. While public perception may have been one sided, even blindsided then, it’s not the very same now. Two decades later now, the US is seen interfering in the Middle East again with Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration working as the front commander for the White House.
It maybe the Israeli State with the upper hand on the numbers, but it’s no longer ignorant and blindsided to the masses. The oppressive ideals of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing that Zionists have worshipped for long are now clear to the world. Roughly everyone, sides in solidarity with Palestine. It comes out as no surprise that public perception on the destabilisation of the Middle East ever since the first Gulf war, the 9/11 plane crash and especially its aftermath has led to a host of theories blaming USA all together for this.
While such theories may have been denounced as false a decade ago, the Biden administration’s decision to start interfering again in the third world with Israel as its front has caused the public perception to go against the west. No matter the final outcome of this Palestinian genocide, if it ever stops, it will be evident in history how the world not just stood in solidarity but many states even incurred losses by sanctioning Israel and damaging their relationship with the hegemon. So the conspiracy theories surrounding the unfortunate event of 9 Sept 2001 do not seem so bogus anymore.
The rise of the far-right makes it seemingly uncomfortable for the liberal democrats to hide their actions and propaganda over the years. The liberal democrats have spread around their influence in the third world to promote their ideas and their culture but the same ideology bas backfired for them in their own backyard. The rise of far right groups in Italy and Germany is becoming a threat for their present administration and rejuvenation of Nazism and Fascism in both of these nations is the last thing any liberal democrat wants.
Such instability and rising public perception against liberal democracy in its own parent nations becomes the evidence about how big of a sham their invasion of middle east was when all they wanted was to exploit the eastern culture and resources and induce their liberal ideology by all means. While their actions by force are and will always be in question (Devastation of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan), their methods of soft power to make their culture a counter culture within almost every nation of the third world have been a success and it involves no bloodbath and no blame.
Indian State, Minorities and lower caste
Minorities in India are facing the same thing and as much of an exaggeration it may sound, it is made to go under the radar by the Indian state’s friends in the west. Internally the state controlled ‘Godi media’ has made sure to kill the news of its master’s actions in its crib. Whilst masses from every corner of the world have shown their support for Palestinians, the same cannot be said for the minorities in India. It is true that the degree of oppression on both sets of people can’t lie in the same frame and it may not even be fair to use the term of ethnic cleansing for both.
Despite this, to attack a religion with a population of 200 million in ways that has hit new sentiments of Indian Muslims and that too done under a secular constitution is a grave concern. The Babri Masjid- Ram Mandir issue that resulted in the latter’s victory granted by the supreme court comes at a time of majority’s dominance over minorities. North and central Indian states become the prime place for it, because of their tenuous history involving the Hindus and Muslims.
This region has been the home of Muslim sultanates for more than four hundred years and the saffron army wants to wipe out that history. Changing names of cities and towns, demolishing masjids, enormous number of cases of mob lynching of masjid Imams… all this is happening in the world’s largest democracy. It’s a funny thing that a Muslim Priest has an attempt on his life by a ‘Bhagwa Mob’ in Maharashtra while a Hindu student of National Institute of Technology mocks the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), creating a real case of hateful speech. It is enough to measure the degree of oppression on Muslims in India when the latter is escorted to his home with the protection of the police and the former gets linked with false charges of hateful speech for causing that violent incident while the man was just seen walking in video clips of the vicinity.
What good is the largest constitution in the world when it can’t come out of ancient practices advocating caste-based structure of the Hindu People. How should religious minorities in this nation find it easy to believe that the word secular is associated in the constitution of a country run by hateful and extremist goons who have exploited the lower caste Hindus for thousands of years and no matter what the law states, it continues to grow.
The two decades old case of America and the middle east and their trump card of controlling information and blindsiding the masses is what the Indian State is doing now to let extremist groups carry out their actions of a ‘Rashtra’.
Zubair Abdullah is a student pursuing Sociology Hons. at Jamia Millia Islamia.
Edited by: Gunjit Verma
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