http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\01\22\story_22-1-2012_pg3_2
Sunday, January 22, 2012
COMMENT: Man is born free —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
The question of resistance to laws and conventions imposed under threat
of force is mostly sidelined by the judiciary, political parties and the
present day media because they have deep rooted interests in the status quo
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last
finding the other end fastened about his own neck” — Frederick Douglass.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Of the Social Contract, Or Principles of
Political Right (1762) says, “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than
they.” And then adds, “As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it
does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does
still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away,
either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those
who took it away. But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of
all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must
therefore be founded on conventions.”
It is conventions, the world over, that have been the real cause of the
slavery of body and mind of people born free because conventions do not come
from nature but are manmade and those who make these conventions are not
paragons of justice but are servants of their own desires, greed and interests,
which are essentially diametrically opposed to the interests and wishes of the
majority. Conventions serve the narrow and limited interests of the convention
makers who are always the ones who have a dominant role in societies and these
conventions are made to serve them and their interests and to help continue the
status quo to perpetuate their dominance. Rarely, if ever, will you find a
convention that opposes those who already dominate society.
It is an established practice in this world that rights, liberty, honour,
freedom and independence of persons, peoples, nations and weak countries mean
nothing where the interests of more powerful and intransigent powers are
concerned. All these grandiloquent precepts and ideas can go and jump into the
nearest ocean as far as transgressors are concerned.
The question arises if conventions are made to suit those already
enjoying power, pelf and privileges then is it an obligation for the majority
whose interests, rights, liberties and freedoms are violated to acquiesce in
the conventions, which are no more than instruments to perpetuate their slavery.
Rousseau rightly argues: “Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to
force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being
violated. All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does
that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me
at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but,
even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For
certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.”The laws that were made in South
Africa by the apartheid regimes had a legal status and were made to punish
those who opposed white rule and just because these laws were imposed under
threat of force that did not make them truly legitimate. Had Nelson Mandela and
the African National Congress submitted to their spurious legality there could
never have been the South Africa that we see today.
Israel is building its wall in the West Bank to usurp more Palestinian
land and to segregate the Palestinians. It has the legal sanction of the
illegal Israeli state so should it or should it not be resisted by all those
who value freedom and equality? But it seems the western governments have gone
morally bankrupt and fail to raise a voice over it or the illegal settlements.
It is only brute force that ensures compliance but should it be accepted
without resistance?
Conventions and laws like the ‘Objectives Resolution’ and Urdu as mother
tongue here, designed to perpetuate the overwhelming dominance of certain
sections of the ruling elite, were legally sanctioned but did not in any way
reflect the wishes of the people and did succeed to a large extent and are the
real cause of the unending chaos and mayhem that has persisted since.
The question of resistance to laws and conventions imposed under threat
of force is mostly sidelined by the judiciary, political parties and the
present day media because they have deep rooted interests in the status quo:
they abhor rocking the boat because they fear they will be the first to sink,
but the oppressed people should and must approach the issue differently because
they “have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win”.
However, these chains are not just dependent on the transgressor; they
have a lot to do with the victims as well. If the people submit to the dictates
of the oppressor, more oppression is bound to follow. Little wonder then that
Frederick Douglass, a civil rights and abolition activist, said, “Find out just
what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the
injustice and wrong, which will be imposed on them.”
Expecting justice from bullies is wishful thinking but that certainly
does not mean that those being bullied and denied their rights give up just
because the route to liberation is difficult or has hurdles. Recently Sardar
Ataullah Mengal had expressed doubts about the Baloch being able to safeguard
their independence if they were able to achieve that goal. Bridges are crossed
when you come to them; to not to embark on a journey just because some parts of
it may be hazardous is not a sane option.
I think this poem by James Russell Lowell clinches the argument in favour
of those who resist conventions:
“Once to every man and nation,
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
Off’ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever,
Twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ‘tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.”
The writer has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back
to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at [email protected]
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