Chomsky’s Interview on Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (February 02 2008): Noam Chomsky, a professor of
Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is a well-
known writer, thinker and political activist. In this interview that
he gave to Business Recorder’s and Aaj TV’s Fahad Faruqui Professor
Chomsky analyses Pakistan’s political scenario, its foreign policy
and relationships – over the years – with the West.

He also talks about Democracy and its abuse worldwide. He comes up
with some solutions with a view to making this world a better place.
The following are the excerpts:

Q: One of the characteristics of a failed state that you highlight in
your book -Failed States – is America’s increasing failure to protect
its own citizens in relation to war-on-terror. Can you draw a
parallel with how Pakistan has participated in this global push and
has suffered the consequences in the form of increasing numbers of
suicide bombings?

A: I’m afraid to say Pakistan is the paradigm example of a failed
state and has been for a long time. It has had military rule,
violence and oppression, Since the 1980’s, it has undergone an
extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation, which has
undermined a good part of the society, under the Zia-ul-Haq tyranny.

Now it is in danger of collapsing, there is a rebellion in
Balochistan, the FATA territories are out of control and always have
been – and it is getting worse. It is possible that the Bhutto
assassination might increase the severe unrest in Sindh, where there
has been plenty of oppression, and this may lead to another
secessionist movement.

The are recent polls of Pakistan, good polls, which show that the
Pakistani population is in favour of Democracy, possibly with an
Islamic flavour, but not this one of oppression, but those hopes are
not even near being realised in the existing political and social
system.

Q: Don’t you feel that democratic regimes can at times be
authoritarian?

A: That is when they do not function. If you have formal democratic
structure, but they do not function, yes, it can be authoritarian, it
can be totalitarian! The old Soviet Union also called itself a
democracy.

Q: What solutions do you propose for Pakistan in order for it to
become a true Democracy rather than a failed state?

A: By developing political and social arrangements in which the
population can actually determine effective policy. That is what
democracy is.

Q: How can Pakistan form a democratic regime with an Islamic flavour
when its Western allies buck the notion of Clash of Civilisations,
which is at odds with everything that belong to the East?

A: The Clash of Civilisations is a concept that was invented actually
by Bernard Lewis, a scholar of Islam, who has a bitter hatred for
Islam. It was picked up by Samuel Huntington, a well known political
scientist and he made it famous. The conception is supposed to be
that the United States and its Western allies are civilised,
enlightened and liberal, all sorts of wonderful qualities. And, the
Islamic world is developing in the opposite direction, what is
sometimes called Islamofacism – backward, regressive, violent, which
doesn’t understand their elevated ideals and so on and so forth.

Looking at the facts such as Iraq which is the center of concern, the
US Military carried out regular intensive studies of public opinion
in Iraq because it is a core part of military occupation to try to
understand the opinions of people you are trying to control and
dominate. They released the study a few week ago, which was reported
in the Washington Post, the main national newspaper, on December 19th
2007. The military experts say that they are very encouraged by what
they call “good news from Iraq.” The “good news” is that the Iraqi’s
have “shared beliefs.” That is supposed to refute the idea that they
can’t come together and that they are involved in tribal warfare and
so on, so it is very encouraging, until you look at what the “shared
beliefs” are. To which they say that the United States is responsible
for all of the atrocities and disasters that have taken place, since
the invasion and, therefore, the United States should get out. The
aggressors should leave. That is the Iraqi position.

Notice that the Iraqis accept the ideals United States professes, for
example, the ideals of the Nuremburg Tribunals, the American-run
Tribunal, which tried Nazi criminals and hanged them for their
crimes. The worst crime was the crime of aggression and which the
Tribunal called the supreme international crime, which includes all
of the evil that follows. So, in the case of Iraq, which is a
textbook example of aggression – US and British aggression – includes
all of the evil that followed: including sectarian warfare, the
catastrophic affects on the society, the hundreds and thousands of
excessive deaths, millions of people who were displaced, all of that
is included in the supreme crime of aggression. And, Iraqi’s agree
with it. Off-course! Americans don’t agree with that, nor does
Europe, they don’t agree with the ideals they profess; in fact, they
dismiss them with contempt. Any mention of what I just said would be
barely understood in the United States or the West, by intellectual
opinion, but the Iraqi’s understand it.

Now let’s compare the United States. There is much debate about what
the United States should do about Iraq. On January 20th 2008, The New
York Times (newspaper for the record) had a lead story – by its main
military correspondent, Michael Gordon – on Iraq and the elections,
which reviewed the various opinions open to the United States and
reviewed the opinion of the government officials, military experts,
the political candidates, commentators, specialists and so on – a
very extensive review.

Only one voice was missing, the voice of the people of Iraq. They are
not people; they are what are sometimes called un-people, not people,
so their voice doesn’t matter. We, should ask ourselves if there is a
clash of civilisations, who are the enlightened liberal people.

Q: Pakistan has shifted in and out of democracy without stabilising
in any one position, is it possible for Pakistan to yield towards the
right direction?

A: For Pakistan, its alliance with the United States, I think, has
been quite harmful throughout its history. The United States has
tried to convert Pakistan into its highly militarised ally and has
supported its military dictatorship. The Reagan administration
strongly supported the Zia-ul-Haq tyranny, which had a very harmful
affect on Pakistan, and the Reagan administration even pretended they
didn’t know that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons.

Off course they knew, but they had to pretend they didn’t, so that
Congress would continue to fund their support for Pakistan, for the
army, and for the ISI, all part of their support for the Mujahideen
in Afghanistan, which was not intended to help the Afghans.

We know that very well, just from what happened afterwards. It was
intended to harm the Russians, so the Reagan administration was using
Pakistan as a way to kill the Russians. Actually, that was the term
that was used by the head of the CIA station in Pakistan that “we
have to kill Russians,” not that the poor Afghans would suffer, but
who cares.

Q: Can Pakistan ever become a true Democracy when it is continually
expected to pander to external pressures, to act in ways which has a
negative impact on the people of the country?

A: Yes, it can. I mean there is a lot wrong with India, horrible
things in India, but it is more or less a functioning democracy.
Pakistan could move to that level, but, I think, it has to
disentangle itself from the domination from the United States. Right
now the US is supporting Musharraf – is that a way to democracy?

Pakistanis have been polled extensively and we know information about
Pakistani opinion. A large number of Pakistanis want Democracy – with
an Islamic flavour – but that could be a functioning Democracy. Their
problem is to create it, and I think that the US influence has been
an impediment to that.

Q: Can a Democracy with an Islamic flavour be acceptable to the
world – especially its Western Allies?

A: It doesn’t matter if it’s acceptable to the Western countries,
what matters is what is acceptable to Pakistanis. The Western
countries would like to rule the world, but they have no authority to
do that. I think they have a lot of problems with their own
democracies, for example, take Iraq again, I said that the voice of
Iraqis is missing in these reviews, but I could add that the voice of
Americans is also missing.

What Americans want doesn’t matter, the large number of Americans
agree with Iraqis that US forces should withdraw from Iraq. Americans
are not as civilised as the Iraqis are in recognising that the US
aggression is to blame for the atrocities.

The US citizens don’t accept the professed American ideals to the
extent that the Iraqis do, but that is result of propaganda,
deception and so on, but their voice matters. This is not the only
example in which US policy is radically divorced from the public
opinion.

Even with the issue of Iran-US and Iranian public opinion have both
been studied extensively by a leading polling agency in the World,
and they tend to agree on most issues such as how to resolve the
problem, and that Iran has the right to nuclear power, like any
signatory of non-proliferation treaty, but it does not have the right
to acquire nuclear weapons.

They also agree that there should a nuclear weapons free zone in the
whole region that would include Israel, Iran and Pakistan. An
overwhelming majority of Americans and Iranians agree with that.

Furthermore, a huge majority of American (over 80 percent), thinks
the United States should live up to its obligations under the non-
proliferation treaty and make good faith efforts to eliminate nuclear
weapons altogether. A large majority of Americans are even opposed to
any military threats against Iran, which they see as a crime.

If United States and Iran were both functioning democracies in which
public opinion mattered, this crisis, which is a serious one, could
probably be resolved. Unfortunately they are not, and that’s not due
to a clash of civilisations because the problem is right here in the
United States. In fact, the opinions of the American population are
not only not implemented, but they are not even reported.

Q: You’ve highlighted public opinion. So, my concern is, is it
possible for Pakistan to steer towards the right direction, when 65%
of its population is illiterate and has no active participation in
politics?

A: Yes, it’s very possible; in fact, one of the dramatic and
successful achievements of Democracy, in recent years, has been in
Bolivia. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. Extremely
impoverished population, illiterate and so on, but they carried out
what was a real triumph of Democracy – something that cannot be
imagined in the West.

In December 2005, the indigenous population, the Indian population,
which happens to be in majority in Bolivia, for the first time
entered the political arena and were able to take political power
through the vote and elected someone from their own ranks, who is
committed to cultural rights, letting the population control their
own natural resources, and many other moves towards justice and
equality.

That is a remarkable exercising Democracy; it doesn’t take place in
United States or Western countries. And, it was poor and the level of
literacy was quite low. These were the people who were fighting for
their rights for years.

The election didn’t come out of nowhere. A few years earlier, the
Indian population had driven the World Bank and major corporations,
like Bechtel, out of the country because they were trying to
privatise water. Privatising water may look good in the study of
economics at graduate school, but for the population it means that
they can’t purchase water for their children, so they rejected and
they struggled in which many killed. The drove the corporations and
the world bank out.

Q: As you may know, elections in Pakistan will be held soon and
public polls on television depict a lack of confidence in the
political system. The poor masses have more immediate concerns such
as rising prices of flour and wheat, scarcity of gas and electricity
in the country, than bothering with who to vote for – if at all. What
are your thoughts on this and how can governments gain the confidence
of people and get their active participation in Politics?

A: Governments will gain active participation for the populous, if
the issues that concern the population like getting shoes for your
children or having water to drink or having cultural rights or
controlling your own natural resources, if those issues are open to
vote on then they’ll vote, just like in Bolivia. If the vote is a
matter of picking one or the other member from the wealthy and
oppressive elite then people won’t vote. The voting is very low in
the United States for similar reasons.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2008