When a people
are defeated by military power and then subjected to humiliation, the time
is sure to come when the soil of their minds, enriched by a sense of
history, sufficient numbers, economic and military strength, will spur the
growth of the long dormant seeds of humiliation and flower into a bumper
harvest of persistent and undying enmity seeking revenge.
The first example is the rout of the Serbs in the fields of Kosovo and
their humiliation by the Ottoman Turks during their subsequent rule.
Pretty Serbian women and young children were abducted to Istanbul and the
children converted to Islam, educated and returned as high officials to
their native land. Some Serbians for economic reasons converted to Islam.
When the totalitarian regime of Tito imploded Milosevic exploited the
religious hatred of the Serbs for the Bosnians, which led to the mass
massacres. Other similar instances are the killings in Rwanda and those of
the Chinese in Indonesia. The history of conversion to Islam is a sorry
tale of opportunism to escape the Jezia tax or oppression by the terrible
caste system. The devilish mischief being perpetrated by Pakistan and the
current milieu in India is not healthy and may pose an unfortunate danger
for the Indian Muslims, if they fail to dissociate themselves from the
nefarious schemes of fanatics. This has been repeatedly re-iterated by the
wiser and thinking Muslims with foresight, to give them their due credit.
It has not yet penetrated the dense skulls of some diehards like prominent
Imams, sundry Madressehs and ignorant fanatics still living in the past
delusions of grandeur of the Mughal Empire or Islamic Caliphate. It is
equally incumbent on the government to provide minorities and backward
classes an education with marketable skills and equal opportunity for jobs
and entrepreneurship.
The Treaty of Versailles due to the ineptitude of Wilson and hostility of
Clemenceau, imposed unbearable financial burdens and humiliation on
Germany with the resultant hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic and the
rise of Nazism and Hitler. A prescient Keynes predicted future disaster,
but neither Lloyd George nor Wilson had the foresight, will or
intelligence to see the obvious. This resulted in the holocaust and WW2
with over fifty million casualties.
The humiliation of China by American and European enclaves and
maltreatment of the Chinese led to the Boxer Rebellion and much of China’s
current attitude is to regain its respect and seek what it thinks is it
deserved place on the world stage. India is a similar case. These two
countries are ancient civilizations and not yet powerful enough so they
are more restrained. The possibility of attaining their goals peacefully
in the near future also makes them more prudent.
The British and Russian dissolution of the Iranian Constitutional
government in the beginning of the twentieth century, the deposing of
Shah’s father a decade later, the overthrow of Mossadegh in the fifties,
the granting of medical asylum to the Shah by President Carter, the
provocation and support of Saddam to start and continue the Iraq Iran war,
and the final humiliation of forcing Iran to settle for a peace by
shooting down an Iranian airliner has earned America its undying enmity
with unpleasant future consequences.
The past humiliation of Pakistan which was used during the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan and winked at for its nuclear program, but shunned like a
leper with sanctions for its previously known transgressions has
humiliated that nation. There is widespread hatred and enmity towards
America in the general population barring those who constitute the
equivalent of Somozistas. An identical situation pervades Iraq for similar
dealings with Saddam, betrayal of the Shiites and Kurds after the Gulf
War1 and later sanctions that cost the lives of a many Iraqi children.
The betrayal of the Arabs after WW1 with puppet governments, the carving
out of Israel after WW2, giving material and monetary support to Israel to
occupy and oppress the Palestinians, support of monarchies and tyrants in
the Arab countries and the recent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq has
been a prolonged humiliation of the Arabs and Muslims which will exact a
future price.
Humiliation need not be only by military means. It can be social or
economic. Slavery, apartheid, castes and Jezia tax on infidels have all
been used as means of social humiliation. The past cavalier, overbearing
and summary subordinate treatment and economic exploitation of Latin
America has already alienated Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, the three
large countries with a history, large economies and populations. The
smaller ones are even further humiliated because they have no choice but
to stand in line with hat in hand and heads bowed. They can only dream of
revenge. Latin America and Russia have been humiliated by economic means
using unrestrained capitalism with privatization and free capital flows
and globalization and free trade mantras, while subsidizing domestic
agriculture and keeping quotas and tariffs to favor politically powerful
industrial lobbies.
The newest humiliation of being fingerprinted and photographed at entry
after obtaining a valid visitor visa from American Consulates is the
latest humiliation for the bulk of the world. There is justification for
restricting visa free entries from countries whose residents overstay or
don’t leave. A nation with widespread corruption and resultant lax control
permits easy access to genuine passports and can be used by terrorists as
a launching point by altering photographs after obtaining visas. This is
why America is insisting on digital passports with enough data to verify
identity. Thus after the 9-11 tragedy, there is reason to fingerprint and
photograph visitors. America has done everything to minimize inconvenience
by using technology that does all this in a minute. Its arrogant blunder
is not to civilly explain this to other nations in advance of the
directive. Does anyone have any doubts that other countries if they were
not dependent on trade or aid would not have reciprocated this
humiliation? Already Brazil less dependent on trade with the US has
retaliated by subjecting US citizens to the same reciprocal indignity.
Just as Chinese, Indian and American military bullying and past
humiliation led to WMD proliferation by India, Pakistan and North Korea
respectively (I predict eventually Iran, Saudi Arabia, Japan and even
South Africa will do the same) and WTO bullying brought about collapse of
the Seattle, Doha and Cancun talks and threats of retaliation from the EU
and Japan, so also large countries with pride and power will try to make
themselves less dependent on trade with America Then they can afford to
take the same stance as Brazil. At least in China, smart thinkers are
dreaming of being weaned from dependence on the teats of trade with
America. China is slyly and surreptitiously using extra taxation as a
measure to impose its own standards on encryption, software and hardware
technologies to lock in the trade advantage by making importers captive to
its manufacturers. This is in sharp contrast to irrationally exuberant
India crowing in gleeful ecstasy like a child given new toys of BPO and
back office service contracts, which could vanish to cheaper pastures with
a computer click and capital transfer. As the recent belligerence at the
Summit of Americas and the policy turns of Putin after American meddling
in Georgia and Central Asia show, Latin America and Russia are turning
against America. The bigger worry is the Bin Laden hordes of humiliated
Islamic countries with undying enmity and Kamikaze tactics, thirsting for
revenge.
This article is meant to provoke thought and future modification of policy
rather than being a mere litany of past blunders or moral condemnation.
Color and number coding for domestic airline passengers is another
euphemism for singling out brown citizens of foreign origin for profiling.
Once again, lack of imparting of proper explanation publicly, in a civil
manner to concerned citizens, will lead to their further alienation, just
like the blind rush to incarcerate people after September 11, 2001 did. It
is the imperial disregard of gratuitous humiliation that yields the bitter
harvest.
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