The phrase
"Great Game" was coined by Rudyard Kipling, an Indian born British writer
who settled in America . Many Indians of vintage Raj education admire his
Jungle Book and just so stories, without knowing his racist but
contemporaneously politically correct works like Kim or his poem, The
White Man’s Burden. Christianity has always used religion, civilizing the
heathen and commerce as an entry point for colonization and exploitation.
Despicable though it is, the fault lies with the gullible, part forgiven
for their desperate need and poverty. It has preyed on the poverty and
ignorance of the masses to spread the faith, just as Islam has used the
sword and differential taxation and privileges to further its growth when
it was socially acceptable to resort to these means. With the advent of
human rights and the new enlightenment, Islam’s devices have been
discredited and so it has switched to bribery as a means of conversion by
taking a leaf out of Christianity’s book. This is not to trivialize the
genuine obsessive devotion of the dedicated to improving the lot of the
poor and diseased, that the Mother Teresas and Waqfs of the world labor
untiringly for, despite their non-humanistic religious obsession based on
arrogant certitude tinged with kindness. Significantly, it is the curse of
the Hindu caste system and its resultant disparities that is a fertile
milieu for bribed conversion. It is also the enlargement of the propertied
bourgeoisie with something to lose, that is the most fertile medium for
fostering democracy, so long as it is tightly controlled.
There is an ancient Indian myth of Brahma, the creator giving his
millennial audience to all sentient creation, which included demons,
humans and gods. His single syllabic advice was "Da’. "Daya"
or compassion transforms a being from demon to human," Daan" or
charity transforms a human to a god and "Daman" or control is what
keeps a being from sliding down the slope of divinity. An interesting
aside is that the bulk of descending fibers from the most recent and
highly evolved cortex of the human brain (neo-cortex) are inhibitory, just
like the Upanishadic concept of god, "Neti" "Not this", ad
infinitum. God is thus like mother, always first saying NO.
The original Great Game was the seismic clash of the British Empire
desiring to pre-empt any threats to India , the Crown Jewel, by the
expansionist Czarist Russian empire. Afghanistan was the battleground and
the three British-Afghan wars are the historical testimony of those events
with the ultimate realization by the British that it was better to pay a
tribute to an unstable Afghan ruler to create a buffer zone between the
two behemoth seismic plates to forestall a catastrophic tectonic clash. A
similar historic precedent was the buying off of the southern Slavs by the
Byzantine Empire .
The New Great Game has trifurcated like the Catholic or Hindu Divinity and
is centered in the Middle East, Central Asia and South America . It is
currently being played between America and China , with a resurgent Russia
riding the Chinese tiger and its uncertain outcome, out of a frustrated
nostalgic glory like Britain hanging on to the coattails of America .
Russia , a dethroned superpower in an economic and demographic meltdown,
but still with advanced technology, is using China as its proxy to get
revenge for its dethroning and hoping to bide its time to return to its
glorious status. It, like Germany is one of the rare nations that cannot
be kept down for long. They fulfill Cardinal Neumann’s definition of
genius, an infinite capacity to bear pain. The recent hoopla of D-Day June
6, the invasion of Normandy , as many honest European writers have noted,
is tampering with history by the victors. At the time of the Allied
invasion, the Russian armed forces were already at the gates of Berlin .
Twenty-five million Russians died in WW2 as compared to less than half a
million British or Americans. Its unfortunate choice of a foolish and
destined to fail communist philosophy and government contrary to human
nature, was a constraint imposed of its evolution. Similar evolutionary
constraints are seen politically and biologically in the earlier French
Revolution, the Islamic Iranian revolution and why pigs can’t fly. In a
feudal society with intolerable atrocities on the have-nots by the
privileged, the natural extreme swings of the pendulum of human ab-reaction
inevitably lead to the bloodbath of the Jacobins or the Ayatollahs.
Political insurgencies like water follow the path of least resistance and
gravity and find an outlet that is less likely to be suppressed and
unfortunately down-slope from the upward incline of decency. In Iran it
was Islam and the same tragedy is likely to recur in most Arab states and
possibly Indonesia and Malaysia , as well as Central Asia .
A Dharmayuddha or battle between good and evil took place on the plains of
Kurukshetra. The wide swath of land from West, South and Central Asia has
become the new Kurukshetra, where an epic battle is being fought between
two evils, hence an Adharmayuddha, the exploiting neo-cons and the fanatic
zealots, both arrogantly certain of their infallible delusions. The rest
of the world waits with trepidation in the hope that both will come to
their senses and not trample the innocent grass like two fighting
elephants. We have a repeat of history, because the gret game was also
fought between the two evil empires of the British and Russian monarchs.
Leaders and politicians the world over are often unethical, amoral beasts
motivated by greed and power. The difference is that in America they are
shortsighted with inability to visualize the future, but not xenophobic,
in Europe, farsighted but constrained by their past history of internecine
warfare, devastation and reformed from their racist exploitation, but
unfortunately not yet reformed enough to eliminate their xenophobia, in
China, xenophobic and farsighted enough to restore their historic old
glory with a chip on their shoulder for extracting their pound of flesh,
in Japan, schizophrenic about their militarism and American victory
inspired apathy and in India, just greedy for money and lust for power
without foresight or planning destined to be subjected to buffeting
Brownian movements by forces beyond their control. In the eighteenth
century before the industrial revolution, the large populations and land
mass with the antiquity of their civilizations and their innovativeness
simply because of time, China and India were responsible for 75% of the
world GDP, almost equally divided between them. Chinese leadership wants
to restore that glory and is fostering a nationalism to attain it and to
mask or divert attention from its failures and kleptocracy. The Indian
leadership has no vision, goal or altruism and follows its path to
personal aggrandizement to the detriment of the nation in the short or
long run, while the American leadership with its addiction to instant
gratification hocks its future for an ephemeral transient gain.
Let me now analyze the New Great Game Trinity. From every great nation’s
point of view adequate, reliable supply of energy at a reasonable price is
essential for economic survival. This is why the American foolishness in
Iran led to an expeditious, but equally foolish reliance on Saudi Arabia
and its inevitable debacle, to invasion of Iraq and alliances with the
tyrannical and unsustainable regimes of Central Asia , likely to lead to
even greater disasters in the future. China also has sided with the
scum-bucket leaders of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan but has still
maintained a distance leaving room for escape, while America touting
democracy conveniently and foolishly, betrays its origins and entwines
itself with Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria and
Central Asian tyrannies, destined to be overthrown like the Central and
South American juntas, in a Gordian knot.
Iran , where American policies were short-sighted is the best example.
Iran with a glorious past, a national pride, being one of the best
educated Muslim countries with potential, has been demonized with no
attempt to repair relations despite the fact that it could be an ally
against Bin Laden led Sunni fundamentalism and a large source of
affordable energy. The visceral bellicoseness has allowed China to form a
convenient alliance by providing it with arms technology and almost
assuring its veto to thwart the American designs of isolation and
sanctions. The foolish, greedy and fanatic policies of the Mullahs, over
time are sure to lead to a disenchanted uprising against Islam in a
country that will eventually wake up to its Islamic colonization that has
been dismal, compared to its glorious pre-Islamic past. To ignore Iran and
build on Saudi Arabia and the Central Asian tyrannies is to build castles
in a foundation of sand.
China with Russia’s co-operation has formed the SCO for Central Asia and
is using its new economic might, financed by the greed of American
corporations for profits from cheap labor and the insatiable consumerism
of the profligate and economically and fiscally irresponsible American
population and government, to utilize its foreign exchange reserves to buy
energy resources and eventually to constrain American foreign policy and
strategic options by destining America to a debtor’s prison. However
corrupt, crooked and uncaring for public good, the Chinese leaders have
been over eons of history, their national pride has always drawn a line in
sand beyond which they do not transgress, despite conflicts with their
personal weaknesses and agendas. The American and Indian leaders lack even
the vestiges of this integrity. Thus they fought in Korea with the blood
of their brainwashed people, when the Yalu river was crossed even though
they were facing the unequal onslaught of a nuclear power. They showed the
same resolve rightly or wrongly by passing the Taiwan Secession Act, even
at the cost of losing the lifting of the EU arms embargo. A lesson to
America is that those who don’t know where they want to go will over the
long run be bested by those who have a clear objective, the luxury of time
and the patience to wait for their goals. Thus China and Russia are
helping Iran in the development of nuclear power, missiles and aircraft
and the former has signed a 100 billion dollar energy deal and may use its
veto in the UN Security Council to deflect American sanctions.
The second avatar of the new trinity of the great game is in Central Asia,
where China is setting up energy deals with Kazakhstan and supporting the
status quo in energy suppliers like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan . The
rationale is to hamstring the Uighur insurgency in Sinkiang,, while it
floods its western regions with Han Chinese migrants to make the
indigenous peoples an insignificant minority in their homeland, just like
it did in Tibet . This is somewhat short-sighted but the Chinese support
of the despots of Central Asia is fluid and does not have the world
impression of America’s more vociferous support that antagonizes the
opposition destined to triumph over time. China helps and supports
Pakistan as a counterbalance to India , a country populous and powerful
enough to be a thorn at its side and to its global intentions. America ,
on the other hand supports a belligerent and destined to disintegrate
Pakistan , whose population bears unremitting hatred for America , for !
no long-term benefit at the cost of alienating a democratic India and a
potentially better and more important energy resource rich ally, Iran .
The final and most worrisome aspect of the great game is the inroad that
China is making in the backyard of America, by solidifying its support and
trade with the naturally emerging leftist governments in Venezuela,
Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina after the exploitative
Monroe Doctrine and the total disenchantment of the impoverished and
oppressed masses of South America, which have failed to see improvement in
living standards and reduction of wealth disparities, due to the economic
exploitation of America across Central and South America and its support
for kleptocratic, corrupt tyrannies there, as in the Middle East and
Africa. Russia and China are selling arms and giving military support and
training to governments in South America, replacing the American
propaganda School of the Americas , that was responsible for training the
right wing military juntas and death squads. China ’s new inroads are
possible because of disastrously short-sighted American p! olicies, China
’s newly acquired riches because of American corporate greed and the
American public’s insatiable appetite for cheap consumer goods to the
detriment of the nation’s long-term health, wealth and survival. It is the
stupidity of American leaders that they do not see the capability of
damage by this Trojan horse. China , not unjustifiably is bent on avenging
its past undeserved humiliation of the last century and Russia , its
duping by crooked manipulators of its disastrous privatization,
post-Gorbachev with American connivance and manipulation.
In the meantime American foreign and commercial policies are held hostage
by vested interests on whose financial contributions, the executive and
legislative branches are totally dependent due to prolonged campaigns, the
cost of advertising and their high costs, just like its penchant for
unregulated free enterprise, that leads to the disaster of a large health
uninsured population and the coming demise of its large corporations like
General Motors and a revolving door for regulators and elected persons to
profit by enacting favorable legislation for lucrative private sector
positions.
America is rich enough with talent to give a warning to its deaf leaders.
India ’s case is much worse. It is not rich or educated to formulate a
far-sighted coherent policy and its leaders and intellectuals are too dumb
to perceive the threat, leave alone plan or prepare to combat adverse
complexities or overcome them. This leads me to the unresolved dilemma of
third world developing countries. Is it better to have a greedy, power
lusting, autocratic leadership with a national purpose and agenda, or a
greedy, power hungry, democratic regime with no sense of national purpose
or vision? Amartya Sen has analyzed statistically, that despite the
millions who lost their lives during the Maoist insanities, the subsequent
policies of post-Maoist China have alleviated poverty currently for more
people than the bumbling democracy of India . The historical problem has
another interesting parallel. Was the insurgent policy of American Indians
that led to their decimation and even current social and economic failures
with greater suffering, not as right and successful, as the acquiescing
surrender of African-American slaves that has resulted in greater survival
and economic status, despite their earlier subjugation, humiliation and
oppression.
This all hinges on how one defines success or a better outcome. Keynes
said that in the long run, we are all dead, but he was talking of
individuals, not groups or nations. On the other hand, very often
patriotism is the last resort of scoundrels. Individuals should be
constrained in their choice by morality and be roasted on the spit of
moral dilemmas, despite the Darwinism panacea of selfish survival, because
survival though critical, has to be compatible with peace of mind, if not
personal happiness that defines quality of life.. Nations, on the other
hand are not constrained by the curse of morality, as Sun Tzu, Chanakya
and Machiavelli. Collective responsibility is conducive to cheating, as
the myth of Akbar’s story of the hope of filling his swimming pool with
milk on the basis of the love of his people which Birbal disproved, and is
emphasized in the British experience of the tragedy of the commons, not to
mention the stealing and destruction of American public housing projects
in Chicago .
The tragedy of human existence is its eternal quest for justice, that
leads to the beneficial good of altruism and unfortunately to its greatest
curse, the invention of god and an afterlife. These latter quests of human
beings are best summed up in the cynical definition of a philosopher (a
lover of truth), as a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat
which is not there!
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