Pursuing global coalition to fight against terrorism

Rajesh Tandon, The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

The aftermath of the bombing in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, has created a new global situation. As the build-up for military action in Afghanistan was created within the first few days of these bombings, two important phenomena occurred. First, there emerged a new and pressing global demand for addressing terrorism through a broad-based coalition of governments in different regions of the world. Second, major conferences scheduled for September and October this year were postponed.

In a peculiar way, the latter created obstacles to the pursuit of the former. The Commonwealth heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled in Brisbane, Australia in first week of October was postponed. Yet, the Commonwealth People's Festival which brings together voluntary organizations, citizens' associations, development NGOs, artists and cultural performers from across the Commonwealth met, explored, shared and expressed themselves in Brisbane during Oct. 2-8.

The very presence of more than 500 civil society organizations from nearly 50 countries of the world in Brisbane that week signaled an important message from the civil society.

The postponement of CHOGM denied the possibility of a global forum for heads of states from the Commonwealth countries to discuss a joint strategy for dealing with terrorism. In postponing the meet, CHOGM endorsed the continuity of terror and fear in the people worldwide. It also created a vacuum of policy and action which has since been filled through militaristic response in Afghanistan. The fact that so many individuals from across the world were able to travel and meet in Brisbane was an important symbolic act of human response in the face of such adversity and uncertainty.

While a global coalition against terrorism is an important initiative, it is equally important that this initiative addresses the underlying causes that led to the US bombings last month. Continued poverty, ethnic and nationalist conflicts, marginalisation and exclusion of vast sections of humanity from the benefits of globalization are some of the underlying issues that a global coalition against terrorism must address. This calls for a new vision for a people's multilateralism which goes beyond a mere coalition of governments. A pluralistic, more democratic and people-based multilateralism requires building broader coalitions of people and their organizations throughout the world.

As concerns for human security are intense among citizens of the world today, a new meaning of and strategy for addressing human security needs to be evolved. A mere militaristic response will not create conditions for security. Human security has to be built on the basis of coming together of communities and their associations, in transcending ethnic, cultural and religious boundaries within communities and in reaching out to dissimilar others in distant locations. This context, therefore, creates several implications for voluntary action in India itself.

In recent decades, our own society has become extremely divided across caste, gender, ethnic, linguistic and religious lines. Party politics in the country has reinforced these divisions and consolidated narrow parochial identities. Our ways of dealing with conflicts and differences have become extremely violent and mutually hostile. In such a scenario, voluntary action must address the challenge of building bridges across community and those narrow parochial identities.

Promotion of mutual understanding across caste, ethnic and religious divides becomes a central agenda for all civil society organizations in the country. It also demands continued vigilance on our part so that emerging tensions around these divisions could be identified, explored and dealt with peacefully, before they become violent in their manifestation. Issues of human security need to be integrated in all aspects of the work that voluntary organizations and citizen associations do. This requires generating discussions on concerns related to insecurity in the neighborhood and the community as well as in preparing citizens and their associations to address issues of human security in locally appropriate and durable ways.

As war cries against terrorism gain momentum in the country, it is likely that voluntary organizations inspired by spiritual and religious traditions may come under greater scrutiny by the security agencies of the country. It is also likely that the draconian Foreign Contributions Regulation Act could be further tightened and used as a vehicle to deny access to resources to genuine, secular, locally grounded, well-meaning, voluntary organizations in the country. In this context, civil society actors in every district of the country need to come together and find a way to develop joint strategies to create an environment of human security based on mutual help and solidarity.

If the sense of uncertainty associated with fear and terror is perpetuated in the country, long-term development issues and actions against poverty and exclusion will get sidetracked. The best response in the face of violent terrorism is to address inequities in society with a renewed determination to bring access to resources to hitherto marginalised communities, bring access to education and health care and livelihood opportunities to Muslim minorities in different regions of the country.

This is an occasion where actions by voluntary associations today may create a positive climate for dealing with underlying causes of violence in our own society. Protection of human rights becomes a major concern at this juncture and all citizen associations need to be vigilant in this regard.

Peaceful, non-violent ways of addressing differences and conflicts need to be promoted so that society once again regains its sense of calm and composure and moves forward on the basis of constitutionally mandated principles of justice, equity and freedom.