The developments and phenomenal failures of our era talk volumes. The turning of the Arab Spring into a summer of discontent; the endless journey to disillusionment in Afghanistan; the mercenary-syndicalism and their popping up in Iraq after Syria as ISIS; and the deepening global insecurity that now faces Ukraine and the Korean peninsula are indicators of nothing but an ailing state apparatus and failing policy practices among the ‘almighty establishments’ countrywide as well as at the regional and global levels. If there be an end of the history, it will never come along Francis Fukuyama’s line of conflicting civilisations; rather, it may emerge out of the debris of world states, which are only a source of global anarchy. We can say to a certain extent and in definite terms, that anarcho-syndicalism of its own kind among some states has become the ugliest characteristic of contemporary statehood.      

Voluntarily fragmented

The state is an institution which makes legitimate use of violence to maintain peace, security and the socio-economic order. But it has not only been violating its foundational roots, but also dispossessing this very fundamental characteristic of the ‘legitimate use of violence’, albeit in different forms in developed, developing and under-developed countries. This has different manifestations in federations, countries and geo-political and strategic regions around the world.

The US, France and the UK are classical models in the developed world for this kind of voluntary dispossession. The separation of war-making and security institutions in the form of privatised light and heavy arms industry, private detectors and intelligence firms and officiated mercenaries is what apparently provides a fancy outlook to what otherwise may be called the unethical acts of a para-state organism. Political ethics come under question when weapon manufacturing as well as snooping into people’s lives is outsourced to industrial and professional groups.

In developing countries like Pakistan, for example, the state has voluntarily shared its violence-making capacity with terrorist outfits. These are the jihadists, Talibans, urban terrorists and mafias. They are state-sponsored militant wings of political parties that were either born out of the Pakistani establishment or partnered with it later on. They are viral and infiltrative. Borders do not exist for these elements as they roam easily around the continent and the world.  Internally, they keep society harassed, tamed and fragmented, and have been strategically enabled to counter freedom movements in Sindh and Balochistan. They also help prolong the military establishment’s rule in Pakistan.                     

Some African countries, among under-developed nations, are the worst examples of this situation, where everything exists but the state. The Tutsi-Hutu case in Rwanda is an example of a situation where the state collapsed as a contender for the legitimate use of violence. The state was the warring tribes, tribal militia and warlords. It did not want to voluntarily withdraw its capacity for violence making in favour of a fragile state.

These three phenomena have different impacts, manifestations and outcomes. The common element in all of them is their inter-connectedness. This may be called the upside-down order, the epicentering of endless conflicts, thereby, posing potential challenges to international security. One might legitimately find a cliental relationship between the three.The worst scenario of all, however, is the case of countries like Pakistan. This has proved to be a challenging security risk not only for the citizenry and the federated provinces, but also for neighbouring countries and the regions, as well as the developed world. It seems as though there is no end to colonialism, be it internal or external, physical or virtual.

Non-globalism

There is only one order in the world today—disorder. Structurally, this disorder is gradually embedding itself into regional and national interests, hardly giving any space to the very notion of the political world or the global village. Globalisation today is very much paradoxical, as it is  the globalisation of backward and developing countries in the interests of the rest. The naïve example of this is the patent rights of ‘commodities’, in which the very concept of globalisation is betrayed by seeking patent rights to natural produce, which, by all means , are the collective property of human kind. Can a grain, fruit, tree, herb and shrub be patented?

Today, international security is also more fragile than in the past. Swiftly changing regional games in Eurasia, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Korean peninsula indicate the possibilty of a multilateral war, if not a third world war. Engagement in Afghanistan  needs to be reconsolidated conclusively, which requires a collectively agreed upon exceptionalism by the engaging powers. The re-emergence of issues like the Iraq crisis, attempts to reclaim its bygone power by Russia, China’s assertion in the Pacific Ocean and the UK’s snub to the European Union are the results of ambiguous and non-representative national interests as well as the absence of collectively agreed exceptionalism among world powers.

This is a very crucial time. The world has to sit together to address these issues collectively. At least, the US, UK, France, Russia, China, Germany, India and Japan have to develop a consensus on their foreign policy exceptionalism concerning Afghanistan, the Israel-Palestine conflict, re-creation of a Kurdish republic out of Iraq, settling the Iraq issue and addressing the issues of Sindh and Balochistan.                  

Reforming statehood

In fact, the reboot and upgrade in the state apparatus, practicing collective foreign policy excptionalism, conflict resolution, appropriate globalisation, mannered international trade and justifiable national interests are interdependent. Hence, they contribute to the global order, stability and international security.

The moment has arrived for the world community to analyse and help foster an exclusive shift in the state apparatuses around the world. Concrete steps are required to re-define the role of a state in its legitimacy over violence and the assurance of minimum civil conditions for peace and economic well being. Simultaneously, the time has come for states to derestrict the agenda of ‘national interest’, which hitherto has been confined to the establishments of countries. Until approved by the citizenry, the ‘national-interest’ can appropriately be termed ‘state-interest’ as often, it does not include the citizens’ will. This alone can lead us to a peaceful world, true globalisation and a global order for stability, peace and international security.

Shah is a Sindh refugee activist, analyst and journalist