THE IMPLAUSABILITY OF WAR

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/02/01/the-implausability-of-war/

Yuval Noah Harari, speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos this year, said:

“The very meaning of the word “peace” has changed.”

““Peace,” he said, “no longer means just the temporary absence of war. Peace now means the implausibility of war.

WE are now living in a world in which war kills fewer people than suicide, and gunpowder is far less dangerous to your life than sugar. Most countries don’t even fantasize about conquering and annexing their neighbors.

Unfortunately, we have gotten so used to this wonderful situation, that we take it for granted, and we are therefore becoming extremely careless. Instead of doing everything we can to strengthen the fragile global order, countries neglect it and even deliberately undermine it.”

That neglect explains why, in Pakistan, in the clash between the demands of the military and the requirements of its civilians, the result is a layout of far more than the country can afford on our defense budget, and much less than there should be on education and health.

According to a national daily last year, an analysis of the ‘proposed defense allocation shows that it makes up 14pc of the total outlay and 2.62pc of GDP.’ Also, that ‘the defense allocation does not give the complete picture of defense spending, as it does not include the Rs 327 billion earmarked for pensions of retired soldiers next year, which would shoot up by 25pc over the previous year.’

Also that allocations for major procurements and strategic programmes are never made public.

Rs 327 billion in a poor country like Pakistan. Yet it is the civilians themselves who enable this by succumbing to the guff put out by select quarters about the dire need for security.

Harari goes on to talk about the disruption caused by technology, and about growing advances in AI because of which he says that an increasing number of persons in society will become ‘irrelevant’ because they cannot cope with this technology. These people will constitute, he says, the new ‘useless class’ from the economic and political point of view.

Sadly, there is nothing new about such a class in Pakistan where a person already becomes ‘irrelevant’ when faced with an ‘alif’ or an ‘A’. There is no need for AI. Which dhobi, few maids, and almost no sanitation workers are able to read, not to mention many others like those who labour on the roads or farms. These people constitute a huge segment of our population. Yes, they can use cell phones, but they cannot read the numbers they dial. They know those by sight, and by the photographs that accompany them.

We have the funds to change this, funds that are at present all being channeled towards one sector of society.

Whither diplomacy, which should be settling matters and minimizing the threat of war?

With the looming threat of the coronavirus who imagines that our health care authorities have any coherent plan in place to prevent the spread of the disease here? Even if there were a plan, are our hospitals able to cope with any emergency, given the condition they are in? Can anyone at all say that organisation and prudence are strong points in this country?

It is time to make peace and stop raising the spectre of war. No country today can afford war. Not us, not those across the border. With the next budget coming up, it is time to reconsider our priorities and divert money into education, and healthcare. Not into promises of either by means of pumping fists and slogans, but into actual progress in the matter. There can be no two ways about it.

In an age like this where war is all about nuclear arms, it ceases to matter how much you fine tune your defense. In the end a people can only die once, and eventually that is the end of humanity. Whereas we all have a single life each, and not to cater to its needs is to create an endless cycle of hell on earth. This latter is where we are headed.

It is wonderful that the PM is not living in the Prime Minister’s house, and that he is not to get a pay raise, as the PM’s office spokesperson says. Mubarak. But this is a drop in the ocean. The entire administration needs to be brought into line, and the country needs to fall behind it to ensure that we do not become ‘irrelevant’ as a country, as large segments of our society already have.

It is the tragedy of Pakistan that we do not understand the implausibility of war, and the extent of our own deprivation.