'Interfaith and National Rights'

Speech given by Dr. Charles Graves, Secretary- General of Interfaith International, at the Conference "Challenges to the National Rights Movements of Oppressed Nations of Pakistan", Conway Hall, London, 21 September 2002.

Interfaith implies combat against fanaticism - world religions must work together and not mutually incriminate each other. One method employed in the last 25 years has been "inter-religious dialogue". The religious leaders meet, perform joint ceremonies, and discuss similarities and differences. The Pope has sponsored such meeting at Assisi. Kofi Annan convoked a World Spiritual Leaders Summit in New York in 2000. The UNESCO promoted last year as "Year of Dialogue Among Civilisations". Thus, Interfaith has come a long way since the Crusades, the Holocaust, or the unfortunate colonialism which ignored genuine religious difference to impose one faith alone.

After September 11 th a multitude of conferences were held to help bridge the gap between religions. Of course, such events defuse tensions and bring understanding among leaders, but often hardly reduce tensions among the populations, as we saw recently in Gujarat or during the Afghan war.

How does the theme of "religious tolerance" apply to Sindh? To an outsider like myself it looks like religious intolerance is not rampant in Sindh - the Sindh culture is a tolerant one. Business, agriculture and fishing seem to have priority over religious and theological disputes. My impression is that most peoples in Sindh have little interest in religious divisiveness. Only a few groups are promoting fundamentalism and dividing the people.

The culture of Sindh is an extremely old one, dating back at least 5000 years if not more. The original languages of the Indus valley peoples may be dated back to that time when "Nostratic" was similar to "Sino-Caucasian" - two ancient language macrofamilies which formed the basis for Indo-European, Dravidian, Altaic or proto-Kashmiri as well as Burushaski of Gilgit. Word lists are not available, however, and the written language found on the commercial "seals" found at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa and other places have not yet been deciphered. However, we can compare the terms used to name villages and towns in Sindh with the language stem-terms of "Nostratic" and "Sino-Caucasian". Those two branches of early languages separated about 10,000 years ago. It may be that the language spoken by people of Sindh 4000 or 5000 years ago was one of the earliest common languages of the South Asian region, much before the coming of variants such as Indo-European or Dravidian.

Irregardless of the ancient quality of Sindhi culture, one thing is certain today: Sindhi culture now confronts the culture of Pakistan, which is a very recent state, and we could ask ourselves how can an old culture confront a recent state ?

There were similar and very tragic relations between the American indigenous peoples (Amerindians) and the new state of the United States of America. In my research on the old indigenous languages and religious culture of the Amerindians, I found that the vocabulary of the Amerindian groups had linguistic comparisons with the languages of many still-existing Siberian groups. This indicates that religious and family terminology of the Amerindians could date back thousands of years to Siberian and Central Asian roots. The categories of "Nostratic" and "Sino-Caucasian" are often helpful in defining the origins of Amerindian languages.

The United States after 1800 considered, in general, that Amerindians should give up their old languages and cultures and be "integrated" into the new United States culture. So, in many ways the Amerindians were marginalised and their lands taken from them by colonisation. Only in the 20 th century could Amerindian peoples establish their land rights through long drawn-out litigation before the courts.  Then, certain large tracts of land could be recuperated after the favourable decisions of some courts.  Yet the problems of cultural and religious autonomy of the Amerindians still continue.

Indigenous cultures, in general, are closely tied to the land and natural resources. States, especially colonising states, on the other hand, are usually led by the bureaucrats or the military. How can indigenous peoples oblige states to allow them sufficient autonomy? States must understand that it is in their own interest to listen to indigenous people's claims. The procedure is very slow. The courts or provincial governments are often filled with governmental bureaucrats. Business people may have some leeway to influence government policies on autonomy, but these business people often collaborate with the dominating government for their own interest. Who is left uncorrupted or cognisant of the rights of the indigenous? Human rights workers, exiled peoples, or journalists. The Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations provides a place for disaffected groups to air their grievances, but the U.N. also gives privileges to state parties, and these state parties use their influence to "divide and conquer" the indigenous peoples under their control.

A similar situation faces the Basques in Spain today. The Spanish government has now outlawed the Batasuna, the political wing of the violent Basque movement for self-determination. This, of course, has only further alienated the moderate Basques, and will cause many further troubles inside Spain, I am sure. The efforts of the federal government of Indonesia to dominate indigenous peoples in the Moluccas and Papua, has not been successful and use of fanaticised Muslim mercenaries to suppress dissent will only alienate the people further.

The Pakistan government has not yet dealt with the question of preserving the cultural, social and economic heritage of Sindh. The only solution it has found so far is manipulation. The same is true for the Baluchis and the MQM. There are no real signs of change. Thus it is left to the Sindhis to develop their strategy to confront the government of Pakistan and to make it worth the while for the Pak i stan to change its policy.

From my own distant viewpoint, I see at least five methods in this strategy: first , build close alliances with neighbours (in this case the Baluchis and MQM). Second, persistently challenge the government of Pakistan that it respect the cultural integrity of Sindh, and that it does not violate the Sindhi's economic, social and cultural rights. Third, make every effort to improve Sindh's political power within the state machinery (without, of course, compromising the ideals of autonomy). Fourthly, make use wherever possible of the courts and judicial system to bring colonialist Pakistanis to trial if they violate Sindhi rights. And fifthly, explain wherever possible to foreign powers and the United Nations about violation of rights in Sindh. This would place the Pakistan government under the obligation to explain internationally why such violations took place.

Of course, these policies seem already to be in action. Yet Pakistan does not budge. It not only neglects the protests but also treats them as unimportant. How can desires for autonomy face such disregard? Terrorists and militants often blow up installations to call attention to their "causes". This does not seem to be the way of Sindh. What is left to do? Persistent use of every possible method within the limits of reason to make the Pakistani leaders face up to their challenge. Sooner or later some cracks will show in the government policy toward Sindh, and Pakistan will see that for the benefit of its international image, it must change. I believe what is called the "feudalistic military" element which dominates Pakistani politics must eventually give way. Either this will happen because of international pressure, or because the younger generation will find it more difficult to preserve truncated Pakistani nationalism in the face of globalisation.

Also, nationalism based on religious identity (as is the present case vis à vis Afghanistan or India) will undoubtedly diminish as future generations come to understand that nationalistic religion does more harm than it does good.  Nationalistic religion is evidently not good for business. And for political leaders, business interests are primordial.

But the kind of human rights activism that The Sindhi World Conference is promoting in this conference today is also essential. This kind of exercise shares information with the general population and keeps the government nervous and on its guard. It is an internal pressure which, together with the external pressure of the globalised world, may cause Pakistan to wake up and deal with its internal discrepancies.

Thank you.