Author: Zeno Baloch
Politics is an art more than a game, one must master it before he longs to play it. It is something beyond morality, religion and history, yet it is an amalgam of all at the same time, but in a parallel manner. A good artist uses the appropriate colour at the proper place and in accurate time. An artist controls the art. Likewise a mature politician controls the history; he controls the religion and morality before they control him.
Aristotle isolated religion from politics; it was acrimonious to digest that by the general will at times, as general will is always polluted by the sovereign mights of the time to keep up their position, Aristotle was thus undermined. But the later history proved that how far religion contributed to suppress the people and subdue their needs. People utterly became conscious that no body can have the inherent authority over people and be the chosen one of the God of Olympia. They befell the legitimacy of the rulers once they discovered that God belongs to no one.
Therefore this idea prevailed correspondingly against the Church in Europe after the French revolution and the Caliph in Islamic civilization after Kemal Ataturk’s declaration of Turkish Nationalism, nullifying Ottoman Caliphate once and for all.
Niccolo Machiavelli, a great Italian diplomat, often called the father of modern political philosophy; detached morality from politics. His urge was either a subject to great criticism. He was though considerably bold in expressing his views and exposing the political gambling and was highly passive in manner. But again, history favoured his claim.
Before I go forward I must clear that when Machiavelli suggests that morality and politics can not coexist at the same time and a statesman can either preserve the state or be moral, one may not conclude that perhaps his suggested violence and evil is fueled by an evil motivation but that a moral end of sort, only that Machiavelli defended a different version of morality, one based on civic virtue, in contraposition to existing morality which is apparently fascinating but eventually results an evil end.
Another most important instigation of Machiavellian philosophy is that it restrains us from complaining about the suppressions we face and incites us to act rather. It teaches us that all the evil acts perpetuated against us are intentional and if we are exploited that is on purpose. No body is born with a bad fortune. And that one may not complain about that. Those who complain are indeed not politically grown up. They are mere observers.
Now let us comprehend that how comparative Machiavellian political philosophy is to what is and has been happening in Baluchistan and how it helps us to grasp the situation; to adhere what is plotted, to affirm what is conspired and thus stop complaining about what is really effecting us. Let us understand the essence of power and how it operates. And let us see what are the best ways to get over with those challenges.
Machiavelli says, “If any injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” He sounds even more harsh when he says, “If you want to inflict any harm, the extent should be so severe that you need not inflict it twice.”
We can witness the brutalities of Pakistan against Baluchistan in accordance to this context. They have crossed all the limits of savageness. And realistically this is the only way they can treat an occupied territory. As Machiavelli suggested that, “It would be a great mistake not to destroy a territory after occupying it where people have enjoyed the taste of freedom priorly. And that they should never get united.”
So they will, of necessity, spread fear among the people. And here comes in the question, continues Machiavelli, “whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” Hence fear is the yardstick, it must prevail so that their hold remains firm.
Machiavelli further includes, “It is important to seek the acknowledgment of the occupied people in common by doing little beneficence to them, but the occupiers should be careful that the oppressed should not obtain enough power.”
Let us analyse from the beginning, Pakistan has maintained that behaviour exactly the same way. They have been plundering our resources and exploiting our rights from the day first. On the other hand the statistics shows that Baluchistan has the lowest ratio in terms of education as compared to other provinces, worst quality of health condition, worst regarding food insecurity and malnutrition and ranking one of the most alarming region for multi-dimensional poverty with worst infrastructure in every arena. And this condition will remain so, for this exploitation is entirely according to the constitutional domain, which is far more than ridiculous. So everything is working for Pakistan as structured. And thanks to Machiavelli says Bacon, that he taught us that what occupiers have been doing rather than what they ought to do. So Machiavellian suggestions are not instigations for the oppressors to perpetuate their brutalities, but rather expose them and and incite the oppressed class and give them a realistic understanding of what actually happens to them and how should they prepare themselves to counter the plots of the aggressors.
Machiavelli suggests that, “How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.” The foremost suggestion of Machiavelli, that it is crucial to know that what keeps us down is not usually something accidental or unconsciously revealed. The conscious intent of the state is always included in our deprivation and that it is imposed. That we will never be able to get rid of the oppressions by appealing to the moral sense of the oppressors. He teaches us that in politics it is moral to be amoral. Because politics is neither moral nor amoral. It is non-moral. If you are oppressed, so then you should accept that as a political reality and be pragmatic instead of complaining about it. It is all about power and might. Morality however can be a card for deception, as it has been.
It was entertained in the first insurgency of Baloch rebellion, they fooled us by taking oath of the Qur’an to de-escalate our fighters on certain conditions and later violated the terms and persecuted them all, exactly according to the Machiavellian precautions that “never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
Likewise he says “the promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”
And here he maintained that, “end justifies the mean.”
Pakistan is doing the same until today, tending to appear moral and conceal their humiliations. He added further, “It is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.”
And it becomes even more interesting to listen him saying that, “the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
It sounds apparently Machiavelli being in Sun Tzu’s shoes saying that, all politics is about deception.
But wait, that is not the end. All the evil designs and betrayal throughout inflicted upon us have not sought the desirable mean for Pakistan. It has eventually become impossible even for an ordinary Baloch to trust Pakistan anymore. Look at the scenario today; before they laughed at us when we informed them of consequences of their injustices, now they take us very seriously. They kept on terrifying us and today they themselves are terrified. It was also Machiavelli who said that “fear is as dangerous an enemy as anger.” Pakistan is witnessing the anger of the Baloch in worst extent. They are no more able to befool us anymore.
“He who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against” declares Machiavelli.
Pakistan is expanding and intensifying the Baloch genocide and denying us basic human rights after every next day. But still they are unable to suppress us. It is a worst type of futility for Pakistan, putting Baluchistan all the way into a greater insurgency today. The Baloch fighters compelled them to rethink and bring some sort of reforms and reconciliations. But here Machiavelli precisely forwards that, “it is all for vain to believe that new benevolences will nullify the former injuries”
Baloch are standing on the ground against Pakistan in a greater number and more stronger than ever. Baluchistan today stands as a potential threat for the existence of Pakistan. We have shaken the roots of the state. Finally Machiavelli rightly asserts that, “states, coming into existence instantly, will have very weak and superficial social bonding and relations and will find it difficult to maintain their integrity, and therefore can not preserve their existence for a long time.
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