Asghar Ali Engineer is a rights activist and heads two organisations, the Institute of Islamic Studies and the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism. He has authored or edited 44 books on such issues as Islam and communal and ethnic problems in India and South Asia in general.

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The bombing by the NATO forces on Yugoslavia has divided the world opinion. Some justify it while some are opposing it vehemently. Many American Muslims have held demonstrations supporting the bombing and many others in USA and elsewhere feel this is not the way to solve the problem. Justifying the bombing Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary says, "As I write, Serb security forces and paramilitaries are conducting the most brutal campaign o terror bombing against the Kosovo Albanians. Men are being separated from their wives and children and then executed. Whole villages are being burnt. Hundreds of thousands are being forced to flee their homes."
                He further observes, "In the last war, Europe paid the price of despotism and ethnic hatred. After the war we said "never again". Yet some of the Serbian tactics are all too reminiscent of those dark days. President Milosevic's forces are conducting a systematic campaign of violence against a group of civilian purely on the basis of their ethnic identity. They are making a concerted attempt to rid a country of an entire community."
                This is all fine. No one denies the fact that the President Milosevic's forces have let loose hell on the people of Kosovo and lakhs of Kosovars have been forced to flee. But does this justify the NATO forces to rain bombs on the Serbs. Why then the USA and NATO forces were silent when the Bosnians were being massacred by thousands every day by the Serbs and equal number of Bosnian women were raped and killed? Later on several mass graves were discovered from various places in Bosnia. Many people then were urging upon the USA to act and stop those barbarities in Bosnia but the USA did not act for the reasons best known to it.
                The NATO action in case of Kosovo has raised many important questions. Is such action justified? Is it not direct and blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country? Is it not a selective attack against a country which is not very powerful? Why otherwise it did not act when Russia was committing similar massacre in Chechenia? Also, other questions also arise. Can other countries watch helplessly when a sovereign country is committing brutalities against its own people as the Serbs are doing in Kosovo. How long should they watch such brutal massacres? Will armed action to stop such brutalities not be justified then on moral and humanitarian grounds?
                The answers to these questions will of course depend on ones own perspective and interests. Some dilemmas do arise. Is sovereignty more important or human lives? Are human rights more important than the political authority of a country? Some even allege that human rights are a western concept which is sought to be enforced on unwilling countries of the east. Iraq is facing repeated attacks on several grounds including violations of human rights of its own Kurd minority. The USA has, as if, taken the responsibility of policing the world.
                To be honest, there are no simple answers to the questions raised above nor for the dilemmas posed. The fact is that the powerful act to defend their own interests though they might mask them under the legitimacy of human rights or saving human lives. The fact is that the Kosovars are pouring into neighbouring countries like Greece, Macedonia, Albania etc. and these countries are also putting pressure on NATO to act.
                The most important aspect of this problem is the ethnic conflict  in Kosovo. It is a fact that no country in the world is totally free of this conflict. However, the degree might vary. Many countries have suppressed it through authoritarian means. This is why there is great difference between democratic secularism and secularism under authoritarian dispensation though democratic secularism is also not free of various problems but, nevertheless, these problems are much less acute than the ones in authoritarian set up specially when in crumbles. This is what has happened in former communist countries.
                Though the ideals of socialism were quite humanistic and attracted large number of intelligentsia all over the world there were severe problems in those socialist countries which were pushed under the carpet. It was thought that the nationality problem - as the ethnic problem was referred to in the former socialist countries - was solved and that the rights of nationalities were upheld. But the reality was far from this ideal. Both in the former Soviet Union as well in Yugoslavia the ethnic question was far from resolved. No wonder than the moment socialist regimes collapsed the nationality question came to the fore with great vehemence and the USSR just vanished from the map of the world in no time.
                Many parts of the former Soviet Union could opt out freely specially those in the Central Asia but some other parts like Chechenia could not and violent cessationist movement followed. Same thing happened in Yugoslavia. Though Chechenia also witnessed great deal of violence but what happened in Bosnia and now in Kosovo took the cake. it was simply unprecedented. One could not imagine that such barbarities could be committed by those who belonged to the same racial and linguistic stock and where religious identities as Christians and Muslims were also not very sharply defined. In fact most of the Muslims became aware of their Muslim identity only after the conflict in Bosnia.
                Thus it is important to note that the ethnic questions should not be treated lightly specially today when, thanks to the democratic processes, ethnic awareness is becoming ever sharper. The modern nation states are also part of the problem. Many nation states are just conglomeration of various ethnic groups. These nation states which do not have uniform ethnic character can be divided into two sub-categories: 1) those nation states which are successors to former empires and 2) those nation-states which came into existence as a result of freedom from colonial masters. Some of the nation states of Europe came into existence as a result of disintegration of former empires and inherited various ethnic groups like in the former USSR or in Yugoslavia. The USSR itself came into existence on disintegration of the Czarist empire which had spread right up to the Central Asia and inherited all the ethnic and religious groups. Same was the case with the socialist Yugoslavia.
                The former colonies in Asia and Africa also inherited such ethnic conglomeration. These desperate ethnic groups could co-exist under authoritarian regimes as they did not enjoy any choice any way but the moment authoritarian lid was lifted off, they flew at each others throat. Hindus and Muslims also co-existed in India for centuries under various monarchies but the conflict began with the coming of the colonial power as the colonial masters had to introduce some controlled democratic measures under pressure from the people and the Hindu-Muslim conflict surfaced in our country and ultimately it was partitioned as no settlement for sharing power could be reached between the Muslim and the Hindu elites.
                Many other Afro-Asian countries are suffering similar fate. Intense ethnic conflicts have emerged in many of these countries and some countries like Sri Lanka and Sudan are facing even acute civil war situation. The nation-states which have come into existence are not prepared to cede an inch of their territory and some ethnic groups want nothing less than complete sovereignty and are out to assert their independence through use of arms as in Sri Lanka or Kosovo. The easy availability of arms in the international markets makes it all the more tempting for these ethnic groups to resort to armed conflict. It thus becomes  extremely difficult to resolve such cessationist conflicts. In Sri Lanka, Sudan, Kosovo etc. thousands have already perished and there is no solution in sight. What then could be done?
                It certainly cannot be resolved through intervention of third power like NATO or USA. The UN forces can intervene if its resolution representing the collective will of the  countries of the world are repeatedly defied as in some countries of Africa like Burundi etc. But it would be very dangerous to allow any other country like the USA or military treaty nations like the NATO were allowed to intervene as in Kosovo. Though some of us feel tempted and legitimise such intervention to stop massacre of innocent people, it is not, nevertheless, a good solution in the long run. As far as possible such situations should be sought to be resolved through dialogue and negotiations in the spirit of give and take. While the nation-state should agree to regional autonomy the ethnic group should give up its insistence on cessation and sovereignty. While the nation-state should ensure full and real autonomy not mere shadow of it, the conflicting ethnic group should not ask for ever more.
                But what if even dialogue and negotiation fail as Mr.Robin Cook points out. He says, "People say we should have opted for a peaceful solution. If only we could have done! We did every thing we could to find that peaceful solution. We explored every avenue of dialogue. We accepted pledges and promises from Milosovic, only to see them betrayed." What Robin Cook says might even be true. But what authority the NATO forces had to bomb Yugoslavia. Can such actions not become arbitrary and will not other nations fear such acts? There are several nations, as pointed out before, with similar problems. The final authority to use such force should only be in the hands of the UNO. The USA which dominates the North Atlantic Treaty, has been behaving quite arbitrarily. Baghdad has been bombed repeatedly and relentlessly without any authorisation from the UN Security Council. If the USA or the NATO become the final arbitrators in such situations this unipolar world today will see many sovereign countries bombed.
                If sanity is to prevail the Serbs should be persuaded to stop their barbarities against the innocent people of Kosovo of Albanian origins and allow them real autonomy and should prevail upon the Kosovo rebels not to insist on cessation from Yugoslavia. It is true that Milosevic has refused to sign the peace pact worked out in France while the Kosovars signed it readily. But the NATO should also not have acted in haste and started relentless bombing. The solution worked out at the point of gun does not last longer either. The suppressed aspirations might find much more violent expressions later. The best solution should emerge out of persuasion and dialogue only.  Non-violence is far more superior as a moral force. If any force, if at all, becomes totally unavoidable, should  have sanction and legitimacy of the UN representing the consensus of the world as a whole.
 

Secular Perspective April 16-30, 1999
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism,
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