What Hinders You Hides Within

   He could not focus on his work no matter how hard he tried. His sleep the last night had been turbulent. He had had a nightmare. A ferocious bloodthirsty lion had chased him down into a gorge. Ultimately, cornering him in a dead-end. He had tried, like a mortal fool, to climb the steep hill, to grab hold of the rock face or dried up straws that hung out, but to no avail. His lacerated body hung lifeless as a phantasm in front of his eyes. As the beast inched towards him he felt his legs growing weak, almost as if his bones had turned to a thick mushy liquid. Starting to tremble he knew he would soon drop, though unwillingly. The trembling took over his whole body and he felt drops of sweat rolling down his back. Out of options and with his will lost he now saw the lion approach him and stopping some distance from him. He knew quite well what was about to happen. The lion would leap at him, sink its claws by his shoulders pinning him down, painfully ending his life. He wanted to scream but his voice had sunk deep in his throat. He tried to push out a cry for help but words broke down in his mouth as if his voice had left him. Tears rolled down his eyes and he began to sob. His tears blurred the beast in front of him almost like a mirage. As the lion leaped at him and its claws landed on him he had woken up. Tears rolled down his eyes in fear and he could not sit up. 

  He had awoken from the nightmare at around 2:30 in the morning and had not slept since. Now sitting at his table his mind still wandered the gorge. He was awake but still in his sleep. The phantasm of his corpse still hung fresh in front of his eyes. The lion with its teeth and claws still stood in front of him. He tried to clear his thoughts to focus on his work. Sitting in his chair that felt a little more uncomfortable than usual, he straightened his back, cleared his mind, and sat his hands down on the keyboard. As he sat there typing, from the corner of his eye he caught a glimmer of something. Almost as if a lion had leaped across the room from right to left.  His sentence remained unfinished with a squiggly red line underlining the last word, he averts his gaze from the screen to check. He knew none of his friends had come to visit him and he was alone in the room. To his utter surprise, the same blood-thirsty beast stood in front of him. "This can't be. I'm still dreaming",  he mutters to himself. Before he could do something the lion leaped at him and to save himself he jumped from his chair. Running towards the door he turned back only to see the lion swaying his head from side to side getting ready to leap at him once again. He saw his computer knocked over, his table out of place, his chair toppled, and his book rack destroyed. He quickly locked the door behind him as his legs gave way. He sat with his heart beating out of his chest, sweat rolling down his temple he breathed heavily. 

As his colleagues gathered around asking him what had happened he tried to explain with broken words that a lion had entered his office. They could not believe what he was saying. How could a grown lion enter the office? At first, they thought of it as a joke but seeing him broken down and drenched in sweat they could not just dismiss it as a joke. As they tried to make sense of what was happening that how could a grown lion enter the office? was he really serious about the lion, and how to get it out of the office? A curious group of three wanting to see a lion opened the door to the office. Opened it only enough to slip their heads inside to get a glance of the beast. They saw the chair toppled behind the desk but everything else the computer, the bookshelf all was right where it should have been. Slowly they opened the door and entered, disappointed that there was no lion in the office. Entered behind them their colleagues and our character swearing it was right there and had leaped at him. They sat him down told him to relax and that he must be sick and take the rest of the day off. Slowly the room emptied and the last of friends walked out saying a leave would do him good. And that whatever was troubling him was inside him. 

Geography is the name of the Game

GEOGRAPHY IS WHAT DEFINES US

   Man cannot fly! Though he has acquired means of flying, he himself cannot leave the ground. This means that he is forever tied with the ground or for the subject matter he is tied to his geography. Most of what he can and cannot do is dictated by our geography. Geographical features provide us access through plateaus and flatland to neighboring people hence supporting the "diffusion of innovation" (to use Everett Roger's term) and subsequently limit our access by the means of mountains, marshes, deserts, and oceans. 

  Geography is often rather inviting and seducing. It has in its bosom riches of minerals that can be exploited. Nancy Peluso in her chapter titled "Whose Woods are These" in the book "The Anthropology of Globalization and Development" writes that forests while being of great ecological importance have repositories of great wealth. The deserts of Arabia have beneath them huge reservoirs of oil. The frigged cold of Alaska has deposits of gold and oil. Such mineral wealth is inviting.

  Geography, therefore, is the keystone in human relation in the global or what we call international relations. Disputes, border disputes around the globe are not merely claims over land rather these are claims over geography. These are claims over resources and these are claims over survival. This is what Tim Marshall explains in his remarkable Prisoners of Geography. He discusses the factors that hold Russia back from becoming a global power. Going over history, we see that nations that became global powers operated Global Navies. They had the ability to project power across the globe to intervene in matters all around the globe. It is Russia's geography that prevents it from operating globally, it does not have a warm water port. Most of its ports are frozen many months over the year hence disabling the bear. 

Riches and Navies

  Speaking of the global powers, we have European countries that came out of Europe in the 16th century and colonized the world. And later on, after the second world war, America became the global power. Both had warm water ports that could operate blue water navies all year round and intervene in matters across the globe. Britain, although being an Island nation had the ability to assert its power across the English channel into the European landmass. America though being more isolated then Great Britain had the financial stability after WWII that the European Nations lacked and was able to present itself as the balancer of power. Hence replacing European Nations in general and Britain in particular and becoming a global power.

  American hegemony has only been challenged recently. With the rise of China on the international stage and overtaking America as the largest economy in terms of purchasing power. China is now set to become an international power. Pumping finances into its armed forces and nuclear arsenal and developing a modern navy, though the navy is still a green-water navy. Other than developing navies and gaining the ability to intervene, we have seen these global powers airing geographical advantages. 

 

  China now invests across the globe. Investments in Africa are aimed at bringing oil from Nigeria back to China. Other than oil there are mineral resources include zinc, titanium, and copper. These minerals china acquires in raw form develops it into consumable goods and then exported to consuming markets of the world. This is all to say that to become a global power nations are still the prisoners of geography as the raw materials to become a global power come from geography. 

Borders of Blood

  Ignoring the dictates of geography and culture, borders that were drawn either hastily or with no regard to the rules of geography, to this day these borders remain in dispute. India and Pakistan, Middle Eastern borders, Balkan states, and Africa in particular. Most of the Arabs and Africans lived as tribes before and during colonization. The colonizers when dividing these areas drew lines with little or no regard to their way of life. Tribes, clans, and families were parted in the result and a hypothetical line called border had little meaning for them. 

  Drawing these borders another factor that was disregarded was demographics. Often minorities were given preferences which gave the majority a chance to rise up against them and when the majority was given preference they exploited the rights of the minorities. These produced civil wars in numerous parts of Africa. This is one of the primary reasons that the continent is still in spoils. Foreign nations take advantage of these internal conflicts among tribes and exploit the riches of the continent at cheap costs. There is little Investment in the region due to continuous political turmoil. 

  Kashmir between Pakistan and India as another such case. Indian occupation of Kashmir cannot end as it will allow Pakistan to etch its way closer to China. China already with its mammoth of an investment with regards to China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). If the Indian occupation is to end China will also gain more access to the region and easier access to the port of Gawadar in Pakistan increasing Chinese influence across the globe. Gaining access to the Arabian sea is important for China as it will be an alternate route to the south china sea that is disputed among China, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, and Malaysia.

Conclusion 

    How Nations take decision with regards to their foreign policy, strategic planning is greatly dictated by geography. Mountains, Deserts and oceans can provide cover from coming attacks and flat lands present ample opportunity to expand territory. Expansion of territory seems an unlikely option for developing states but is always as option for developed world powers with increasing arms arsenal and navies with air craft carrier battle groups. Man is evolving and is finding new ways to overcome these geographical boundaries by digging tunnels or just by developing missiles that can strike at long ranges while avoiding terrain. Still the decisions world leaders take are very much under the influence of geography.  

2 Minutes of Hate

Out of the dystopian fiction, 1984, written by George Orwell the phrase "2 Minutes Hate" represented the time at which the telescreens across the state, he names Oceania, runs two minute of content that is aimed at charging their public against a character named Emmanuel Goldstein and other states (Eurasia and Eastasia). During the two minutes of hate all the people are required to openly express their hatred towards Goldstein, his followers and his idea at large. Orwell states the two minutes of hate as follows:

"The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on the edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The hate had started. As usual the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of people, had flashed on the screen... He was the primal traitor... Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the party. He was abusing big brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed... And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen marched the endless columns of Eurasian army... in its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the top of their voices...The horrible thing about Two Minute Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid jumping in, Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer seemed to flow through the whole group of people..."

These might be works of fiction but nevertheless, do share with us a picture of our society. Orwell paints a mural of a society where the ruling party is in a consent to control the present subsequently controlling the past and the future. Orwell in his world of 1984 pictured a world where telescreens were present everywhere and the public was being spied on all the time. Their conversations being heard and their acts being monitored. World we live in is little different from that. There might not be a single party trying to take control of our present and the world might not be divided into three states waging war at each other but in respect to the reality being presented to us is in much a sense manufactured. 

In Pakistan alone we have more then 30 channels who present us the two minute hate each day. We again differ here from the fiction novel that it is not all out assault but rather we are given cues of whom we are to hate or despise. Headline sessions in most part paint a picture of what has happened in the country. During this session the channels drop hints for the viewers as to who is who and what is what. Consent flow of content telling the viewers that we are at threat of foreign invasion from the east and from the west. We are fed on ideas to what paradigms are working and what wont work. Anti state elements are then and again brought forward for the public to push out their emotions against them. Once the public gets a chance to vent their anger at a painted target the public can then be subdued.

It is an act of making an active public into a passive one. Elements are presented to the masses to vent out their anger. This takes less then ten minutes as when make a post against these painted elements on facebook or instagram and not more then that. This two minute of hate is daily presented to the public. Noam Chomsky sums it up in quite the right words as "The general public doesnt know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know."

Disclaimer: The illustration for two minute hate is taken from "https://year11atstpetersrocks.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/two-minutes-hate/"

New Opium for the Masses

OPIUM OF MASSES

“Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people” wrote Karl Marx in 1884. The statement has often been interpreted as a critique of religion by only stating the last part of the complete statement. Rather the idea had been that the masses are so oppressed that the only escape they find from the pain inflicted upon them is in religion. Such is the condition of our people now. They turn towards what relieves them of the pain and suffering. Now, the masses have rather taken a liking to electronic and social media, the new “Opium of Masses” (Here, in no way do I say that religion has been replaced). The people are continuously tied in a circle of electronic consumption. This has little space for fact checking and people continuously fall in traps- conspiracy theories and blatant lies- and the lack of professional voices regarding a subject add to the troubles.

Majority of our population is illiterate and upon that uneducated, there is no longer a need for consulting multiple sources or fact checking information, rather we feel that the information coming down to us is true and in its purest form. Whatsapp forward messages, YouTube video links are all favorites of the people who don’t have time to think of anything other than how to earn. The thought of not having a stable source of income is a cruel one and the modern opium provides the escape capsule. Conspiracies regarding the working of government and unseen forces hatching plans to destabilize the country prove to be nutritious as one has an ever present target to lay blame on.

There is a lack of professional voice on digital forums. Although, professionals from various field have started to come on social media and share their side of the image with the public there is still a barrier. Their voices are still not trickling down to the masses. This is happening due to two reasons in my view. One being the use of professional language that the populace is not able to understand completely and the second being that the professional voice is outnumbered in front of the voices of conspirators. These two concerns need to be addressed urgently in order to weed out foul narratives.