Global Governance and the Causes of Conflict
Mahim

An analysis of the above-mentioned chapter from Mark Duffield’s
Global Governance And The New Wars

Duffield analyzes the Northern project of global liberal governance discourse and causes of conflict as dictated by this discourse. The causes of conflict that this discourse dictates serve to justify the “need” for “liberal” aid in conflict-ridden areas and hence formulation of aid policies voicing out political rhetoric and free market propaganda as articulated through the “structural adjustments” they impose on receiving countries.
There are two causes of conflict dictated by two different discourses. The first is New Barbarism, which is rooted in the neo-racial or bio-cultural discourse of the 1960s. New Barbarism, like multiculturalism recognizes racial and ethnic diversity and concurs with multiculturalism over the non-superiority or non-inferiority of any race. However, unlike multiculturalism, it does not understand these differences as being a source of richness and vibrancy, but as a reason for conflict and antagonisms. New Barbarism thrives on primordialization of the “other”, thereby presenting them as traditionally harboring antagonistic and hate-producing feelings towards each other. Duffield gives a lot of examples to hammer this point down (Chechen wars, Balkan mentality of Yugoslavia, Bosnia conflict, Rwanda genocide etc.) and refers to Kaplan, Goldberg and obviously, though importantly, Huntington, with the latter’s thesis on Clash of Civilizations asserting civilization as the ultimate human tribe and the clash of civilizations, therefore, as a global tribal conflict. Huntington clearly mentions how cultural and civilizational identities are increasingly shaping patterns of cohesion and conflict, with civilizations sharing similar values or characteristics realizing cohesion and those having contradictory values producing conflict, what he calls fault line wars. Further, Duffield underscores the emergence of disease perceived as being as great a security threat by the North, as terrorism or arms proliferation (do they view it as bio-terrorism of a different kind?). The “remedy” to anarchy and disease prevailing in Africa as articulated through Goldberg’s argument, lies not with the state or assistance, but with the free market, as it would provide “astute” leaders “encouragement” to keep primordial animosities in check. The second cause of conflict is Underdevelopment, which draws fuel from the free market discourse and advocates multiculturalism as promoting vibrancy and vitality, provided free market forces are allowed to exercise their benevolence. The association of underdevelopment with a high risk of conflict is the core assumption within the developmentalist discourse, which by implication would mean “development” as resolving conflict and there is of course no debate on the model of development ! Further the changes that have occurred in the nature of conflict and the institutional adaptations that these changes spur shape the emergence of global liberal governance. The disappearance of former constraints in liberal economic governance make the task of global liberal governance easier by presenting new policy measures as undoing the “damage” done by inappropriate governance of the 1980s, which rendered that decade “lost” for many countries. In the context of this, the repackaging of development aid as effecting structural conflict prevention has been the major emphasis of the liberal governance regime. This also means that poverty, which has no doubt been central to even past developmental discourses, is rearticulated as intertwined with underdevelopment and a cause as well as effect of conflict, though this causality may or may not be direct as evident in case of middle-income Balkan countries. Causality, therefore, in this case, would lie in probability i.e. poor countries carry within their structures a high risk of conflict but not necessarily a definite cause for conflict. By implication, conflict itself is seen as deepening poverty as it destroys developmental assets and social capital e.g. the 15 year civil war in Mozambique which led to the declaration of it being the poorest country in the world. However, Duffield says, it’s difficult to trust the validity of such assertions as they are seldom backed by reliable statistical evidence. Citing, Nordstrom (2000) he says the UN claim of Mozambique being the poorest country was made during the war and not following it. A cause effect relationship in this case is therefore skewed and unsubstantiated by empirical evidence. This is further supported by the fact that neighboring countries like Zambia and Malawi, which haven’t suffered any major conflict, have similar poverty levels. This makes it clear that even under dearth of empirical data, the mere idea that conflict deepens poverty helps mobilize support for liberal peace. Taking this rhetoric to ridiculous levels, former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz asserts that the persistence of traditional values and cultures in conflict ridden poor countries is a sign of past developmental failures, thereby providing liberal governance an excuse for systematic destruction of indigenous cultures and value-systems and replacing them with “modern” pro-developmental and “progressive” institutions. Interestingly, conflict is utilitarian for the cause of liberal peace as it is seen as eroding traditional cohesion, culture etc. which would mean an opportunity for the new radicalized developmental discourse to transform entire societies, including popular beliefs and attitudes. [Given this argument, what would stop even the most ignorant observer, from believing that the contractors of liberal peace would not create and sustain conflicts, in order to simplify their cause?] According to Duffield, conflict may actually have the opposite effect; in making social groups more dependent on their resources, coping strategies and social networks, it often acts to reaffirm or even strengthen socio-cultural cohesion [I see an example of exactly this in the form of community based security groups in the Shias of Iraq]. Moving ahead, the destructive effects of conflict, both on development and culture, cast the poor as victims, thereby providing liberal peace an opportunity to intervene. However, besides just justifying intervention, the liberal peace project also intends to make the poor allies to its cause, casting them as self-acting agents. Conflict is thus portrayed by liberal peace as a reaction by the poor against the oppressive regime of underdevelopment. This, however, hits a roadblock due to the fact that the poor already have their own local non-liberal leaders and liberal peace resolves this by delegitimizing previously existing local leadership by problematizing the very basis of their leadership as something leading to violent, oppressive and underdevelopmentalist conflict. The developmental discourse uses two approaches for this- the first fuelled by New Barbarism, depicting traditional leadership as being anarchic and fragmented, lacking any clear political purpose; and the second, more recent approach, which goes a step further and criminalizes conflict and leadership (Rwanda and Bosnia), rather than calling them just anarchic and un-political. The first approach, as I see it, was more innocent in that it saw leadership and conflict lacking motive and going nowhere; the second approach, however sees a criminal motive that would definitely lead to destruction, thereby separating people from their leaders. The project for designer peace therefore uses aid to buy-off leaders and if that fails, creating linkages between those who oppose violent conflict and constructing spaces for peace.

Rang De Basanti


“ courageous, untroubled, mocking, violent- that is what wisdom wants us to be”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Courageous, untroubled, mocking & violent-adjectives for the ways in which dissent among youth burst upon the Indian celluloid in the form of Rang de Basanti. Directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, this story involving a bunch of young college students, impervious to any and everything happening outside their immediate worlds, was a major success and one of the few movies to achieve a cult following among the youth of a nation where dissent is equated with indiscipline and indiscipline is criminal. The notion of dissent being criminal is reflected in constant and unquestioned state policing and suppression of “rebellions”. Whenever the state denies accountability to the people, a section of the population questions it and the authority does what its known best to do: silence it.

Rang de Basanti is a story of five friends who are disillusioned with the state India is in but nonetheless are too happy in their own world to either realize or do something to address this disillusionment. The movie addresses this disillusionment of the youth by historicizing and juxtaposing it with the lives and events occurring within them of DJ (Aamir Khan), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Sukhi (Sharman Joshi), Karan (Siddharth), Laxman (Atul Kulkarni) and Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) with those of revolutionaries Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan, Sukhdev, Bhagat Singh, Ram Prasad Bismil and Durga respectively. This juxtaposition is manifested in and through a documentary being filmed by Sue (Alice Patten) who plays the granddaughter of a British Police officer who was in charge of the jail-terms and executions of the revolutionaries. DJ, Aslam, Sukhi, Karan, Sonia are all college students who’s philosophy in life is “live for the moment”. This seemingly hedonistic but naïve philosophy comes across as an escape route if one looks closer, for all of them, in their own ways are unhappy with the “system”. Conversations among them repeatedly bring out the hopelessness they perceive and the futility of everything that India has to offer, even independence. There is a strong irony in this disillusionment with independence. While the “heroes” that they are being compared with fought and died for India’s independence, it’s this independence, its perceived ineffectiveness, futility and a quest for its reclamation that drives the friends to rebellion. The realization of this, of course, is triggered off by a personal loss, the death of Ajay (Madhavan), a pilot with the Indian Air Force and a close friend of the five. This sets in motion a series of events that leads to friends’ decision to kill the Defence Minister Shastri (Mohan Agashe) who is shown to be responsible for an arms deal that causes Ajay’s death due to a MiG air crash. They however witness an unexpected bouleversement of their action, as the DM is decorated as a martyr and a hero. It is at this point that they decide to do what the film symbolically equates with Bhagat Singh’s action of dropping a bomb in the assembly chamber of the British Parliament; they decide to assume the responsibility of the DM’s murder on AIR. The message conveyed through both acts is the same: “it takes a loud noise to make the deaf listen”, a statement originally attributed to Valliant, a French anarchist martyr, but made immortally famous by Bhagat Singh and revolutionarizingly relived in Rang de Basanti. At this point, the state intoxicated with power and forever ill-equipped to address dissent resorts to what its best known for, suppression through violence. The students are immediately declared terrorists, even as the truth about the DM spreads around India, creating a huge wave of support for the students. Unarmed students are cornered and executed by the use of heavy firing and dissent is silenced.

The film, however, remains “unclimaxed” with various questions thrown at the viewer. Is violence the only means of expressing dissent? Is violence necessarily wrong, even when it is resorted to by the oppressed and targeted towards the oppressor? Who is the enemy; does it have to be a foreign power? Can it not be the state itself, the independent, democratic government of the day? Why is dissent so unsettling? Why is change so dreaded? What is the truth and more importantly how it is to be told to who it is to be told? These and various other questions float in the unsettling numbness and the vacuum that the film creates. The film, in its course, celebrates the spirit of rebellion as inherent in the ideas of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. It celebrates the romance of youth and the varicolored expressions of its nature to question, to rebel, to change what is unsettling to it. The idea is to bring about the need for dissent, the need to question the order, the authority, the need to realize and reclaim freedom in all its spirit, in all its rawness, in all its undiluted, intoxicating glory.

These ideas are voiced with screaming conviction through the movie’s electrifying soundtrack (A.R.Rahman). Words, lyrics, poetry have always been faithful comrades of revolutionaries all over the world, as rightly portrayed in the movie through the observation of Chris Patten (the officer in charge) “ I think it was their poetry that kept them alive”. Every revolution in the world has had some sort of a “soundtrack”. Prasoon Joshi’s simmering lyrics set on fire by Rahman’s electrifying tunes provide the lyrical fuel for the movie’s revolutionary ideas. The songs all celebrate rebellion and the existential chaos experienced by the youth. Whether it be the screaming “Loose Control” or “be a rebel” or pathshaala or the liberating assertion of chaos in “Khalbali’, forcefully brought out by lyrics like “ hum lapakte saaye hain, hum sulagte aaye hain, ghar bata ke aaye hain……hai khalbali!!” Also brought is the need for blood that the revolution demands in “ khoon chalaa” and of course the famous pronunciamento of the realization of the fire within, in “roobaroo”.

Rang de Basanti is thus a film that is unapologetic about the ends it’s characters achieve and at the same time wonders whether the means employed towards that end are justified. The revolutionary overtones of the movie set up debates on violence and rebellion and the role of state.

Mahim Pratap Singh
M.A.
JNU