“Yes, now the blanket of darkness has wrapped the whole village to an extent that nobody would be able to recognize our faces.”
“You are right father. It is the best time to the cut the water supply of Beli’s field and water our own rice crop.”
“But just don’t forget to dump the canal again with mud before he could know about our secret job (and then both shook hands with each other)”
Those who belong to agricultural background must be familiar with the conversation stated above as distribution of water is one of the major reasons of conflict among the villagers.
Conflict in general refers to the difference in opinion on a certain issue which either gets resolved or remains stranded and thus, affects the lives of individuals, groups and even masses. Depending upon the radius of dispersion, conflict might have several levels and often, when remain unresolved; one level is transitioned into the next level. A conflict can have different levels like personal level, group level, societal level, regional level, provincial level, national level and global level. The major types of conflicts include but not limited to: relationship conflicts (either on any level), conflicts over values, conflicts regarding resources and their distribution, conflicts about past history, conflicts about structure (physical primarily) and the psychological conflicts.
Though our anchorpersons and politicians keep on saying at various platforms of media that difference of opinion is the beauty of democracy yet, it’s the same difference of opinion which when lingers on for a longer span of time, becomes the root cause of biased attitude and stereotyping and thus, results in several crises. In the context of country like Pakistan, we have always seen that the negligence to several issues like distribution of water, internal security distribution and management of utilities like Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and electricityultimately results into national conflicts which also become the cause of global and inter-state clashes.
“If war is the violent resolution of conflict,
then peace is not the absence of conflict,
but rather, the ability to resolve conflict without violence.”
Referring back to the conservation between a father and his son captured in the start of this write-up, it is the distribution, consumption and maintenance of natural resources on local level which when as remained unaddressed has resulted in inter-provincial conflict over water and even hatred among groups on the basis of their residence in the concerned provinces.
Turning the pages of history reveals that previously, the native institutions used to play an important role in the resolution of local conflicts and thus, their possibility for getting transformed into national conflicts was lowered. The institutions like Jirgas and Panchayat were a source of maintaining coherence, stability and creation of fear of punishment & reward among the community members. This system was also the major cause of lower crime rate at village and community level as those who used to commit crime were given exemplary punishments. Presently, these institutions are becoming dormant with decreased efficacy whose major cause is the access to various mediums of communication. This is the reason that even a small clash over the parking of vehicles gets important enough for being telecasted on the electronic media.
In the same way, the norms, values and traditions of our society are gettingmodified due to cultural imperialism of cross border cultures in the form of TV series like Mera Sultan and Little Masters. These programs are becoming the cause oflanguage debase particularly among our younger generation who previously used to memorize Quranic verses at the age of 5 but now, feels proud to give live performance of ‘Little Masters’.
Likewise, the absence of tolerance to individual differences and not letting others to get due space and level of comfort is resulting in regional conflicts over religion, language and culture. These instances then turn into blasphemy allegations, linguistic conflicts and inter-cast conflicts between Mujahirsand Sindhis. Adding to this, the termination of centuries old of system of social gatherings in the form of Autaak, Kachehri andSufi poetry circles has resulted in their alternatives by 3D movie halls, computer centered games, absurd television soaps etc.
As stated earlier, when the local issues remain unresolved that they erupt like volcanoes by sometimes even brining disgrace to the country. Vaccinating one’s child against Polio virus might appear individual decision of parents of various communities but then, the same has resulted in the failure of Pakistan for not making it a Polio free state and hence, has resulted in sanctions on Pakistanis related to their international travel.
The customs of dowry, honor killing, early marriages, baseless fears and abstaining women from their right of casting vote and share of inheritance might appear local rather national issues for some but these are the contributing factors for lower ranking of Pakistan on Human Development Index (HDI). To quote in Malala’s words, “In many parts of the world, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism, war and conflict stop children to go to their schools. We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering.”
In the same way, coming across an advertisement about the hiring of staff by particularly the public sector firms makes it inevitable for the domicile holders of other geographic areas to apply for those vacant positions. The continuation of this practice is resulting in frustration among the equally capable and potential youth who become ineligible for any post merely on the basis of geographic affiliations.
This reality cannot be denied that the local issues when get coined with several other phenomenon like security, inflation and extremism then transform into national issues which are neither debated anywhere, nor are measures taken to address them. As a result, they are these issues which jointly put question mark on the security and stability of the country at international level.
In short, it is really important to create an enabling environment for the prevention and resolution of the conflicts before they boil over and result in the creation of catastrophes.In C.T. Lawrence Butler’s words, “If war is the violent resolution of conflict, then peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather, the ability to resolve conflict without violence.” So, need is to come onto the table of negotiations by taking practical steps for the eradication of these conflicts and their current and potential hazards together with the mutual consensus of stakeholders involved.
