The Reified Heart of Asia

Islamabad is co-hosting with Afghanistan “The Heart Asia ’’ summit of the Istanbul process on December 8 -10, 2015. This is the 5th ministerial conference of the Istanbul process. Last year the summit was held in Beijing. Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, turkey, Turkmenistan and united Emirates are parts of the process launched in 2011.

India and Afghanistan are the two most crucial partner of the initiative participating in the summit. Afghan president and Indian foreign minister will attend 14 state Islamabad conference. The theme of the process is to put an end to the Afghan embargo and make the country more secure for Mega-economic and political cooperation among the rivalries stakeholders.

 “The fifth ministerial conference is expected to adopt a forward looking Islamabad Declaration. The Declaration would underline commitments from the Heart of Asia countries and partners for sustained efforts towards promoting peace and security, economic development and connectivity in the region’’, Pakistan foreign office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said.

Islamabad has been considered one of the deepest involved player in the Afghan game. The dilemma with Pakistani state is that, on the one hand it hosting the Istanbul peace process summit, on the other hand near to Quetta capital of Baluchistan Mullah Akhter Mansour the newly controversial elected Ameer of the Taliban is also organizing constantly the Shurra meeting in order to gain more support in the shrinking organization rank.

There is further news in the local media that during the recent Shurra meeting he has been shot 4 times and got serious injury from the opposition group. Even some Afghan official within government confirmed his death. After this news Taliban immediately released a video tape in which the controversial Ameer reject the media reports about his death and claimed his survival.

At once time Pakistan forwarded the complained that Islamabad cannot proceed with contradictory approach. Islamabad further constructed the argument that at the same time killings the Taliban and facilitating talks with them impossible. But the new scenario itself deconstructing the Islamabad hollow argument. Because Istanbul process and Quetta Shurra are too very different venture for seeking peace in Afghanistan. Afghans authorities must remind to Pakistan in the summit their own paradoxical argument. Islamabad must stand with one side. The double standard has gone too far and now the common Afghan reified and tired from the unending pursuing religious proxy war in Afghanistan.

In a recent lecture held at Karachi University’s social sciences faculty under the title of “Pakistan between Central and south Asia- a bridge or a stumbling block’’ delivered by Dietrich Reetz a senior research fellow at Zentrun Moderner Orient in Germany.

Reetz advised to Pakistan new arrangement with the region especially with India and Afghanistan. He said in solution to Pakistani power center in a very pragmatic way “Pakistan and its army can prosper if they adapt to their new environment by redesigning its strategic potential from a liability to an asset’’.

According to the Heart of Asia website, the countries participating in the Istanbul process have agreed on the following three elements for the follow up to the Istanbul process.

(A) Political consultation involving Afghanistan and extended neighbors.
(B) A sustained incremental approach to implementation of the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)
(C) Seeking to contribute and bring greater coherence to the work of various regional process and organization particularly as they relate to Afghanistan.

For centuries Afghans have travel between Central Asia and south Asia for trade and livelihood. Two century before Christ, the great Silk Road, the network of the caravan trails through the different difficult terrain and perilous weather of Afghanistan linked the civilization of China and India. Further the trade and movement were extended to Egypt, Greece and Italy. Kandahar, Herat, Ghazni, Mazar-i-Sharif and Peshawar were the border authority cities of the old Afghans state.

By the middle of the second millennium this network of the trade and knowledge had further expanded greatly through the Muslim rulers and merchants. With rise of western capitalism and the opening of maritime routes to the East destroyed the ancient Afghan trading Silk Routes.

The Dutch, French and British East India companies began to control the flow of the trade between East and West. The Afghans were put out of business. Afghans were remained out of the colonial order, so they also not participated in the international capitalist economy. Only after the Second World War Afghanistan integrated herself with a process of modernization of economy. Soviet and American both helped the Afghan state in the form of aid.

The Istanbul process must be the realization of that old state of Afghanistan in a very true spirit. The above goals of the Istanbul process is likely to be very significant for the future of the modern Afghan state. It is also the needs of the globalization in this part of the world.

The CPEC China Pakistan Economic Corridor, TAPI, IP and Chabahar port are emerging projects having globalized nature in the region will pass through Afghanistan. The religious proxy and tribal conservative relation will break in the face of these projects.

 The industrialization and urbanization will be another character of these huge upcoming projects. For the completion and implementation of the agenda of the Istanbul process the member state must understand the crisis of the region in a sociological and cultural framework. Strategic and Security models always generate more gapes and reification among nation. To deconstruct and disentangle the enigmas of the past wrong choices one must gauge the region through societal and cultural parameters.

It is time to break with strategic depth doctrine and put the effort to support the pro-people doctrine of the region. The region has no capacity to absorb more conflicting strategic equations in the wake of new emerging brand of Islamic fundamentalist group ISIS. Because history is on the side of people.

Afghanistan is the carnation of diverse culture lies in the Heart of Asia. The boomerang effect of the Neo-liberalization of trade with the powerful militarization in the region will further concretize the subject, which are the common people and society.

 It is the proper time to treat societies in a more inclusive way in every patterns and summit. If ignored the real subject then it will exert influence in its own way. One of the distinguished modern poet of Afghanistan, Pir Muhammad Karwaan also highlight and contextualized the reification of the Afghans in his Pashto poetics lines.
 

Those who burn me, in consequences their own bone turned into ashes: Be cautious: I am the reified heart of Asia.
 

View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.