Wars And States

 By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront

"Rise like lions after slumber, The Communist Manifesto"

What is causing these endless wars, in terms of socialist perceptions in our modern world? Many powerful politicians, especially from the west, have said to have betrayed their ideals. Often what is articulated by powerful politicians before they come into power hasn't come true.

Socialism has been a moral scale for human upliftment. It has been a great intellectual reminder, practised in our world, which gave the world new and credible forces of democracy, power to the working class,  several welfare initiatives that produced several social dimensions which deserve to get instituted in a so-called ideal state for the workers. However, these ideas haven't been practiced well always.  Any form of conflict obstructing a ruling  state bears a testimony to this.

There are certain rules as well. Workers see themselves committed to some form of radical change through various political parties which are given birth through various ideas. Nigel Harris believes that armed struggle forms the basis for winning power. Once that power is achieved, people also see new oppressors. We also see States using military power to suppress people and so on. This is a profane cycle in Marxism. We have also seen States being made instruments of slavery, oppression, where several rights are targeted, where poverty, unemployment, bad economic structures and ignorance loom, and were citizens are discriminated. This never implemented the ideas of socialism.

Many modern states have been war economies as well. They want to emancipate their powerful states through every welfare measure, every social right, every economic reform, every productive political deals, but have different perceptions on other countries: they plunder and fight for oil, some want to arm rebels there, some want to overthrow governments, some want to kill other politicians and some simply target civilians in other countries - in guise of bringing stability, they collaborate with ruling governments and overthrow and bring their new puppets in power. This form of shoddy morality was never right, at least would have never been imagined by several charismatic thinkers of socialism. They have forgotten the adages where thinkers like Marx believed about universality in worker reform.

World is now abuzz with stories of immigrant discrimination that don't allow new people to integrate into their new societies justly, due to sense of cultural and other social orientations. Racism also is a bad form of oppressing certain people.  Modern States could use better policies in helping poorer nations but they do not.

The megalomania of Obama's administration or his predecessor do narrate a sort of fascist and imperial agenda in recent times, by characterless politicians who impose bloodshed by being mad with pride and due to the power they enjoy from their Senates. United States, for example, has spent two hundred years in militarism. They forgot that nationalism in the end carries no higher value. It is just a form of community cohesion of certain cultural and other social traits.

These endless wars are fought against the state because an individual or a certain group lose their faith in the ruling state, due to certain paradigms which constitute in such a functioning state. Our world is reminiscing the bad ways of the past like Spanish conquistadors in Latin America using indigenous labour and resources for their booties in guise of feudalism for their mother country under socialism. Unfortunately blood has been spilled to bring changes in the world, and it will continue in these modern times as well. People have lost faith in the systems of their nations, and in globalisation which is also driven by certain controversial agendas. That's why we see rebel groups fighting against the governments.

Lenin openly theorised war of the guns by certain people who made sure that these ruling people never come back into power. This losing of faith set the standards for a new change, a perception having convergences in the thoughts of Mao and Che. Engels thought that people in minority will bring the new change, who are the rebels. People who demand change. But war doesn't really define socialism, there were many thinkers who wanted to bring a bloodless change, but unfortunately wars have been a means, a pivotal cause for achieving power. That's how war and states come in contact.