‘Ethnicity will continue to make and break states’
Unless diversity is respected and democracy encouraged, ethnic issues can explode at any time causing great carnage, as has been witnessed in Karachi recently where ethnic strife is showing its brutalityEthnicity is like a ticking time bomb and unless diversity is respected and democracy is encouraged, it can explode at any time. Also, ethnic identity will continue to play a role in the break-up and rebirth of the world’s states.
Ethnicity will remain a potent factor in formation, de-formation and reformation of states. Other factors also matter. Diversity must be respected and democracy must be encouraged. However, in the next 90 years we are likely to witness very volatile times.
Pakistani ethnic identity is still quite far away as ‘We are even more unique than Israel. Judaism has a very strong connection with ethnicity. It’ll take another two hundred to three hundred years’ for a Pakistani ethnic identity to develop.
‘We have not even begun to create a genetic Pakistani identity. Perhaps this will change after more inter-marriages’ between the different ethnic groups inhabiting the country.
However, people often forget to mention the Madina city state founded by the Holy Prophet (PBUH) 1,400 years ago. Yet, today both the holy cities of Makkah and Madina were under monarchical rule.
‘Man has had a limited experiment with statehood. We are really learning how to run a state.’ Regarding the explosive growth of states in the modern era, i can say that, when the United Nations was formed in 1945, there were 50 member states; today there were 192, which came to about two new states a year. I attribute this growth to nations forming after the decline of colonialism as well as the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
It is worth to note that there are six major factors contributing to the formation of states: continuity in land and people (ethnicity); states formed by invasion, conquest, migration and amalgamation; post-colonial constructs; integration of adjacent entities by war and revolution; religion-based states and finally, new entities arising from disintegration.
If we Compare the troubled regions of Kosovo and Chechnya, both these regions – the first a former Yugoslav province and the second a Caucasian republic under Russian administration – shared many things in common: they had Muslim majorities, both were conquered by non-Muslims as well as the fact that both experienced communist rule.
Among the differences, Kosovo’s ‘liberation’ was supported by Nato and the US, Chechnya did not attract similar support. Also, ethnic upheaval increased in Kosovo after the Nato bombing targeting Serbian forces, Russian suppression in Chechnya was the same before and after the two wars Chechen separatists fought with the Russian state.
The western bombing of Kosovo ‘a show of remarkable compassion’ and an example of ‘new military humanism’.
A police vehicle patrols beside a burning passenger bus on a street in Karachi
Relatives mourn the death of a family member at a local hospital after shootouts in Karachi 
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