The Role of GOPIO in Global Security

Two weeks ago I led a team of European Parliament Members to observe the Second Round of the Presidential elections in Indonesia, and joined the 250 EU long- term and short-term observers who were in that country since the early part of this year.

In April this year the Indonesians voted in the most complex elections ever held anywhere in the world to elect a National Parliament, Regional Parliaments and District Councils, thereby casting 600 million votes for 4 separate assemblies in 500,000 polling stations scattered around 12,000 islands.

This empowered 150 million people to vote in the first democratic Parliamentary elections held in that country since independence in the early 1960s. This near miracle was repeated again on the 19th September when the Indonesians for the first time directly elected their new President in a peaceful and totally transparent way.

Why am I telling you this? I am telling you this because it is Indonesia, not Pakistan Iran, or India that is the largest Muslim country in the world.

I am telling you this because a Muslim country which has been a dictatorship for the past 30 years has made the transition peacefully to a democracy.

I am telling you this, because it nails the lie forever that Islamic countries are incapable of embracing democracy and human rights.

I am telling you this, because in order to get elected many Indonesian politicians had to tone down, not build up their Islamic credentials. The fundamentalists were not elected - the moderates were.

What is possible in Indonesia, is now possible in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Syria, in Iran and the rest of the Muslim world.

I am also telling you this because it was done in Indonesia without the force of arms, but by the force of example and encouragement.

I am proud to say that the European Union expended vast amounts of time, money and effort to help the Indonesians to achieve this modern miracle which has not been the subject of a single world headline. Not one.

So what has this to do with the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin - their 24 million members, the Indian Diaspora and this conference today?

It has much to do with this conference today.

India and the people of Indian origin, which include the people of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and, yes, Pakistan are all endowed with ancient cultural and traditional values.

Lord Gautama Buddha, in his precepts asked for the following: - moderation in all matters, the middle way in every act, individualism and enterprise, make profits but not excessive profits, encourage savings and investments and promote initiative and entrepreneurship but be constrained by tolerance, mutual understanding and acceptance of other peoples’ differences.

The same philosophy underlies every precept of the Hindu pantheon: tolerance, acceptance, individualism, enterprise, family, and investment and protection for the future.

These values, enunciated by Emperor Ashoka two thousand five hundred years ago and carved on huge pillars are still to be seen at every crossroad from Afghanistan to the Deccan, from Bengal to Maharasthra.

In today’s world, unfortunately, we have allowed these values and beliefs to be described in the western world as “liberal, western philosophy”.

It is no such thing.

It forms, instead, the bedrock of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy which has created one of the oldest and most tolerant civilisations the world has ever known. That civilisation spread its message to China, to Japan and yes to Indonesia through the Sri Vijaya Empire to the Buddhist Bororobudur to the still Hindu Island of Bali. When the Taleban blew up the two ancient statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan they knew what they were doing. The statutes represented an ancient civilisation of tolerance and acceptance.

The Taleban represent intolerance and exclusion.

These Indian values were articulated two thousand years before Bentham, Adam Smith, Hume, Berkeley, Voltaire or de Tocqueville.

In this regard, Milton Friedman is an Indian. Fredrick Von Hayek is an Indian. Margaret Thatcher is an Indian. Tony Blair is an Indian. And even George Bush is an Indian - though not a Red Indian !

Because they all espouse, in one form or another what we describe as “tolerant, open society free market social values”.

Today, our world - that world we now cherish and fear for, is at a crossroads and the issue will be settled one way or another for generations to come. The choice is stark.

The choice will be whether the world will be run by people who believe in tolerance, moderation, liberty, individualism and free will or whether the world will be run by a cabal of intolerant, dictatorial, despotic regimes who cannot tolerate differences or any spark of creative freedom in others whom they cannot sanction, licence or control.

As the Sub-continent was at the pivot of world history, it will be the pivot of the world’s future.

50 years ago, what started as a family fight at partition - the question of Kashmir - has now grown to be a matter of global security concern. It has spawned nuclear terror. Why did we, old as we are, knowledgeable as we are, ancient in wisdom as we are, tolerant as we are, allow this to happen?

In the same 50 years something else also quite remarkable happened. Ignoring the historic strictures that most Hindus lived under for thousands of years - that they were not to travel beyond the Hindu Kush - millions of people of Indian origin including those born in what is now Pakistan have migrated to the far flung corners of the globe.

Today over 25 million people of Indian origin live in other parts of the globe.

And in their new countries and cities, most have settled down and adjusted. They have been respected. They are valued. They are seen to be people of substance, knowledge, and tradition. They are recognised as being successful and as intrinsic to their new countries’ economic, social and cultural well being.

But not all.

Some have failed to adjust, some have sought security in fundamental Islamic values, and want to become jihadists.

Yet, there is still time and opportunity for them to play a constructive role. That time is not too long. It is shortening, as fears of jihadist attack and militancy grow in Western countries.

We of the GOPIO have now a critical and crucial role to play. Either we are seen as a force for good in the West or we will be seen as a threat. We cannot duck out of this challenge. We are involved because we are here. We are here because we chose to be here, in Europe, in America, in Australia, in Canada. No one forced most of us to be here. We chose. With that choice goes responsibility. Not only responsibility to our family but also responsibility to those who have welcomed us amongst them. They now feel under threat from the jihadists.

However, …..

In Afghanistan, a whole country some 4 years ago given to a jihad, last month 10 million people registered to vote at the next presidential elections only some weeks away.

The revulsion felt by British Muslims and French Muslims at the images of cowering foreigners and grisly beheadings by jihadis in Iraq is leading to a backlash against them.

People in the Muslim world are becoming convinced that what is happening is the very destruction of Muslim civil society. The jihadists’ actions have had the opposite effect. They have not led to a triumph of Islam but rather to a state of fitna, which threatens the very stability of Islam with disintegration, fragmentation and ruin.

When the jihadists in Iraq grabbed two Frenchmen as hostages to demand the removal in France of the ban on wearing headscarves by Muslim school girls, the Muslim Community of France rallied behind their adopted land and demonstrated against the kidnappers.

The people of Muslim descent in Europe are giving priority to their French German and British identities, identifying with the liberal Indian values we discussed earlier. In Europe the land of unbelief, Muslims are experiencing personal liberty, liberal education, and the economic opportunities of democratic societies.

I said before that we must include within the ranks of the people of Indian origin, the people from Pakistan and Bangladesh who now live in the West among us.

We must include them lest they be excluded.

We must, because they have a very important role to play.

They are the living proof that Islamic values can live in harmony with democratic and liberal Indian values in the West among Westerners.

We who believe and live by our ancient Indian values of tolerance and respect must now put these into effect among our own Muslim communities living around us. We in GOPIO are the bridge over which many millions will walk and join hands. That is our task.

Then the family argument in the sub continent will be solved. The answers will come from us, showing those living in India and Pakistan that we are living together, doing business together, making money and contributing to the wider community----- together in Europe, America Canada Australia and Africa.

We are the showcase for our less well-informed compatriots back in Pakistan and other Islamic countries who view all things western with suspicion. India and her democratic institutions have shown this for 50 and more years. Last month Indonesia also showed the way.

Now its up to us to show that it can be done in the West,

for ALL of us.