>I believe there is a 'Geographies of Religion' session at the next IBG.
>Long overdue, I think.
>
>Fraser MacDonald
>
>School of Geography
>University of Oxford

Perhaps a "Geography of 'Conflict' and 'War' and 'Intervention' " session
is overdue as well.  If discussion on this list is any indication, it would
seem that there is much that Geographers could contribute to a fruitful
discussion of current conflicts, including the role of war and conflict in
shaping dominant conceptions of hte world.  It would seem that
understandings of Kosovo, not to mention Bosnia or Croatia have entered the
geographical frame of many of the people that I know through recent
conflicts, and the source of building that frame has been the conventional
(usually nationaly-oriented) 'media' (see Hilary's reliance on "The
Guardian").  This is disturbing for a number of reasons not the least of
which is the lack of any analytical capacity in most contremporary
journalism.  There is, in all of this a disturbing tendency to fall back on
easy essentialisms when trying to articulate or justify positions (again
ref. Hilary's note)

"India does not regard the present conflict in Kashmir as a Hindu vs Muslim
one"

How does "India" regard anything?  Are we referring to the government here?
 Does this government have a coherent and consistent position on anything?
How do factions within the government vest the conflict with meaning to
gain advantage within the coalition?  What is important about the way that
the conflict is assigned meaning by the state rather than by the people?
Some factions in the Kashmir dispute within India certainly see it as
religiously based.  Some locate its roots in 150 years of oppression by
Dogra overlords.  Perhaps a question that really needs to be asked is how
the contruction of a conflict as 'religious' (which has some very real
material effects) serves the interests of power at a variety of scales and
in a variety of forms.  Does viewing a conflict as religiously based make
for easy and essentialist explanantions when the roots of conflict are much
more multi-faceted and complex? A rhetrical question I suppose.

"Muslim militants from Pakistan"

Is this not one way of constructing the religious dimension of the
conflict?   Assigning the label "Muslim" to "militant" draws on a latent
image of Islam that has been put in place through media constructs over the
past twenty odd years to represent everything from anti-capitalism to
cultural inferiority, a dangerously fanatical religion, and bad values.
All of this serves an ideological function and glosses over the diversity
beneath the label.  When we talk about Muslim militants, are we talking
about Sunnis?  Shi'ites?  Nurbaqsh?  Ismailis? Any Sufis in the crowd? How
about some guys that recited the creed when they were kids but don't really
follow the scene these days?  Perhaps throw in a bunch of disenfranchised
youth because they can't seem to get out of the un/underemployment rut in
Pakistan and find insurgency as a way to satisfy the demands of 'manhood'.
Perhaps we should say, "hey these are 'patriarchal militants'".  But I
guess that goes without saying.

"probably with backing from Islamabad (cue here, I suspect, for a lot more
letters 
from Pakistani members of CGF)"

Again, this seems to smack of an assumption that Pakistanis are so blinded
by nationalism that they can't take a critical approach to the question of
whether the Pakistani government is backing these "militants" (or ar they
Pakistani regulars as some spokespeople for the Indian government have
claimed.  If so what does that do to the Muslim label.  Is it only with
militants that we need to refer to them as Muslim?  "Muslim regulars" just
doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

One way to get around these simplistic essentialisms and something that
Geographers could effectivelyt contribute to would be to historicize
conflict and root out their multi-faceted sources and the multiple and
competing interests involved in conflict.  This certainly doesn't happen
via media analysis.  Kashmr is a classic example of this.  Here's a
conflict that has been going on in a variety of forms since the State of
Jammu and Kashmir was created out of the Treaty of Amritsar in 1846.  It
has escalated sporadically but, like moist conflict where an identifiable
group sees it self as dominated by another identifiable, has never died
away.  Within the last 10 years the Indian army has been responsible for
the deaths of thousands of civilians in Indian-controlled Kashmir in their
efforts to force a violent solution to a variety of demands for
restructured governance in Kashmir.  They have been cited by Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch Asia and other rights organizations, let
alone Kashmiri villagers,  for serious human rights abuses.  Yet it is only
now that this conflict is hitting the press and when it does, (at least in
the reports I have seen), any historical analysis - let alone mention of
Indian atrocoties - is absent.  What seems to have focused media attention
is the penetration of sacrosanct national boundaries and the threat now
revealed in Pakistan and India's nuclear capacity.  What is startling is
the absene of comparisons here between NATO intervention in Kosovo and
militant (?), Pakistani (?) intervention in Kashmir.  The situation bears
similarities - factions of a distinct territory demanding independence
(granted there are a variety of disparate factions making these demands), a
group of 'militants' backing up those demands by challenging the authority
of the state, the army and police power of the state being used to kill its
own citizens, and a group of people intervening (presumably)  to try to put
an end to those "attrocities".  Obviously the comparison is not so simple,
but it might just be one route into understanding the ways in which
intervention is legitimated by power.

This is turning into a ramble so I'd best quit.

Best 
Ken






~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken I. MacDonald
Dept. Of Geography
316 Jessup Hall
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA
USA  52242-1316

(319) 335-1137
(319) 335-2725 fax
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