In the 21st Century and the widespread public campaign for social justice, equality & human rights, I see youth flying the flags of peace, justice & equality, chanting slogans against oppression. This makes me think the world has gone rational. People might have realized what is human history & sociology, and thus are demanding their rights with such confidence. But unfortunately, when I look through the lens of history, this whole struggle & awareness appears futile and ill-planned or maybe even repetitive.
I see people, ready to die for their country & religion, so loyal, that they prefer dying to live under a non-Muslim rule, the very one they overthrew almost a century ago. It is incomprehensible for them to live peacefully under an alien authority. But at some point, I’m forced to think that this dying for nationalism is irrelevant. In our newfound confidence, we drown, and in our hubris, we fall prey to the illusion that the new world has changed. It appears that Democracy is the order of the 21st Century. People have acknowledged their duties towards ruling authorities and would be rewarded in return for fulfillment of said duties.
They are confident, that in the 21st century, it is the norm for anyone to opt for authoritative professions such as politics and the military, solely based on merit, But I see quite the opposite reality. Though circumstances have changed, the forms of governance have changed yet I believe the essence remains the same despite these superficial changes. I believe that the apparent metamorphosis, the situation is still the same as it was several millennia ago. We are still being ruled by the same gods that are Politicians, Capitalists, Military, Religion, Imperialists, and Aristocrats.
These are the six gods which have their independent power & realms but still constantly interact with each other, sometimes found subjugating and supporting one another. We think that now we have broken the chains & have obtained freedom from these long-standing demons. But we are subject to nothing but misdirection. Nothing has changed. We are still being ruled by these as our ancestors used to be. The world undergoes changes, Empires are created, and countries come into being but soon are replaced by others or dissolved. However, despite circumstantial changes, the reality of these gods remains. They thrive & grow irrespectively.
Whenever a country or empire is attacked it’s the end of times for its loyal masses. For their world is about to end. An apocalypse is their fate. They are unable to conceive of a life without soil or religion to belong to, something that fosters their beliefs, emotions, and sense of belonging. This short-sightedness & a limited conception of time is a niche for common masses anywhere and everywhere. But those gods transcend these definitions of time and existence as they are a manifestation of the dark side of human nature.
As the philosopher, Hegel said, the world operates in the form of a see-saw. A leader comes who is extremely religious, he leads the people into a life of religious strength but soon his descendants come, tired of their inherited religious environment gravitate towards secularism & rationality, the public too now tired of the century-old religious fervor, romanticizes relaxation & novelty. Thus, the world including Nationalism, Religion, and equity, keeps swinging like a pendulum from one end to another. It doesn’t stay the same for more than 50-100 years. Change is inevitable.
But in all these necessary changes, these gods survive in continuity. Whenever an invader conquers a nation, he never kills all the politicians, he never kills all the aristocrats. For he knows that the native politicians control the pulse of his newly conquered subjects. The politician is the master of the public’s emotions & aspirations. Then he keeps the aristocrat alive for he knows that only they are the ones acquainted with the administration of my new nation. Likewise, he never kills the religious clerics for he knows that the only thing his newly conquered nation is left with now, is its religion & culture. So he is intelligent enough to keep it undisturbed.
Similarly, the top military leadership is not completely wiped out, because even after its defeat, it still has the system to maintain law & order in the nation. It still has the record of all battles fought in the region & tactical strategies of the region. For a native military is always strong in its terrains. Moreso, he never disturbs the capitalists, for they are the ones feeding the masses. And lastly, he does not incapacitate the imperialists, in the course of history Conquerors often let the ex-masters of their newly conquered state live in exile or under arrest. Very rarely the captured imperialists are exterminated.
The purpose of the earlier commentary is to showcase the unwavering value of these gods, despite the circumstances, that are placed on them. In addition to this, the study of history, politics & sociology reveals an analogy between these gods & individuals inventing a game for which the rules are defined such that each player is never exterminated nor is able to finish the game by winning it completely. Nonetheless, rules are benefitting all of them in one way or another.
For it is common the countries or empires often conquer each other & it’s a custom to never completely terminate the losing god, Nation’s imperialists & aristocrats. The conqueror also knows that someday his own children many years later might be subjugated. And thus they play the game fairly.
Like the Greek gods, these are often subjugated by one another but never kill their fellow immortal brethren. They are united in their essence of immortality. Imagine if India attacks Pakistan after a few days, Pakistan would eventually give up. As soon as Pakistan ends, for a few weeks all these gods of Pakistan would resist the new regime but soon would come at peace with their own Indian counterparts. These gods are separated by distance but are united by their immortality. No matter, what the circumstances are, these gods manage to survive in the pantheon, and their network communication is incomprehensible to the general public.
By using one’s intelligence, one can make a fortune and luxury for himself and his family, but soon it withers away after 1-to 2 successive generations. Thus, the wit and money alone can’t make a family one of these gods. It requires the work and will of generations, to become a god. An ordinary businessman might be having more luxury than an aristocrat or military family, but he doesn’t have that reach to the pantheon. His money and luxury don’t make him a god, he still hangs in the upper middle class and elite class. On the other hand, a broke aristocrat is still more powerful than wealthy individuals. Thus, this godship can’t be achieved by mere wit and instant wealth, it requires generations, and very rarely a family becomes a god by itself. Most of the time an ordinary man who tries to make his family a part of this pantheon tries to mix his blood into one of these gods, by marrying his kin to the house of gods.
A friend of mine asked a Pushtun, to what or whom is your loyalty? The Pashtun replied proudly, “My nation, My people!”. My friend inquired about the importance of loyalty to one’s religion. The Pashtun said,” Religion is nothing, Nation is everything”. This once again shows that it is the clan & tribe that is the ultimate unit of loyalty. No matter how much we deny our innate sense of devotion to these gods, they exist, they live in each city, each province, each continent, and the whole world.
Humanity stands once again where it once stood at the beginning of civilizations. These gods have since remained ingrained in each civilization, with only the masses suffering the most. Ibn-e-Khaldun in his book “Muqaddimah”, defines this never-ending cycle in terms of “Assabyah”. Assabyah means a tribe, according to Khaldun, it is the basic unit of power and I believe there are 6 types of Assabyah as mentioned earlier, which remain constant in power. The greatest example of Assabyah’s power lies in the political history of Islam. It was a religion that originated against the status quo and the long-standing tribal warfare. Prophet Muhammad succeeded in reducing the menace of tribe hold in Arabia, but soon after 30 years, the tribal rivalry rose once again with the later Islamic politics and power remaining centered around two tribes The Ummayads and The Abbasids. The tribal rivalry that Prophet Muhammad detested and sought to exterminate, became the wheel of later Islamic Politics and the Islamic empire. It’s an example of how strong the Assabyah is.
Christians in Europe’s medieval ages believed that their kings were God’s chosen, likewise today we realize that similarly these six gods are also appointed by nature and can never be exterminated. The only solution general masses are left with, is to never die in the name of nationalism, religion, and tribe hood, my message for public is to beware of the tactics of these gods because one can’t kill a god, but one can stop worshipping it.
