Anatomy of revolution

Columnist Col (Retd) ABDUL QAYYUM examines the basics of army revolution.

The foremost characteristic of a revolution is violence, not selective but indiscriminate. It is like a hurricane or a tornado. It destroys almost everything that lies in its path—good or bad, useful or useless. What still survives is mostly a matter of chance.

The violence gathers momentum, rises to a crescendo, chooses its own arc of destruction, expends its fury in one sweep or in spasms, and eventually dies down.

It leaves behind a wasteland, some possibilities of de-novo construction and some possibilities of painful reconstruction. What comes of those possibilities depends on the mettle of the people: their robustness of spirit, vision and enterprise.

Revolutions are not for the weak and the knock-kneed, those who can neither initiate nor withstand the consequences of a revolution. It takes courage to make so categorical a break with the past and to face a future as uncertain as it is uncharted. In the realm of the spirit, it calls for the likes of an Umar bin Khatab or an Imam Ghazzali. In the external world of our day, it points to communities like the Germans, the Japanese, the Chinese.

A revolution seeks a short cut to reformation. Its immediate goal is the destruction of the old order. The violence it unleashes seeks to generate terror. What physical violence can eliminate, it does. What it cannot, it seeks to subjugate through terror. The more intense the violence and the more widespread the terror, the more effective is a revolution in its first phase.

On the way to its ultimate goal of reformation, most revolutions must contend with a counter-revolution. This is a crucial and critical phase. If the revolution can maintain its original ideals while modifying the excesses of its first outburst, the possibilities of a durable reformation increase.

The reformative phase of a revolution is inevitably longer in duration, slower in its task of consolidation, more arduous and intricate in fulfilling its mission of reconstruction. Think of the Chinese revolution: how Mao initiated it and sustained it through its counter-revolutionary period, how Deng Xiao Peng set the ball of reconstruction rolling, how the process goes on.

For all its attempts at a short cut, a revolution, too, is a long-term process, much longer than we are won’t to think. A revolution is to be judged not by its first flash of fury, but by the fruit it bears in the perspective of history. Chou En-Lai was once asked what he thought of the French Revolution. “Too early to tell,” was his reply. We may not take him literally, but the point is made.

Think of the Russian Revolution launched by so great a man as Lenin. Those who followed him were puny by comparison, pedestrian and warped of spirit, bereft of the vision of their mentor. It takes men and it takes time for a revolution to prove its worth.

Any revolution worth the name is a radical departure from the trodden path, a new way of looking at and doing things.

Any revolution which forsakes the universal, becomes narrow or revengeful, or runs counter to the broad current of history, will fail in the long run no matter how brilliant its immediate success. It will be another case of trial and error, another broken link in the chain of revolutions which tell the story of human progress.

There are small revolutions, there are big revolutions, and every revolution is to be judged within the framework of the larger to which it belongs. Our framework being Islam, whatever we initiate must abide by the principles and the norms of Islam with modalities appropriate to our times. Any deviation from principle or norm will lead to aberrations; innovation must be restricted to modalities only in which there is ample scope for human ingenuity.

The foremost feature of the Prophetic revolution was its unrelenting focus on the minds and the hearts of men. The first half, the Meccan period, was exclusively that. Only in the second half, the Medinese period, did the application of force come into play. That application was highly selective, mainly reactive and always restricted to the minimum necessary.

When we talk of violence as an essential ingredient of a revolution, we need to note two fundamental differences between the Prophetic model and the notion that prevails in our age.

First, the sequence. Modern day revolutions reverse the Prophetic pattern. They start with violence, intense and unrestrained, with peaceful reconstruction deferred as a subsequent task. The initial fury takes its toll, the good along with the bad, and so reduces the potential for recovery. Also eliminated are the opportunities for creative assimilation, the transformation of the old as a process distinct from de-novo creation. In human affairs, the former is more durable and stable because of the element of continuity. The latter is dicey because of the element of discontinuity, vulnerable to subsequent rejection even if the initial transplant is successful.

The second major difference is the quantum of force used and the manner of its application. In the Prophetic model, the use of force is restricted to the minimum and its application is highly selective keeping in view its impact on the minds and the hearts of men. The goal is not subjugation through terror but practical persuasion through the flexible use of force fine-tuned and specific, force used as a secondary instrument of policy and never in violation of its basic principles.

The Prophetic model is rational. For those who believe, it is an expression of divine wisdom. For those who see a confluence of the two, it is “natural”— with more promise of success, less dislocation and pain, greater stability and durability in the perspective of history.

The Prophetic revolution is holistic. It is woven of all the strands of human consciousness: intellectual, emotional, spiritual. It is an exercise in balance and harmony, within the individual and in the community.

The revolutions of our age tend to be partial or compartmentalised political, economic or cultural in a very limited sense. The thrust is essentially secular, the driving force is technology the goals of achievement preponderantly material. The physical races ahead of the mental, the mind races ahead of the spirit, the spirit lags far behind, there is no coordination between the inner and the outer world of man. The ferment and the conflict continue. One man splinters into many, and the multitude cannot coalesce into mankind.

On the screen of world history we stumble from revolution to revolution, too many of the small and partial kind. The Age of Faith is gone and the Age of Reason has reason to ponder over the loss. We have no option now other than to move ahead within the last Prophetic framework available to us. If we can be honest about it, it should be easy also to be modest and give thanks for whatever little we achieve. On no soul does God lay a burden greater than it can bear.

The best among us after Islam are those who were the best among us before Islam. Islam changes our orientation only, not our basic horse-power and potential. Islam cannot transform monkeys into men. It was never meant for monkeys. Islam can only make better men of those who are already men each within the limits of his own potential.

Pakistan does not become a citadel of Islam by raising its flag only. It needs to look within its ramparts before it looks beyond. Clearly understood and vigorously practised, Islam can help us overcome many of our ills. But that clarity and vigour are both circumscribed by our potential as a people. Since we will never know what exactly that potential is, all we can do is to keep at it— tireless striving stretching its arms toward perfection.

In the end, we may still get nowhere near a Muslim Germany Japan or China (when they choose to become so). But at least we will be a Muslim Pakistan, the best that we can be within our resources and competence.