US President James Madison in The Federalist Papers laid great importance on guarding society against the oppression of the rulers and also to guard one part of society against the injustices of the other. Madison had also advised that great care be taken in the formation of the government lest it becomes an instrument of inflicting inequity. Even in democracy, the fear of majoritarianism made Edmund Burke acutely aware of the possibility of the cruellest oppression that the majority can inflict upon the minority. Bangladesh was a case in point during the BNP-Jamaat rule (2001-2006) of misgovernance and corruption. In such cases, one is tempted to think of the efficacy of Henry David Thoreau's advocacy for the people to publicly disobey the laws of an unjust government which in turn would encourage and bring other people to oppose the government. German theorist, Jurgen Habermas, believes that a state's raison d'etre does not lie in the protection of equal individual rights but in the guarantee of an inclusive process of opinion and will formation in which free and equal citizens reach an understanding on which goals and norms lie in the equal interest of all. Hence, the concept of popular sovereignty that though stemming from efforts to dissociate from absolutist regimes, argues that popular sovereignty cannot be totally delegated and that a framework of unbroken accountability of the government has to be maintained. The idea is not to rebel against a lawfully-elected government but to communicate one's dissent as forcefully as possible, to be essentially communitarian in the creation of a solidaristic whole so that the government is impelled to respond to, implement and embody the vision of this collective solidarity and to create conditions to nurture its growth.
There is a school of thought that not only describes three great civilizations, the Greek, Egyptian and Roman, as slavery-based civilizations but has also ascribed their eventual demise on being based only on the sword and not on values. This sweeping generalization denies the contributions made by these civilizations to art and culture in its various forms, and the values imparted by them. The power of the sword, undeniably brought coherence among disparate elements that the Greeks and the Romans ruled but the declaration of the doctrine of pre-emption and nuclear primacy as instruments of power and conflict resolution would have us believe that the use of hard power has not ended with the disappearance of the three civilizations just mentioned.
As human history continued to be written religion-based civilizations continued to emerge particularly those of Hindus, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. These civilizations have continued to survive till today because these are based on a "cluster of human values." Interestingly, all four religion-based civilizations were born in Asia and two, Hinduism and Buddhism, were born and nurtured in South Asia. It would, however, be too optimistic to think of the sword becoming irrelevant and that in the in the present-day context, the commonality of the "cluster of values" would protect us from inter- and intra-regional conflict. As Samuel Huntington wrote in his oft-quoted thesis, the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or economic but cultural. Though Huntington has put economic differences at a lesser level of non-military security threat it would be unwise to give total credence to Huntington's premise because economic disparity between people of the North and the South, inter-regional and intra-regional disparity, and disparities within the country are more likely to deepen the possibility of conflict that no "cluster of values" can dissipate.
Meanwhile, be it Adam Smith's dominant self-interest, competitive efficiency based on social Darwinism, Newton's principles of natural law, utilitarian views of the greatest good for the greatest number, transition of Western political economy from feudalism to mercantilism to industrial democracy, or the promotion of globalization of trade through competitive efficiency and communication, Western politico-economic superiority despite the current economic meltdown over the rest of the world is expected to continue. Then again, the West would be well advised to be aware of non-traditional security threats like climate change, cross-border environmental degradation and resource depletion, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortage, human and drug trafficking and other forms of transnational crimes. The US, being the main culprit of the adverse effects of climate change, should sign on to the Kyoto Protocol without delay as the survival of not just any one system or country is at stake but that of the world itself. The UN Environmental Program Report notes that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh face especially severe risk from climate change led by glacial retreat in the Himalayas that will threaten the water supply of millions of people. Sea-level rise and cyclones will threaten the coastline of the Bay of Bengal and the change in monsoon rains will hit agriculture, increasing the social crisis potential in a region which is already characterized by cross-border conflicts, unstable governments and rising Islamic extremism. One hopes such threats will be successfully met through regional cooperation.
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