Colonialism or Imperialism, as is normally understood, is an enterprise in which a power subjugates a people to extract and export wealth from the land of those subjugated. This began with the birth of European capitalism, and has mostly been accomplished when the invader was assisted by a faction among those who were invaded. Betrayal was a physical act.
But with the passing of the age of colonialism, colonialism itself has changed its stripes. Physical occupation is no longer essential to control and extract the resources of the victim country. So, the modern day Traitor does not need an armed force to assist the invading enemy. He does so by other means.
The Aim of the modern day colonizer is to control the resources of the “colonized” country without having to send in its army. And if the army is sent in, it is to dismantle the government of the invaded country, put its surrogates as rulers, and then withdraw. The Name of this modern economic religion is Neo Colonialism. This is also called Financial Imperialism. And today this comes in the attire of Neo Liberalism. Its central and inviolable Tenet is Free Trade. In real and practical terms Free Trade means that today’s colonizer is Free to raid the resources of the colony, which the latter is not allowed to protect. A main Tool of the colonizer is free flow of capital in and out of the colony with the Thugs local oligarchs] facilitating this movement. This allows the colonizer the power to decide whether the colony will be allowed to sink or swim, as capital is injected or withdrawn from the colony at will.
One of its subsidiary Tenets is Privatization. No matter how inefficient the government of the colony is, if an asset belongs to the state, it is being regulated. This regulation is an obstruction in the way of the colonizing oligarch to freely raid it. When this asset is privatized, it moves into the ownership of the Thug, who is a fellow thief. And the two thieves [the local and the foreign], having common objectives, find it very easy to work together to fatten themselves and impoverish the colony and its people.
Stranglehold over the energy resources of the colony, on which so much of its economy depends, is a prize monopoly for the Thug. Witness what brought about our “circular debt”. The market forces free from any type of interference or regulation by the state, holds a place of fundamental sanctity in the neo-Liberal belief system. Thus, any type of subsidy to the underprivileged of society is a cardinal sin in this system. Subsidies are considered an interference with the market, which is considered sacred. And one can see how strongly the IMF disapproves of subsidies if you study their conditionalities when approving loans to countries.
The colonizer will also strive to lay down the agricultural policy of the colony. The aim of this is to deny food independence to the colony. Every independence which may lead to freedom of the colony is to be denied. A country which is self- sufficient in food is that much more difficult to control.
This control mechanism works most effectively in midsized economies like Pakistan or Egypt etc, where bourgeoisie capital formation has not yet taken place. Roots of local capitalism are weak. It is the aim of neo-Liberals to discourage industrialization of such countries.
Industrialization promises self-sufficiency. And this threatens control by the colonizers. The model encouraged in the colony is that of import-based consumerism sustained by loans. Massive theft by the Thugs makes the need for such loans exigent, so that such countries never break the shackles of interest repayment, and thus remain in the cycle of eternal poverty. In these countries their armies are used to create, nurture, and to protect the local oligarchs with whom the army works in partnership.
Russia is a treasure house of vast resources. When it was a part of the USSR, these resources were under the total control of the state. But when the USSR broke and chaos ensued, all state control over its vast mineral wealth vanished. Russia became an unregulated playground for western oligarchs to raid its resources at will. It is only when Putin took power that unhindered raids and acquisition of Russian assets by these oligarchs came to an end. So, it is not for nothing that Putin is hated with the same brand of venom which is reserved for a “heretic” in a religious society. When a leader of a colony, or a potential colony, moves to protect its wealth from plunder by its own oligarchs in partnership with neo-Liberal oligarchs of the West, such a leader is seen as a mortal enemy and has to be removed. The thinking among the neo-Liberal bigwigs is exactly like that of Mafia bosses. If one little business giving protection money to the Mafia refuses to do so, the fear is that others will follow its lead. And like falling dominoes, this will eventually bring down the entire mafia empire. So, the first one to challenge the Mafia has to be shown his place. He is to be removed or killed.
Only if the foregoing is fully understood, will you be able to understand why it was most essential to get rid of Imran Khan, or why there were more than fifty attempts on the life of Fidel Castro. A rebel cannot be allowed to succeed and break free. The Imperial Power needs the wealth of its colonies to remain an Imperial Power. Without this wealth it will become that much poorer, and consequently less powerful.
In light of the above, you will also get to understand the importance of people like Zardari and Nawaz Sharif for the neo-Liberal project. People like these are the traitors who open countries like ours to the colonizers. When they hollow out countries like Pakistan, they are merely pocketing their share of the “take”. Morality or corruption is never an issue with the colonizers. Venality adds to the credentials of the Thugs. It carries a promise of pliancy–the willingness to sell every asset of their country.
And it also does not matter to the neo-Liberal master if the government in the colony is a dictatorship or a “democracy”. Control is their only aim, and it does not matter if the Thug is a dictator or a democrat. And their government is often aided by the “technocratic” assistants to be provided by neo-Liberal headquarters. And these assistants come in the form of your Shaukat Azizs Hafeez Sheikhs and Raza Baqirs, and Sultan Sikander Rajas etc.
The colonizer allows a dirty little core of “elites” to become rich. And these elites ensure that all the others in the colony remain eternally poor.
And finally, but for Bajwa’s incompetence, we would never have known why, each time the army used “corruption” as its alibi for takeover, it NEVER ONCE moved against the most corrupt; and why, all these years, it has protected and preserved people like the Zardaris and the Nawaz Sharifs, and why it handed Pakistan back to their tender mercies after regime change in Apr 2022.
But for Bajwa, we would never have known that the army, as an institution, is ultimately likely to stand by the interests of the oligarch, and forms his last bastion of defense, when war between the rich and the poor breaks out in society. Our army has taken a few more disgraceful steps further.
Individually and collectively, they are the Mir Sadiqs of today. And Bajwa has a valid claim to being the greatest traitor in the history of the sub-continent.
Where Gen Asim and his generals stand, seems pretty well etched out. Only our hopes, with very slender threads, are holding them from breaking free and falling.