[GM104] The Pakistani volcano and the foundations of Afghan society

At the Genoa meeting a comrade presented an introductory report on the subject of modern Pakistan, a country which is of major strategic importance and full of contradictions, both in terms of its class relations and its ethnic composition.

Tribal and religious divisions have characterised the wars which have pitted Pakistan against its powerful southern neighbour India for the control of Kashmir. This is also the case in Beluchistan, whose people are demanding independence, and in the northern regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan inhabited by the Pashtun people, where an American army offensive against the Taleban was underway at the time of the party meeting.

But „the Pakistani Volcano,“ as it has recently been dubbed in the Italian media, also hides within it enormous class contradictions. A young and very young working class, employed mainly in the textile sector, constitutes 20% of the workforce and is exploited to the extent that it is effectively reduced to slavery in the case of the thousands of child workers. In the countryside modern agriculture exists alongside archaic methods of working the land. The rural population still represents 65% of the country’s population, and of these 68% are employed in agriculture (43% of the total workforce). Of the landed proprietors, 2% own 45% of the land and it is this small minority which has access to the water and also to government subsidies. It is calculated that 60% of the rural families live in poverty.

37% of the labour force is in the service sector, a figure which confirms that Pakistan, despite all its contradictions, is a modern country with a developed capitalism.

The primary importance of Pakistan for International imperialism today is not just in terms of how it will affect the outcome of the war in Afghanistan but above all because control of this country means exerting control over four of the major world powers: China, India, Russia and Iran.

The industrial and rural proletariat of Pakistan, its poor peasant farmers and its semi-enslaved serfs, must try not to get drawn into these games. They don’t have to decide on whether to sell themselves to a new imperial bloc or not, instead they need to demand their complete, revolutionary emancipation from class oppression, that is, they need to fight for communism.

At the Sarzana meeting, continuing the theme of the war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the comrade who spoke on Pakistan at the last meeting now turned to Afghanistan.

Reference was made to an article by Engels, published in 1858, about the first Anglo-Afghan war; a war in which the English army suffered a scorching although not a definitive defeat. Engels highlights the geographical peculiarities of the country, characterised by the presence of various mountain chains which are amongst the highest in the world and which restrict movement between the high plateaus and the valleys. It is difficult for the central power in Kabul to establish control over the country due to widespread tribal divisions and the people’s warlike traditions, which make them little inclined to bow to foreign domination.

The comrade went on to examine the country’s geography in greater depth before presenting a brief economic history.

The GNP may be broken down into 48% from agriculture, 22% from industry and 30% from services; however of the active population, estimated to be 15 million, 80% are in agriculture, 10% in industry and 10% in the service sector, and this shows the country’s economic and social backwardness even if there are areas where agriculture is conducted in a modern manner, using wage labour, and where a few modern industrial plants owned by Western multinationals have been established. India and China have a significant presence in the country with China mainly active in the mining sector and India within the infrastructure.

The report went on to give a brief overview of the current military situation in the country; of the dislocation of the NATO and United States forces and their composition following Washington’s so-called “new Strategy”, whose goal is to increase the number of United States troops deployed in the area from 68,000 (in December) to around 100,000, to which should also be added the so-called “contractors”, in other words private mercenaries, who at the end of December numbered around 104,000, although these figures are expected to rise to 130-160,000.

This all goes to show the importance attributed to this area by the Pentagon, and it is not surprising if you consider that Afghanistan, as well as being Pakistan’s historical hinterland, also shares borders with the countries of central Asia, through which oil from the Caspian Sea passes on its way to China, with Russia to the north, and with problematic Iran to the west.