Buner Floods and Modernity’s Ecological Genocide

We’re travelers of a train at fire, frantically finding ways of survival within its confines unwilling to abandon it despite the looming disaster. There’s a radical need to decolonize the world from the structures constructed by destructive forces of modernity lest this godless civilization hurl us into the abyss of its own making.

On the cold morning of 15th August, I confronted a soul-shattering image that seared into my memory; a man named Aurangzeb was sitting on a tree trunk mourning at the loss of his 22 family members. Air around him was heavy with grief and his hollow eyes were carrying the cries of a community broken in an instant.  That sight unleashed the haunting memories of the 2022 floods and casted a cold wave of unease across my mind. The floods of 2022 were not just a natural disaster but an apocalypse that unfolded before our eyes. Over 33 million people were caught in its merciless grip killing over 1,700 people and eight million were left homeless. The skies unleashed rains 190% above normal and 243% above National averages, a raw protest of nature against our mistreatment. In furious backlash, nature struck mercilessly and northern mountains burst with Glacial Lake Outburst Floods, drowned entire towns in retribution. https://www.dawn.com/news/1710561 article: Coverage of 2022 floods

While the wounds of past still fresh we’re witnessing another catastrophe unfolding before eyes claiming over 314 lives in just 48 hours, with Buner district alone buried 209 souls as the flash floods tore through the heart of KPK. Torrential rains and cloudbursts in region of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan spiraled into one of the deadliest natural disasters. Amidst the laments and mourning of devastated victims anger simmers questioning the authorities over poor urban planning, unchecked deforestation, poor drainage, unchecked construction and poor climate resistant-infrastructure. What people are pointing to in frustration and anger is partially right but the real silent killer is still hiding behind the illusions it created to carry out its destructive ventures.

This silent killer strengthened its feet in the wake of French and Russian Revolution to create hedonistic Western Civilization at the center of which was materiality, utility, self-interest and power accumulation. This civilization of Liberal, Universal Modernity, Neutral and Scientific eroded alternative epistemologies, cultures and civilizations while super-imposed a uniform homogenizing order. Out of this emerged mechanical industrial technological capitalist age bringing ecological destruction of entire planet following genocidal and merciless colonialism rooted in Kant’s ideas of Perpetual peace and Cosmopolitanism aimed at naturalizing Scientific Modernity. This severance of spirit and matter devoid nature of its sacred value and paved way for irreversible loss. Carolyn Merchant penned it down as, French mechanical philosophers like René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi advanced a worldview that treated nature as a machine governed by universal laws, to be managed and exploited for human benefit. This mechanistic outlook legitimized human domination over nature, engineered emotional detachment and destructive exploitation of the environment. Wael. B Hallaq also points; this attitude is rooted in the philosophical idea of ‘the autonomous self’ emerging from the belief in freedom from all authority. Pre-Renaissance Europe ascribes sacred value to Nature and Post-Renaissance man entails no moral responsibility to nature. This soul-less, virtue-less, materialistic and power-oriented pseudo-civilization collapsed thousands of years into small span of time. What makes the present moment unprecedented is not only the absolute warming but the rate of change. Scientific records show that in just the past century, global temperatures have increased at a rate 10 to 20 times faster than the gradual warming that occurred over ten thousand years following the last Ice Age. In barely 150 years, humanity has undone six millennia of natural cooling that followed the last Ice Age. What Pakistan is facing today despite being least contributor of Global emission is the result of these economic-technological-industrial structures set out by Modernity in 19^th century.

Pakistan emitted only 0.4% heat trapping Carbon dioxide compared the patient 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China. Pakistan is among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, ranked fifth in the Global Vulnerability Assessment Report. Over the past fifty years, the number of deadly natural disasters has increased fivefold. According to a recent joint report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the world has experienced five times as many hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts, and other extreme weather events compared to the period before 1970. Climate- and weather-related disasters now account for half of all recorded disaster events. These are the fruits of modernity and this constructed civilization admired by the post-colonial entities in their internalized inferiority and venerating incorporation in Hegelian process of becoming. This planet is heading to a disastrous demise to sustain this material and power-oriented capitalist Weltanschauung.

World Metrological Organization states that there is a 66 per cent chance that the world will temporarily exceed 1.5°C in the next 5-7 years because of strong El-Nino. If the climate crisis continues unchecked, the whole world in general but Pakistan and exploited states in specific will face devastating repercussions. There will be recurring crop failures until the land turns barren, water will be reduced to a commodity as precious as gold, and clean air itself becoming a luxury only the privileged can afford. According to EM-DAT, a total of 399 natural disasters were recorded, of which Asia alone experienced 169. Even countries in the Global North are now facing the destructive impacts of climate change. Droughts and heatwaves, for example, triggered massive fires at a U.S. military training center in Germany, while smoke from Canada’s wildfires spread as far as New York City. Earth being on the verge of collapse the self-interested, power hungry subjugation and control-oriented structures are leading world powers to make destructive decisions. On his first day in office in 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14162, vows to formally withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and nullifying its financial commitments to the UN climate framework. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20px1e05w0o News: Trump vows to leave Paris climate agreement and ‘drill, baby, drill’(BBC)

People in Pakistan are questioning authorities over inadequate urban planning while acknowledging that these strategies are inadequate and we lack capacity to implement them. According to “ActionAid”, 93 percent of countries in the Global South are under significant debt. IMF reports that a major portion of budget goes for debt-servicing leaving essential areas of investment unattended. We’re travelers of a train at fire, frantically finding ways of survival within its confines unwilling to abandon it despite the looming disaster. There’s a radical need to decolonize the world from the structures constructed by destructive forces of modernity lest this godless civilization hurl us into the abyss of its own making. The colonized entities’ acceptance of neutrality and universality claims is sustaining this modern economic, capitalist, liberal world order despite realizing the fragility and destructive nature of this pseudo-civilization. This modern socio-economic structure is at the heart of all environmental problems that come to the fore. Modern society sees maintenance of this Weltanschauung as prerogative because the notion of human well-being and progress has been associated to its material and socio-economic dimension with a complete disregard for mental, psychological, ethical, ecological and spiritual aspects. Unless we confront this civilization of instrumental rationality and redefine the notion of human progress, we remain complicit in ecological and social genocide as stated by Hallaq.