Expatriate Journalists: A Critical Look
By G. Mujtaba
Canada

It is ironic that Pakistan is often expected to be ‘proud’ of its many sons and daughters in their roles of intellectuals and leaders who are waging ‘ideological war’ to cajole Pakistan and other Muslim countries to adopt policies that suit foreign interests only.

Pakistani journalist Husain Haqqani is one such person. Presently, he is a visiting scholar of the Carnegie Endowment Foundation with alleged expertise in Islam, Pakistan and South Asia, and writes for a selective cross-section of the international press from one end of the Muslim world to the other. But more so he is quite popular with the readers in India where he is also a ‘syndicated columnist’ for the Indian Express. Often his criticism is taken as a credible source of ‘opinion and evidence’ to build up a case for opposing Pakistan for its stand on the regional conflicts.

In one such column dated December 13 in the Indian Express, he has resentfully criticized President Bush for not ta king Pakistan to task for its flop and mockery to deliver the ‘desired’ results in the ‘war on terrorism’ despite a heavy financial support from the US. But to make his appeal appeasable to Muslim readership, he builds up a case criticizing the US for relying unnecessarily on the ‘authoritarian rulers’ in the Muslim world and characterizes the lack of ‘democracy and pluralism’ to be the fundamental cause of the rise of ‘terrorism.’

Strangely enough Haqqani’s same column is published in Urdu by the Jang in its December 14 issue but the portion in which he has detailed the chronology of the failings of Pakistan to capture Osama bin Laden is hypocritically omitted, probably to avoid enraging the Pakistani readership. In his English version of the column, he has vehemently tried to prove the complicity of the Pakistani leadership in not fulfilling the commitment to eradicate the sources of terrorism in Pakistan and only giving a lip service in this regard.

Haqqani has miserably failed to tell his readers how the invasion and occupation of other countries is justified in the name of bringing ‘democratic rules’ to these countries. He is clearly justifying the current global approach to harass and coerce other nations into accepting strategic and economic policies of the West.

In order to appear sympathetic to the cause of the Muslim world, he cleverly attributes the marked absence of anti-Iraq-war protests in the Muslim cosmopolitan cities to the repressive atmosphere there but quickly reminds his neo-con masters that wherever such protest marches occurred it was because the Muslim dictators wanted to use them for blackmailing the West. Clearly, he wants to have it both ways. The end goal is to arouse and justify imperial wrath against any country that lets its people protest US aggression and occupation of Muslim countries, war crimes, prisoner abuse, and illicit takeover of oil fields and other resources.

We all know that the recent ‘terrorism’ is a product of the organized militancy generated by the US in Afghanistan during the 1980s when it gathered volunteers from all over the Muslim world. It was the US that had recruited, trained, armed, and financed these “Mujahideen” to fight the Soviet Union.

We also know that the Palestinian state has not been allowed to come into existence not because it was going to establish a non-democratic rule but because the Palestinians have not agreed to surrender large tracts of their land including Jerusalem and the right of return of the Palestinians refugees. But Haqqani has taken Bush’s vague and conditional promise to allow a crippled Palestinian authority on the remaining and besieged lands as a standard for the visionary rulers in other Muslim states.

Haqqani is a journalist who rose to prominence as a skilled public relations expert. He made his debut in politics in the 1980s as a member of Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba, a student organization, but soon abandoned it to join the Muslim League. I remember the occasion when he acted as a stage secretary at the Liaqat Bagh public gathering in Rawalpindi organized by the newly-emerging Nawaz faction of the Muslim League to mourn the tragic death of General Ziaul Haq and where he repeatedly described the late dictator as a hero of the Muslim Ummah. During the 1980s he was supporting the fundamentalist policies of the Zia regime in Afghanistan but during the 1990s he joined the successive civilian governments just to build up his career as a ‘liberal’ but shrewd advisor.

Haqqani has shown incredible capacity to change his ideology overnight and adopt that of the party in power. He has no difficulty supporting a dictator, a right-winger, a leftist, an imperialist, a Pakistani, an Indian, or an American stance, as long as the price is right. So far the price has been right.

He has served Zia, Benazir, and Nawaz in a rapid succession, always jumping the sinking ship and always turning against his previous master. How does he do that? Well, he has accomplished this feat by selling “inside” information about his outgoing master to his incoming master. Presently, he is serving both the Indian and American masters at the same time.

Surprisingly, his metamorphoses occurred at a time when Pakistan was facing serious regional and international challenges over three strategic issues: acquiring nuclear deterrence capability, maintaining stability in Afghanistan, and supporting the struggle in Kashmir. Haqqani has sought to undermine Pakistan’s interest in each of these realms.

For a brief period in 1992 Haqqani managed to become Pakistan’s envoy to Sri Lanka. It is worth noting that many among his foreign office colleagues opposed his appointment because they considered him unfit for the job and never trusted him in the wake of his changing loyalties. One veteran Pakistan ambassador doubts the ‘veracity’ of his name and terms him as ‘a turncoat and a phony intellectual with a hired pen always available to the highest bidder.’

Opposing the conduct of rulers and criticizing the policies of governments is one thing but undermining the overall interest of Pakistan and its people is a professional misconduct. Husain Haqqani has never advocated the true causes of the Muslim world, such as, resolution of the Palestine and Kashmir issues, right of each nation to maintain its sovereignty over its resources, choose its own governments, and pursue its independent policies.

Today, Husain Haqqani is a mouthpiece for the American neo-cons. As a member of the latest breed of Muslim liberals-turned-neo-con bandwagon, his assignment is to find clever and creative ways to attack the vital interests of the Muslim world, undermine Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence, support Indian position on Kashmir and Line of Control, justify Western aggression, support long-term occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, set the stage for aggressive policies against Iran and Syria, and shrewdly use Musharraf’s questionable conduct to call for pressure and penalties against Pakistan. During a discussion on the day of last US elections about its possible impact on the Pak-US relatio ns, he repeatedly commented in a TV channel talk show that Pakistan was not producing the ‘desired results’ despite heavy payments for capturing the ‘leading terrorists.’

Husain Haqqani is not at all serving the cause of Pakistan or of the Muslim community; rather he is representing the policy-makers in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi, who may have assured him of a “Tumgha-e-Khidmat” at an appropriate time in future. But for Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans he will remain a sell-out.


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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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