Strange Dilemmas
By Dr Shireen M. Mazari
Finally, the
US government has come clean on its real intention
in invading Iraq along with its coalition of the
willing: it was, as most of the world suspected,
all about oil. Having thrown Iraq and its neighborhood
into utter chaos and anarchy, and having aggravated
sectarian divides which are resulting in a daily
dose of bloodshed of the innocent, the US is all
set to create a law which would give Western oil
companies like Shell, BP and Exxon 30-year contracts
to extract Iraqi crude. According to a report in
The Independent, the law being drawn up by the US
will allow these Western oil giants to retain up
to three-fourths of the profits to start of with
-- ostensibly as a means of reviving the Iraqi oil
industry. What logic! First destroy the country
and its economic mainstay, then bring in your boys
to takeover and "revive" the industry.
In any event, with the execution of Saddam -- again
the whole manner of the trial and execution was
in such sharp contrast to the manner in which the
Nazis were tried at Nuremberg where all legal niceties
were observed before the criminals were meted out
their punishment -- the US has opted to discard
all veneer of moral arguments for the invasion of
Iraq.
A question that has crossed the minds of many Muslims
is whether the US deliberately wanted the Saddam
execution to aggravate the sectarian hatred in Iraq
and beyond that into the wider Arab world? After
all, the best way to keep the Muslims weak is to
have them fight each other while the real enemy
exploits these differences. Is that why no one in
the Muslim World has given much thought to reports
in the British media that Israel has now put in
place a plan to attack Iran?
As for the coming year, moves being made by the
US bode ill for the international community and
multilateralism. Having propagated failed policies
in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears the US has decided
to send Zalmay Khalilzad to the UN to replace Bolton.
With this move, clearly the US is still intent on
destroying the credibility of the UN -- seeking
to replace it with the notion of coalitions of the
willing and NATO.
Meanwhile, in this coming year, Pakistan should
expect to come under increasing hostility from the
US and UK as NATO comes under increasing attack
in Afghanistan. Since the US still refuses to accept
that its military-focused strategy for the war against
terror has failed to show the desired results, countries
like Pakistan need to do some serious reassessment
of their own anti-terrorism strategies. A start
has been made by the government looking to isolate
the terrorists and potential recruits through political
and economic strategies for the tribal belt, along
side the fencing of the international border with
Afghanistan.
It is time to adopt a national strategy to fight
terrorism based on national priorities so as to
minimize the fallout of the flawed policies of the
US and its allies. Short of renouncing our Muslim
identity and surrendering our sovereignty, nothing
we do will please the West as far as the war on
terror is concerned, so it is time to focus on our
national priorities and cooperate with the US and
NATO as far as our own interests are not undermined
-- which means that military transgressions of our
sovereignty should be totally unacceptable.
Even as various Western countries and donors claim
they are reaching out and helping Pakistan, there
is an arrogance that needs to be repudiated. Because
we absorb abuse so willingly, more abuse is heaped
on us. If NATO fails in Afghanistan, we are to blame;
if Karzai has no writ outside of Kabul, it is Pakistan's
fault; and if British Muslims, whose ancestors were
from Pakistan, turn to extremism and violence, it
is all because of this tenuous Pakistan connection.
The US and British media, with little to go on barring
interviews through translators and hearsay, publish
sensationalist reports targeting Pakistan. Newsweek
recently carried a report which quoted US "authorities"
talking of a UK-Pakistan pipeline whereby alienated
British Muslims come to Pakistan for "terrorist"
training. If there is such a vast array of alienated
British Muslims, surely it is time for the British
state to discover why these youth are alienated
in a "democratic" but highly racist and
class-oriented society? Should Pakistan stop all
British Muslims from traveling to Pakistan? Will
that really resolve the issue of alienation? In
Pakistan, increasingly the main issue is when will
the ruling elite say: "Enough is enough"?
Even on the economic front, there is an arrogance
with which the donors behave towards Pakistan. In
most countries, the tradition is for donors to interact
with local economists and social scientists to understand
how locals view their problems and what policies
they see as viable. But in Pakistan, donors do not
feel the need to do any of this and so when the
World Bank, UNDP and Asian Development Bank are
invited to present their programmes and views, by
the most prestigious national body, the Pakistan
Society of Development Economics (PSDE) to a conference
on governance and institutions, they decide to simply
ignore the invitation. Obviously, they seek to dictate
policies for this country without feeling the need
to get any local assessments and inputs. And we
put up with it.
In fact, everywhere we look, Pakistan and its citizens
are being abused in one way or another. Apart from
the US and UK, even little Denmark has adopted an
arrogant posture towards Pakistan. In the wake of
the blasphemous cartoons issue, Muslim ambassadors
were recalled as were Danish ambassadors from many
Muslim states. In the demonstrations that followed,
Danish embassy property was destroyed in some Muslim
states, and yet Denmark has seen fit to send back
its ambassadors to these countries but not to Pakistan.
We, on the other hand, have promptly sent a new
ambassador to Copenhagen, who is getting no cooperation
from the Danish foreign ministry in getting her
child into one of the international schools receiving
funds from the Danish government. In all this, is
there even an iota of diplomatic reciprocity?
But why complain about the Europeans when our Muslim
brethren in the Gulf have been abusing Pakistani
-- in fact all South Asian -- workers for decades.
A short time in any Gulf airport or state will reveal
the ill treatment being meted out to our poor South
Asians, whose hard labor has allowed the concrete
affluence of these Sheikhdoms to come to fruition.
What is our response? We go out of our way to welcome
the Gulf Arabs as they seek to turn our rich historical
land, with its lush green plantation, into a concrete
jungle reminiscent of Dubai, just as we are prepared
to destroy our natural habitat and rare species
to satiate their hunting appetite. Notwithstanding
their "largesse" in the form of a few
hospitals, schools and an airport, there is a need
for them to give more respect to Pakistanis in their
lands. Or are our ruling elites totally unconcerned
about the dignity and self- respect of the average
Pakistani who still retains a sense of national
pride?
(The writer is director general of the Institute
of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. Courtesy The
News)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
