Mowahid Shah speaks on Gaza in a Washington, DC area dinner forum. Seated is community organizer, Shahzad Chaudhry
Forum on Pakistan & Palestine in Washington DC Area
A Pakistan Link report
WASHINGTON, DC: On a rainy Wednesday evening, February 28, Mr Shahzad Chaudhry, veteran community activist and President, PML-N, Washington, DC, organized and hosted a forum on post-election Pakistan, the Gaza genocide and its repercussions on Pakistan, the Muslim world, and the United States. The event at the Tandoor Kabob and Grill in Alexandria, Virginia, near the huge US military base of Fort Belvoir, was well-attended despite cold and rainstorm. The function was ably compered by Shahzad with Mowahid Hussain Shah, attorney-at-law, author, and former Cabinet Minister, as keynote speaker.
The discussion centered on the implications of elections, the repeated actions of elites, the proposed pathway for Pakistan, and US-Muslim world ties. Consensus was reached that key constituencies remain underrepresented in power corridors and excluded from opportunities despite repeated electoral exercises. Mowahid emphasized that, despite 1 crore US Muslims, there is a lack of a Muslim voice on the national stage in America, and that applies elsewhere also. Mowahid maintained that globally, Turkey is excluded from the European Union, although it has been a European power for centuries. Despite Muslims forming 20% of the global populace, in the United Nations, they are disenfranchised, particularly in the UN Security Council, where they remain voiceless and unrepresented, he highlighted.
Mowahid said that is incumbent on Muslim youth to take up cudgels demanding fairplay. In this connection, he gave the example of American youth who have caused nation-wide upsurge by challenging the official narrative on Gaza. Just recently, a US airman, Aaron Bushnell, self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy (near the Pakistan Embassy) in Washington, DC to protest US complicity in the Gaza genocide. The field is ripe to raise a voice and the key element, Mowahid posited, is not to be despairing of the odds, and never to give up striving for Haq.
Shahzad Chaudhry, summing up the proceedings, alluded to Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi avoiding collateral damage to innocents during the Crusades, which left a profound imprint on Western civilization.
The animated discussion was followed by birthday cake-cutting in honor of Shahzad Chaudhry, where all attendees serenaded the host and lauded his sterling services for the community over decades. The attendees acclaimed the event in that they found it to be beneficial brainstorming in a sober and solution-oriented environment bereft of name-calling and accusatory or condemnatory utterances. They left with the hope that more such edifying events are regularly required.
