Page 10 - Pakistan Link - August 21, 2020

P10 – PAKISTAN LINK – AUGUST 21, 2020 OPINION

Zakaria Never Misses an Opportunity to Disparage Pakistan

n By Riaz Haq where 100 is the strictest response. It’s based ation in Pakistan? Is it just Pakistan’s good with large percentage wearing masks and tak-
on data from Oxford COVID-19 Government fortune? Why is it so different from the situ- ing other precautions to prevent transmission.
I CA Response Tracker. The tracker shows that the ation in neighboring India where infections
nterviewing Bill Gates on global fight Pakistan government response was nearly as are rising? Is it the result of a series of delib- 3. A fall in positivity from over 22% to be-
against COVID19, CNN GPS host Fa- stringent as India’s and more stringent than erate interventions by Pakistan’s government low 10%, and excluding Sindh, near 5% for the
reed Zakaria said on August 9 that Paki- led by Prime Minister Imran Khan? What are country.
stan “has done almost nothing as far as I can CNN GPS Screenshot the key factors contributing to falling corona-
tell; you know, infections are not going crazy, virus transmission rate in the country? Here 4. Significant decline in hospitalizations
that of the United Kingdom. are some of Pakistan’s Health Chief Dr Zafar and fewer patients in critical care.
death rates are not going cra- Another indicator of restrictions comes Mirza’s answers to these questions that came to
zy, there may be some under- light in a recent interview with Pakistani jour- 5. The government staying the course
reporting”. from the Google Mobility Index which also nalist Bilal Lakhani: while ig- noring the mass hysteria for total
confirms a dramatic effect of lockdown im- n a t i o n -wide lockdown like India’s stirred
Needless to say, Zakaria’s posed by federal and provincial governments 1. There were 50 different interventions up in the media came mainly from the well-
claim is debunked by “Gov- in Pakistan. It shows that mobility was down as with 2,300 smart lockdowns covering 47 mil- fed rich and the upper middle class. The voices
ernment Response Stringency much as 65% during the lockdown when com- lion people based on data driven evidence of of the ordinary people and daily wage earners
Index” and Google Mobil- pared with the period just prior to the lock- disease spread. were not part of public discourse reported by
ity Reports which Bill Gates is down. the media.
clearly aware of. So he ignored Zakaria’s claim 2. Significant change in people’s behavior
and responded as follows: “Pakistan had a Health Chief Dr Zafar Mirza’s Interview Zakaria’s Views on Terrorism
pretty bad peak in Karachi but those numbers What has improved the COVID19 situ- Fareed Zakaria has often talked of what
have come down and now they look like Eu- he labels “Islamic Terrorism”, a label that both
rope. India is still sadly in growth phase as is Presidents Barack Obama and Geoge W. Bush
South America...in Africa, South Africa is top... shunned. Both ex-presidents rejected associat-
in the rest of Africa we’ve been funding a lot of ing terrorism with any religion. But not Fareed
testing because it’s a bit opaque …what goes on Zakaria who has essentially toed the Indian line
in the lungs ... you are more exposed to indoor of calling it “Islamic Terrorism” and has labeled
and outdoor particulates even at younger ages Pakistan as the “epicenter of Islamic Terrorism”.
you can get disease compared to, let’s say, a rich Far from being objective, Zakaria is in
country” fact a cheerleader for India, the country of his
birth. In his book “The Post-American World”,
Data on Pakistan’s Response to COV- he describes India as a “powerful package” and
ID19 claims India has been “peaceful, stable, and
prosperous”.
Is Fareed Zakaria right? Has Pakistan re- Summary: CNN GPS host Fareed Za-
ally done nothing to fight the COVID19 pan- karia has shown yet again that he is incapable
demic? Let’s answer this question. of being objective when it comes to discussing
anything related to Pakistan. He claims that
The first answer can be found in the vid- Pakistan “has done almost nothing” in fight-
eo flashes from Pakistan that were playing as ing the COVID19 pandemic, a claim that is
Fareed Zakaria was disparaging Pakistan’s ef- debunked by “Government Response Strin-
forts to control the spread of the coronavirus. gency Index” and Google Mobility Reports. In
The video shows people wearing masks on fact, the video flashes from Pakistan as Fareed
the streets in Pakistan. It also shows a worker Zakaria was disparaging Pakistan’s efforts to
spraying disinfectant. Another scene shows control the spread pf coronavirus show people
worshippers wearing masks while sitting apart wearing masks on the streets in Pakistan. They
from each other in a mosque. Does Fareed Za- also show a worker spraying disinfectant. An-
karia think “nothing” of what is visible on the other scene shows worshippers wearing masks
screen in his show? Did he ask his producer while sitting apart from each other in a mosque.
what was being transmitted to the audience as Fareed Zakaria’s bias against Pakistan is ridicu-
he spoke? lously obvious to any objective observer who
has even the slightest knowledge of the country.
The second and more data-centric answer Here’s a video clip from CNN GPS Show:
can be seen in the “Government Response https://youtu.be/KpAMVLwBJkM
Stringency Index” that tracks various restric- (Riaz Haq is a Silicon Valley-based Paki-
tions imposed by governments to control the stani-American analyst and writer. He blogs at
spread of coronavirus. The Index tracks restric- www.riazhaq.com)
tions, including school closures, workplace
closures, and travel bans, scaled from 0 to 100

n By Roedad Khan Let History Judge and does not cherish the parry and
thrust of politics. He is the Prime Min-
I Islamabad, Pakistan this outcry against me… corrupt poli- make all sorts of compromises. civilian rule, a descent into chaos fol- ister through and through. Behind the
mran Khan inherited a bank- ticians, veritable bloodsuckers, whose The idea that you just hold elec- lowed by army rule. scenes, he is exactly what he is in pub-
rupt country, a country looted ill-gotten wealth, I have made them lic. He can hold his own in any forum
and plundered by corrupt rulers, disgorge,” questions Imran rhetorically. tions, while everything else remains Today Imran is the only truly anywhere in the world. He has an au-
a country adrift, lacking confidence colonial and feudal means you won’t national figure in the bleak fragment- gust presence, is not overawed by roy-
What did prime minister get democracy, but some perversion of ed, political landscape of Pakistan. alty or heads of government or state.
about its future. Churchill, the savior of Western civili- it as we have today in this country. Elec- In these harsh and difficult political When he enters a room, people sit up
Jinnah’s Pakistan, zation in World War II, have to show tions are necessary but not sufficient. times, the question of the Prime Min- and take notice. Imran must translate
the country of our in the first two years? HMS Prince of Elections alone do not make a democ- ister’s character is at the center of our his glamour into political results.
dreams, our hopes, Wales and the cruiser HMS Repulse racy. Democracy requires a free and national concerns. If a prime minister
and our pride has were sunk by Japanese bombers. HMS independent country, and an inviolable has integrity and his hands are clean, In foreign affairs, Imran must get
morphed into a Ark Royal and battleship HMS Bar- constitution, a powerful and competent nothing else matters. But if he has no closer to China, our only all-weather
nightmare of despair ham were sunk by Japanese U-Boats. legislature, answerable to the elector- integrity and his hands are dirty, noth- friend. One thing Imran must do is to
and despondency. Churchill also lost Singapore, Malaya ate, an independent judiciary, an inde- ing else matters and he cannot govern improve the quality of governance, es-
Imran faces a daunting task. and Burma. There were vociferous calls pendent press, and above all a literate the country. Integrity is Imran’s strong pecially in the provinces. He must not
The waters are choppy but he will get for his resignation but when the no- citizenry. To assume that vote alone will point. It will enable him to ride out the hire “yes men” who don’t tell him the
through. He is busy cleansing the stains confidence motion against him was put automatically bring about a democratic challenges he faces. He still has the sup- truth. He must carry out radical agrar-
of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari. To to vote in the parliament, he won by metamorphosis, would be to condemn port of the people, especially the youth ian reforms, in particular, he must lib-
quote Churchill, “those were the years 464 votes to one. So far, Imran has done Pakistan to repeat of the cycle seen so of Pakistan. In a presidential election, erate the haris of Sindh, who are like
that locust had eaten.” How the corrupt much better than what we expected he often in our country: a short period of Imran will win hands down. One can- the serfs of Europe in medieval times.
mighty have fallen. Shorn of power, could. He has made no egregious mis- not help but recognize in Imran’s des- No country in the world has made any
how common and mediocre they look. take. Nobody expected him to set the tiny, the hand of the Providence which progress without radical agrarian re-
Gone is the arrogance, the insolence Indus on fire in two years. has marked him out a long time ago for forms.
and the truculence. Broken and mis- the fulfilment of its prodigious designs.
erable little men, how the twist of fate “People confuse two types of poli- He must keep down expenses and
could reduce a man to size. tics,” Imran told The New York Times. Imran is the only leader with take as little as possible from the poor
Nations, like history, rarely take “One is politics of moment. The other unique qualifications: tremendous self- man so that he won’t starve or revolt.
account of anything but success. Al- is traditional power-based politics. confidence, passions, above all courage Louise XVI was brought down by a cor-
bert Speer, Hilter’s architect, told his Tehreek-e-Insaf is never going to win to confront and master our severe eco- rupt vicious tax system. Unless Imran
interrogators at the Nuremberg trial the traditional way.” He contested the nomic predicament. He has the capac- reforms the tax system, a French Revo-
that history sits in judgment on world’s election and won the “traditional way” ity and the will to usher in a new so- lution will come to Pakistan. And last
leaders at the terminal stage, not earlier. but with a split mandate. The result is cial-economic just order. He is the only but not least, he must descend from
Imran is under fire from his political that he needs allies to sustain his gov- leader who will, as Burke said, “tell the Bani Gala and connect with the ordi-
opponents on a daily basis. On all sides ernment at the Center and in Punjab, people, not where they want to go, but nary people.
one hears criticism of Imran. He is un- the most important province in the where they ought to go”.
dergoing a noticeable slump in his pop- Federation of Pakistan. He has to ac- Today, Imran alone carries the
ularity. “Who are the people who raised commodate his coalition partners and Imran’s demeanor is soothing hope of the nation on his shoulders. His
but at times impermeable. He is shy idealism, self-discipline and zero

HISTORY, P28

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