Call a spade a spade
‘Bakra’ Eid is over. I hope we will not be seeing selfies of proud owners of sacrificial animals until the next one. More than two million ‘faithful’ performed the holy pilgrimage – except of course the usually large contingent from Iran. Being predominantly Shia, Iran stayed away from this year’s ritual as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia reportedly declared Iran’s Shia’s non-Muslims – an event pregnant with likely adverse consequences.
Among the large multitude were nearly or more than 100,000 Pakistanis who participated in the holy ritual with the hair of each of the 200 million of their compatriots tied to its root with the burden of foreign debts that perhaps even our seven generations would not be able to shake off.
Notwithstanding the ongoing killings by terrorists striking at will despite claims that we are almost near to eliminating them, the matter that has been agitating the guardians of the self-assumed citadel of Islam is the fact that the holiest of all Imams – the Imam-e-Kaaba – forgot to mention and condemn the sad plight of Kashmiri Muslims in his prayers.
In deference to the sacred occasion no complaint has been formally made. Bound by the religious compulsions and as part of eluding Ummah as we are, people have been talking in whispers. They have been hurt, but they can’t complain. Some have even asked the government to take to task its Ambassador for failure to remind the office of the Imam of Kashmir issue and the atrocities being perpetrated on its Muslim population.
Looking at this ‘colossal’ lapse, it has brought out perhaps glaringly the naiveté that our people and leaders endemically suffer from. We seem to be perpetually living within the four walls of a well where everything is measured within the precinct of the eye of the frog that has perhaps a brain as big or small as that of our clerics – with rhetoric of commitment to Ummah and not what is in the best interest of their own country.
When Pakistan’s founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah made clear that religion would have nothing to do with the business of the state it was not just merely a reiteration of the fact that religion has to be a personal affair but it was more of a statement of far reaching connotation on the conduct of the affairs of the state on the whole.
Karl Marx’s advises pragmatism in his quote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. This is as well manifested in the observation of British statesman Lord Palmerston: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”
Every nation, irrespective of religion, conducts among its foreign relations on the basis of the fact that there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. Regretfully, the quixotic idea of states being established on the basis of religion has gone out of fashion though it remains a bug in the bigoted minds of few and Pakistan probably has most of these people.
Obviously the sound basis of a dynamic foreign policy can only be engineered by pragmatism, self interest of the nation and not individual whims. Our friends, who are custodians of the Holy Places, have lent credence to this fact as reflected in the absence of the mention of atrocities in Kashmir. Not that Pakistan is no more liked by them. Their growing relations with India have replaced their fraternal emotional impulses to realpolitik—a fundamental principle in all foreign policies.
When General Zia ul Haq was negotiating to be Knight Templar for the Americans against the erstwhile Soviet Union, I had forewarned that when two elephants fight, toads get crushed. Regretfully we continue to reap the bitter harvest of the seeds sowed then.
As a student of international relations one often came across an observation that when a country’s writ ceases to operate on its borders, its ceases to be sovereign. And of course the most common principle learnt was that a country’s external strength lies not only on its domestic prowess but how good its relations are with its neighbours. Lastly, old granny always said: as you sow so shall you reap. When we became a proxy for the United States in the eighties we could not visualise where it would lead us in 21st century.
One could be more candid in calling a spade a spade rather than beat about the bush in between the lines. Succinctly put: Pakistan does not have a foreign policy. Its leadership is clueless and the country directionless. Everyone who matters thinks he or she is the last word. Martyred Benazir Bhutto firmly believed that Pakistan’s problems had become insurmountable and to grapple them need of the hour was collective wisdom of all who matter.
If it was true then, it is true now more than ever when the country is being described as dysfunctional as internal chaos grows People at large look for hope behind individuals and not institutions – in the self claimed intelligence of mavericks rather than collective wisdom. While the outgoing Army Chief is doing what he thinks is best in the national interest, regretfully the civilian leadership has either frittered away in self-gains or abdicated its responsibility by rendering the country’s supreme body – the Parliament – infructuous.
It is late but never too late. Parliament needs to get in action, reassert itself, debate the foreign policy, and recast it according to its pragmatic needs on the basic principles stated above rather than rhetoric of Pakistan being citadel for the Ummah that is neither here nor there. No doubt corruption should also be tackled by it on top priority – let Panama leaks be the starting point. A country indebted in trillions cannot afford ongoing corruption.
