OIC is toothless, but that doesn’t mean Gaza can’t be helped
Politicians in Pakistan continue to be prisoners of their illusions, some of which date back to pre-independence days. One of these is the supposed effectiveness of the ‘Muslim Ummah’ represented currently in the OIC. A resolution passed by the National Assembly calls for an emergency session of the OIC to take “effective action” against the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Many in the NA who voted for the resolution knew perfectly well that the OIC is for all intents and purposes a dysfunctional body incapable of going beyond ineffective resolutions. Speaking at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad, on the same day, OIC Secretary-General Iyad Madani in fact admitted that the Arab states cannot take any practical steps to stop Israel from attacking Gaza.
Among other things the OIC members are badly divided and their decisions are motivated by their ruling elite’s peculiar considerations rather than the Ummah’s concerns. When the US attacked Iraq, prominent OIC members supported the aggression. Again, some of the Arab countries wholeheartedly cooperated in the invasion of Libya and Gaddafi’s overthrow. More recently some OIC members financed and armed bands of rabid militants to overthrow Bashar al Assad and break up of Syria. Many OIC members would gleefully clap their hands if Israel was to launch an attack on Iran.
There were much bigger protests against the Israeli atrocities in the US and European countries than anywhere in the Muslim world for two reasons. First, the killings in Gaza were a humanitarian rather than a religious issue. Second, the kings and sheikhs do not allow people to protest nor do the autocratic regimes that rule most of the Muslim majority countries. Pakistan can help the Palestinians better if it strengthens democracy and manages to have a strong economy guaranteeing an independent foreign policy. This requires the cultivation of a pluralist society and maintaining social peace by curbing sectarianism and putting an end to extremist tendencies. For this the rulers and the opposition have to learn to live peacefully rather than going for one another’s jugular.
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