Preserving humanity

Sudanese and Yemeni citizens are just as much deserving of our support as Palestinians, or Muslim immigrants

Every two hours, a mother dies in Yemen due to starvation, disease or lack of basic medical services. The number for children is six times as high. Let us break it down. Every twenty minutes, a baby or a young child dies, as a consequence of war that is bankrolled, supported, and manned by countries in the region and beyond. The recent report from Unicef, with whom my research group is doing a project in improving health supplies coverage, is not just a sobering read. It is a living proof of our moral bankruptcy.

On October 24, 2018, the Prime Minister announced that Pakistan would act as a mediator, and do its part in bringing the Yemeni conflict to an end. Eight months later, I wonder what happened to that ambition? The war, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and supported by US and European weapons, where millions of innocent children are facing a near-certain death sentence, is not showing any signs of slowing down. The only thing that seems to be decreasing is the number of children alive in the country.

The war in Yemen has taken a darker twist in the recent past. Nearly 10,000 ground troops in Yemen are from Sudan. Child soldiers and mercenaries from the Darfur region are in the frontlines of the conflict. Those who agreed to send these merchants of death for petrodollars have now turned their guns towards their own people. The pro-democracy movements of Sudan, led by Sudanese citizens, intellectuals and professionals that captivated the attention of so many of us, is being crushed by a military junta. Those who are now occupying the seat of power in Sudan are the same people who had their teeth during early 2000s during the genocide in Darfur. The country’s military leadership has decided to cut off all internet in the country, but the few reports that are emerging from the Sudanese doctors working in makeshift emergency wards are horrifying. The weapons of choice by the Sudanese military are not just foreign-made weapons and bullets, but they are all too eager to use one of the most traumatising weapons of all: rape. The same leaders who didn’t blink when they sent the mercenaries to Yemen, do not seem bothered by the rising count of mutilated bodies found in the blue Nile.

While the statement coming from the Foreign Office and the human rights minister is loud and clear when it comes to the suffering of people in Kashmir and Palestine, the deafening silence on matters in Khartoum reeks of hypocritical calculus. The commitment of the government — we are told at meetings in the UN, and in press conferences in Islamabad — is for all the people to have a right towards self-determination, peace and dignity. It is unfortunate that if the money trail goes somewhere inconvenient, we choose to look the other way.

Pakistanis have had strong ties with Sudan, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s when Pakistani diaspora worked in universities, companies and institutions in Khartoum. KK Aziz, one of Pakistan’s foremost scholars, taught at the University of Khartoum. Today, Khartoum is burning and we are dead silent.

Some may say that neither Yemen nor Sudan is our problem, and we have plenty of our own problems to sort. Indeed, we have plenty of our problems — and we should do everything to sort those out, but the Sudanese and Yemeni citizens are just as much deserving of our support as Palestinians, or as Muslim immigrants in New Zealand. The real beauty of our existence comes from our shared humanity, and that humanity is worth preserving. Standing up for Yemenis or Sudanese is not just morally right, it is also the right investment to make in a better world where our own children and grandchildren will live.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2019.

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