Pakistan and international bullying

Every new US president has been coming out more and more openly and forcefully against Pakistan

Nikki Haley, Indian-American, 2024 US presidential election aspirant, has started off her campaign with hate-speech, going full-throttle against Pakistan, China and Palestine.

In a recent op-ed, she wrote: “Biden administration resumed military aid to Pakistan, though it’s home to at least a dozen terrorist organizations and its government is deeply in hock to China.” She said US taxpayers’ money is also getting wasted on China for “ridiculous environment program”. She also wrote: “Biden restored half a billion dollars to a corrupt UN agency that covers for deeply anti-Semitic propaganda against our ally Israel … US gave $2 billion aid to Iran, even though its government is getting closer to the murderous thugs in Iran who shout ‘Death to America!’ and launch attacks on the army.”

Compare that to our incumbent Prime Minister’s September speech, where he urged the US not to look at relations with Pakistan through Afghanistan or China lens, as the ties between the two countries should stand on their own. “Let bygones be bygones,” he said. “We want to go back to those wonderful times when our relations with the US had their own standing. I would work most willingly for those relations.”

Just imagine! Our self-deceiving national blindness! Our wanting to laud and please a globally destructive force that has wreaked havoc all around our neighbourhood — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. And the truth is that every new US president, from Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden, has been coming out more and more openly and forcefully against Pakistan — with Nikki posing to be more blatant and raging then all of them.

Bush, in 2001, sent Musharraf the message that Pakistan would be bombed to stone age if it did not cooperate with the US on its Afghan War; Obama stood with Manmohan in 2013, asking Pakistan to “work toward bringing the perpetrators of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks to justice”; in 2019, Trump stood with Modi, urging Pakistan to ensure that its soil was not used for terror strikes against other nations. In April 2022, there was a joint India-US statement, wherein both countries called on Pakistan to take “immediate, sustained, and irreversible action” to ensure that no territory under its control was used for terrorist attacks; and called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attack and Pathankot attack to be brought to justice. Again, in October, Biden called Pakistan “one of the most dangerous nations in the world”.

So, how is the US itself not the most dangerous country in the world, after waging unethical, oppressive wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, with estimated six million war-related deaths in both countries; now engaged in propping up Ukraine in its war with Russia; and further aggravating China to the point that it attacks Taiwan. Practically, the US has become so dangerous that it seems to be dragging the whole humanity into a WWIII.

Upon all that, joining India in blaming Pakistan for the Mumbai, Pathankot and Pulwama attacks without any decisive proof is not only akin to terrorising a peace-loving state but also irresponsible rogue behaviour in the international front. Yet, we find most of our political leadership ever beholden and indebted to the US, psychologically subdued in the thought that the country cannot stand on its own, stubbornly insisting that we cannot survive without foreign aid — when we have been surviving and many times thriving on our very own!

It should be reminded that Pakistan is the 5^th most populous nation of the world with 220 million people. Of this, 80 to 100 million constitute the middle class and 130 million are below 30 years of age. A young country with abundant labour and a growing professional class, it is already the 42^nd largest economy in terms of nominal GDP, and 23^rd largest in terms of PPP — this when the full size is masked by the large amount of undocumented and untaxed economy that has been estimated to be as much as 35.6% of the country’s full economy. The resilience of the people is shown by the fact that in spite of all odds, the growth rate of the country has been between 4% to 6% since 2015, and that in the past two decades, poverty had declined from 64% to 24%.

Being the 5^th most populous country says a lot. It tells that this country with all its youth has the potential to take its fate in its own hands. It tells that if such a large population focuses on a self-sufficient, green, value-based, sustainable model, integrating with the global economy only at its own terms and pursuing a strategic policy that ensures global peace by ensuring peace in its neighborhood, and that by ensuring that its closest neighbours are not oppressed and its closest regional allies are not cornered by those who bear mal-intent, it can become a model to be reckoned.

But this, in the global platform, is not the politically correct way of thinking. Global powers patronise leaderships that are happy to allow international forces to use them as their pawns, and pull their strings like the puppeteer pulls the strings of the marionettes, and the marionette feels alive as it dances along the strings, only realising the truth of its self when the puppeteer pulls it out of the very theater, where it was performing as a hero!

Will the history of nations be written on the logic of puppeteering? Will we tell our generations how judiciary had let its strings in the hands of one foreign entity, and the military in another, and the political parties in others, and how the battle between civil entities was continuously staged so that when global puppeteers were playing their games of destroying one puppet after the other around the world, the puppets from our nation really had no say on any real matters, because they were actually just puppets, not real entities — real entities with life, meaning or purpose!

Life, meaning and purpose, yes these are what really define a nation, a people. Virtues and valour, principles and belief, resilience and self-reliance are the real GDP. Honour in the eyes of one’s own people and in those of others is the real growth-indicator.

So, let our leadership not bend their neck to international bullies like Biden or Nikki! Let our leadership break their strings and lead the people on a path of free and virtuous future!

Published in The Express Tribune, March 3^rd, 2023.

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