Knocking on wrong doors

Nawaz should have stayed home to provide leadership, seriousness of purpose in resolving current political logjam

They come, they speak, and they leave. This is what happens every September when leaders from across the world assemble in New York for a global non-event known as the annual session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). At the beginning of each regular session, the UNGA — the chief deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN presently comprising 193 members — holds a general debate, often addressed by heads of states and governments, in which member-states express their views on the most pressing international issues.

The statements made in the general debate are invariably a rehash of the words of wisdom that world leaders of all brands have been delivering at this forum for years. We hear a lot of good things about our future in terms of peace and prosperity, and about mankind’s freedom from all evils and menaces. The leaders also reiterate their resolve to re-shape the UN in conformity with the realities of a changed world. The promised change, however, is nowhere in sight. Neither the world nor the UN shows any change for the better. If anything, the world today is more violent and more chaotic, with economic disparities wider than ever. The UN itself is no more than a debating club, annually producing voluminous and repetitive resolutions without any follow-up action.

In this scenario, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would have been best advised not to go to New York this year for the 69^th annual session of the UNGA. He should have known that this will only be a ritualistic annual event that attracts only those privileged heads of states and governments, who have no worries at home and are looking for a ‘rest and recreation’ break from the monotony of their stuffy, routine lives. With his country suffering from perennial security and image problems and a continuing cycle of political and economic crises, Pakistan’s prime minister certainly does not belong to that leisured class of rulers. No head of government in his unenviable position would even think of leaving the country, no matter for what purpose, much less just to deliver a 15-minute ritualistic statement at the UNGA. At a time when his government was virtually under siege in Islamabad, Prime Minister Sharif should have stayed home to provide leadership and seriousness of purpose in resolving the current political logjam. He was perhaps, misguided that a speech at the UNGA, with a mute reference to Kashmir or a handshake with President Barack Obama, might relieve him of his worries.

The statement that he made at the UNGA, as indeed also those made by other heads of delegations, except the one made by the US president, have already disappeared into the bulging UN archives with no consequentiality. Today, the only UNGA statement that the world cares to listen and pay heed to is the one made by the US president as the world’s primus inter pares. As regards our prime minister’s handshake with Obama, like last year, the US president had no time for Prime Minister Sharif, who was only able to meet Vice-President Joe Biden. It is not that President Obama was too busy with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to spare even a few minutes for the prime minister of Pakistan.

This, in fact, is the new pattern of US public diplomacy in our region. The sooner we get used to this reality, the better it will be for our leaders. The first signal of this change was given to us in October 2005, when then president George W Bush visited Pakistan for five hours after a five-day visit to India. Bush bluntly told General (retd) Pervez Musharraf that India and Pakistan were two “different countries with different needs and different histories and could not be compared with each other”. After Musharraf, no Pakistani civilian leader has received the attention or importance that their predecessors, especially the military ones, were accorded in Washington.

In 2012, former president Asif Ali Zardari went to the Nato Summit in Chicago in the hope to meet President Obama. The latter never met him. During his ‘official ‘ visit to Washington last year, Prime Minister Sharif was given the protocol meant for a minister and not that of a head of government. He was kept running around like a Sherpa for three days, meeting one minister after another before finally being received by President Obama in his Oval Office. The treatment accorded to Prime Minister Modi during his recent visit to Washington was indeed the right protocol at that level. There are lessons for our rulers to learn from India’s leaders.

Unfortunately, our rulers, for self-serving reasons, have traditionally run after illusory shadows and knocked on the wrong doors for remedies to their country’s ailments. The remedies are at home, not abroad. They should focus on removing the country’s systemic weaknesses, restoring institutional integrity and reinforcing the unifying elements of our nationhood.

After assuming office 18 months ago, Prime Minister Sharif’s foremost challenge was to prove himself worthy of his new responsibility. At least for the crucial early months, he should have forgone all foreign trips and should have led his government’s efforts upfront in addressing the people’s grievances and sufferings. There is no doubt that bringing the country out from its abysmal governance crisis and economic chaos is going to be a protracted and painful process. But he could at least show a sense of urgency by focusing, as a matter of priority, on the governance issues that directly impact the common man’s life, especially the issues of economy, energy, law and order and security. He could have also easily saved himself from another diplomatic setback by anticipating what lay ahead in New York.

A country remains vulnerable externally as long as it is weak domestically. To be treated with respect and dignity by others, Pakistan has to be politically stable and economically strong so that it can be self-reliant and immune to external constraints and exploitation. Prime Minister Sharif must understand that today’s Pakistan is no longer the same that he ruled twice in the 1990s. The state that he now represents is economically a basket case, suffering from acute resource constraints, endemic violence and lawlessness, with little of its writ or authority left anywhere. Indeed, his governance challenges today are different, albeit of exceptional nature. They require a whole new approach with hard decisions and a paradigm change in governance patterns.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2014.

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