PAKISTAN’S CONFLICTED CLASSES…..Part 5

Shackles and Hackles

Throughout Khan’s tenure, the global North had been unleashing their favorite weapon, “Human Rights Abuses” on Imran Khan’s regime. Pakistanis of all stripes believe the West was incensed by his UN speech on Islamophobia, then by his trip to Russia as Pakistan’s Prime Minister; next by his emphatic “Absolutely Not!” about permitting US bases to operate from Pakistani soil; then again, on his insistence that Pakistan was as entitled as any other nation, (like India), to maintain a neutral stand between super-powers. Pakistan’s elite-establishment nexus despised him for it, but the rest loved Khan for his courage and conviction.

It is standard practice that reports on human rights abuses rely chiefly on information provided by the global north’s approved dissidents of Khan’s regime. Their well-curated information on human rights’ abuses serves as arsenal to arm-twist unapproved regimes. In his recent interview with Imran Khan, Tim Sebastian used it to flay Khan. After failing, he took to reprimanding Khan’s misuse of the term “broken the shackles of slavery” by saying:

“[Your statement that] The Afghans had broken the shackles of slavery, excited less than enthusiasm among the international community.”

The global North’s most prominent TV journalist has good reasons to say this since the ghost of the past still haunts the West. After the global North’s most powerful nations failed to subdue the global South’s poorest single country despite 20 years of bombing, their own performance may well have “excited less than enthusiasm among the international community”.

He followed through with:

“……but women, far from breaking the shackles…. had them brutally re-attached by the Taleban… would you like to revise that opinion…. or…you choose not to see that?”

The words “the shackles of slavery” raise the global North’s hackles. Imran Khan explained with straight-faced honesty that the words were taken from his speech given (in Urdu), asking the Awam to rid themselves of their “mental colonialism” (Ouch!) He was referring to the rickety old colonial-designed education curriculum. Its chronic failure helped elevate a tiny but powerful “english medium” elite over and above the broad population of citizenry attending lower-grade, poor-quality “Urdu-medium” (local language) schools.

It perpetuated, said Khan, the “big gap between the rich and the poor…..I was trying to tell them that we have to break these mental chains of slavery”. So, from within that specific context he had given the example of how the Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery”. They got their freedom when the U.S. finally left them and this had to be lauded as exemplary. “But ..” he protested with exasperation, “this was made into such a big thing….!” . He was cut off by Sebastian possibly because Khan’s “mental-chains-&- shackles” talk wouldn’t sit well with his audience. He was there to bury Khan, not to praise him:

“But you never revised it, did you?! You never revised it! I am giving you a chance to revise your opinion on the Taliban….who whipped and beat women when they demonstrated for their rights”. ”

He said it in a caustic, indignant tone for the benefit of a large global audience who dote on Tim Sebastian’s brute ways of extracting truths like a dentist extracts teeth: painfully. He didn’t have to, with Khan, whose truths ooze out like a genie from a bottle.

Not Going North

Nevertheless, common viewers in the global North watched Imran Khan, a man who, far from feeling cornered and defensive, remained as unflappable as ever when it came to responding under pressure. His was the voice of the global South. It brimmed with the truth of the times as viewed from the South’s perspective. It was also a voice that incensed large sections of Pakistan’s western-secular-establishment-elite who relish their own role as domesticated pets of the global North’s elite. So when the Northern elite barks, then local national poodles wag their tails and copy-paste their bark, hoping to sound like them.

Imran Khan did not fend below-the-belt blows by returning them. He simply took pains to explain himself. He genuinely wanted to be understood by an audience that he often captivated with his simple, direct candor.

So he continued to elaborate upon the critical importance of maintaining a positive, healthy relationship with the Afghans, in the light of “….3 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. We have a 2 ½ thousand km long border with Afghanistan”. He was implying the obvious: that even if 1% of this population were activated from their sleeper-state by an infuriated Afghan regime, to explode bombs and plant mines throughout the country, uncontrollable violence and chaos would follow. To talk of women’s rights before stabilizing each others’ volatile inter-state relationship was like putting the cart before the horse. How would he defend women’s rights, when faced immediately with the prospects of a fierce regional conflict breaking out between the two neighbours? And, to make matters worse (though he didn’t say this, either), Pakistan was a nuclear power.

Sebastian cut him off with: “So you refuse to condemn their crimes”?

Khan simply pressed on to make his point: “there are three terrorist groups operating from Afghan soil on Pakistan’s territory: TTP, ISIL and BLA.” There was, he tried to explain, no other way to contain and prevent cross-border terrorism except by first initiating a process of establishing friendly relations with the Afghan regime.

Sebastian, not hearing what he wanted to hear, and, sensing that the interview was headed South instead of North, cut him off with:

“You have nothing to say about the summary executions, the forced disappearances of more than a 100 former Afghan security forces, 100’s of people who were evicted from their homes? Your administration said “we must strengthen and stabilise the current govt. for the sake of the people of Afghanistan”. Why would you, a self-declared democrat, want to strengthen a government that was, and still is, repressing and brutalising so many people in Afghanistan. That’s what people in the West find difficult to understand.”

Khan began with: “First of all as the Prime minister of a country, my top priority is the people of Pakistan. What is good for them, what is good for our people is peace in Afghanistan”. Problems and conflicts in Afghanistan has spill-over effects in Pakistan’s tribal areas, causing serious de-stabilization in the North-Western border. “It’s not up to me to start moralising about other countries….

Sebastian, sensing that Khan was steering the conversation towards a land-mine of explosive truths that his audience would not want to hear, cut him off quickly with: “You don’t have any principles?”

No “What-Aboutisms”

Imran Khan did not lash out with “what-aboutisms” as some African leaders now do when political tycoons from the global North plead-n-preach political morality and human rights to Africa. He just reminded him that national foreign policies are tailored to serve national interests. Western countries enjoy the privilege of being very selective about human rights violations. They cherry-pick the ones that suit their own national interests: like the persecution of Uighur Muslims in China, the dissident voices in Hong Kong against mainland China , and before he could mention the plight of Indian Muslims against a repressive Mody regime……he was stopped once again in his tracks by Sebastian:

“About which [Uighurs in China] you say nothing!?”.

Khan ignored this and emphasized what really needed to be said: the global North’s continuing indifference to “the complete and utter dismantling of Democracy in Pakistan”. But their ignoring it is not considered morally reprehensible because “it is not in their interest to do it” said Khan, for after all “western countries look to their own interest”. His un-stated point “Why shouldn’t we do the same?” erupts in most listener’s heads.

He picked Kashmir as an excellent example. Human rights violations there are being ignored by the West because they wouldn’t want to jeopardise their interest with a major ally like India, “a bulwark against China”. Countries like Pakistan have millions who live below the poverty-line. Eliminating “poverty is our priority”, he pleaded. They are a huge and vulnerable population. The last thing he should be doing is … “ [ issuing ] moral statements about Uighurs, about what China is doing, or about the Ukraine conflict. We can’t afford (to make) such moral statements“ because making them risks worsening the destinies of people living below their country’s poverty line.

It takes some insight to make such a statement.

Imran Khan went far beyond what-aboutism, which is where the buck stops for many among the South’s thinking classes. It was more about building a case for political morality, which like democracy, should abide by the same laws, the same principles and the same degree of pragmatism claimed and exercised by the global North.

Pakistan’s conflicted educated and thinking classes…the deeper and serious ones who remain a precious minority… may be re-configuring their thinking and pressing the re-set button when it comes to building perspectives about how the global North and South are positioning themselves to shape the world’s future.

[Cont’d….Part 6]

[ Khan/Tim Interview Video address:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1680132623761326086 ]

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