The world’s reality and Pakistan's

[TruthSeeker]

The world’s reality and ours

Saturday, November 07, 2009
By By Sadiq Saleem

In repeated opinion poll surveys in Pakistan over the last one year, there has been one thing constant - the rising anti-Americanism in the country. According to the Pew Research Centre, only 16 per cent of Pakistanis surveyed have a favourable view of the United States and 13 per cent have confidence in President Barack Obama.

Though there are many reasons for this anti-Americanism, what we cannot deny is that it has a great deal with how the discourse has been shaped by the views and agendas of our political leaders, media personalities, journalists, academics and security establishment.

Pakistanis as a nation are riled up en masse over the supposed ‘loss of sovereignty’ over the fact that our ally of 55 years decided to give us unconditional economic aid - in addition to conditional military aid - for a change. At $1.5 billion per year the Enhanced Partnership for Pakistan Act 2009 would make Pakistan the single largest recipient of US government development aid in the world - greater than the Israel economic aid package. And while to many media commentators and so-called analysts $1.5 billion in aid does not seem like a large amount as it is 1 per cent of Pakistan’s GDP and for the government would be 10 per cent of its revenue. It would enable the government to increase spending on education and health by 33 per cent (I am grateful for this information to a California-based Pakistani, Mr Nayyer Ali).

Our very ‘honourable’ political leaders and media personalities lecture and harp on a daily basis how this bill is ‘anti-Pakistan’, failing to point out that this is one among the very few pro-Pakistan American legislations as it would help the people of Pakistan! But then for these ‘honourable’ personalities Pakistan means them - and not the people.

Pakistan’s Ghairat lobby responds to those who disagree by labelling them ‘bay-ghairat’, ‘traitor’, ‘American agent’, ‘kafir’, and a dozen more such epithets. It is interesting how supporting good relations with the US makes one an American agent but advocating a break in these relations does not result in any label whatsoever.

Secretary Clinton’s trip to Pakistan too was portrayed in a very particular way - to highlight this ‘anti-Americanism’ and Pakistani ‘anger’. More focus - and more camera time - was given to anti-American speeches, to students ranting and raving on ‘US policy’ and to how ‘this war’ was not Pakistan’s war. Very little attention was paid to the fact that the leading foreign diplomat of the still only superpower in the world spent three days in Pakistan, emphasised how deep the US-Pakistan relationship is and promised even more economic aid for the Pakistani people.

Again the only time attention was paid to Secretary Clinton’s speech was when she expressed ‘surprise’ at how ‘no one’ in the Pakistani establishment had any knowledge about al-Qaeda and other jihadis, elements at one time sponsored by elements of our state. Here too the focus was on how to show this as ‘American perfidy’ rather than what it really was - frank talk between two friends, especially in the light of Secretary Clinton’s earlier admission and apology about American conduct during and after the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad of the 1980s. Maybe our culture believes in hypocrisy and so we think if we refuse to admit something the world will stop asking those questions. But that doesn’t happen. The world will keep asking and keep stating things and if we don’t give answers they will find ways to find those answers themselves.

We also tend to see events as stand alone things that we can ignore because they will have no impact on long-term policy. That is where we are wrong. Events play in to process and process decides policy. Just as it is wrong to mistake the wood for the trees, similarly it is stupid to do the opposite. From 2008 onwards the Americans have tried to build a relationship with Pakistan that goes beyond the traditional security-based relationship and is more multi-dimensional in nature. However, this is their last and final attempt to try to ‘help Pakistan’ reverse what they perceive as a precarious course.

It is interesting that what Hilary Clinton said during her three-day visit to Pakistan in 2009 is not very different from what President Bill Clinton said when he stopped for only five hours in March 2000. Quite clearly the Americans have been as consistent in their view of Pakistan as Pakistanis have been of the Americans. If we are on collision course should we just increase the pitch of our screaming or actually think about how we can avoid that collision?

For decades we were America’s only ally in the region and we believed that ‘the Americans need us more than we need them’ and since they have no other ally in the region they have ‘no option’ but to stand by us through thick and thin. Even that theory was constantly disproved - in 1965, 1971 and 1989. Now, those days are gone. The US-India relationship, which was mainly economic in the 1990s, has now taken on a strong security and defence dimension. India plans on spending $100 billion to modernise and replace its old Soviet equipment and the Americans are there at the top of the line as suppliers. American companies will build two nuclear power reactors in India.

For the last five years on an annual basis the American and Indian armies have held war games called Yudh Abyas (War Exercise). This year’s exercise included 17 American Strykers - the largest deployment outside of Iraq and Afghanistan for the US Pacific Rim forces. Not only the army, but also the navies and air forces of both countries hold joint exercises on an annual basis. This year the Japanese naval forces joined the joint India-US exercise. Even China and India hold military exercises once every two years.

The US has always been open to the idea of help and assistance of regional powers in Afghanistan and Admiral Mullen has openly talked about Indian military assistance. This has never happened because of American reluctance to upset Pakistan. However, if our anti-Americanism continues the day might come when the Americans do not see the value of their Pakistani relationship. I, and anyone else who points this out, is not an American agent but a voice of sanity in an environment of anger and hate.

In a recent article in the influential Foreign Policy magazine titled ‘US-India military cooperation’ Robert Haddick argues that the rapid expansion in the defence relationship between the United States and India contrasts sharply with the troubled security relationships the US has with China and Pakistan. At the end of his article Haddick warns with little seeming to go right with Afghanistan, Pakistan, or China, US policymakers should be pleased with warming US-India defence ties. When pondering Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China, the US-India defence relationship is something both countries will take comfort in - and may someday need.

Many of you who read this piece will shrug your heads and say ‘so what’ and that is what I fear. This complacency about our relationship with the US is going to hurt Pakistan long-term. We are not Vietnam, Iran or China. Vietnam fought a nationalist insurgency, which so thoroughly consumed the country that it took them years just to reach to the level of a developing country. Iran has oil and ancient roots. And China has a 1.2 billion population, the largest military in the world, soon to be the largest economy and a very strong identity. Even then, each one of them is willing to engage with the US cautiously instead of basing their relationship on rhetoric. None of them is as dependent on US aid as Pakistan. It is time that we wake up as a nation, look around and see the reality of the world rather than living in a constructed reality.

(Sadiq Saleem is a businessman and part-time analyst based in Toronto, Canada.

The world’s reality and ours

 

[graphican]

Pathetic Arguments..

Writer is sooooo much thankful to American for they being super-power and Witch spending 3 days in Pakistan inspite of the fact that she is Secretary of State of America. FCUK!

If writer could write one more paragraph, he might have asked Americans to kill him because he cannot offer more thanks otherwise.

65-64!

 

[PostColonial]

Very nice article.

 

[EjazR]

Its ironic that Israel and Pakistan have so much in common from the western perspective. Both countries were created on the basis of religion with enormous western, particularly British backing on international foras like the UN. Military dimension to this backing was added as well as both Israel and Pakistan received the latest American hardware and the expense of the Arabs in the middle east and the Indians and Afghans in the sub continent. Both have received unequivocal support of US, UK in the UN on issues related to Kashmir and Palestine or other issues relating to these countries. And both countries have been the top most recipient of military aid with now Pakistan topping the list. If things would have been any different Israel and Pakistan would have been the best of friends.

 

[EjazR]

The most dysfunctional relationship in the world | The AfPak Channel

By Ahsan Butt

If you've watched The Sopranos, then you've had the experience of being bemused at the insanity that was the relationship between Christopher and Adriana (culminating in one of the most memorable hits in the entire series, when Silvio shot Adriana in a forest after Christopher ratted her out for talking to the FBI).

Well, Pakistan and the U.S. make those two look like Abelard and Heloise. Consider the following facts:

1. Aid from the U.S., and other financial institutions such as the IMF at the behest of the U.S., have helped keep Pakistan's economy afloat at a time of great peril. To that end, the U.S. is promising seven and a half billion more dollars, and yet the reaction to that promised aid -- wrapped up in a maelstrom of nationalistic, ill-founded and uninformed outrage -- would suggest that the U.S. is stealing that amount of money from Pakistan's coffers, or worse.

2. Pakistan has paid enormous costs, both in treasure as well as in blood, in taking on militant outfits on its soil. And yet the near-constant refrain of "do more" from the U.S. continues unabated. Most recently, the visiting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that she disbelieved that the government was doing all it could to eradicate the presence of al-Qaeda from Pakistani soil. "Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to." Such statements, especially two days after one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in Pakistan's history, smack of insensitivity from someone who is supposed to be the highest diplomat of her country.

3. On the one issue where both governments seem to agree -- that of drone attacks -- the Pakistani populace is angry, both at the civilian toll exacted in the attacks as well as the the perceived incursions on Pakistan's sovereignty the attacks represent. Depending on which poll you trust, between 75 and 90 percent of Pakistanis oppose the use of drones in the tribal areas. This anger was manifested in townhall-style meetings Secretary Clinton held with Pakistani students and professionals on her visit. The strange thing about this anger is that the Pakistani government has, in effect, signed off on the use of drones, and so the logical place for the populace to direct their ire is toward the leaders they democratically elected, not the foreign country those democratically elected leaders have found an agreement with. But that is clearly not the case.

I don't have any broad policy-specific recommendations here. I just wanted to highlight what I consider to be an extremely strange state of affairs. With the abnormally high levels of distrust present in this relationship, it has to be the most bizarre alliance I have ever come across in international politics. Secretary Clinton's visit has brought this vision into sharp focus; it is unclear, from this vantage point, what exactly the three-day tour accomplished, or was meant to accomplish.

It also begs a broader strategic question: if the U.S. and Pakistan cannot cooperate or see eye-to-eye when their security interests overlap for the most part (the dismantling of militant networks on Pakistani soil), when huge amounts of aid are transferred, when diplomats from both countries try to sweet-talk the other to considerable lengths (for every Holbrooke or Clinton reference to seekh kababs, there is a Husain Haqqani or Shah Mahmood Qureshi reference to a "long-term partnership"), is there any hope for this relationship?

Don't shake your head; it was a rhetorical question.

Ahsan Butt is a PhD student in political science at the University of Chicago and contributes to the blog Five Rupees, where this was originally published.

 

[Omar1984]

Its ironic that Israel and Pakistan have so much in common from the western perspective. Both countries were created on the basis of religion with enormous western, particularly British backing on international foras like the UN. Military dimension to this backing was added as well as both Israel and Pakistan received the latest American hardware and the expense of the Arabs in the middle east and the Indians and Afghans in the sub continent. Both have received unequivocal support of US, UK in the UN on issues related to Kashmir and Palestine or other issues relating to these countries. And both countries have been the top most recipient of military aid with now Pakistan topping the list. If things would have been any different Israel and Pakistan would have been the best of friends.

Most of present day Israelis came from Europe because they were tortured by the nazis and they kicked out the natives of Palestine from their homes and took over.

Most of present day Pakistanis always lived in their own land. We never came from a different continent. Punjabis always lived in Punjab province, Sindhis always lived in Sindh province, Baloch always lived in Balochistan province, Pakhtuns always lived in NWFP/FATA province. My land in Pakistan is my father's land, my grandfather's land, my great-grandfather's land, my great great grandfather's land, etc..

And we're not the ones in bed with Israelis like you Indians are. Pakistanis will always side with Palestine over Israel.

 

[Solomon2]

Most of present day Israelis came from Europe because they were tortured by the nazis and they kicked out the natives of Palestine from their homes..

What a blooper! You're not even interested in trying to learn differently, are you? Isn't that the story of "Pakistan's reality"?

 

[SSGPA1]

The US has extended more aid to Pakistan than any other country in the world and yet Pakistanis hate them the most. WHY?

Pakistanis understand that the US aid has never been for free and Pakistan has returned the favour in far greater value.

Please keep in mind that Pakistan has been asking for business opportunities instead of aid. Israel and india has both benefitted from aid and more from the US investments.

This is a failure on part of the US govt. that Pakistanis still hate them and it is something that US need to fix instead of asking Pakistan to be greatful.

 

[Omar1984]

What a blooper! You're not even interested in trying to learn differently, are you? Isn't that the story of "Pakistan's reality"?

Israelis CLAIM that all Jews lived in what was known as Palestine thousands of years ago, then afterwards they moved to Europe and other parts of the world..then after WW2 (after the ill treatment by nazis) they decided to return back to Palestine because they say they lived there thousands of years ago...while people were already settled there and had a country of their own.

Now today anyone who is Jewish (no matter if he/she is Russian, Latin American, British, French, etc...) can live in Israel but the natives Palestinians who've been living in their land for centuries are placed in settlement camps.

Yea, we dont do that kind of thing in Pakistan. There is a clear distinction between Pakistani Muslims and Arab Muslims...Pakistan is the home for only Pakistanis not all the Muslims everywhere on earth.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Israelis CLAIM that all Jews lived in what was known as Palestine thousands of years ago, then afterwards they moved to Europe and other parts of the world..then after WW2 (after the ill treatment by nazis) they decided to return back to Palestine because they say they lived there thousands of years ago...while people were already settled there and had a country of their own.

The thing is Omar, your statement above is very ill-informed as to the roots of the present Israeli population. Many did immigrate from Europe following WWII. But many were already there in 'Palestine" from ancient times and from immigration in the 100 years before WWII. In addition many have come to Israel from all over the Muslim world where they were also persecuted. I don't know the percentages of each background "category", but your statement is simplistic in the extreme. You are exhibiting an unfortunate ignorance of the background of Israelis. Your opinion that the European Jews "kicked out" the native Muslim Palestinians from their homes may not be changeable, but it would be better to know the history better before making such comments.

 

[Omar1984]

The thing is Omar, your statement above is very ill-informed as to the roots of the present Israeli population. Many did immigrate from Europe following WWII. But many were already there in 'Palestine" from ancient times and from immigration in the 100 years before WWII. In addition many have come to Israel from all over the Muslim world where they were also persecuted. I don't know the percentages of each background "category", but your statement is simplistic in the extreme. You are exhibiting an unfortunate ignorance of the background of Israelis. Your opinion that the European Jews "kicked out" the native Muslim Palestinians from their homes may not be changeable, but it would be better to know the history better before making such comments.

Palestinian Muslims were a majority before WW2. Just because the Jewish religion says Palestine was the home for Jews thousands of years ago, doesn't make Palestine the home for all Jews everywhere in the planet.

 

[EjazR]

My comments were wrt the UK, US relationship with Israel and Pakistan. Ofcourse there are differences between the two countries, no one can deny that.

But Israel was created out of the Jewish majority areas of Palestine. These were Arab or Palestinian jews living in the pre-1967 areas of Israel totally indigeneous before waves after waves of foreign jews started settinling into Israel. The parts that were created by UN resolution (with extensive UK support) for boundaries of Israel was on the basis of jewish majority areas of Palestine. This was before the mass migration of Jews into present-day Israel. The conept was the same as carving away muslim majority provinces from India into a seperate country.

Morover, the strong commitment behind the making of both countries by the UK can't be denied. Both countries were to provide a strategic base against the onslought of communism. Syria had already turned into a more or less communist state and Iraq, Iran and Turkey were bordering the Soviet union from many sides.

Both countires have been reciepeints of extensive military aid since the 1950s. While India has never recieved any military equipment from America till the mid 2000s, let alone military aid. India will always be paying for the hardware that it buys as far as I know.

 

[Omar1984]

My comments were wrt the UK, US relationship with Israel and Pakistan. Ofcourse there are differences between the two countries, no one can deny that.

But Israel was created out of the Jewish majority areas of Palestine. These were Arab or Palestinian jews living in the pre-1967 areas of Israel totally indigeneous before waves after waves of foreign jews started settinling into Israel. The parts that were created by UN resolution (with extensive UK support) for boundaries of Israel was on the basis of jewish majority areas of Palestine. This was before the mass migration of Jews into present-day Israel. The conept was the same as carving away muslim majority provinces from India into a seperate country.

Jewish majority areas of Palestine probably means 55% Jews and 45% Muslims while the region of Pakistan was more than 90% Muslims even before partition excluding East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which always had a higher percentage of Hindus than West Pakistan (Pakistan).

 

[EjazR]

Jewish majority areas of Palestine probably means 55% Jews and 45% Muslims while the region of Pakistan was more than 90% Muslims even before partition excluding East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which always had a higher percentage of Hindus than West Pakistan (Pakistan).

We are going off topic here but as the Jewish areas carved out on the basis of religious affliations had about 60-65% jews. While the non-jewish areas were 90% muslim or christian.

In the subcontinent other than NWFP no other province had 90% plus muslim majority and this province had a pro-India govt. even in the 9146 elections. It was only the violent population exchanges in Punjab that reduced hindu and sikh populations in west punjab and simulataneously reduced muslim population close to zero in Indian punjab. Otherwise in united punjab about 55% were muslim.

But the percentage game is not the point. The point is that religion based demographics was the basis of both the countries. I guess in a way Bangladesh changed that and went back to an ethnic identity and present day pakistan and Israel share this same concept for their birth.

 

[Omar1984]

In the subcontinent other than NWFP no other province had 90% plus muslim majority and this province had a pro-India govt. even in the 9146 elections. It was only the violent population exchanges in Punjab that reduced hindu and sikh populations in west punjab and simulataneously reduced muslim population close to zero in Indian punjab. Otherwise in united punjab about 55% were muslim.

Those figures are not correct. Which source did you get that information from?

Punjab is divided between Pakistan and India. The Muslim majority Punjab was given to Pakistan and its way more than 55% Muslim even before partition.

The entire Punjab was not given to Pakistan.