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Report back from Pakistan
I have just returned from Pakistan where I am deeply involved in working through NGOs in two areas
1. The establishment of Institutions caring for those with mental health Issues. I am motivated to do this because two of my siblings suffer from mental health issues and because this is a neglected area not just in Pakistan but worldwide.
2. Working on Poverty alleviation and women’s uplift through an NGO which gives out loans to women through microfinance.
These subjects take me to Pakistan twice a year and give me the opportunity to interact with Pakistanis from various segments of society. My wife was also in Pakistan but on a different mission. She brought back handicraft made by poor women so that she could sell them here and make money for similar women, so that they can be helped to get educated and to acquire skills.
Impact of US policies from the perspective of ordinary Pakistanis.
In a recent survey conducted by Gallup, it was revealed that the US is most unpopular in three countries. These countries being Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. After Israel , Egypt is the largest recipient of US aid and considered an ally. Pakistan also received substantial aid and is considered an ally. Saudi Arabia receives military aid and equipment and is also an ally. We are therefore most unpopular with those that we aim to help. Next in line of unpopularity is Turkey, another ally. If we look at the case of Pakistan, it would give us some clues to what we are doing wrong that even our friends are unhappy with us. Here are five important points.
1. Killing Democracy in Pakistan by supporting dictators and yes men. Unlike Pakistan’s neighbor India who decided a long time ago that being an ally of the US was not in their best interest but that building up a democracy was, Democracy has not been allowed to take root in Pakistan. I do not wish to leave an impression that the US alone bears responsibility for the absence of democracy in Pakistan but we can see a common thread in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, none of which is a democratic country and we know how the US killed democracy in Iran. To this day the US proclaims itself to be a champion of Democracy while actively destroying it in those countries that look to it for guidance.
2. The unnecessary killing of women and children and other innocent people by drone attacks and other aerial bombings. The so called high value targets who get killed are quickly replaced by others who are more hard line and what is left therefore are just innocent bodies, distraught widows and orphaned children. It will only take one person to emerge from this carnage as the new Osama Bin Laden.
3. Making Pakistan a dependant and pariah nation. Dependant on the IMF and US aid. Pakistan continues to remain on the edge of Bankruptcy. It has a mushrooming population, not enough energy for its needs ( I used to be without electricity everyday for at least four to five hours and sometimes eight. It was much worse in the villages) galloping inflation and no plans for the future except to live from hand to mouth. The common man sees the hand of The US in forcing valuable resources to be diverted to the military and away from education, health and infrastructure.
4. Making Pakistan fight an American war and creating conditions of a civil war, with Pakistanis killing Pakistanis. The rise of religious extremism in Pakistan is a tool freely used by Pakistani politicians as well as American planners. Religious extremists are well funded, well armed and well motivated to continue dividing a society which only wants peace and to be able to get o with their lives. Many people are beginning to wonder that it might be better to side with these extremists if the real enemy is America and not the extremist. After all the extremists are also demanding that US forces quit Pakistan.
5. The perception that the US is waging a war against Islam is strengthened by the number of Muslim countries that the US has recently attacked and the others that it wishes to attack. The common man does not fail to see to see the common thread in US Policy and believes that Pakistan will be attacked at some future date not because it bears any animosity to America but because it is Muslim.
For those people interested in knowing the reaction of Pakistanis to the Time Square would be bomber, the reactions run from one of total denial to those who see it as a CIA plot. Such is the mistrust of the US that the average Pakistani goes for all sorts of conspiracy theories rather than believe what is reported in the press.
How do peace activists respond to allegations that Pakistan is training militants to harm US Interests.
Historically the Taliban are a joint creation of the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Putting guns into the hands of Muslim extremists was our idea. This was part of the plan to defeat the Soviet Union and bring down communism. It succeeded wildly but all the cost of this success has been laid at the footsteps of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan has been lost to a civil war for 30 years and Pakistan has inherited 4 million Afghan Refugees , a gun culture and porous borders with Afghanistan. People are quick to blame these countries for terrorism and no one acknowledges the debt owed by the so called free world to the people of these countries. These countries are the true martyrs as they continue to bleed and their people continue to suffer. They will never be able to hold their heads high again amongst the comity of nations because they stand accused of corruption, mismanagement and breeding terrorism and not as warriors who shed their blood fighting communism.
The Lashkae Tayyaba and the Jaishi Mohammadi are people trained and bred by the Pakistan Army as freedom fighters to support the struggle of the Kashmiri people against the brutal suppression of their people by a 500,000 strong Indian Army. They were diverted at the request of The US to fight in Afghanistan. How do these people feel when they are asked to turn their guns against their own people the very people who they fought side by side against the Soviets. How would they feel when suddenly American guns are trained against them ? How would they feel when they went from good guys to bad guys in sixty seconds?
The US walked away after the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead of building up an impoverished and decimated nation, left it to the warlords former, friends and supporters to sort it out by letting the fittest survive. They allowed India and Pakistan to fight a proxy war using Afghanistan as a battle ground. So who abandons friends like this, only a people whose definition of self interest is I am alright jack, the rest can go to hell. So who has the right to call anyone else corrupt.
We like to believe in making things simple and seeing things in black and white in saying you are with us or against us but do we realize how much suffering we cause to our own friends and how much we are responsible for creating enemies where none existed before.
No one in Pakistan or Afghanistan for that matter had wished to harm America but I cannot say that this is true anymore. There are a lot of very angry people in Pakistan (and Afghanistan). There are more people in Afghanistan than Pakistan who have lost loved ones but we must remember that the Pushtun in Pakistan are the same people as the Pushtun in Afghanistan. If they feel that the only way to bring the message home to America is to kill the loved ones of America then they will be tempted to do so.
For eight years Americans have known that the man sitting in the White house has been following a policy based on lies, deceit and a violation of all the principles that we believe in. During his period, American credibility and prestige have been hurt perhaps irreparably. We have demolished countries and decimated their people all in the name of American security and we have created enemies where none existed before. In short we have made the world a less safer place for Americans. Having said this we now see a man who we struggled hard to elect, following the exact same policies oblivious to the harm they are doing to America, its friends and the rest of the world. Clearly it is the interests of the Military Industrial complex that seems to take precedence over everything else. Not content with destroying the US Economy, destroying Iraq, destroying Afghanistan and supporting an Apartheid regime in Israel we now want to open another front in Iran and try to destroy that country also.
I only wish to say that the policies that we have followed for the last 10 years are not in the interests of this country and unless we can do something to elect people who represent us and our interests and not those of big money we are doomed as a nation and as a People.
What can the US Peace movement learn in its approach to US policy in Pakistan?
1. Giving aid to countries which only makes them dependant is not in the interest of those countries, including Pakistan. The whole matter of Aid needs to be reviewed and revisited.
2. Using force to resolve problems only alienates people particularly our friends. The use of force has only helped to destroy countries and not build them. The US is getting a reputation as a destroyer of countries and not as a builder. We live in a past where we like to remind people look how we help to rebuild Germany and Japan. Look at how we saved Europe from the Nazis but we forget that this was a very long time ago. Ever since we became the world’s sole super power, we seem to have become nasty and dictatorial.
3. Owning up to our own mistakes seems to be a problem for us. It some how goes against the grain of seeing ourselves as the good guys who can do no wrong or if we do wrong then our intentions were good and therefore it is not a crime in the same category as the wrongs of the other side. Unfortunately there is no other side. Our enemies are non states. We are fighting in many cases shadows of our own imagination. We are drumming up excuses to keep our war machine happy. While we are doing all this we are neglecting our own country. The one trillion spent in Iraq and similar amounts spent in other parts of the world could have helped us resolve our domestic issues. There is rampant economic injustice, our Banks are bankrupt and need massive financial aid, Our health system is captive to the Insurance Industry and we end up spending 18% of GDP on a health system which leave a huge number of American uninsured. Our Social Security system is bankrupt and above all we are the largest creditor nation in the world with no hope of ever repaying our debts. Unemployment has remained at a little below 10% with no sign of improving, the stock market has finally recognized that the future is bleak. So instead of attending to our problems here why are we killing innocent people in Afghanistan and creating a situation where we will end up spending huge amounts of money on security.
Conclusion
We are living in a world which has suddenly shrunk not in terms of population but the impact that an individual can have on events. The forces that want an unequal world are right now in charge. They are rich and powerful beyond words. Those of us who wish to focus on Justice above everything else are the subjugated and the powerless. Let us make no mistake about it. The powerful can crush the powerless like we crush ants under our boots. All that the powerless have to do is to stand up as one for a better world. We have seen how first in Vietnam and now in Afghanistan the weaker party was able to withstand the full might of the most powerful nation in the world. Ultimately America has been weakened inextricably from its futile wars. I do not believe that we have learnt our lesson and so it is even more necessary that we renew our efforts to stop this craziness.
I am only saying today what Martin Luther has already said 43 years ago.
“Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.”
Ladies and gentlemen we must not only move one, we must try to stop this madness.
