Pak Tea House » Uncategorized » Our ‘brotherly’ friends
Our ‘brotherly’ friends
Raza Rumi
Thanks to sensational reporting on WikiLeaks, the relationship of Pakistan with Saudi Arabia has been spotlighted. We have known of ideological links between radical Islamic groups and their Saudi patrons for a long time. However, this has never been debated due to the status the Saudi monarchy enjoys in Pakistan. Criticising it constitutes sacrilege and the moment one even begins to raise a question, the proponents of the ‘warm’ and ‘time-tested brotherly ties’ construe this as an attack on Islam. Let’s be clear: The House of Saud is a temporal, political entity and is not representative of spiritual Islam.
True that the Saudis have often bailed us out and we are dependent on their largesse. But this is not a benign relationship. Pakistan has witnessed the rise of Wahabi-Salafi ideology in the public space. Pakistan’s Islamic pluralism has been under attack for the last three decades. The rise of sectarianism and the mushrooming of militant groups have made us a society bruised by intolerance and violence. Sadly, the state has been giving space to ideologues demanding the imposition of one-version of the Shariah, often at its own expense.
First, it was the financing of madrassas in the 1980s — jihad factories to counter the infidel Russians. Since then, the jihad industry has flourished. In this process, the Pakistani state has become hostage to ever-splintering militant outfits. Presidents have been targets, civilian law-enforcement agencies have been attacked in every province and the GHQ was raided last year. For many Pakistanis, reports on Saudi individuals financing these groups are disturbing. It is also alarming to know that the US is more concerned about instability in Pakistan in the wake of an attack on Iran than Saudi Arabia!
We are shy of talking about how our migrant labour is treated, or how pilgrims are received in our friendly country. For Pakistanis, there is contempt and ridicule, which is contrary to Islam’s egalitarianism. We cannot continue as a playground for anti-Shia politics nor should we let al Qaeda financiers use our country for their agendas. If our elitism and failure to achieve sustainable economic development makes us vulnerable to foreign ‘diktat’, then it is time to change our policy priorities.
President Zardari, for all his shortcomings, is committed to combating extremism and faces grave threats. Foreign-funded forces are ruthlessly hunting the ANP as well. If you add the MQM to this matrix, then the greatest political threat to a monolithic Islamicist agenda happens to be the democratic process. Understandably, a cable reveals the preference for military rule by our Saudi patrons.
Those who have been drumming up the Hindu, Jewish and American Taliban may wish to focus on militancy financed by Islamic-friendly countries. We need to choose friends who serve our national interest and not use us as a sectarian client.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 7th, 2010.
Filed under: Uncategorized · Tags: attack, Islam, Pakistan, Saudi
11 Responses to "Our ‘brotherly’ friends"
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Is it not interesting that our most true, trustworthy, tested, loyal and brotherly friend has been a country that not only is not an “Islamic Republic”, not even a Muslim-majority country, but rather an absolutely secular country – China.
Bin there is a reason…you gave away Aksai chin and much more….The guys just love you thats all…If I were to give them arunachal, they will dump you any day trust me. but I wont give AN INCH to anyone
the administrators of PTH should take notice that the sharing facilities of pth’s blog( email,facebook,twitter) are not present on this new site.this is preventing sharing any interesting article with friends.
additionally PTH’S facebook page has stopped functioning ( the new articles aren’t being uploaded in the newsfeed section).kindly use tribune’s or dawn’s facebook feature where all articles are seperately visible in the newsfeed section rather than the network blog thing showing 1 article & in the fine print below a line saying 2,3,4 more articles avialable.
@Prasad (December 12, 2010 at 12:35 am)
I can appreciate that you’re trying to settle you own scores with China, through a debate that is relevant primarily to Pakistan. What I was trying to say is that inspite of a complete lack of commonality on the plane of religion, China has proved to be a more reliable friend of Pakistan than most Muslim-majority countries.
From wikileaks it has become quite evident Saudi prefer your trigger happy Paki Army and for obvious reason.
Now if you want to save Pakistan then the best you can do is go China way, become a communist. The Power is shared among every body. Everybody is happy , Army gets its share. The problem with Pakistan is that no body wants to share power. Now if you become communist then it means every one is in power. China should be very willing to finance your transition from so called democracy to communism. Only thing that could be make this transition nearly impossible would be Pakistan’s obsession with religion. Pakistan can evolve a special communist ideology where religion has its own place but is not all overpowering. Basically if every one is in power then no one can abuse religion for its own benefit. I am quite sure this would not better Pakistan’s relationship with India which every Indian like me would want. And this transition would no way weapon Pakistan militarily. Pakistan can follow China’s economic model,since it is nearer to oil rich states it can very easily
transform it self in a manufacturing Hub.
If Pakistan is not ready to take this path then fellow Blogger and Mr. Rumi Saheb i only see hell fires for Pakistan at the end of Tunnel.
Very well written
@Bin Ismail: Is it not interesting that our most true, trustworthy, tested, loyal and brotherly friend has been a country that not only is not an “Islamic Republic”, not even a Muslim-majority country, but rather an absolutely secular country – China.
It’s true that in international relations there are no friends – only interests. Be under no illusion that China will act in any way that contravenes it’s interests. As it should.
Too bad that intellectual wasteland called KSA should have the trillions of petrodollars to grease it’s monkey tricks. Also, Indians and Pakistanis should wake up to how the Saudis perceive subcontinental Muslims: as woolly-headed sufis; part of 3rd-world ummah; good for menial labor; not Arab you see. Nothing would thrill me more than the world kicking it’s oil-addiction and causing these bedouin tribals to go back to being camel-jockeys. Pisses me off to see these old Saudi geezers in their airy parachutes, marry young Indian women. Pisses me off that we take dictation from illiterate fools.
Sorry for the rant. The injustice of illiterate, lazy dunces holding far smarter people in thrall is just too much to stomach.
Hey Libertarian,
I’m an Indian who has lived in the middle-east. This is kind of off topic, but I genuinely don’t understand why the Indian govt isn’t more assertive about protecting its workers in the gulf (black gold and all). The kind of treatment meeted out to our compatriots who work as domestics and labourers (or even sometimes people in the service sector) is apalling. A couple of attacks on students in Australia (which could have been opportunistic and not racially motivated) makes the whole Indian media go ballistic- while this has been going on for decades on a massive scale, directed towards Indians and pakistanis. It does stem from a sense of racial superiority, and as you say, in these countries the notion of any kind of Islamic brotherhood being observed is farcical. With all this talk about our economic prowess and our potential superpower status etc, I have yet to hear our govt even register a protest; and apart from the moral dimension, surely they can now afford to? Even middle class indian/paki professionals living in the gulf dont seem terribly perturbed by the way thier compatriots are treated; they’re quite comfortable living thier cushiony lifestyle.
@libertarian (December 13, 2010 at 12:05 pm)
“…..Be under no illusion…..”
I assure you, I am under no illusion whatsoever. The point I was trying to make was that Pakistan’s own experience of international relations testifies to the fact that religion has had a very little role to play.
Regards.
@Mayubelle: Indian politicians will privately say it’s rational. Don’t want alienate the Muslim vote – would be great to test that hypothesis. Plus Indians and Pakistanis in the middle east are not squealing the way they should. Most likely because it’s much more than they had in the home country, and also because it would not shift the dial.
Instead of protesting and trying to fix an basically broken society, better to make what we can from them now, and then jump ship when it starts taking in water. Which will happen in the next 10-20 years because oil will be reduced to a commodity (from a strategic commodity) and because they have not invested in their exploding population. They’re going to have a young illiterate, incompetent population with a giant entitlement mentality. They’re much more likely to have a French-style revolution than any other place on earth. And they will richly deserve it.
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