My latest contribution to The Frontier Post (thefrontierpost) :-) thefrontierpost/article/44572/ Below is the edited version that reads better:-)) Conflicts in peace Khalid Hussain When it is too confusing to understand, no one may afford leaving common sense behind. Everyone does not know how long is it that their celebration over "the unprecedented transfer of democratic power that has taken place in Pakistan", is supposed to last. That is if one is to take this Prime Ministerial expectation from his democratic citizens expressed yet once again now in New York where Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif addressed an expensive audience invited by the Pakistan embassy. Staying put without a known agenda or any meetings meaningful only in their absence—save with President Rouhani of Iran wherein both broke no new ground—is not what prime ministers do. And what is the fun in making a lack-luster speech at the UN General Assembly without recall to any of the multiple national and international legal conventions. There was no threat to invoke procedures that travel. The hollow gram, they say, sounds loud. Whatever else may happen, it is now clear we are not moving court against illegal US drone strikes; at least not for the time being. The pledge at the now eagerly forgotten APC and fidelity to its consensus has now been manifested with this speech at the UNGA and no one is supposed to take any further Panga (a Punjabi street coinage from Lahore city encompassing all or any challenge to match)! Desiring peace has been his most favorite diplomatic sport although no one has actually seen him play. All we have seen in the past is him walking the stadiums wearing fresh athletic uniforms but never joining any matches or scoring anything. Now the Indians have kept mum whether or not there is a scheduled meeting to take place between our two prime ministers. The Foreign Office in Pakistan has likewise never committed itself specifically to any dates or agenda. The meeting, now we are told in Pakistan, is expected on Sunday. Does that mean we are desperate for peace? But pray what is the actual agenda? Why is it pressing just now? Can it not wait a bit more as it has always done? There is little substantial proof to base any planned future moves around peace between India and Pakistan. Timing cannot get worse for an Indian Prime Minister to accept anything less than what voters would expect from his party in elections. That India has been tilting to the political right is visible in the rise of fundamentalists defining democratic moods with their anti-Pakistan jingoism. PM Singh has not at all been known to have been recently keen on having a meeting unless what they demanded in Bishkek was accepted. Now the National Security and Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Pakistani Prime Minister led those parleys with his Indian counterpart. Little specific is known on what India expects Pakistan to do and vice versa. All we can do is surmise from available general knowledge. Timing has meaning in everything and perhaps most in diplomacy. Since wishes are never horses, peace continues to struggle against structural hurdles. What is the compulsion for Pakistan to so urgently seek a peace that has yet to exist defies common sense. Surely, Pakistan cannot be afraid India might attack. Wars are not fought with expensive guns but men putting lives on line for hearts are set on victory. As a state wishing peace, our national security paradigm has only been defensive. One imagines it remains as strong as always for it is not the chief but the jawaan and afsar that ensure continuity in faithful service to the nation. The reverse, actually should have been the case and India must make the moves to seek peace for it is to their immediate as well as long term interest. However, they would certainly choose a better time if they were at all serious. Why are they jumping into a diplomatic unknown right before going into a hot Indian election ahead? That they are moving to keep step in their complex diplomatic dance with the Americans is rather plain in the stern manner in which the Indians have been asking for peace this time around! And that is a compulsion which Pakistan also shares. But then this is not the only diplomatic driver for either because 48 other nations with lots of diplomatic leverage in the sub-continent have their soldiers in NATO on their Afghanistan duty tour. The most prominent among these are the English closely followed not by the French, who are very much there, but Germany; the most anxious of rich European states eager to get out of the Afghanistan war as fast as possible without further ado. The British play as Team America as the French also do nowadays. The only anomally appears the English getting set for a much longer stay. This is not palatable to their NATO allies, be it only yet, that is if history is any proof of future. This is the known source of urgency in diplomatic times around peace talks between India and Pakistan. It is also well known the contention in this round might have begun in Kashmir but a resolution is being demanded through concessions in Afghanistan through Pakistan! India also wants Pakistan to handover people they wish to prosecute for the Mumbai attacks. This is besides the free trade agreement that comes with a Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for India giving it clear right of passage to Afghanistan and beyond. This is a backdrop that is all fiery red with ongoing shelling between our two armies across the Line of Control since August 06 when artillery fire was exchanged for the first time since 2002 as relations with India had soured in the wake of terrorist attack on their Parliament then. This is certainly no stage for pigeons to consort or where symbolically consummated souls at peace could fly off to applause. India has its commercial compulsions and internal confusions to address. Pakistan has too many problems least of which is not the fact that we have a hydra-state with known civilian and military domains of continuity. This is the basic confusion that only goes on to get foggier as we travel any deeper. Details get apparent in the obvious conflict of interests manifest in the civilian and military actions since the already best forgotten All Parties Conference earlier this month in Islamabad. Both sides of the state do not seem to agree and appear to follow contradictory interest trajectories like the almost helpless desire by our Prime Minister to wrought peace; somehow or the other. One can imagine the desperation of the new head of the government that is firmly established on the debt treadmill and bankers are known to ask for unwieldy deliverables for cash which gets worse when your needs cannot wait. This is the context in which India expects Pakistan to "handover" without ever wishing to follow any acceptable legal procedures what to say of agreeing to see any review of their case from other perspectives. There is as much evidence available as everyone has got against everybody else which everyone knows is never enough. So Mumbai was a tragedy but it has become a political symbol for the rising fundamentalist political forces in India. But then this is not our problem. Our problem is clarity. Confusion is never fine. Terror is the height of confusion. We have lived with it not since 9/11 but since the very beginning of the Great Game in Afghanistan in early the 1970s. The Army is no Establishment. The cluelessness of the Prime Minsiter is proof his not being part of any such body either. As a matter of fact, there is no Establishment in Pakistan today. There exist clubs and networks of selfish interests but no distillation of any group agreeing over and ensuring norms for either of the two halves of our state. This is, perhaps, our real tragedy. ENDS.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 08:49:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015