By Agha Iqrar Haroon
Compromising state interests and gaining domestic political mileage by risking international relations has been an ingredient of PTI politics. We have seen how PTI meddled with Pak-China relations in reference to the CPEC project when it was in power and how it played havoc with US-Pak relations when it was voted out from the government. Therefore, the letter written by its former Federal Minister Dr. Shireen Mazari to the UN to penalize Pakistan for Human Right violation is not a surprise to me and it is not her first letter to the UN and might not be the last one.
Her first letter to the UN was reported on May 4, 2022. In this letter former Human Rights minister demanded special rapporteurs of the UN for their intervention to cease the Pakistani government’s “misuse of the blasphemy law” against Imran Khan and senior PTI leaders. I believe that there is no punishment available for the PTI cadre in Pakistan and that is what everybody knows within the party. The sitting federal government did not take any action against her because I understand that the federal government also knows that it cannot touch PTI walas; the reasons are best known to almost everybody who follows court reporting in Pakistan.
Do we remember she gave a statement about the French government and then she had to delete her Twitter statement after receiving an exceptionally harsh reaction from French Embassy? When she wrote her first letter to the UN against Pakistan, she was neither confronted by the government nor any action taken against her; encouraging her to keep her practice continues.
If we browse the history of the PTI regime and the havoc it played with foreign affairs, we came to know that almost none of the friendly country was spared by the PTI.
I still remember that former minister Murad Saeed who held the office of Federal Minister for Communications and Federal Minister for Postal Services kept mentioning that there was large-scale corruption involved in CPEC projects during PMLN 2013-2018 rule. His statements made serious embarrassment for the Chinese who had to clarify again and again that no corruption was found in CPEC. After such allegations, the CPEC went to a “go slow” pace. He then got the first prize for performance among all federal ministers.
The former Prime Minister Imran Khan when he was sitting in PM Office had been crying that western countries were behind the Vote of No Confidence motion against his government and then we all know what happened out of the cipher fiasco. Sitting in PM’s Office, the former PM criticized western countries indicating that they were hatching conspiracies against him because he said No to them to stand with western countries over the Ukraine issue and he told them “Absolutely Not”. This statement definitely helped the ruling party domestically and politically but its consequences at the diplomatic level were too far-reaching.
In her article titled “Diplomatic Cadre Make Bridges—Politicians Break Bridges” published in March 2022, a Prague-based author of books and foreign affairs expert Shazia Anwer Cheema who is a doctoral student of semiotics and philosophy of communication at Charles University in Prague wrote that she was not ready to buy the justification of our politicians being illiterate, having no diplomatic wisdom, and lacking in a higher perspective. This cannot be a justification to face the diplomatic blunders they made. The world does not understand our internal inability to hold an important office, they cannot grasp the magnitude of incompetence our government (the then PTI government) was showing.
She further wrote that comments about different countries without any advice are (were) providing ample ground to our enemies to nurture hate-infused disrespect for our spokesmen. Another grey that is being ignored is that no one will take us seriously because what we say is not even worth a bar brawl. Citing a suggestion from Aristotle she added that Aristotle advised his pupil Alexander the Great of Macedonia never pass a comment against any other nation (creed, caste, race, ethnicity, state/country) unless you live with them and once you live with them, you will know who they are. Once you will know them, they will listen to you what you say otherwise they will call you Just a fool who knows nothing about them. Citing a statement of former interior minister and Railway Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad in which he said that Hungary, Albania, and Yugoslavia (former) had excellent road networks but no jobs for people. She stated that his statement was taken very seriously in eastern European media and there was a flood of reaction against Pakistan. In her concluding para she was of the view that PTI leadership had no respect for anybody and we should remember that she wrote this article when PTI was in power (March 2022). She was right that PTI had no respect for anybody even not for the country and power-hungry PTI leadership is playing havoc with state institutions and the country by demanding international bodies like United Nations take action against Pakistan. Alas, this is not India but our politicians who are demanding action against Pakistan. According to some unconfirmed news items PTI had hired a US firm and I fear PTI can assign the anti-Pakistan campaign to such firms later or sooner.
Whatever PTI leadership is doing with state institutions it was unimaginable in past and former Prime Minister Imran Khan had crossed all limits of political decency. Nobody in the history of Pakistan had ever abused, taunted, and challenged the Pakistan Army in such a derogatory way as Imran Khan had been doing so but such behavior of PTI had yet not faced the consequences that several politicians and political parties in Pakistan had to face in past without doing anything wrong. The PTI is not only instigating the public to stand against Pakistan Army rather it is demanding help from foreign powers like UN agencies to take action against Pakistan. I personally believe that Imran Khan is the greatest political accident that has ever taken place in our history. Unfortunately to say that this accident was nurtured by the state institutions for decades. One shar (verse) written in the 50s by Qabil Ajmari answers today’s situation is two-fold. Qabil writes:
Vaqt kartā hai parvarish barsoñ
Hādisa ek dam nahīñ hotā
(Time nurtures accident for years therefore accident does not occur abruptly).
Qabil’s opinion that accidents do not occur abruptly and time nurtures them actually a simple explanation of the “Theory of Cause-Effect Inference” which describes that at least two causes are needed for an effect to take place and then effect changes into cause for the corresponding effect. This process is also known as “Causality” and “Causation” in political philosophy. We find the best explanation of “Causation” in Aristotelian philosophy. He says that “cause” is an “explanation” or “answer to a “why” question. He says everything happens due to a cause. Further explanation of this theory indicates that there must be more than one cause for any effect. There is no doubt that Aristotle’s explanation is lengthy and somehow difficult to explain. He categorizes the four types of causes include material, formal, efficient, and final. Since we cannot find always a logical linkage between cause and effect and one cause can correspond to different effects in different circumstances therefore philosophy places the issue of cause and effect in the domain of “metaphysics” instead of “logic”. One must not forget that the entire Causation Chain (conversion of effect into the cause of the corresponding effect) has the same essence. Therefore, if the first cause is based on “bad”, the entire chain shall never bring “good”. Therefore, in metaphysics (for example in mysticism), we believe one should do a good deed that will bring another good and this chain will continue.
Whatever PTI is doing with Pakistan was written yesteryears on the wall but we always wait for accidents to happen— This is what our history is.
