Confronting the world?
By Rasul Bakhsh Rais

The world has changed in every significant way and is changing more rapidly with a very profound impact on our economies, climate, societies, values and mostly importantly, on politics. The international world today is about connectivity, regional and global integration and uninterrupted flow of information, trade and peoples across national boundaries — regulated by law and agreements. The basic premise of international cooperation is that the wellbeing and prosperity of every nation depends on openness and connectivity with others, starting with its immediate neighbours. The opposite of this is isolation — rejecting others would naturally result in others rejecting us.

Stopping Nato supplies that sustain troops of 47 countries in Afghanistan is a confrontational stance on the part of Imran Khan and his PTI. Maybe it is a symbolic protest and might end in a day or two, but the message it would send to the large number of countries involved will further damage the image of our nation, which is already very bad. The blockade won’t starve the Nato troops in Afghanistan or seriously impact their mission. Nor would it hurt their war efforts that are on a very low scale, as they have started winding down their military engagement. By all indications, they are on the way out.

Imran Khan has been consistent in his opposition to drone strikes for good reasons — innocent lives lost along with the terrorists, fear and insecurity in the tribal regions and more importantly, angering the local population and fuelling militancy. These are very valid reasons and his cause against the drone strikes has found a lot of support in the humanist and genuinely liberal sections of the world population. Pakistani ‘liberals’, of course, don’t think the way the rest of the liberal world thinks and it is not surprising that those of them commenting on the media sing praises for the drones because some of the missiles fired by drones, according to them, have landed on the ‘right’ heads. My view is that it is morally wrong to cause death and destruction to peaceful, civilian populations, and it doesn’t serve any long-term objectives of our national security either. Just imagine the anger of the tribes losing their loved ones. In this region, it never ends unless an offence is avenged. Since the drones and their button-pushers are invisible and remote, the tribes have taken on the Government of Pakistan and security forces.

Having said this, blocking roads and leading major protests on the roads is not the right strategy. In many ways, what Imran Khan has done will hurt Pakistan more than it would help. It seems Imran is taking the too familiar and convenient route of populism — saying and doing things that would please peoples and garner support — than making hard and rational choices. Why is his road occupation strategy a wrong strategy? With the much desired democratic transition having taken place in Pakistan, it seems we are moving fast into a protest political culture. Protest culture has badly damaged many countries in the world and in our case, with so many polarisations and conflicts, it will be disastrous. Today, it’s one political party, tomorrow, it could be another and this could be parallel to water and power riots and religious factions taking to the streets and on their way, damaging public and private property. Leaders of major political parties must establish different standards of conduct and stand out from the rest, rather than follow the popular current such as Imran appears to be doing.

I admire Imran’s courage, optimism and confidence but at the same time, I am worried about him flowing with the popular wave of anti-Americanism and anti-Western attitudes. Any seasoned politician would be more pragmatic, wired to the world and bold enough to defy popular sentiments than contribute to confrontation with the world. That will not serve Pakistan’s interests.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2013.