Monday, September 3, 2018
#LaborDay - Unions in the 21st century: A potent weapon against inequality
The topic of economic inequality can appear complex, with many nuanced causes and outcomes. But while the two of us actively engage in that debate, we also strongly believe that there is one overarching factor that must not be, but often is, overlooked: worker bargaining power. On Labor Day, this problem of the long-term decline in workers’ ability to bargain for a fair share of the growth they have helped generate deserves a closer look.
There is, of course, a direct link between less worker clout and the decline in union coverage. In addition to directly empowering workers at the workplace, unions have played a central role in the drive for a wide variety of policy measures to ensure that everyone benefits from prosperity, which is the opposite outcome of rising inequality. This list includes Social Security, Medicare, paid family leave, civil rights legislation, fairer tax policy and higher minimum wages.
This view has been further buttressed by recent research using new data showing a strong connection between union strength and a more equal distribution of income (see figure), a link that makes the sharp decline in union membership over the past four decades particularly disturbing.
This decline has not been an accident. The right has quite explicitly targeted unions with an array of anti-union policies, the most recent of which have been “right-to-work” laws. These prohibit contracts that require all the workers at a unionized workplace to share in the cost of representation.
The impact of anti-union policy can be seen by the differing experiences of Canada and the United States over this period. While the unionization rate in the United States dropped from roughly 20 percent in the late 1970s to just over 10 percent most recently, unionization rates in Canada have edged down only slightly over this period and still exceed 31 percent.
The fact that unions continue to thrive in a country with a very similar culture and economy indicates that there is nothing inevitable about the decline in unions in the United States. It was deliberate policy.
Given that powerful, vested interests are behind the decline in unions, reversing this decline will be a serious challenge, one that requires worker-friendly policies and new forms of worker representation, such as centralized bargaining. For example, instead of organizing one restaurant at a time, unions must push for collective bargaining rights for restaurant workers across their industry. It also will require reaching out to all types of workers, not just those in construction, factories or lower-paid services.
Two decades ago, we worked together at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). EPI was and is a great place to work, but we felt it was important for the staff to gain an institutionalized voice. We helped organize a union that affiliated with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE, Local 70).
The process of organizing was interesting, because many of our co-workers at EPI thought of themselves as professionals for whom unions really didn’t make much sense. After much discussion, everyone came to agree that a union was a good idea. The vote for the union was unanimous. (We are also pleased to report that management was fully cooperative and happy to respect our decision.)
Since then, Local 70 has organized a number of Washington-based nonprofits. It now has well over 300 members. If some current organizing drives succeed, Local 70, which has since been restructured as the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU), will have more than 500 members.
We are well aware that in a labor force of more than 150 million, 500 workers isn’t exactly a game-changer. But the journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step. It is essential that unions make inroads into the types of workers organized by NPEU if they are to regain the sort of influence and power they had in prior decades.
Unions will continue to be important in traditional strongholds such as manufacturing and construction. But as the workforce becomes more educated, a powerful union movement will need to include many workers with college and advanced degrees.
If that sounds peculiar, in countries such as Denmark and Sweden, which have a far more equal distribution of income than the United States, more than 70 percent of the workforces are represented by unions. In these countries, it is the norm for people working in white-collar jobs, including many with college degrees, to be represented by unions.
The United States may never approach Scandinavian rates of unionization, but if we are even going to get back to 1970 rates, unions will have to make inroads into new areas. Part of that story has to mean organizing professional workers. On this day in particular, we proudly recall our small contribution to this effort.
#LaborOnLaborDay - Our cruel #LaborDay tradition: We mistreat the workers we celebrate
MATTHEW ROZSA
Labor Day become a national holiday in the 19th century, but a number of important battles still need to be fought.
There is a cruel irony to our celebration of Labor Day in 2018 — one that, given the holiday's history, is perhaps appropriate.
The push for a national holiday honoring working people began in the mid-1880s, when a number of municipalities passed ordinances recognizing it as a holiday within their jurisdictions. By the end of that decade, eight states had also passed laws recognizing Labor Day, including Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania. By the time the federal government relented and made Labor Day into a national holiday in 1894, an additional 23 states had passed laws recognizing it as such on their own books.
Yet if you study the history of the late 19th century, you will notice that it was a period in which labor unions were very weak. It wasn't until the early 20th century that America had a Progressive Era — namely, a period in which social and economic reforms were implemented that attempted to restrain the excesses of capitalism. And that is where the parallels between American history from a century ago and American history today come into sharpest relief.
"Progressivism in the early 20th century was more than impulse and a movement," Eric Arnesen, Professor of Modern American Labor History and Vice Dean for Faculty and Administration at George Washington University, told Salon. "It had many different strands. But one of the strands, or one of the themes, was in the sense that unregulated capitalism and an unfettered market was producing a good deal of damage in American society. Environmental damage, damage to workers' bodies and minds, child labor-inflicted damage upon young people. And so there was a sense that unrestrained, unregulated capitalism, left to its own devices, would spin out of control. And it was giving rise to considerable social and political and labor unrest."
He added, "So reformers of various stripes banded together in different moments, in different movements, with different pieces of legislation to attempt to kind of rein in capitalism, as they saw it, run amok. And they put restrictions on it to try to sand off its rough edges, to regulate it so that it would work better and that it would not produce the social conflict that it was producing."
Arnesen also traced the history of progressive reform movements in the United States.
The Progressive Era was Stage One. The New Deal was Stage Two and went much further than the reforms of the Progressive Era. And then you fast forward to the late 20th century," Arnesen explained. "And from the 1970s onward, and this picks up speed in the 1980s with the Ronald Reagan administration, there are concerted efforts to dismantle aspects of the welfare state, of the New Deal order, to roll back various progressive reforms. And the notion that the market itself had been fettered, and that economic growth and development and wealth could be unleashed by unfettering the market, involved kind of a forgetting of why we had that regulation in the first place. And it transformed into a celebration of deregulation, of an unfettering of the market, and that meant rolling back environmental legislation, rolling back various banks and financial regulation, and of course rolling back labor legislation."These periods in American history are important to note. During the Progressive Era Americans gave women the right to vote, strengthened labor unions, began regulating big businesses to account for consumer rights or environmental protection and attempted to address issues like systemic poverty and urban blight. The New Deal era, which refers to the flurry of progressive legislation passed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt between the start of his presidency in 1933 and the onset of World War II, added programs that focused on providing relief for the unemployed, poor, elderly and individuals in economically vulnerable professions (like farmers); creating jobs through government action if and when necessary; regulating the financial system to prevent a repeat of the Great Depression (it is hardly a coincidence that the worst crash since 1929 occurred after many of those regulations were repealed); and implementing free trade policies that would expand market access to ordinary Americans.
After the New Deal, the last period of major progressive reform were the Great Society and War on Poverty programs pushed by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, which included landmark civil rights legislation for racial minorities, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and various protections for consumers and the environment.
Yet while the achievements of the 1930s and 1960s were more radical than those from the first two decades of the 20th century, that period is more analogous to the one facing Americans on Labor Day today.
"A number of people, commentators and others, have said that if you're sort of thinking about reform of any sort, the progressive era is the analogous moment, not the 1930s or even the 1960s," Nelson Lichtenstein, Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of California — Santa Barbara, as well as director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, told Salon. "The progressive era was a period of enormous immigration. It was also a period of enormous ethnic tensions. There was already the beginning of a restrictionist movement and racism was pretty strong then. At the same time, when it came to things like the labor movement, it had bursts of militancy but basically, institutionally, it was very weak. But at least there was a reform current."
He added, "While the Progressive Era was in fact the era of the Gilded Age — you had Carnegie and Rockefeller and enormous inequalities of wealth, just because it was called the Progressive Era doesn't mean that it disappeared, there were enormous inequalities of wealth."
As we celebrate Labor Day, it's important that we remember the lessons from American history as it existed 100 years ago. Even though Americans ostensibly honored labor through its celebration of Labor Day, the reality is that working class Americans only began to live in better conditions after they fought tooth and nail for necessary reforms. If we want to live in a better world — one where people are able to work normal hours and receive a decent income for doing so, in which the environment is protected and their products are safe and large corporations can't cause an economic crash through chicanery — then we need to realize that Labor Day as a holiday is not enough.
When it comes to our politics, every day has to be Labor Day.
#Pakistan - #PPP - Arif Alvi no match for Aitzaz Ahsan: Bilawal
Ahsan had come forward as attorney of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto when late President Ishaq Khan had implicated her in a fake case. He had then vowed that he would not allow Ishaq Khan to try Bhutto but would try him instead.
This he said while addressing PPP Senators, MNAs and MPAs of Sindh at Chief Minister’s House on Saturday evening. The address was held in connection to Ahsan’s presidential campaign. Zardari said that PPP’s nomination of Ahsan would be remembered in history. He added that their friends should realise that his victory would be tantamount to the victory of all liberal forces.
Zardari also said that Pakistan was facing serious challenges and hence the overall situation called for a practical manifestation of serenity and sanity.
PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also spoke on the occasion. He urged the legislators to vote for Ahsan and said that every effort was being made to ensure the unity of the opposition on a single agenda.
Bilawal said that the PPP would raise its voice over rigging in the general elections because political engineering and rigging would eventually cause the masses to lose their faith in the elections process. He said that when the opposition asked for a substitute in lieu of Ahsan for the office of President, they had offered no alternative. He added that there was no comparison of Ahsan with the candidate of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for the same office of President of Pakistan. The PPP chairperson said that it was the blessing of the democracy that three consecutive elections had been conducted in the country and power was transferred. He stated that Asif Ali Zardari had been the country’s most powerful President and it was the PPP’s grand act to transfer the President’s special powers to the Parliament and the Prime Minister.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the present government of PTI wanted to revoke the 18th constitutional amendment, which the PPP would oppose with full intensity.
The presidential candidate Aitzaz Ahsan, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali, Shah Faryal Talpur, Khursheed Shah, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, Qaim Ali Shah, Naveed Qamar and other party leaders were also present.
Saira Peter - Pakistan's First Opera Singer
The US-China Cold War is now playing out in Pakistan
By Johann Chacko
On Sept. 01, days before US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, were due to arrive in Islamabad, a Pentagon spokesman announced that the department of defense intended to permanently cut $300 million from funds allocated to support Pakistan in the fight against America’s enemies in Afghanistan.
So does this mean America and Pakistan are finally breaking up?
The short answer is no. As much as both states are fed up with each other, they remain far too co-dependent to simply walk away.
What we are seeing instead is a tough and protracted re-negotiation over the terms of the relationship. The question of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan is not necessarily the hardest issue; there might even be convergence given the greater realism in Washington, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad.
The far bigger question hanging over the Pompeo-Dunford visit is what India and Pakistan’s role will be in the emerging cold war between the US and China. Despite Pakistani hopes, China is not yet willing or able to spend what it takes to completely replace America as Pakistan’s primary strategic partner. US economic and financial cards remain hard to match, and the result, for the time being, is likely to be a series of compromises that are uncomfortable and dissatisfying for all parties.
The US government began paying Pakistan what it calls “Coalition Support Funds” (CSF) back in 2002, shortly after it began military operations against the Taliban. In theory, the CSF compensates Pakistan for specific costs incurred in deploying tens of thousands of additional troops to the Afghan border, and for the use of Pakistani airfields, ports, and roads to resupply American forces in Afghanistan.
The US government began paying Pakistan what it calls “Coalition Support Funds” (CSF) back in 2002, shortly after it began military operations against the Taliban. In theory, the CSF compensates Pakistan for specific costs incurred in deploying tens of thousands of additional troops to the Afghan border, and for the use of Pakistani airfields, ports, and roads to resupply American forces in Afghanistan.
In reality, the Americans treated the funds as a reward to cement a long-term commitment to its cause from the Pakistan Army in the face of deep and wide popular opposition over the violations of Pakistani national sovereignty and significant civilian casualties.
The Pakistani government became highly reliant on this funding—a congressional research service report in 2015 estimated that the $13 billion in disbursed CSF funds had paid for 20% of Pakistan’s military spending (especially food and ammunition). The Americans were willing to overlook what they suspected was creative accounting of the bills as long as Pakistan delivered results.
Over the last decade, the metric for results has shifted as trust in the Pakistan army within the Pentagon, Congress, and three successive White House administrations has plummeted. This shift accelerated after the “drawdown” of US forces in Afghanistan in 2014, which led to repeated bloody Taliban and Haqqani offensives, vexing and embarrassing Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisan professionals alike.
Over the last decade, the metric for results has shifted as trust in the Pakistan army within the Pentagon, Congress, and three successive White House administrations has plummeted. This shift accelerated after the “drawdown” of US forces in Afghanistan in 2014, which led to repeated bloody Taliban and Haqqani offensives, vexing and embarrassing Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisan professionals alike.
The Pentagon, with the support of Congress, retaliated with steep decreases in allocated military aid (at least 73%), as well as the conditional withholding of budgeted CSF “reimbursements” under Obama in 2016. In July 2017, under Trump, all CSF payments were frozen, and in January 2018 the allocation was cut by $700 million.
Put another way, the longer Pakistan resists American criticism, not only has it become harder to get those carrots, but the carrots have become much, much smaller.
Pakistan has not yet retaliated by squeezing US supply lines to Afghanistan, but it has not scaled back its covert support to the Haqqanis or the Afghan Taliban either. However, this cycle of denial and punishment may have an end in sight. Caught between converging US and Chinese interest in a peaceful and stable Afghan endgame, the Pakistani military appears to be more open to a settlement that Washington DC could live with.
For that matter, the US has begun quietly negotiating with the Taliban without any of the preconditions it previously held. All of this is likely to form a major element of Pompeo’s meetings with the new government of Imran Khan and general Dunford’s discussions with army chief general Qamar Javed Bajwa.
There is no doubt that many in New Delhi are concerned the result might be a settlement that allows the Taliban to retain arms and gain a share of the national government, while still remaining tethered to Rawalpindi. This draws attention to the larger truth that US-Pakistan relations (and even US-India relations) are more inextricably impacted by the state of US-China relations than ever before.
Pakistan’s urgent need for up to $12 billion in relief from its looming balance-of-payments crisis dwarfs the question of military aid and constitutes the strongest source of American leverage. Given the Trump administration’s determination to use all available means of persuasion, it is particularly significant that the US has not linked the bailout to questions of Afghanistan or terrorism, but instead to China’s role in Pakistan.
Just over a month ago, secretary Pompeo called for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reject Pakistan’s bailout request on the grounds that there was no need for American taxpayers to repay Beijing’s allegedly predatory lending underwriting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Pompeo’s statements must be understood in the context of the US National Security Survey that last year labeled China a “strategic competitor” engaged in “economic aggression.” One result has been the rapidly escalating multi-billion trade war that could damage both countries, the World Trade Organization, and the global economy.
Another result is the pressure on CPEC, the largest single component so far in president Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) intended to plug Eurasia into the Chinese economy, ensuring it an agenda-setting global role.
Pakistan hopes that China and Saudi Arabia might offer the financial relief that would provide an alternative to the IMF and American pressure. Although this is not the kind of role that China wants, an IMF bailout would lead to a disclosure of the highly secretive terms of CPEC deals, leading to renegotiation or even cancellation and undermining Beijing’s geo-economic goals.
This is an important moment for Chinese leadership as it decides what its BRI plans are worth, and what Pakistan is worth to those plans. Compromise between the two options is also possible; a limited form of additional Chinese assistance would reduce what was needed from the Saudis and the IMF, reducing American leverage on a range of issues. The status quo would limp on, but the result will be even greater Chinese influence in Pakistan.
As the battling winds from both Washington and Beijing pick up in intensity, and observers wonder who will win out, Pakistan’s historical role as the region’s weather-vane seems set to continue.
https://qz.com/india/1377225/the-us-china-cold-war-is-now-playing-out-in-pakistan/
Pakistan's Friend China is torturing Muslims, but Islamic Republic Pakistan is quiet. Here’s why
JYOTI MALHOTRA and SIMRIN SIRUR
There is Beijing’s United Nations Security Council membership, the CPEC, and the host of support Islamabad has received over the years.
New Delhi: China’s Muslim Uyghur population is said to be languishing in “re-education camps” in the country’s Xinjiang province, where they are stripped of their rights to practise Islam and forced to assimilate into the Chinese Communist culture.
Right next door is Pakistan, the world’s first avowedly Islamic state, which should have been at the forefront of protests against the crackdown, just as it routinely threatens to internationalise the situation in Muslim-majority Jammu & Kashmir.
Only last week, as a Dutch Right-wing lawmaker planned to organise a cartoon contest over the Prophet Mohammed, #OurProphetOurHonour trended on Twitter, and thousands of hardline Islamists sought to convince the newly installed Imran Khan government to cancel diplomatic relations with the Netherlands.
In the end, the Dutch politician cancelled the contest, but the question remained: Why doesn’t Pakistan invoke its “all-weather relationship” with China (“higher than the mountains, deeper than the seas and sweeter than honey” is the slogan leaders from both sides recite whenever they meet one another) to publicly castigate Beijing for its persecution of the million-strong Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang province?
“There is a China-Pakistan strategic nexus, a kind of stranglehold China has over Pakistan,” Ashok Kantha, former ambassador to China and director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, told ThePrint.
“Apart from the assistance for its nuclear and missile programme, Pakistan’s willingness to offer itself as a component of China’s larger strategic ambitions through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) flagship initiative, means that Pakistan looks upon China as a special ally,” he added.
Kantha pointed out that Pakistan would not want to “undermine this privileged relationship” by commenting on what is happening in Xinjiang. Interestingly, he added, the silence on China was true not only for Pakistan’s official establishment, but also society as a whole.
“Apart from the fact that this special relationship affects India, what is also new is that China is invested in the economic development of Pakistan in a manner that ensures the political stability of Pakistan,” Kantha added.
I scratch your back…
With the CPEC now being built at a cost of $62 billion from the Karakoram mountains in the north — just over the border from Xinjiang — to the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, the China-Pakistan client relationship seems to be complete.
“Pakistan is indebted to China for all manner of reasons. But none more than CPEC, which is treated by Pakistan like the goose that lays the golden egg,” China expert Jabin T Jacob, who works with the China Report magazine, told ThePrint.
Certainly, Pakistan relies upon China’s veto at the United Nations Security Council to bail it out of every uncomfortable spot.
Beijing, since 2016, has refused to allow a UN ban on Masood Azhar, the Jaish-e-Muhammad terrorist who has lived in Pakistan since his release after the hijacking of IC-814 in December 1999.
In return, Pakistan routinely targets, eliminates or hands over East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) militants to China.
Pakistan believes it is its Islamic duty to flag the persecution of Muslims anywhere in the world – the Rohingya in Myanmar, in Chechnya by the Russians, Bosnian Muslims rebelling against Serbs – except in China.
Similarly, Beijing remains unfazed by occasional criticism from UN bodies like the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), powerful pro-US organisations like the World Uyghur Congress, as well as bleeding-heart NGOs all over the world.
The silence against the persecuted Uyghurs becomes oppressive as you travel across the Arab world. From Saudi Arabia to the UAE to Egypt in the Maghreb, not one country speaks up.
This silence is wound up in the geostrategic games nations play. Xinjiang is at the heart of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
As it is the main port for all of China’s interactions with Europe, the Chinese are doing everything in their capacity to keep it calm and quiescent.
A massive propaganda exercise is underway to demonstrate that the Silk Road Economic Belt, BRI’s most visible leg that passes through Xinjiang to and from Europe, is a peaceful and stable route.
“China’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council, its economic weight and its extremely nimble diplomacy combine to keep the Uyghur issue off the radar in most countries,” Jacob said.
Yu Zheng Sheng, the Number 4 man in the Chinese Politburo in charge of Tibet and Xinjiang, Jacob pointed out, had visited Pakistan on the eve of the 19th Party Congress earlier this year to talk to Islamabad about the restive Tibetans and Uyghurs, respectively.
‘Double-trap approach’
Srikanth Kondapalli, professor of international affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University, pointed out that Islamic nations’ silence on China’s not-small Muslim population was also because “the narrative surrounding the Uyghurs itself follows a double-trap approach”.
“For the West, they are projected by the Chinese as terrorists trying to split the country,” Kondapalli said.
“The Muslim world sees them as pork-eating, alcohol-drinking liberal Muslims who do not integrate well with the behavioural norms of their own conservative nations,” he added.
Certainly, the Uyghurs have a problem. Because they have been part of Communist China for nearly 70 years, they have been forced to participate in the Communist Party’s atheist diktat.
This means that all overt allegiance to any religion is banned, and any religious practice, if at all, must be subject to the party’s control. Although, in recent years, some relaxation has taken place, and mosques, like Buddhist temples and churches, are beginning to be allowed.
Since the Chinese Communist Party, in 1949, took a leaf out of the doctrine prescribed by the former Soviet state, disavowal of religion especially meant a ban on all ritual relating to food, drink and personal habit.
Like Muslims in the former Soviet Union (who, for example, were forced to even Russify their names, with Mohammed becoming Mahomedov), Chinese Muslims were also forced to abandon their distaste for pork and alchohol – this was anathema to the rich, but conservative, Arab world.
Saudi Arabia led the campaign for the re-Islamisation of the five Muslim-majority Central Asian republics when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991.
China’s priority
But China, which learnt well the lessons from that disintegration, instead ramped up its economic strength while consolidating its territorial unity and integrity.
The control and consolidation of the Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Zhuang, Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu and several others of the 55 minority groups recognised by the Chinese Communist Party, led by Deng Xiaoping at the time, was well underway.
So, when the CERD recently released a report saying it was “deeply concerned” about the detainment of Uyghurs, both China and the rest of the world ignored it.
Just like it does findings of rampant torture in detention and “re-education camps” in Xinjiang by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), based in Washington DC and funded by the US National Endowment of Democracy – Uyghurs were forced to eat pork, and “compelled to make pledges to consume alcohol, smoke tobacco, and tell other Uyghurs about the evils of Islam”.
China itself has made no bones about its priority, which is to keep the territory of the People’s Republic together.
Beijing fears the Western world is using the instrument of human rights to weaken it. So, despite calls from the Dalai Lama for reconciliation and to follow the middle path, the Chinese deride him and call him “splittist”.
Despite large bilateral trade with Taiwan, Beijing threatens other nations with varying degrees of isolation for ties with Taipei.
At least two decades ago, the Chinese launched a war against the “three evils”, extremism, terrorism and separatism.
When the Tibetans or the Uyghurs occasionally revolted, Beijing never hesitated in implementing its “strike hard” policy. That is, any rebellion would be dealt with a heavy hand, including death.
The unequivocal message was that the Chinese state simply could not be challenged.
Lonelier after 9/11
Ryan Barry, spokesperson for the World Uyghur Congress, told ThePrint that the US, before the 9/11 attacks, refrained from describing the Uyghurs as “terrorists”, like the Chinese did.
Things changed afterwards. “In need of global partners in its own fight against terrorism at the time, the US accepted the Chinese narrative (on the Uyghurs), despite the fact it was not grounded in reality,” Barry said.
In 2009, in one of the worst bouts of violence in which close to 200 people were killed, the Uyghurs were systematically raided and targeted by Chinese authorities in a “strike hard” campaign.
As Xi Jinping’s BRI becomes China’s pet project today, Barry added, there is a “dramatic escalation in China’s persecution of the Uyghurs. It seeks to establish complete control”.
One of the reasons for the striking silence of the Muslim nations is that it is itself split down the middle. The Sunni Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have very bad relations with the leader of the Shia universe, Iran, which is happy to get even closer to its largest oil client, China, even as it is subject to serious sanctions by the Western world.
As for Indonesia, the nation with the largest Islamic population in the world, it is a neighbour of China and constantly grappling with other issues of sovereignty as well as trade with Beijing.
The games nations play
But Kondapalli, the JNU professor, also pointed towards China’s nimble diplomacy on the Uyghur issue, by treating its Muslim minorities differently.
“For example, the Chinese are happy to doubly marginalise the Uyghur in comparison with the Hui group of Muslims, which eat pork,” he said. “Unlike the Uyghur, which don’t, the Hui Muslims are seen to be more moderate,” Kondapalli added.
Still, as the Chinese transition to a wealthy nation and challenge America’s status as the most powerful nation, the Uyghurs will likely become another casualty in the games nations play.
As global confrontations sharpen and the Arab world, like everybody else, looks to protect its economic interests, it is unlikely to risk offending Beijing.
For the moment at least, the Uyghurs will have to learn to live on their own.
https://theprint.in/governance/friend-china-is-torturing-muslims-but-islamic-republic-pakistan-is-quiet-heres-why/110477/
Imran Khan’s govt in Pakistan prefers denying terrorism than learning lessons from 9/11
HUSAIN HAQQANI
Disregarding US terrorism concerns, Imran Khan’s govt wants to assure citizens all is okay in Pakistan with the ‘great Khan’ in charge.
It has been seventeen years since 9/11 and Pakistan’s expressed willingness to join the US-led war against terrorism. The dichotomies of Pakistan’s stance on terrorism have only become more exposed during this period instead of diminishing.
And now, once again, Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government have made it clear that engagement with the rest of the world will be based on posturing for domestic political advantage rather than addressing complex policy issues.
Khan’s selection as Prime Minister through a controversial election process is the result of a belief among a section of Pakistanis, including the country’s establishment, that Pakistan’s global isolation is solely the result of the corruption or incompetence of its politicians.
In reality, however, there are substantive differences that divide Pakistan and other countries. India, the European Union, and the US, for example, believe that Pakistan has not lived up to its promises in dealing with terrorism.
Thousands of civilian lives have been lost at the hands of terrorists, and many Pakistani soldiers have bravely fought the terrorists operating Pakistan. But that does not change the fact that the world sees Pakistan as a safe haven for Jihadis attacking India and the Taliban which is causing rampage in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s military efforts against the Pakistani Taliban was for many years praised by the US in the hope that it will subsequently be extended to the Afghan Taliban. But after fighting the Pakistani Taliban, and describing them as irreconcilable, Pakistan has yet to fire a single shot at the Afghan Taliban.
Khan and Pakistan’s establishment both now argue that talks with the Taliban is the only way forward in Afghanistan. If that is the case, Americans have started asking why Pakistan has chosen to fight Pakistani Taliban instead of engaging in talks with them?
Either the Taliban’s ideology is amenable to reconciliation, in which case both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban must be considered reconcilable enemies, or their core beliefs make them a difficult negotiating partner, which definition should then apply to the Taliban from both countries.
Instead of acknowledging concerns of other countries about Pakistani tolerance for terrorism and extremism, Khan’s government wants to tell Pakistanis that the rest of the world will accept Pakistan as it is just because the ‘great Khan’ is now in charge.
The world, of course, does not work that way. Three different governments –the US, India, and the Netherlands – have gently pushed back on the new Pakistani government’s attempts to build Khan’s image at home by misrepresenting their positions.
India was the first to refute foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s claim that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had written a letter to Imran Khan inviting him for talks. India denied the Pakistani minister’s claim, pointing out that while Modi congratulated Khan on assuming office, India would engage to make South Asia “free of terror and violence, and to focus on development”. In other words, there would be no return to ‘business as usual’ without some action from Pakistan against terrorists responsible for violence on Indian territory.
Within a few days of the rebuke from India, Khan’s hyper-nationalist populism resulted in a spat with the US.
The US had specifically avoided congratulating Khan on his supposed election victory, having noted the lack of fairness of the election process during and after the elections. “We recognise and welcome the newly elected Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on taking the oath of office” was markedly different from statements issued after Pakistan’s elections in 2008 and 2013.
In 2008, the US had congratulated Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and described Pakistan as “a good friend and ally” with whom the US has a variety of “mutual, overlapping interests”. Five years later, President Obama had told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that, “America respects the mandate you have been given”.
This time around, the US State Department informed the media after a phone conversation between Khan and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo that Pompeo had “raised the importance of Pakistan taking decisive action against all terrorists operating in Pakistan and its vital role in promoting the Afghan peace process”.
Instead of recognising the lack of effusiveness, Qureshi decided to tell Pakistanis that the State Department’s account of the conversation was “not representative of the facts”. The Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman had already tweeted about the “factually incorrect statement issued by the US State Department” regarding the discussion during the phone call.
According to the Pakistan Foreign Office, there had been “no mention at all in the conversation about terrorists operating in Pakistan”. The State Department stood by its statement and tried to give the Pakistani side an opportunity to back down, saying it had been a “good call”.
Pompeo has scheduled a short stopover in Islamabad on 5 September on his way to India for a longer visit and the US wanted to focus on the prospect of engagement rather than get lost amid the type of noise that has undermined US-Pakistan relations in the past. But Qureshi doubled down on his verbosity about “their press release mentioning terrorists operating in Pakistan” being “contrary to the facts”.
The State Department quietly shared the transcript of the Khan-Pompeo conversation with the Pakistani Foreign Office, which according to a Pakistani report “embarrassed the government” over challenging the American account of the conversation. One Pakistani official was reported as saying, “Now, we don’t want to create more misunderstandings as we already have trust issues with the US” and the government asked the Pakistani media to ‘bury’ the issue it had created.
The latest failed effort of the new government in trying to score points by playing to religious-nationalist sentiment at home relates to an otherwise obscure contest in the Netherlands of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. The contest had been announced by opposition member of Parliament, Geert Wilders, who is known for his extreme positions against Islam and Muslims.
Few Europeans took Wilders’ competition seriously and there was little reaction to it anywhere in the Muslim world, except in Pakistan. Tehrik-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR), which had violently challenged the Nawaz Sharif government, decided to make the competition an issue and its founder went to the extent of declaring that this was an issue over which “Pakistan should launch a nuclear attack on Holland”. Instead of restraining Pakistani extremists, Khan’s government decided to side with their cause. Newly minted minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari, called on western nations to stop blasphemy the same way they act against holocaust denial. The Foreign Office summoned the Dutch ambassador for a démarche and asked Pakistan’s embassies abroad to mobilise international opinion against the provocative caricature competition.
Things took a serious turn when a Pakistani young man, who had posted a video announcing his intention to kill Wilders, was arrested at a train station in the Netherlands upon arrival from Paris. Wilders cancelled the competition to avoid violence and bloodshed. Khan’s government celebrated its ‘diplomatic victory’ in having the caricatures competition cancelled even though the Dutch government had nothing to do either with organising or cancelling the contest.
As is often the case with narcissist celebrities, Khan lacks the humility to understand the limits of his celebrity status in international relations. His followers have an exaggerated view of Pakistan’s international influence and power.
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