China wants Imran Khan’s Pakistan to be dependable before being dependent

HUSAIN HAQQANI

China shows Imran Khan that Pakistan’s ‘locational narcissism’ isn’t enough.

For decades, Pakistanis have believed that China was Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’. The relationship has been based, since the 1960s, on a shared interest of keeping India in check. More recently, China has been gradually replacing the United States as Pakistan’s principal source of hard currency loans and investment. But when Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Beijing recently, he discovered that China was not willing to offer Pakistan the unconditional love that Pakistan seems to want from its foreign patrons.

Khan had hoped to get a Chinese commitment to help in propping up his government’s shaky finances. Pakistan is on the verge of another balance of payments crisis, with dwindling foreign currency reserves. Unable to expand exports or even curtail imports, successive Pakistani governments have borrowed their way out of such crises in the past. Khan has been trying to reduce the amount Pakistan would need to draw from the IMFby seeking short-term financing from ‘friendly countries’.

Saudi Arabia agreed to deposit $3 billion in Pakistan’s State Bank and defer payments for oil purchases up to another $3 billion to ease the pressure on Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves. The money has not yet come in and even when it does, it would be akin to a friend putting money into your bank account to make the account look healthier than it is. But Khan and his inexperienced team have few choices, so any relief, or announcement thereof, is better than none.

During his China visit, Khan expected the announcement of a similar dollar figure by the Chinese, alongside agreement to delay some of the expensive projects in the $62 billionChina Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). He did not get either. For the first time ever, headlines in Pakistan’s media spoke of a Pakistani leader’s China visit being ‘a failure’.

Instead of agreeing to renegotiate terms of existing infrastructure projects, the Chinese reminded Pakistan’s prime minister of the importance of abiding by contracts. Although 15 memorandums of understanding were signed relating to different sectors, the Chinese refused to go beyond reiterating their friendly sentiment towards Pakistan without committing themselves to dollar and cent specifics.

China will probably still assist Pakistan but at a level much less than anticipated or desired by the government. Apparently, the message from China was that Pakistan’s leaders need to examine and remedy their perennial governance problems. China does not want to be in a situation where its support is taken for granted in Islamabad, while Pakistan’s leaders refuse to change their own behaviour or policies.

The Chinese had obviously not taken kindly to adverse comments about CPEC made by Imran Khan and his ministers in the run-up to Pakistan’s elections. Their reticence during Khan’s visit seems to be part of their decision to communicate their displeasure. But there is more to the emerging wedge between China and Pakistan than pique over negative election campaign statements.

China wants its relationship with Islamabad to be based on pragmatic considerations and wishes to avoid the bitterness that comes from unfulfilled, unrealistic expectations.

Pakistan’s elite has a long track record of locational narcissism – the belief that Pakistan’s geostrategic location is enough for major powers to consider it an indispensable ally. The United States poured in $43 billion into Pakistan’s economy and military over six decades, only to be frequently disappointed at Pakistan’s reluctance to accommodate American strategic concerns.

In recent years, most Americans have reached the conclusion that Pakistan’s strategic priorities in relation to Afghanistan, Kashmir, and India are somewhat inflexible. While Islamabad was willing to cooperate with the West tactically during the Cold War, it could not be the partner the US wanted it to be in subsequent years. The falling out between the erstwhile allies has been rancorous.

China seems eager to develop its partnership with Pakistan in a different direction. Unlike the United States, leaders in China do not have to openly discuss their concerns and displeasure. But they have been sharing them with Pakistan’s leaders for years and their snubbing of Imran Khan has come only after realising that doing so might be necessary to be understood.

From China’s perspective, it was useful to prop up Pakistan as a rival to India in South Asia. Tying down India in a sub-regional rivalry along its western border was meant to ensure that India would be unable to challenge China as the emerging pre-eminent power in the Indo-Pacific. But creating a secondary deterrent for India through a nuclear-armed Pakistan was never meant to be the end-all of Chinese policy.

Pakistan, on the other hand, not only takes its competition with India seriously but also considers it to be more important than any other strategic consideration for itself or its allies. Pakistan deems India an ‘eternal enemy’, with which it is neither willing to trade nor expand relations until resolution of outstanding disputes.

Pakistan’s unending asymmetric warfare with India has embroiled it in supporting the Taliban and assorted Jihadis in Afghanistan and Kashmir. India’s hardliners have also not helped in altering the course of India-Pakistan relations but the net result of unending conflict in the region has been to undermine Pakistan’s democratic and economic evolution.

China does not share Pakistan’s pathological fear of India. For China, India is a potential strategic rival but also a major trading partner. China-India trade last year amounted to $84 billion, several times higher than the $15 billion in commerce between Pakistan and China.

It is one thing for Beijing to help Pakistan confront India in an effort to increase India’s costs in South Asia; it is quite another to have to underwrite Pakistan’s economic and other failures as the price for maintaining an irritant for China’s principal Asian challenger.

China’s relatively blunt message to Imran Khan must be seen as part of its effort to explain to Pakistan’s leaders that it wants to help Pakistan help itself – not to support their ideological defiance forever or to constantly defray the cost such defiance afflicts.

CPEC was China’s way of building dual-purpose infrastructure, one that could increase Pakistan’s economic potential while giving China’s military access to West Asia and the Gulf region. But China expects Pakistan’s leaders to implement the plans the two sides have agreed upon, not constantly renegotiate deals.

Beijing also wants a more efficiently run Pakistan, with less influence and interference of Islamist extremists and Jihadis. China does not care as much for the rhetoric about ending corruption, a staple of Khan and his backers in the Pakistani establishment, as it wants political and economic stability.

A China aspiring to be a global power realises that dependent nations are useful springboards for projecting its power. But China wants Pakistan to be dependable before being a dependency.

Pakistan’s Asia Bibi episode shows injecting extremists into politics is a bad idea

PERVEZ HOODBHOY

Imran Khan government’s reluctance to confront clerical power makes its earlier promises ring hollow.

An inflammatory video filmed just after the Asia Bibi verdict has received well over five million views. Therein you can watch the TLP leadership calling for the murder of the three Supreme Court judges who dismissed blasphemy charges against Asia; hear that officers of the Pakistan Army should revolt against COAS Gen Qamar Bajwa; see the country’s prime minister being called a “yehudi bacha” (‘Jewish child’); and listen to the call for overthrowing the PTI government.

The orator is Pir Afzal Qadri, but next to him is the founder-leader of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Khadim Husain Rizvi. Famed for his foul mouth and colourful Punjabi expletives, Rizvi does not speak here but periodically raises both hands in enthusiastic endorsement. Once an unknown small-time madressah operator, he rocketed into national prominence last November after paralysing Islamabad for three weeks. He draws his strength from heading khatm-i-nabuwat demonstrations across Pakistan.

Had a call for murder and mutiny been made by any other members of Pakistani society, unimaginable punishment would have been meted out. Similarly for other countries: in the United States instigators of bloody insurrection would be locked up for years; in Iran or Saudi Arabia they would be hanged or beheaded; and in China they would mysteriously disappear. And in India? Similar, I suppose.

But we in Pakistan are apparently nicer, kinder people. Our normally voluble, judiciary suddenly lost its voice. Unlike with errant politicians, the Supreme Court did not dock TLP leaders for contempt of court. The ever-vigilant ISPR also somehow missed hearing the call for mutiny against the army’s top leadership. Instead, it pleaded for “an amicable and peaceful resolution” of the Asia Bibi matter because it “does not want the army dragged into the matter”.

And the prime minister? Against the ‘enemies of the state’ his fighting words and body style initially drew wide approbation. Some liberals bravely termed this Imran’s finest hour. But the hour lasted an hour and no more; what started with a roar ended with a whimper. The TLP’s flaccid half-apology was accepted, ignoring the lives lost and property damaged by the rioters.

Imran Khan now wants to fight fire with fire. His current talking points are fulfilling ‘Allama Iqbal’s dream’, and remaking Pakistan as the seventh-century state of Medina. His information minister has just announced unprecedented celebrations of the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) birthday next week, and a grand khatm-i-nabuwat conference in Islamabad. Invitees will include the imam of the Holy Ka’aba, the mufti of Syria, and various high clerics.

With these new battle plans, Imran hopes to take the wind out of the TLP’s sails by showing its followers and others that he loves the Holy Prophet even more than them. But will it work in the Asia Bibi case? And will it also work once the next crisis starts (assuming the present one somehow ends)?

As mullah power rises, one cannot be too optimistic. Clerics now believe they can take on any politician or, if need be, generals as well. There is good reason for their confidence. After all was said and done, in 2007 Islamabad’s destroyed Lal Masjid — now grandly reconstructed — defeated the generals.

Consider that the insurrectionists lost about 150 students and other fighters, but head cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz lives more comfortably in 2018 than in 2007. No charges were ever levied against Aziz or others for killing 11 SSG commandos. Meanwhile, Gen Musharraf, the then army chief, glumly passes his days in Dubai. Among other charges, he is accused of quelling an armed insurrection against Pakistan and killing one of Lal Masjid’s ring leaders.

The state’s reluctance to confront clerical power makes its earlier promises ring hollow. Take, for instance, madressah reform. Forgotten is the anti-terrorism National Action Plan that called for financial audits of madressahs, uncovering funding sources, curriculum expansion and revision, and monitoring of activities. That’s a dead duck. Try auditing TLP-associated madressahs.

The security establishment must now ask itself hard questions: has its mainstreaming of religious extremism gone too far? Can extremists actually be moderated by bringing them into the political fold? On the political chessboard, was it a good move to try balance ‘hard’ Deobandi power with ‘soft’ Barelvi power?

Blowbacks do happen: whereas a year ago Imran Khan had cautiously welcomed Rizvi into the anti-Nawaz Sharif camp, others who wanted Nawaz defeated went a step further. They allowed themselves to be recorded on video while handing out Rs1,000 notes to the rioters. Politically, this is very embarrassing because Rizvi and his wild eyed boys have gone their own way.

Certainly, the TLP turned out to be a bad investment. Contrarily, there appears to be a good investment. The largely Deobandi LeT/JuD was encouraged to launch its own political party, the Milli Muslim League (MML). In August 2017, its debut in national politics via the Lahore NA-120 by-elections gained it the fourth position, a surprising show of strength for a new party. MML election posters denounced Nawaz Sharif as a traitor for seeking peace with India and carried aloft pictures of Hafiz Saeed.

Another apparent plus: LeT/JuD has threatened neither army nor government. Its spokesman explained away its low profile during last week’s violent protests saying that JuD has appealed against the Supreme Court decision to free Asia Bibi and would await the conclusion of the legal process before taking to the streets. What a relief!

Some parts of the establishment might see this good behaviour as vindicating its mainstreaming doctrine. But injecting religious leaders and ex-militants into the political mix is a bad idea. When large masses of people react unthinkingly to emotive slogans, everyone is endangered by an explosive, unstable configuration. Ultimately political leaders — and those who secretly engineer political outcomes — also become unsafe. Have we not suffered enough tragic blowback since Soviet times? Pakistan must firmly reject the rule of religiously charged mobs. Instead it should aspire towards becoming part of civilised, cosmopolitan world society. Surrender is not an option.

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CIA #Khashoggi findings 'highly damaging' to Mohammed bin Salman

Martin Chulov

Agency must have solid proof that Saudi prince ordered journalist’s killing, says official.

The CIA’s conclusion that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been described as the most damaging blow yet to the de facto Saudi leader, officially placing him at the heart of a scandal that continues to shake the region.

The finding, first reported by the Washington Post, for which Khashoggi had written, was the first US government assessment linking Prince Mohammed to the dissident Saudi’s death in Turkey.It came after Donald Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, had tried to shield him from criminal investigations that have incriminated 21 Saudi agents in the grisly murder.

The US president had previously suggested the killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was carried out by rogue actors who had exceeded their authority.

The CIA found, however, that Prince Mohammed’s tight grip on decision-making made such a claim highly unlikely.

A European intelligence official told the Observer the CIA’s finding was “highly damaging to the kingdom’s official narrative”.

On Saturday, Trump said he had not yet been briefed on the findings, but he would seek an update. Formerly a strong supporter of the prince, Trump has appeared frustrated at the Khashoggi case and the complicity of senior officials, which has mapped a path to the doors of the royal court.The CIA claim came after six weeks of relentless pressure on the kingdom and the crown prince, who has denied any knowledge of the hit squad sent to Turkey or its mission.

A European intelligence official said the finding from a top intelligence agency was “highly damaging to the kingdom’s official narrative”.

The Washington Post reported that the agency strengthened its conclusions after reviewing two intercepted calls. One was reportedly between Prince Mohammed and his brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and captured the former discussing ways to get Khashoggi back to Riyadh.

The second call reportedly captured Prince Khalid assuring Khashoggi that it was safe to visit the consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi arrived there on 2 October and never left. A Turkish-led investigation has found that he was killed and dismembered within seven minutes of entering the building. His body has not been found.

Prince Khalid strongly denied having been in contact with Khashoggi in the past year, and called on US officials to table their evidence.

“The last contact I had with Mr Khashoggi was via text on Oct 26 2017,” he said on Twitter. “I never talked to him by phone and certainly never suggested he go to Turkey for any reason. I ask the US government to release any information regarding this claim.”

The Saudi position has moved throughout the investigation. An initial blanket denial of any involvement, coupled with an assurance from Prince Khalid that Khashoggi walked freely from the consulate, gave way around 10 days later to a grudging admission that he had been killed in a fist fight, then to a concession that the killing had in fact been premeditated.

On Thursday, the Saudi state prosecutor claimed Khashoggi had died from an overdose of a drug injected into him by agents.

Turkey has attempted to maintain pressure on its regional rival, and Prince Mohammed in particular, by continuing to leak details of the investigation.During the week, Turkish officials told government-aligned media that audio tapes existed of the conspirators going over their roles as they waited for Khashoggi.The existence of tapes remains central to the investigation. Turkish intelligence officers are believed to have had a long-term bug inside the Saudi consul general’s office, where the first stages of the ambush occurred. A streaming call is also believed to have taken place at some stage during the killing.

After Khashoggi had died, a member of the kill team reportedly called an aide to Prince Mohammed and said: “Tell your boss the deed was done.” The contents of this call have added weight to the CIA’s assessment.

The western intelligence official said it was unusual for an intelligence agency to be so definitive in such a sensitive matter.

“The fact that they have means that they really do hold solid material. These intercepts will cause him [Mohammed] problems.”

NEWS ANALYSIS: These Americans Are Done With Politics - The Exhausted Majority needs a break.

By Sabrina Tavernise

As the country catches its breath after one of the most acrimonious midterm elections in years, it would be easy to conclude that all of America is hopelessly divided — a land where two angry tribes are at each other’s throats and everybody thinks about politics all the time. But the reality is far less extreme.

A deep new study of the American electorate, “Hidden Tribes,” concludes that two out of three Americans are far more practical than that narrative suggests. Most do not see their lives through a political lens, and when they have political views the views are far less rigid than those of the highly politically engaged, ideologically orthodox tribes.

The study, an effort to understand the forces that drive political polarization, surveyed a representative group of 8,000 Americans. The nonpartisan organization that did it, More in Common, paints a picture of a society that is far more disengaged — and despairing over divisions — than it is divided. At its heart is a vast and often overlooked political middle that feels forgotten in the vitriol, as if the country has gone on without it. It calls that group the Exhausted Majority, a group that represented two-thirds of the survey.

“It feels very lonely out here,” said Jamie McDaniel, a 36-year-old home health care worker in Topeka, Kan., one of several people in the study who was interviewed for this article. “Everybody is so right or left, and you’re just kind of standing there in the middle saying, “What happened?’”

For Ms. McDaniel, who works full time and is raising a young daughter, politics is not a hobby but an obligation to be endured — more dental appointment than ballgame. She does not know her friends’ political persuasions, nor they hers, because it is not part of how they see themselves. Ms. McDaniel voted on Nov. 6, mostly for Democrats, in a church. But in an interview three days later, she said she had not checked to see who won.

“I prefer to be in the dark because of all of the hostility going on,” she said.

The study found that nearly half of the Exhausted Majority say they have not been politically active in the past year, compared with just 1 percent of the Progressive Activists and Devoted Conservatives, the two least flexible and most ideological of the seven political tribes identified in the study. Forty-one percent said they did not vote in 2016.

The ugliness of politics has turned some people off. “I’m so upset, I feel physically ill,” Marsha Newman, 66, a school counselor in Chapmanville, W.Va., said on a rainy Election Day morning. “Just the ugliness of it all. It’s so heartbreaking that all we can do is bring each other down and cut into each other. I feel like I’m going to cry.” The highly politically engaged tribes may have seized on the midterm elections as a victory, but for the Exhausted Majority it merely perpetuated a hopeless stalemate. “It’s like World War I, where you’re pushing each other back and forth over the same quarter-mile of ground and nothing happens,” said Christopher Kershaw, 39, a logistics manager in rural New Jersey.

The study found that members of the Exhausted Majority are more likely than those on the far ends of the political spectrum to be women, less likely to have a college or graduate degree, less likely to be white and more likely to be young. It concluded that four in five Americans believe that the country has a problem with “political correctness,” which many said made them feel bad but also bewildered — a set of rules they had not learned to decode. It also found that many in the Exhausted Majority tend to see both sides.

“My husband would tell you I’m a devil’s advocate,” said Mary Linda Vetter, 71, a retired teaching assistant in Woodhull, N.Y. “I’m always looking at the other side of the coin.”During the 2016 campaign, Ms. Vetter’s husband would watch the conservative pundit Glenn Beck and then accuse her of not caring because she had little interest. In fact, she cares a lot. Her whole life, she has voted and volunteered — at her church and at a local nursing home, visiting residents who did not have families. But she is uncomfortable with the culture of outrage and ideological conformity.

“I guess I would have to say that I’m completely confused as to who is lying and who is telling the truth,” Ms. Vetter said. “I just feel helpless.”

Partisanship may be at a modern high, but that doesn’t mean people are happy with their political choices. The study shows that most Americans have political tastes that are not uniform: They may lean toward one party, but they see things they like in both. Its findings suggest a deep hunger for political leaders who are practical and not tribal — who do not cast the world in starkly moral terms, but in bread-and-butter policy terms.

The approval of several ballot initiatives long supported by Democrats but opposed by Republicans in Republican or Republican-leaning states last week might have signaled the power of the Exhausted Majority to break partisan gridlock. Those included a measure in Florida that re-enfranchised former felons; measures in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah that expanded Medicaid; and minimum-wage measures in Arkansas and Missouri.

Yascha Mounk, a political scientist at Harvard University, said the influence of the Exhausted Majority might play out in 2020 in another way: Fatigue with the noise of politics is so deep, he said, that it might strengthen the chances of candidates offering to be less nakedly partisan. “For the last two years it’s been impossible to go to a bar on a Monday night and not have to talk about politics,” he said. “Most Americans are sick of that. I think you can win in 2020 by promising that if you become president, people can go back to talking about football.”

The study describes a Democratic base that looks far less like the progressive left and more like the American mainstream. Elizabeth Damon, 54, a veterinarian in Eagle Point, Ore., is a registered Democrat because “I really don’t think anybody should be able to tell me what to do with my own body.” But she also thinks the party has drifted too far left, and in 2016 she voted for Donald Trump. “More than anything, they just want to pick fights,” Dr. Damon said of Democrats. The Senate confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh was one example, she said. William Baltimore, 55, a mail clerk in a bank in Overland Park, Kan., who usually votes Democrat, said Mr. Trump repels him.

But on immigration, Mr. Baltimore prefers Mr. Trump. The Democrats “are just willing to accept anything, anybody and anyone, and that doesn’t fly good with me,” he said. Bruce Bell, 32, of Whitmore Lake, Mich., voted Democratic his whole life, including twice for Barack Obama, but has drifted from the party, tired of what he said was progressive contempt. “The progressives, they just shut you down,” said Mr. Bell, who works on electrical systems of semitrucks. “You are a complete idiot, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t have a college degree to even have an opinion on the matter.” Mr. Bell, who voted third-party in 2016, badly wants compromise, but he thinks the political system is uniquely unfit to give it. The effect is a souring on democracy itself. “It makes you feel that you are just not represented in government,” he said, adding, “like the actual interests of the people are almost irrelevant.” More than three in four Americans believe that our differences aren’t so great that we can’t work together. Mr. Bell is among them. The anger he sees is mostly on screens — not in his daily life. He still trick-or-treats with his neighbors and their children. They still wave to one another in the morning before work.

“People in my life, we can easily disagree on some controversial topic,” Mr. Bell said, “but we are not at each other’s throats, calling each other evil.”

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Iran says ready to fight terrorism on Pakistan soil

Iranian Interior Ministry announced on Saturday that the country's security forces are ready for anti-terror operations on Pakistani territory.To guarantee the security of common borders, Iran is prepared for counter-terrorism operations on the Pakistani land under the supervision of the Pakistani forces, Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said.

The minister made the remarks in response to the abduction of 14 Iranian borders guards by a Pakistan-based Iranian Sunni rebel group last month.Iran has refrained from any operation against the terrorists on the other side of its border with Pakistan so far, the Iranian minister said. "It is because we wanted to respect Pakistan's sovereignty."

Fazli said that Iran expects the Pakistani government to enhance security measures along the common borders.A total of 14 Iranian border guards were kidnapped by the extremist group, Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), in Mirjaveh border point in Iran's southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province on Oct. 16 and were transferred to the Pakistan soil.

On Thursday, five of the abducted border guards were freed in Pakistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran informed the nation he is Hitler

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Khursheed Shah provided his analysis of a statement by Prime Minister Imran Khan regarding leaders taking U-turns.

In a meeting with senior journalists, Prime Minister Khan said a leader who does not know how to take U-turns according to the requirements of the situation is not a real leader. The prime minister added, “Hitler and Napoleon suffered huge defeats and caused losses as they did not take U-turns.”

Reacting to the prime minister’s statement, Shah said, “Imran Khan is Hitler and is taking U-turns to avoid losses.”

“He [PM Imran Khan] has made it clear and told the nation that he is Hitler,” Shah added.

According to the PPP leader, the prime minister was also sending a message that Hitler had failed because he did not take a U-turn while he would be successful as he would.

“No Hitler, who was also a dictator, has ever been successful in history,” Shah asserted.

http://www.thesindhtimes.com/pak/pm-imran-informed-nation-hitler-khursheed-shah/

#Pakistan - #GilgitBhuttoKa #PPP will continue its struggle to eliminate extremism – Former President Zardari

Former President of Pakistan and President Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians Asif Ali Zardari has said that we need tolerance in the society for creating a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan.

Former President in his message on the eve of World Tolerance Day said that Pakistan is a country of different cultures and traditions and to some extent multi-religious as well. We need tolerance in our society which means respecting other cultures and religions. Tolerance means living with differences and the diversity in Pakistani society demands tolerance.

Asif Ali Zardari said that PPP and its leadership has always displayed tolerance. Late Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto taught us tolerance, patience and harmony. PPP will continue to strive for a society free of hatred and hostility. Party has always rejected extremism and terrorism and will continue its struggle against this menace of fanaticism and radicalism, he said.

https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/ppp-will-continue-its-struggle-to-eliminate-extremism-former-president-zardari/

#PPP #Pakistan - Message of Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto on World Tolerance day

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that the world needs tolerance today greater than ever because the right winged politics across the world has wreaked havoc and rocked the foundation of basic civilized society.

In his message on the occasion of World Tolerance day, which is commemorated on November 16 every year, he said that since the Global Village of today has promoted immense opportunities for a reciprocal dialogue but at the same moment, it has also allowed emerging of variety of challenges that pertain to peaceful and tranquil society.

The PPP Chairman said that it is only because of the right-winged politics that a prominent section of the society has been divided into smaller factions owing to that the world is seriously lacking the spirit and unity, efforts and mechanism for the alleviation of poverty, illiteracy and hunger. In addition, different local and international disputes have arisen, instead.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that tolerance is an integrated part of Islamic teachings and the basis of world peace lies in tolerance and tranquility.

The PPP Chairman said that his party, PPP, is the custodian of norms and values of a civilized society through peace and tranquility. The Party has suffered a lot at the hands of extremists but never resorted to any fight-back of vengeance despite all the losses, and the Party also never resorted to politics of vengeance in retaliation to political atrocities and injustices and has always kept the doors open for the reconciliation and tolerating each other.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that it was dynamic platform of politics, which has embraced all sections of life inclusive of religious, ethnic, different communal and cultural entities alike and hence it provides the vast canvass to all with peace, love, respect and tolerance.

https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/message-of-chairman-ppp-bilawal-bhutto-zardari-on-world-tolerance-day/

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#Pakistan’s Dark History of Student Extremists

By Shah Meer Baloch and Zafar Musyani

Since the 1970s, political factions in Pakistan have armed students and encouraged them to violence.

On October 24, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for prevention and awareness of “on-campus” extremism and terrorism.

This MoU did not come out of the blue. Many unaccountable incidents of intolerance and extremism at Pakistan’s university campuses pushed concerned authorities to take at least theoretical steps.

Perhaps most infamously, on April 13, 2017, 23-year-old student Mashal Khan was stripped, beaten and shot by a mob of students. All of the students were Khan’s university fellows at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan city, northwestern Pakistan. The mob consisted of various student organizations: religious, ethnic, and even supposedly left-leaning. Khan’s “crime”? Posting blasphemous content online, a charge later revealed to be false.

Violence, intolerance, and extremism at university campuses are not a new phenomenon in Pakistan. This trend has a history of decades, but it has become unbearable now. This violent behavior in students was inculcated at the University of Karachi (UoK), Pakistan, through conscious planning by conservative religious leaders.

There was a time when cricket bats and hockey sticks were used in sports, but then they began to be utilized by students at the University of Karachi to beat their rival student factions. There was a group of strong men, particularly selected for unleashing violence; the group was called the “Thunder Squad.” Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) formed the Thunder Squad in the early 1970s to thrash opposing student factions and to show their power by violence.

The IJT is a student wing of the religious-cum-political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Pakistan. The socially conservative party was formed in 1941, even before the inception of Pakistan. Its main objective is to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state governed by sharia law.

The Thunder Squad was a symbol of the fear and violence at the University of Karachi. As Nadeem F. Paracha wrote for Dawn in 2012, “The militant faction [of the IFT] was called the Thunder Squad and it reappeared on campuses with the mission to ‘cleanse educational institutions of immoral activities.’”

Thunder Squad personnel often used strong-arm tactics and regularly clashed with members of left-leaning student wings such as the National Students Federation (NSF) and Democratic Students Federation (DSF).

Fear lingered on in students initially. But with the passage of time, other student organizations also got access to weapons. Many major political parties backed their student wings; guns had replaced hockey sticks and bats.

After the disintegration of Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh on the world’s map, when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came into the power in early 1970s, he established and supported the Peoples Students Federation (PSF), student faction of his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

With guns now present at the university dorms, armed conflict began among various student factions. It spread like a wildfire and engulfed lives. In 1981, Hafiz Aslam of the IJT was killed; this marked the beginning of Kalashnikov culture at the campuses.

“The last armed conflict was witnessed in 1989 at the University of Karachi,” said Dr. Moonis Ahmer, meritorious professor of international relations at the UoK. That clash was between the All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organization (APMSO) and the PSF.

Ahmer added, “Since then, we have the deployment of Rangers, a paramilitary force, at the University. They came here for [what was supposed to be] a short span of time but it has almost been three decades now. They are not supposed to be here but on the borders of the country. Due to the students’ violence and negative politics the force is stationed here.”

The Downfall of Student Unions and the Rise of Intolerance and Extremism

Pakistani student groups were not always hotbeds of violence. Prior to the 1980s, the culture was different, thanks to existence of student unions.

Student unions were the amalgamation of many student organizations. They had different ideological and political backgrounds but worked under one platform. They worked for the educational and political uplift of students, functioning as a bridge between students and university administration.

Student organizations would take part in the elections to form the union, allowing voters to decide who received a mandate. During elections for the union, every candidate had to come up with a practicable manifesto to attract educated voters. Unlike today, there was an atmosphere of debate, competition, training, and reading.

This environment of progressive activities ended when the then-military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq banned the student unions in 1984. It all happened because his brutal regime faced resistance at the hands of progressive and left-leaning political parties. In that struggle against the undemocratic regime of General Zia, student unions played a gigantic role.

The ban on student unions was a de facto ban on student politics.

“At that time, generally politics, particularly student politics, was ideological and progressive-oriented,” said Zahid Hussain, a renowned journalist and author, who in the early 1970s was the secretary general of the NSF. “Zia banned the student unions and patronized the IJT in order to counter the progressive and liberal forces.”

By banning unions, Zia not only imprisoned students but also sowed the seeds of extremism and intolerance.

“They banned student unions on the pretext of checking violence but violence took birth and permeated after the banning of the unions,” said Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo, the former president of the National Party who, in the 1980s as a student leader, brought together disparate left-wing, ethnonationalist, and liberal political groups against the IJT.

“The student unions were a complete training academy. They trained students educationally, politically and professionally. Unions were like a nursery. From the unions the country got politicians, trade unionists, academicians, and journalists; when Zia wiped out that nursery, it made Pakistan infertile,” Bizenjo added.

The banning of the student unions was connected with other events in the region. At the time, American-supported jihad (holy war) in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union was in full swing. And Pakistan was the frontline state for the United States in fighting the communist Red Army.

Meanwhile, Zia was undertaking the Islamization of Pakistan’s social, educational, and political fabric. In this process, everything from laws to educational curriculum to literature was Islamized. At the behest of the United States, he supported jihadist ideology by hook or crook.

Back to the Present

Today, many universities in Pakistan have become breeding grounds for fundamentalism, extremism, linguistic hatred, and violence.

The stories are all-too common: Students falling prey to terrorist organizations; ethnic student organizations having a deadly clash; students murdering one another; students lynching others for violating any social or religious norm in Pakistan.

But there are many more danger signs that don’t make the headlines. For example, as we walked up the steps in front of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Arts at the University of Karachi for meetings with students and academicians, we had to step on the flags of Israel, the United States, and India.

The seeds of extremism were sown in the 197os, but Pakistan started reaping them after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The violence was romanticized by terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“Our youth got attracted with this romanticism,” Hussain told The Diplomat.

It’s not only illiterate youth who are attracted by radicalized organizations; educated Pakistani youth have also joined them. Saad Aziz, a graduate from the Institute of Business Administration IBA, one of Pakistan’s top-notch private institutes in Karachi, was arrested for the gruesome shooting of a bus full of Ismaili passengers.

“Students are being used by terrorist outfits in Pakistan. It is not mainly due to the banning of student politics, but the state’s patronization of extremism,” said Khan. “Yes, the state has been patronizing violence and extremism. It can correct its previous mistakes, if it wants.”

A former student at UoK believes local educators also bear part of the blame. “First, the state role is very important, and can’t be ruled out from this. Second, the university administration is either directly or indirectly part of this student extremism,” Jaffer F. Mirza, previously the head of a religious student organization at the University of Karachi, told The Diplomat. “Third, teachers have a huge role in this regard. Like I remember a teacher from our department would change the minds of students from critical thinking to performing Namaz(Islamic daily prayer).”

Many students and politicians we met argue that if the state does not patronize and support extremist ideology, then it should restore student unions immediately.

“We demand the immediate restoration of student unions in Pakistan,” said Bizenjo. “If authorities in power want to bring back the glorious and tolerant days of 1970s, then it should revive student unions.”

The IJT Today

After the passage of decades, the IJT is still too powerful to be countered by any other student group. Most of the time, other groups blame the IJT for the violence that occurs at campuses.

However, Abdul Ahad Talha, who heads the IJT at the UoK, denies such allegations.

He told The Diplomat, “The main objective of the IJT is to have an Islamic welfare state like that of Medina and shape the students’ lives according to the teachings of Islam.”

Talha added, “There should be separate education institutes for girls and boys. Otherwise, they must follow the Islamic teachings.”

Many students believe there is no room for dialogue and debate over certain topics — for instance atheism, secularism, and religion — without resorting to violence. But Talha says that he supports dialogues on any topic or issue.

But progressive students, who are in numbers and divided, do not agree with Talha on this point. “You never know when they will label you as a blasphemer,” Lamha Kausar, a student of sociology at the UoK, said. “So I am afraid of asking questions or taking part in any debates related to atheism, secularism, and evolution, because I don’t want to be lynched.

“In today’s Pakistan, the concept of right and left has evaporated,” said Khan.

Pakistan has produced lynching mobs for a couple of decades. But it is not alone in polarization breeding intolerance and even violence. While pointing at increasing extremism in India, renowned Pakistani novelist Mohammed Hanif wrote in the New York Times, “India [is] becoming Pakistan’s murderous other.”

Hanif is partially right. Extremism may be on the rise in India, but unlike Pakistan, India has progressive student forces, and student activists like Kanhaiya Kumar, the former president of student union at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, (JNU). Kumar famously challenged the most powerful man in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and questioned the atrocities of his government.

“Kumar has criticized Modi for his extremist ideology. He also has highlighted the atrocities of Indian army in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Wajid Baloch, a journalist and a former student of the UoK. “Pakistan has [Islamist political party] Tehreek-e-Labbaik, rulers like Imran Khan, and a mighty military establishment but without a progressive students force. If there are [Hindu nationalist group] RSS and Modi in India, there are also students such as Kumar, Shehla Rashid, and Jignesh Mivani to confront and question the halls of power.

“I doubt it Kumar would be alive if he were in Pakistan.”

#Pakistan - Bilawal Bhutto slams Imran Khan govt’s ‘inaction’ on SP’s killing

SONIYA AGRAWAL and AASTHA SINGH

Opposition leader Bilawal Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has criticised the Imran Khan government over its handling of the investigation into the abduction and murder of superintendent of police Tahir Dawar in Afghanistan, reports The Nation.

Dawar, who was abducted from outside his Islamabad home on 26 October, was found dead in Afghanistan on 13 November.

“It is shocking that one of our top police officials was kidnapped from Islamabad and shifted to Afghanistan without being noticed,” he said, “The way this government has dealt with the entire matter is unconvincing and a lot remains to be answered.”

Bilawal demanded that the government raise the murder with Afghanistan’s authorities instead of blaming “the safe-city project and CCTV cameras”. He was referring to reports that the National Accountability Bureau will investigate claims about 600 of the 1,800 CCTV camerasinstalled in Islamabad for residents’ safety were not functional.

“The government should find out exactly why Dawar’s kidnapping was not made a top priority issue,” Bilawal added.

#Pakistan - Alarming increase in neonatal, maternal mortality rates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has moved an application in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, seeking a suo moto notice of the deaths of 22 newborn babies and one pregnant woman in hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa every day.

The application has been moved by PMA president Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon. He has requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar to take a suo moto notice of the serious issue.

In the two-page application, the PMA president discussed and explained the present condition of the KP hospitals after introduction of the Medical Teachings Institutions Act by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government in the province.

However, he explained in the application that as per media reports based on government released data of the Basic Health Units, Regional Health Centres and District Headquarters Hospitals, 22 newborn babies and one pregnant woman die every day.

However, he stated that this data is without the 10 teaching hospitals of the province and thousands maternity homes, and if right data is collected, the number would go much higher.

As per the report submitted with the application, it was stated that 3,979 newborn babies from the first day up to one month time had died in the first 180 days of 2018. Besides, it said 178 pregnant women had also died in the hospitals during this period.

The data is provided by the District Health Information System and collected from Rural Health Centers and labour rooms of tehsil and district government hospitals of the province.

As per the report, 2259 children who died were suckling babies, not more than one month of age, and 1720 babies died immediately after the death.

It said that 560 babies died in Bannu hospitals, 506 in Haripur, 226 in Swat and 110 in Kohat.

Similarly, it said 178 pregnant women had died in the hospitals, including 31 in Nowshera, 15 in Abbottabad, 20 in Mansehra and 21in Dera Ismail Khan hospitals.

The PMA president also pointed out before the Chief Justice of Pakistan that there is no ICU Ventilator in District Headquarters Hospitals of the province and many patients died during operations due to non-availability of ICU Ventilators.

Besides, he stated in the application that the ICU Ventilators were also not available in the private hospitals of the province except a few.

However, he pointed out that legally no surgery can be conducted in a hospital where there is no ventilator facility.

It was stated in the application that the present PTI government through MTI law had given a status of private hospitals to majority hospitals of the province and are being through Board of Governors (BoG).

The applicant said that first their members were selected from government departments in BoG, and now no member is being elected from government departments including health department.

It was also stated that the condition of government hospitals is worsening day by day.

He said that people are dying in hospitals and the government did not take measures in this regard.

The PMA president said that death ratio of newborn babies in KP is more than Thar area of Sindh and requested the CJP to take suo moto notice of these deaths.

Why is there no room for Asia Bibi in Britain’s Intersectional Inn?

Asia Bibi, identifiably the world’s most oppressed woman, has been disqualified from the International Olympics of Oppression 2018. A month before Theresa May, Britain’s Christian PM celebrates Christmas, her government is replaying the Nativity by slamming the door of Britain’s Intersectional Inn in the face of a woman who is arguably the most deserving refugee on the planet. Intersectionality is the nomenclature for Leftism’s taxonomy of oppression. It refers to how different forms of discrimination (like racism or sexism) overlap.

 So, according to Kimberle Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality”, black women have a higher status on the hierarchy of victimhood because they are black and women and these two experiences of marginalization intersect and their “intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism”. Your value as a human being depends on how many victim groups you belong to. Consequently, a one-eyed, black, lesbian, Palestinian, Muslim woman gets the Olympic gold medal, while, a heterosexual, black, woman, is awarded silver, and a white, homosexual, American male is at the bottom with a bronze medal. The religion of identity politics not only has a hierarchical creed; it also has a great commandment—love your neighbour based on their position on the totem pole of intersectionality.

Thus, a female bishop in the male-dominated Church of England must make alliances with other oppressed folk—Muslims, Palestinians, Native Americans, and every noodle in the LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP alphabet soup, depending on the degree of overlapping categories of oppression. Your value as a human being depends on how many victim groups you belong to. This is the one, unholy, apostate and cultic faith that unites Theresa May’s government, Leftists and the Church of England (and liberal denominations). Its high priests are innkeepers holding the keys to opening or shutting the doors to Cool Britannia’s Intersectional Inn—where the world’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free and indulge in LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP sexual congress—may be welcomed like Joseph and Mary fleeing the genocidal lunacy of King Herod. It follows that, on merit alone,

Asia Bibi should win the gold in the Oppression Olympics and be accorded a red carpet state welcome by the innkeepers of the Intersectional Inn. Asia Bibi is a coloured (20 points) woman (20 points), who has been brutalised by Pakistan’s patriarchy (25 points). She is a low-class (10 points) and low-caste (20 points) farm labourer (15 points). She has rotted on death row facing the death penalty (30 points) for eight years for a crime she did not commit (15 points). That’s a whopping 155 points on Bibi’s scorecard. A victim can get into the Intersectional Inn with as few as 20 points—being a woman is enough (even better a man who self-identifies as a woman). Taking a leaf from the Jim Acosta School of Journalism, the Messiahs of Migration should be snatching media megaphones and demanding open borders for Asia Bibi and her family. So why has Britain so dishonourably refused Asia Bibi asylum? The Home Office has reportedly told Pakistani Christians campaigning on her behalf that Bibi’s “moving to the UK would cause security concerns and unrest among certain sections of the community and would also be a security threat to British embassies abroad which might be targeted by Islamist terrorists”.

 Islam is a religion of peace, no? Why, then, is our Islamophiliac Home Office so terrified?

 Is it because protestors in Pakistan have already caused damage in the region of £900 million, bringing the country to a standstill? Or is it because a Chamberlain, not a Churchill, heads our government?

Elsewhere, I have written about Theresa May’s cowardly capitulation to Salafist Islam. History will remember Mrs May as an appeaser—the antipodean opposite to Mrs Thatcher. When Fiona Bruce MP asked Mrs May about Pakistan’s Supreme Court verdict overturning Bibi’s death sentence, with adroit subterfuge the PM replied that the UK was committed to the global abolition of the death penalty. Note, she did not say we were committed to the abolition of Islam’s reprehensible blasphemy law. Because May, a globalist, favours the European Court of Human Rights, which recently maintained it was a crime to call Muhammad a paedophile. Traitor Theresa is a female Faust who trades what is left of Britain’s Christian soul with the Muslim Mephistopheles in exchange for her political survival.

She’d rather sign Bibi’s death warrant than offer Bibi asylum in Britain’s Intersectional Inn. What then, of the progressive brigade and their first cousins in the Church of England? Do we see women bishops wearing ‘pussy hats’ and demanding justice for Bibi? Do we see hashtags #ArrestMeToo and #JeSuisAsiaBibi trending on Twitter? The hordes funded by Patron Saint of Open Borders St George Soros and caterwauling in support of Honduran migrant caravans are selling Asia Bibi T-shirts on college campuses, no? Islam is a religion of peace, no? Why, then, is our Islamophiliac Home Office so terrified? Why has Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, not flung open his cottage at Lambeth Palace to this Christian refugee? A couple of years ago Welby persuaded the Home Office to get a Muslim Syrian refugee family into his studio flat, yeah? Welby called the Syrian migrant problem a “wicked crisis”.

We “cannot turn our backs on this crisis”, Archie thundered. “Jesus was a refugee!” bellowed Welby. Cat got your tongue now, Archbishop? Disgracefully, in 2016, the Home Office gave visas to Muslim clerics Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman who began their tour by visiting Welby at Lambeth Palace for “interfaith relations”. In Pakistan, the duo is infamous for promoting Mumtaz Qadri, the murderer of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer. Taseer wanted to end Pakistan’s blasphemy law. He specifically opposed Asia Bibi’s execution. Perhaps Judas Iscariot could take correspondence courses from you, eh Archbishop? And why have Jayne Ozanne and her chums like Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool, not rushed to Bibi’s advocacy? The Ozanne Foundation works “with religious organisations around the world to eliminate discrimination based on sexuality or gender in order to celebrate the equality and diversity of all”. It’s because Asia Bibi is not a lesbian, no, Jayne?

 Bayes is proud to march for Gay Pride. When it comes being proud of persecuted Christians we haven’t heard a dicky bird from this valiant social justice warrior. The only person proud to be a Christian in this comedy of intersectional errors is Asia Bibi. “I will not convert. I believe in my religion and Jesus Christ. And why should I be the one to convert and not you?” Asia Bibi boldly asks staring her executioners in the face. You dig? Capiche? Now you can understand why the Left doesn’t want Bibi in the Intersectional Inn. Bibi believes in Jesus Christ. She is a conservative Christian. She confesses Jesus as the only way to salvation. For Bibi, Jesus and Muhammad are not interchangeable. For Bibi, Jesus is God’s Son; Muhammad is a mere man. Her exclusive belief in Jesus as her Saviour excludes her from the hierarchy of intersectionality. It automatically excommunicates her latae sententiae from the blessed communion of victim-saints. Why? First, the belief that all religions are basically the same and one religion is no better than another is a cardinal doctrine of progressivism.

Asia Bibi must be blamed for her stubbornness in not converting to the religion of peace! Second, Muslims are at peak of the pyramid in the hierarchy of intersectionality. Not surprisingly, Britain was quick to offer asylum to Malala Yousufzai, the teenage Muslim girl shot by the Taliban. The world now believes the Big Lie that Muslims are the real victims and Christians are the oppressors. Since it was wicked Western missionaries who took the gospel to Pakistanis—Asia Bibi must renounce her Christianity and return to Islam. Third, being a Christian is equivalent to having white privilege. This is a dogma—(all Leftist dogmas must be accepted by faith, not reason, because Leftism is a religion) which stands on feet of clay because, (a) Christianity is originally an Asian religion, and, (b) the truth is that the persecution facing Christians is the largest human rights violation issue in the world today. The only person proud to be a Christian in this comedy of intersectional errors is Asia Bibi. Fourthly, by definition, a biblical Christian betrays the fraternity of victimhood. Unlike Jayne Ozanne, Asia Bibi does not regard herself a victim. She believes she is a victor in Christ because by his death and resurrection Christ has conquered Satan, sin and death. No wonder she’s holding firm to her faith for eight years while languishing in a Pakistani prison where even the guards are waiting to poison her food. Fifthly, the cult of cultural Marxism, which includes progressive Christians, hates orthodox Christianity as much as Lucifer hates God.

 That’s why it has structured its Olympics of Oppression to exclude Christianity by default. Written into its rulebook is the statue: Christianity cannot be a category of oppression. You may be black or brown or blind but coming out of the closet as a confessing Christian disqualifies you by default. It’s like taking steroids to boost your performance in the Olympics. Persecuted Christians, be they black or brown, will never be accepted in Britain’s Intersectional Inn—which stands exposed and denounced by Bibi’s exclusion as one gigantic fraud. The only Western leaders to welcome them are so-called far right, racist, nationalist, white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-open border, populists like Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has offered Asia Bibi asylum in Italy. God bless Matteo Salvini! God bless the populists and may their popularity increase!

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