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The real story is not Abu Akleh’s murder

In a few weeks the uproar over Abu Akleh’s killing will die down. But the reality for the Palestinians will not change. Hundreds of Abu Aklehs will be killed and injured as has been the case for decades. And again the West will look the other way. Israel knows this and the sad fact of life is that Israel is right in believing so …. Writes Osama Al Sharif

Two weeks after the cold-blooded murder of veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in the occupied West Bank her killers remain at large. Since her killing, which was caught on camera for the whole world to see, at least two Palestinian youths have been murdered by the Israeli occupation forces. In fact, in Jenin only 20 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the beginning of 2022; 42 in the last two years.

 So far Israel has refused to launch an inquiry into Abu Akleh’s death, which the Palestinians and many eyewitnesses blame Israel for. The UN, the EU, the US and many international organizations like Human Rights Watch and Reporters without Borders have all called for an independent probe into the killing of the 51-year-old American citizen. Israel is coming under pressure to investigate the death and allow others to look into her murder. But the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, is unrelenting even as his shaky coalition is about to be voted out of power.

Tension between Israel and Palestine flare up

But despite the tragic death of Abu Akleh and the unprecedented global backlash, one cannot but underline the fact that, once more, the West is applying double standards when dealing with anything that has to do with Israel and its decades-long brutal occupation of Palestine.

Immediately following the gunning down of Abu Akleh, many mainstream western media obfuscated the facts by choosing neutral words when reporting the crime. The New York Times shamefully wrote: Abu Akleh “dies at the age of 51” while others ignored the fact that the only armed force in the area were Israeli soldiers. During her funeral, heavily armed Israeli police stormed the hospital where her coffin was about to be moved to the cemetery and attacked the pallbearers and mourners on live TV. The hesitant western media talked about “violence” and “clashes” erupting at the funeral. Again there was no pointing the finger at Israel and her brutal treatment of Palestinians under occupation.

But even then, and as politicians and international organisations condemned the killing and the attack on the mourners, few dared to speak about the larger picture; that in effect it is not the killing of Abu Akleh that was the issue but the vile Israeli occupation.

 Abu Akleh was not the first journalist to have been killed by Israeli occupation forces in the last two decades. According to independent figures more than 50 journalists, the majority Palestinians, have been gunned down by Israeli soldiers since 2000. And like Abu Akleh’s documented murder, there is plenty of evidence implicating Israel in almost all of these deliberate killings. In a handful of cases, Israel promised to carry out an investigation and in almost all, there was no culpability.

Abu Akleh was a high profile journalist; a household name for millions and an American citizen. Her murder had shocked the world and elicited an unexpected backlash. But the stark irony is that Abu Akleh had covered the occupied territories for almost 25 years and in the process reported on tens of extrajudicial killings by Israel of Palestinians; the majority of whom were unarmed civilians. Not once had the West moved to push for independent probes or to hold Israel responsible. The fact that the entire occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law is notwithstanding.

Palestine urges UN to contain Israeli actions in East Jerusalem

Less than two weeks after Abu Akleh was killed, Israeli forces stormed the Jenin refugee camp for the umpteenth time. On 21 May and in a morning raid they killed 17-year-old Amajd Al-Fayyed, who was reportedly shot 12 times. No one in the West is going to condemn his murder or call for a probe. His wanton death was not going to be reported by the western mainstream media as well. He is just a statistic in a never ending register of Palestinian casualties who succumbed in “clashes”. No one in the western media is going to do a human interest story about who Amjad was, what he dreamt of, or how his bereaved mother and siblings feel. No one is going to ask why he was killed and if his killers are ever going to face justice.

The killing of Abu Akleh has embarrassed Israel, if only for a fleeting moment. If worse comes to worse and if the US puts pressure on Israel an internal probe may be conducted and the final reports will come up with flimsy excuses for her death. That will be that.

But the real story is not about Abu Akleh. She never thought that she would be the news. Her life was dedicated to covering the plight of her people. That remains the story—the only unfolding story.

In Israel itself voices were raised that the Jewish state had lost the battle for public opinion. Israel was being lambasted not in the mainstream media but on social media platforms. Millions, from all over the world, told the story as it really is; about a brutal occupation that has dehumanized the Palestinians in every way, both Muslims and Christians. The story was about Israel that is above the law, unaccountable for its breaches of international laws and conventions and one that continues to carry out its crimes with impunity.

In a few weeks the uproar over Abu Akleh’s killing will die down. But the reality for the Palestinians will not change. Hundreds of Abu Aklehs will be killed and injured as has been the case for decades. And again the West will look the other way. Israel knows this and the sad fact of life is that Israel is right in believing so.

(Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman)   

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Arab Allies In A Fix Over Israel’s Attacks on Al-Aqsa

What Jordan and the Palestinians fear now is that the Israeli premier is caving in to pressure to divide the mosque itself; thus allowing Jews to share the inner sanctum of the mosque and perform Talmudic prayers there … writes Osama Al Sharif

In the prickly political landscape of the Middle East, religious-based violence will almost always trump political expediency. And as much as Israel was able to weave a web of new alliances with long-time Arab foes in the past few years, its repeated breaches of Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan and violent attacks on Palestinian worshippers in addition to allowing hundreds of Jewish extremists to tour the Muslim compound and perform Talmudic rituals was too much to bear even for its Gulf allies.

Responding to calls from influential King Abdullah of Jordan, who was convalescing in Frankfurt from spine surgery, the UAE Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador to Abu Dhabi last week to deliver a “strong protest and denunciation of the events taking place in Jerusalem and [in] Al-Aqsa Mosque, including attacks on civilians and incursions into holy places that resulted in the injury of a number of civilians.”

This was the first public rebuke of Israeli actions by the UAE since establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries two years ago. Not to be left out, Bahrain and Morocco too deplored Israel’s escalations at Al-Aqsa.

 To underline that Abu Dhabi was serious about its position, Emirati airline Wizz Air Abu Dhabi announced that it will not be participating in an Israeli Independence Day flyover in May. Both moves represented what can be described as setting a line in the sand by the UAE, which had taken bold moves to build what observers saw as an alliance between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, especially in the areas of military and intelligence cooperation, free trade, tourism, energy and others.

 When Israel’s new allies reacted this way, the response from old allies was even worse. Amman had sparred with Israel before over breaches of Al-Aqsa, where King Abdullah is recognised as custodian. This time Jordan launched a flurry of diplomatic contacts to put pressure on Israel to respect the historical status quo, which recognizes the 14 square kilometre Al Haram Al Sharif as a place for Muslim worship but allows non-Muslims to visit the compound in coordination with the Islamic Waqf.

 The Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest mosque in Islam, has been a flashpoint between Palestinians and Israelis since the 1967 war and the occupation of East Jerusalem. In 2000 when Likud leader Ariel Sharon stormed the compound in a provocative visit he triggered a second Palestinian Intifada. In 2015 then Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu agreed to an agreement, brokered by the Americans, to respect the historical status quo at Al-Aqsa.

Jordan King: Israel must respect rights of Muslims to worship at al-Aqsa

But with right-wing parties in Israel gaining the upper hand in the past two decades, influential far-right parties and voters pressured successive governments to open up the Mosque’s compound to radical Jewish visitors. Often these visits ended with Israeli occupation forces attacking Palestinian worshipers.

 Since Naftali Bennett, a right-winger himself, formed his broad coalition government last June, he tried to appease radical Jewish settlers and small extremist parties by lifting objections to almost daily visits/breaches of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Last May Hamas and Israel went to war over such breaches and attacks on worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan.

What Jordan and the Palestinians fear now is that the Israeli premier is caving in to pressure to divide the mosque itself; thus allowing Jews to share the inner sanctum of the mosque and perform Talmudic prayers there. Israelis claim that the holy site, which they call Temple Mount, is also the location of the Jewish Temple on which the temple of Solomon once stood. Far-right politicians and radical Jews declare that their intention is to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Jewish temple on its ruins.

 For King Abdullah, whose great grandfather King Abdullah I was assassinated at the steps of Al-Aqsa in 1951, the link to the holy site cannot be severed at any cost—even if that meant terminating the peace treaty with Israel. The legitimacy of the Hashemites of Jordan is embedded in what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, from where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven on a miraculous nocturnal journey. For more than a billion Muslims believe in the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif is anchored in the Holy Quran and Sunnah.

Jordan Israel responsible for serious repercussions at al-Aqsa mosque

 This is where religion gets in the way of politics. Despite the UAE’s strategic decision to sign a peace treaty with Israel, it cannot look the other way when Israel, for no clear logical reason, provokes tens of millions of Muslims by attacking the mosque and unarmed Muslim worshippers in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan.

 The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and even Egypt and Jordan would rather deal with a secular Israel within its 1948 borders and not with Israel as an occupying power that kills Palestinians, usurps their lands and defiles Muslim shrines on daily basis. This now is the conundrum facing Gulf and Arab leaders. None want their relationship with Israel to drag them into a religious showdown. They would rather focus on geopolitical threats such as that of Iran and possibly Turkey at a time when there is a growing perception that the United States is abandoning the Middle East.

 But understanding domestic Israeli politics is crucial for the determination of the future of Arab ties with Israel. The Israeli left has been decimated in the past decade and a half and the centre-left cannot form a government without relying on small far-right parties. The fact is that the Israeli society has been veering to the far right for some years and with every election cycle.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and

 Gulf leaders will adapt to the fact that they are dealing with radical far-right Israeli governments in the foreseeable future and that means that religious tensions will continue to take centre stage at the domestic level. Striking a balance will be a delicate task. The Arab world cannot afford to look the other way or watch as false witnesses if and when a radical Israeli government makes the daring step of dividing Al-Aqsa Mosque or worse.

 (Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman)

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DESPERATE IMRAN PUTS PAKISTAN IN TROUBLE

Then, under Imran Khan’s rule, Pakistan distanced itself from the US. The Pakistan PM is yet to receive a phone call from the US’s new President, Joe Biden. At the same time, the country seems to be getting closer to China and Russia; Khan recently visited both the countries. This is not a stance that the Pakistani military condones. Clearly, Khan’s political career is in a soup … writes Dr Sakariya Kareem

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is one more in the long list of the country’s leaders who were ousted before they could finish their tenure. First, he lost his majority in the National Assembly after Muttahidda Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), a key ally, walked out of the coalition, accusing the government of economic mismanagement. The opposition tabled a no-confidence vote in the parliament, seeking his ouster.

On March 8, nearly 100 members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) submitted a no-confidence motion before the National Assembly Secretariat. They have alleged that Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) is responsible for the grave economic crisis that the country presently finds itself in. Khan, a world-famous cricketer, started his political career in 1996 with the launch of his party PTI, which aimed to challenge the dominance of PML-N and PPP. Though Khan became a Member of Parliament in 2002, his party tasted success only in 2013, when it emerged as the second largest in Pakistan.  

Painting a vision of a “new Pakistan”, the populist leader came back with a bang in 2018, with unprecedented wins in all five constituencies of the country. The former cricket captain branded himself as a religious, anti-poverty reformer, who wished to create an Islamic welfare state and reform the country’s tax system and bureaucracy. He even vowed to never take help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) again. Upset with the past political order, voters saw Khan as a harbinger of change and even the military favoured him. But none of his promises came to fruition. Pakistan was hit by a wave of inflation as the rupee plummeted and the country’s debt soared. The Covid-19 onslaught didn’t help the matters. In the end, Khan had to negotiate a $6bn rescue plan with the IMF to shore up the country’s foreign currency reserves.

Then there were other problems. Khan was accused of keeping his opponents in jail on corruption charges in the name of cleaning up “dynastic politics”. Also, while publicly upholding liberalism, he had been appealing to Islamic values and anti-West sentiment. Under his rule, Islamist militancy in Pakistan also shot up. Khan even expressed sympathy for the militant Taliban, a move that earned him the nickname “Taliban Khan” by his opponents. Then in 2020, he called Osama Bin Laden a martyr, attracting condemnation from many quarters. He also strengthened ties with the communist China, though traditionally Pakistan has been an ally of the West. The country recently abstained in the UN vote on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, earning more ire from the West. Its relations with rival India have also not improved under the Khan-led regime. 

Khan’s antagonistic brand of politics and his unwillingness to build political consensus, especially in Pakistan’s largest province Punjab, has not helped the matters. It seems the Punjab Chief Minister is unpopular among his own party members. Opposition, of course, wants Khan out. Three political parties and the opposition formed an alliance in 2020 and have been trying for this end since then. 

But as per political observers, Khan’s major issue is that he has fallen out of favour with the influential military generals. Many other political figures in Pakistan in the past have faced a similar situation. In fact, no Pakistan Prime Minister has ever completed the full five-year term. Though the Pakistan military says that it is neutral with regards to this issue, the fact of the matter is that Khan’s relationship with the military has cooled. He made the situation worse for himself by making a shocking comment at the military. “Humans are not neutral, they take the side of good or evil; only animals are neutral,” he said during a speech. Another point of contention between Khan and the military is the recent appointment of the new ISI chief. Khan reportedly dragged his feet over the candidate chosen by the army, which miffed the military. The outgoing ISI chief, a Khan loyalist, had helped him secure the 2018 election.

Then, under Khan’s rule, Pakistan distanced itself from the US. The Pakistan PM is yet to receive a phone call from the US’s new President, Joe Biden. At the same time, the country seems to be getting closer to China and Russia; Khan recently visited both the countries. This is not a stance that the Pakistani military condones. Clearly, Khan’s political career is in a soup. He is so desperate to save his position that he even praised the Indian government for its independent foreign policy and the Indian Army for not being corrupt. Further, he claimed that the no-confidence motion against him was an international conspiracy and that he has a “secret letter” to prove it. The situation turned embarrassing for him later when the Islamabad High Court barred him from making this letter public.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and Khan was running from pillar to post to win back his allies. On March 10, he went to Karachi to meet spiritual leader Pir Pagara. The current Pir, Syed Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi, is a powerful political entity, with close links to the Pakistan military. At least 50,000 of his over 900,000 devotees serve in positions reserved for them in the Pakistani Army and provincial police.  

The Pir, a member of the Pakistan National Assembly, also heads the family’s political party, Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, which got 1 million votes in the 2018 elections and now his party is a coalition partner in the government.  As per an insider, “Pir is totally a GHQ (Pakistan Army headquarters) man like many other rich politicians in Imran Khan’s party. He will do what the military establishment will ask him to do. It is true that he has not been happy with Imran Khan for the last few months.”
Khan’s last ditch effort, however, was in vain as the spiritual leader refused to meet him, citing ill health. Meanwhile, other allies in Sindh, such as Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, are also not happy with him.

President of the opposition party PML-N, Shehbaz Sharif, has even alleged that Khan  resorted to “witchcraft” and was burning tons of chickens at his residence to save his government. At the same time, as per sources, the opposition parties are taking advantage of the “internal rifts” in the ruling party and luring its members away from Khan by promising them popular party tickets in the next elections. Just days ago, two more lawmakers quit the ruling alliance, bringing the strength of the opposition to 170. Meanwhile, Khan even told his party members to either abstain or not attend the National Assembly session on the day of voting. He has also moved the court to seek bans against defectors to discourage potential dissidents. In spite of all his efforts, he could not face no confidence motion and has recommended for dissolution to pave the way for fresh general election.

READ MORE: Neighbourhood woes

READ MORE: Imran’s Googly To Stay In Power

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Asia News Columns World News

SPECIAL: The Plight Of Pakistan

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa

The selected prime minister is also facing exit without completing his term. The country which is going to celebrate 75th Independence Day on August 14 is a state ready to fail due to corruption and inner contradictions … writes Dr Sakariya Kareem

Pakistan’s anti-corruption watchdog the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has initiated proceedings against retired four-star General Ahsan Saleem Hayat and senior officials of a logistics organisation.  The allegation against him was that he was running an illegal crude oil business that caused a loss of Rs. PKR 20 million per day to the national exchequer.

 The case of running an illegal crude oil business had led to the dismissal of 17 officers by the military authorities on January 26, 2005.  Another case against Ex-Major Akaram Raza was filed for running an illegal oil business.  Raza petitioned in 2015 before the Lahore High Court (LHC) that he was a ‘whistle blower’ and not a party to the crime and that National Logistics Cell (NLC) administration kept on pressurizing him to cooperate with the crude oil mafia and failing which threatened with dire consequences.  The LHC directed the NAB  in 2019 to proceed in this case in accordance with the law.

The episodes of corruption cases against the officials of Pak armed forces are cropping up one by one.  The recent (March 2022) leak of data from Credit Swiss, a Swiss investment bank, has again brought to light the extent to which greed and corruption run amok in the Pakistan Army, especially among the Generals.  A report from the bank has implicated the Ex-ISI Chief, General Akhtar Abdur Rehman Khan, who reportedly helped funnel billions of dollars, in cash and other aid from the United States and other countries to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan to support their fight against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.  The Times of Israel claimed that the leaked documents touch only the tip of the icebergs as far as how much the top Generals of the Pakistan Army skimmed in the name of the Holy War against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The report asserted that the motto of the Pakistan army officers seems to be “Greed is God”.   There are innumerable scandals and sordid stories of financial bungling, bribery, extortion, influence peddling by serving and retired Generals for personal profit.  There are also reports of their involvement in smuggling rackets and narcotics trafficking.

It is not new.  In the 1990s, then Army Chief Aslam Beg and ISI Chief Asad Durrani proposed to start their own narcotics business to fund the ‘jihad’ against India and Afghanistan, as also other parts of the world.  It is suspected that many Pakistani Generals and bureaucrats have had secret Swiss Bank accounts with some of these accounts getting closed later because the money was either moved elsewhere or invested in business or property. The report cited the example of General Rehman’s sons who are one of the richest families in Pakistan with vast business interests.  Another example is Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani’s brothers involved in a multi-billion rupee housing scandal in Islamabad.

A Quetta corps commander Lt. Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa was called by the name “General Papa Jones” or “General Pizza” after an expose of his millions of dollar investment in Papa Jones Pizza Chain in the US and lucrative contract was given to his son while he was serving as the head of Inter-Service Public Relations (IBPR).  The same kind of allegations had been posted against former army chief Raheel Sharif and General Pervez Musharraf for amassing illegal property by using their clout.

Pakistan state has three power centres namely, the elected government, the Armed forces and Pak intelligence agency, the ISIS, all of them claiming that they could sacrifice everything for the country.  Reality is that they have together sacrificed their own ‘conscience’ and ‘character’ on one hand and people’s interest on the other

Pakistan state has three power centres namely, the elected government, the Armed forces and the Pak intelligence agency, the ISIS, all of them claiming that they could sacrifice everything for the country.  The reality is that they have together sacrificed their own ‘conscience’ and ‘character’ on one hand and people’s interests on the other. 

The Pakistan state is an agglomeration of unscrupulous interest groups which are more interested in extracting personal rentals from power, while Pak people are being denied even the basic minimum needs of life. Jihad has become a veil under which all the powerful people including state and non-state actors in Pakistan are betraying their own people.

 The economy is on the verge of collapse and democracy is under threat due to conflict among the power centres.  Imran Khan is at the exit door.  Who comes next in the reign in the state, which is waiting to fail, is being watched with curiosity. However, it is doubtful that things would change as long as the state is not separated from the influence of armed forces and the ISI.  

READ MORE: Fix responsibility on Pakistan for 1971 Bangladesh genocide

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UKRAINE: Cold War 2.0 Begins

For the region and beyond Ukraine war puts leaders before tough choices. A maverick Russian President Vladimir Putin had sent numerous signals that the Kremlin will not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO. That would put Western troops right on the Russian borders. The West had failed to provide the guarantees that Putin had asked for. And, without siding with one power against the other, we now find ourselves embroiled in a global crisis the kind of which we had not seen since the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s …. Writes Osama Al Sharif

This is not World War Three, but it is the closest the world has gotten to since the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been in the offing for decades as NATO moved slowly towards the east recruiting former Warsaw members and installing nuclear warheads closer to Moscow. The geopolitical game of brinkmanship has been going on since the 1990s and the blame game had continued from the time of Boris Yeltsin who pointed the finger at the West for not honouring pledges made to Mikhail Gorbachev by the US that NATO will not encroach on Russia’s vital sphere of influence.

A maverick Russian President Vladimir Putin had sent numerous signals that the Kremlin will not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO. That would put Western troops right on the Russian borders. The West had failed to provide the guarantees that Putin had asked for. And, without siding with one power against the other, we now find ourselves embroiled in a global crisis the kind of which we had not seen since the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s. Pundits will continue to engage in endless debates over who is really the evil party in this. But for the Middle East, in particular, and beyond the region’s leaders are polarized.

The US and the EU have imposed an unprecedented regime of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The all-inclusive sanctions are really a brutal blockade aimed at suffocating the Russian economy. This is where some countries, close to the US, had to take a step back and reconsider their position carefully.

The UAE, a member of the Security Council, stunned its western allies by abstaining at two resolutions condemning the Russian invasion. India and China took the same position. The west was fuming. Jordan, Egypt and Israel as well took their time and issued diluted statements that did not mention Russia as the aggressor. Finally, under tremendous western pressure, the UAE, Jordan, Israel and Egypt voted for a General Assembly resolution that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. India and even Iran abstained.

Qatar and the UAE refused to terminate their billion dollar investments in Russia—for now. The pressure will build up. India is coming under attack from American officials for failing to take sides.

While the Americans have less to lose—every country in the world will be affected by the western sanctions—the Europeans will be hard hit by the penalties. The Russian economy is already suffering. There is no way that energy markets will go back to normality any time soon. And that means that GCC countries will grapple with its effects as well. India, Pakistan and South Asian countries—all dependent on foreign supplies of oil and gas—will struggle as well. This open-ended crisis has already polarized the world.

Call it a Cold War 2.0 or the resetting of a new world order by other means, this showdown is not to the liking of regional leaders who have been focused on building new economic and political alliances in a fast-changing region. Pakistan wants Russian gas and India’s fast growing economy is becoming energy dependent.

And the geopolitics of the region is changing too. Israel is now an ally of at least two Gulf countries, while Moscow has two vital bases in Syria. The US is not shy of admitting that it is fed up with the Middle East and is now pivoting to the South East; much to Beijing’s anxiety.

And when it comes to economic giant China, it is not interested in warfare as much as slowly building vital global financial and economic networks through its Road and Belt initiative. As much as it now stands reluctantly with Russia it will not go as far as challenging the west and suffer economic penalties itself. But it knows that the US is watching every step it takes because in reality while Russia has issues with inter-European national security; one that it must eventually resolve, its own global agenda is completely different.

These facts are not hidden from the region’s leaders. India has built a close relationship with the US, especially under Donald Trump, but it has no interest in taking sides in what is really a geopolitical European crisis that could have been resolved diplomatically many years ago.

Along the same lines, Israel knows that antagonizing the Kremlin could have immediate effects over its ability to violate Syrian skies to hit Iran backed militias without Russian intervention on an almost daily basis. An injured Russia could still play havoc with regional security.

What is certain now is that Russia will at some point march into Kiyv and install a puppet regime. Then a long standoff will prevail with the Ukraine borders presenting themselves as a New Berlin Wall.

There is something else that irks the region’s leaders and that is the double standards and hypocrisy that dominates the west’s positions. The Russian invasion conjures up memories of the US-British illegal invasion of Iraq, NATO’s unilateral intervention in Libya and other examples where international law was trampled on.

The end game is open to all scenarios: A new alliance of countries that may shun the dollar and adopt a new crypto-currency to evade sanctions or even a new block of countries that are happy to do business with each other outside the western financial network. In all cases the war in Ukraine will change the world we have known since the 1990s and the region’s leaders are coming to grips with this new reality.

(Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and commentator based in Amman)

READ MORE: The Gulf and India: A robust partnership in the making

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Asia News Columns India News

HIJAB ROW: UNDERSTANDING INDIA’S UNITY IN DIVERSITY, PLURALISM AT ITS BEST

Afghan women protest Taliban's hijab diktat by sharing photos in colourful dresses

India is an exemplary democracy despite being one of the most diverse countries in the world. In India various communities belonging to different cultures, religions and tribes with different faiths, languages, cuisine and dressing sense live peacefully and amicably

The ongoing Hijab controversy in the Indian state of Karnataka is being blown out of proportion. There are two distinct reasons behind it. First, many people in the world do not exactly know what the Indian nation and culture stand for. Second, because there are inimical forces who intend to sully the image of India as a pluralist, peaceful and progressive democracy.

India is an exemplary democracy despite being one of the most diverse countries in the world. In India various communities belonging to different cultures, religions and tribes with different faiths, languages, cuisine and dressing sense live peacefully and amicably. India has given space to diversity and nurtured it through the ages and promoted cultural exchanges and intermingling while allowing them to maintain their uniqueness. India’s religious philosophy is underlined by a deep sense of humanity as epitomised by “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah; Sarve Santu Niramaya” (Let all of us be happy; let all of us be healthy) and “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (The world is one family).

When India became independent, the state makers in India were not interested in establishing hegemony of the majoritarian state and a social hierarchy based on it. The constitutional ideals of India were based on the principles of freedom, justice, equality and modernisation. It made space for great religions of the world, some of which originated in India such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and above all Islam. Rather than fighting a religious war, Indian society preferred mutual co-existence and assimilation among religions and cultures.

The decision of a college about dress code prohibiting Hijab is not intended to interfere with the faith of Muslim community. It should be seen as part of efforts to “make a cohesive nation” through bigger and creative platforms like colleges and schools. These educational institutions seek to create “commonality” through similar dress, syllabus and equal opportunities including extra-curricular activities. Colleges and schools try to develop a collective choice amid diversity and pluralism of India, and that, without any use of force. The Muslim women and girls are free to wear their religious symbols till they are in open public space as they were doing from several centuries. While they come to educational institutions, they are needed to comply with common dress code, which they have been doing for long without any objection. The scraf or Hijab controversies have been cropping up more often in the recent times because it is believed that some people are trying to radicalise the Muslims in general and girls in particular for their own dividing game.

The Indian educational institutions intend to modernise youth by providing them a secular platform in line with the Indian constitution to facilitate free exchanges and interaction beyond their religious or social affiliations. The idea of using symbols like similar dress code and syllabus along with inter disciplinary approach in the educational institutions aims to avert creation of enclaves among the student community, which impede the process of healthy and progressive exchanges and discourses. It also gives each student a sense of togetherness, equality and belongingness to the institution and society.

Without deliberate efforts and incentives, it is difficult to make a nation cohesive, especially when there is immense and otherwise insurmountable diversity among the communities. Unlike countries in our neighbourhood and many parts of the West Asia, India does not use brutal force to compel people to comply with primordial and fundamentalist notions of religion and culture. Instead it offers common platforms such as educational institutions and even public offices where the citizens of the country are advised to display some “modern” and “common” sense of get-up, outlook and dressing. It is never found inconvenient till somebody tried to exploit it for identity politics, polarisation and divisive objectives. Educated and grown up people avoid getting trapped, but the uneducated and immature youth may be sometimes drawn in the senseless imbroglio.

It is a matter of envy for most of the modern democracies of the world how India could be liberated from the remnants of all kinds of racialism and slavery despite being one of the most ancient cultures. Firstly, it was possible because India provided freedom of cultural and religious exchanges and intermingling, apart from essential churning required for religious reforms. While religious reforms helped India to progress ahead of primitive and medieval modes of life and socio-economic organisation, Sufism created a platform for uniting, refining and reinventing the religions and its purpose. Sufism tried to establish that all religions in the end are about making human life happy and blissful. Unlike other countries of the world, Indian religions had never been like dead weight philosophies anchored in fundamentalism. Indian religions grew and evolved overtime through reinventing and reforming them to remain relevant with the progress of time. 

Secondly, India adopted a constitution, which respects human rights and freedom above everything. India promoted scientific temper overtime and gave up most of the superstitions and obsolete practices in the name of religion and still making efforts to contemporaries the religions through open discussions and interactions, apart from constitutional processes. An obnoxious, primordial and unjust practice of Triple Talaq was abolished by law in India to safeguard the interest of Muslim women. Government did not mind flak from critics and remained firm on the principles of justice and equality.

India remains committed to both Sanatan Dharma (Eternal Religion or Duty), which was liberal and benevolent and aimed at maximum happiness for the mankind and a progressive constitution based on the principles of liberty, equality and justice. It is because of this that Sir George Abraham Grierson, the great linguist wondered how a nation can remain a cohesive unit with more than 360 languages and dialects. He could have been surprised even more with the statistics of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India contending that more than 19,500 languages or dialects are spoken in India as mother tongue. Even more surprising a fact for many is that more than 25 million Indians speak at least one regional language other than Hindi as their mother tongue including Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia and Punjabi. The 28 states and 8 union territories have their own languages, clothing, cuisine and look, but the Indian constitution binds them together with highest respect for their individual faiths. India remains one because it intends in its words and deeds to be so supported by a progressive society and its institutions.

India is a successful example of creation of a nation-state without having to homogenise different community identities into a standard type. Instead the constitution of India makes exemplary space for individuality. Indian constitution’s soul could be understood by the words, with which its preamble starts, that is, “We, the people of India.”

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SPECIAL 2022: West to Face New Russia-China Challenge – By Mihir Bose

There is no point looking anywhere else in Europe for leaders who could fashion a strategy to cope with this new Russian-Chinese alliance. Certainly not Britain. Boris Johnson may be a great Greek scholar, but his state craft has never amounted to much ….. writes Mihir Bose

In many ways the most intriguing feature of 2022 maybe the way the Russian-Chinese relationship develops and how the west adapts to it. It was the split between them in the 60s that opened the door for America, in particular Richard Nixon, to finally acknowledge that mainland China was communist, a decision which led to major geo political changes and in the long run was one of the factors among many that helped contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union. Now these two powers coming together poses fresh and unexpected challenges for America and the western allies and their response suggests they do not quite know how to measure up to this new alliance.

Of course this alliance is nothing like the one that was forged when Mao marched his army into Beijing and proclaimed the Peoples Republic of China. Then belief in Marxist-Leninism united the two countries. Mao, while believing in his own version of communism, also saw Russia as the mother land of communism from which he could draw inspiration. Stalin, of course, did not care much for Mao. He kept Mao waiting when the Chinese leader came to Moscow after assuming power and even had Mao’s stool examined to try and work out his characteristics. This was not only because Stalin was intensely suspicious but because, contrary to the communist propaganda that was spewed out for years, he was a racist who saw all non-whites as inferior. But they were fellow communists and the hostility of the US to Mao’s China, which it refused to recognise as a legitimate state for 25 years, denying it membership of the United Nations, helped cement the bounds.

All that has, of course, long gone. The present alliance is based on a shrewd appreciation by the two countries that they need to come together if they are realise their objectives and make sure they are not thwarted by the west. They are also coming together when both are in the middle of a dramatic change in their own societies. It may be almost a quarter of a century since Russia renounced communism but Vladmir Putin’s regime continues its march down the authoritarian avenue combining communist and Tsarist Russia elements of state control. It is not without significance that just after Christmas Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of Memorial, the country’s most prominent rights group, which chronicled Stalin-era purges and symbolised the post-Soviet democratisation.

In Putin’s Russia where Stalin is seen as a hero there is no place for those who seek to tell the truth about what happened during those terrible decades. But while Putin may like some of the tools of communism to keep control he is no communist. That is not the case with his new found Chinese friend.

President XI , once a cave-dwelling outcast, who as a fifteen year old had been exiled in 1969 to the once-desolate village of Liangjiahe, in North-West China, has made no secret of the fact that he is a Marxist and a Leninist. He believes in exercising absolute power and in the Chinese communist party controlling practically all areas of Chinese life. And this marks a huge change from the way China has developed since Deng Xiaopong turned China round and laid the foundations for making China the world power it has become.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei/IANS)

Deng’s philosophy was based on a very clever strategy of making sure the communist party retrained control, yet the people had as much freedom as possible. In effect what this meant was that in their economic life people were allowed to make money and indeed become very rich capitalists as many of them did in the years that followed. However, control of the state remained in the hands of the communist party. This was the trick that Michael Gorbachev missed. He brought freedom to Russia but in the process had to abandon communism and indeed the Soviet empire having to set free many of the colonies it had. Deng avoided any such thing.

Xi may have been brought up in Deng’s liberal regime but his direction is to move China from the market economy that Deng created to a command economy with the state intervening in the private lives of individuals. So, in order to control the video-games industry children are allowed one hour online only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Putin and Xi in a certain sense share a common goal. Putin has made no secret of the fact that he regrets that Gorbachev’s reforms led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia losing control of many countries once part of the Soviet empire. His foreign policy initiatives are clearly designed to re-establish the old Soviet Empire, or at least once again exercise control over countries that he feels belong to the Russian orbit and should never have been allowed to go free.

Xi’s mission is to rejuvenate China and restore the country to a mythical status, one it had until the 18th century, when it was the leading country in the world and people paid homage to the Chinese emperor. Then came its century of shame, as the Chinese put it, humiliation at the hands of the British Empire. If for Putin going back to the lost past means trying to bring Ukraine to heel then for Xi Taiwan and many other parts of south Asia should kowtow to the new China.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping inside a house boat, in Wuhan. (Photo IANS_PIB)

For the west all this anathema. But apart from making pious noises there is little it can do. It can only watch as Putin bullies countries bordering Russia. Nor can it do much as China extends its arc far beyond its traditional borders, as far as Sri Lanka. Nor can it do anything to stop China behaving in Africa in the style that the old Europeans, who plundered what they called the dark continent, would have immediately recognised. Indeed, if someone of them were around they would immediately claim that China was following their white exploration play book. As with Putin the west can do nothing about this. It can try and rein in some Chinese companies, but it cannot curb the expansion of the Chinese state both within China and abroad.

All this is not helped by the fact that we have never had such poor leadership in the west. Joe Biden may have beaten Trump, but he has proved such a failure that not only will the Democrats lose the midterm elections due in 2022 but it is very likely he, or whoever the Democrats nominate, will face a resurgent Trump in 2024 and this time suffer a defeat.

There is no point looking anywhere else in Europe for leaders who could fashion a strategy to cope with this new Russian-Chinese alliance. Certainly not Britain. Boris Johnson may be a great Greek scholar, but his state craft has never amounted to much. He was, probably, the worst foreign secretary this country has had and in any case much of 2022 will be for him a battle to make sure he holds on to No 10.

I believe he will. The Conservatives are a ruthless political party who have no compunction in removing a leader who looks like losing an election. But I doubt if 2022 will see Boris fall. He can still perform a good pantomime act and that is likely to carry him through for another year. If by then he is still, as Dominic Cummings pictured him, a shopping trolley out of control then it might be a different story.

(Mihir Bose is former Sports Editor of BBC. His latest book is Narendra Modi, the Yogi of Populism. @mihirbose)

ALSO READ: Bigger Crisis Awaits Biden in 2022

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Rajesh Khanna: The natural legacy continues for generations

This was only to be expected from an actor showered with love by a generation of fans who had grown up on three immensely poignant songs from his movie ‘Anand’: “Zindagi Kaise Hai Paheli”, “Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaaye” and “Maine Tere Liye Hi Saat Rang Ke Sapne Chune”….writes Vishnu Makhijani

Rajesh Khanna was a natural. His biographer Gautam Chintamani recalls the director-writer-actor Rumi Jaffery saying how he can “never forget how Rajesh Khanna prided himself on never using aids like glycerine to evoke tears while acting”.

Jaffery recalled in a conversation with Chintamani: “He would ask you, ‘How many tears do you need?’, and just turn around for a moment or two; and when he turned back, there would be tears in his eyes. You could wake him up in the middle of the night and he would just stand and deliver when it came to tears.”

Chintamani will be collaborating with director Farah Khan on the script, based on his book, ‘Dark Star: The Loneliness Of Being Rajesh Khanna’, for a biopic on India’s first superstar.

“Once, Jaffery and (cinematographer) Sameer Arya instructed Rajesh Khanna to randomly shed a few tears in a hotel’s lift lobby and Khanna readily dispelled a few before the lift emerged,” Chintamani writes in the book.

And, there was no end to his ire when aroused.

“There were times when rumours of his sudden death flooded the Internet and saw his fans paying rich tributes on social media sites. Once, an infuriated Khanna walked to the main gate of Aashirwad in his favourite silk lungi-kurta with a cigarette and drink in tow only to prove to a journalist that, contrary to rumours, he was still alive,” Chintamai writes.

It was this strength of character that prompted Rajesh Khanna to appear in his first TV commercial — perhaps to the horror of some, but to the immense delight of a legion of admirers — and boldly declaim: “Fans kya hote hain mujhse poochho. Pyaar ka woh toofan … mohabbat ki woh aandhi .. woh jazbaa … woh junoon. Hawaa badal sakti hai lekin fans hamesha mere rahenge. Babumoshai, mere fans mujhse koi nahin chheen sakta (I will tell you what fans are. That storm of love … that passion … that madness. The direction of the wind may change, but my fans will always stay with me. Babumoshai, no one can steal my fans from me).”

This was only to be expected from an actor showered with love by a generation of fans who had grown up on three immensely poignant songs from his movie ‘Anand’: “Zindagi Kaise Hai Paheli”, “Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaaye” and “Maine Tere Liye Hi Saat Rang Ke Sapne Chune”.

Sure, there were a procession of hit songs from his 17 consecutive hit films as the lead hero from 1969 to 1971, which included 15 solo-hero films and two non-solo-hero films. “Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana” and “Yeh Shaam Mastani” are just two, but listen carefully to the lyrics from ‘Anand’ and you will get a measure of what Rajesh Khanna’s guiding philosophy was all about.

Sharmila Tagore, his co-star in ‘Aradhana’, which began his journey to superstardom, sums this up the best in the foreword to Chintamani’s book: “If ever a life was meant to be a book, few could stake a stronger claim. Like a shooting star doomed to darkness after a glorious run, Rajesh Khanna spent the better half of his career in the shadow of his own stardom. Yet, 40 years after his last monstrous hit, Khanna continues to be the yardstick by which every single Bollywood star is measured.”

She recalls: “At a time when film stars were truly larger than life, Khanna was even more: the one for whom the term ‘superstar’ was coined. Born Jatin Khanna to middle-class parents, the actor was adopted by rich relatives who brought him up like a prince.

“By the time he won the Filmfare-United Producers Combine Talent Hunt, he was already famous for being the struggler who drove an imported sports car.

“With 17 blockbuster hits in succession and mass adulation rarely seen before or since, the world was at Khanna’s feet. Everything he touched turned to gold. The hysteria he generated — women writing him letters in blood, marrying his photograph and donning white when he married Dimple Kapadia, people bringing sick children for his ‘healing’ touch after ‘Haathi Mere Saathi’ — was unparalleled.

“Then, in a matter of months, it all changed. Khanna’s career hit a downward spiral, as spectacular as his meteoric rise just three years after ‘Aradhana’ (1969) and never really recovered.”

Adman-filmmaker R. Balki, who directed Rajesh Khanna in the TV commercial, roundly deprecates the criticism that the actor had been depicted in poor light in the 35-second spot, saying it only points to his strength of character.

“My response to it (the criticism) is simple,” he said in an interview after the commercial was aired. “If a man is great enough to laugh at himself, why should anyone have a problem? When he wasn’t doing anything on screen all these years, people were making all kinds of jokes about it. When a legend chooses to laugh at himself, then some people start getting uncomfortable. I don’t even think that they are Rajesh Khanna fans in the first place. … He’s the one who is cracking a joke at himself, he is sporting enough to say, ‘Yes, I am not what I used to be. But so what!'”

Legendary script-writer Salim Khan, who in tandem with Javed Akhtar, has penned some of Bollywood’s most memorable films, provides a balanced perspective in his foreword to an earlier biography, ‘Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India’s First Superstar’, by journalist-author Yaseer Usman.

Salim Khan writes in the Foreword: “Today, my son Salman Khan is a big star. Crowds cluster daily in front of our house to catch a glimpse of him. People often come to me and say that they haven’t seen such a craze for any star before this.

“But I tell these people that just a small distance away from here, on Carter Road, I have witnessed many such sights in front of Aashirwad. And I have never seen that kind of mass adulation for any other star after Rajesh Khanna.”

Salim Khan concludes: “We often forget when we talk about film stars or public figures that they are also human beings who also make mistakes, face failure and are scared of losing their successful run professionally, like everyone else.”

One thing is for sure: It has been a decade since Rajesh Khanna departed from this world, but his legacy will continue to live for generations to come.

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China in a fix over Taiwan

Talk of non-alignment and independence is all very well, but no nation is an island. Both China’s Vietnam and India border wars were short because it new greater powers were watching. In 1979, Vietnam had the support of the Soviet Union. In 1962, India’s had the U.S … writes Humphrey Hawksley

The tale I am about to tell begins in Taiwan in 1958, moves to India in 1962, then to Vietnam in 1979.  It provides lessons about long-ago conflicts that need fixing now and false historical mindsets, particularly in India, that need revising.

In the summer of 1958, Chinese artillery pounded the Taiwanese-controlled island of Kinmen only a few miles from the mainland.  Almost ten years after Mao Tse-tung’s communist forces declared victory, the nationalist government still held Taiwan and its outlying islands.  

The U.S. viewed Taiwan, as it did Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula, as a red line in the expansion of global communism. Fearing a full-scale invasion, America drew up plans for a nuclear strike should China try to take even Kinmen island. Targets would be military bases around the eastern city of Xiamen using bombs with similar explosive force as those that struck Hiroshima. They would be delivered by B-47 bombers.

At the time, the Sino-Soviet pact was strong. Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev got wind of the plan and sent a message to U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower warning bluntly that an attack on China would be considered an attack on the Soviet Union.  With Hiroshima and Nagasaki fresh in everyone’s minds, all sides backed down.

But four years later. having failed in Taiwan, Mao Tse-tung wanted to teach India a lesson for supporting the Dalai Lama over Tibet, and ordered an invasion across the Sino-Indian Himalayan border. 

The Chinese military outclassed India and took the town of Tawang in Arunchal Pradesh. The prevailing view today is that India lost this war badly, and the concept of defeat has embedded itself into the national psyche. But missing from that much of the narrative is that China timed its incursion precisely to coincide with the much higher profile Cuban missile crisis.  The operation began on October 20th 1962, the day President John Kennedy announced the blockade against Soviet ships heading for Cuba.  China withdrew on November 21st the day after the Cuban blockade ended.

Although focused on Cuba, the U.S. offered unwavering support to India. Military advisers, weapons and other supplies were flown to Indian air bases. Warplanes based in the Philippines were readied for strike. The Sino-Soviet pact was substantively weakened and, unlike four years earlier, China received no comparative support from Moscow.

“We were in an impossible position,” retired general Xu Guangyu told me in Beijing. He was then with the Chemical Defense Research Institute, tasked with protecting China against weapons of mass destruction. “China had no nuclear weapons. We had no idea how to protect our people from a nuclear attack. Over Taiwan and then India we were sure the Americans would strike. We had no choice but to pull back.”

There are two strands to this story.

The first is India’s mindset. The perceived defeat in 1962 continues to weigh heavily on the nation’s strategic view and how it sees its global presence.

Yet, the battlefield is only one element of winning and losing wars. Power projection involves much more, as we have seen with America which continues to forge on, despite its losses in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

China might have claimed victory on the border, but because of India’s alliance with the U.S., it ran away, even surrendering the main city it had captured.

There was a near-parallel border war in 1979, when China invaded for overthrowing the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. That conflict lasted a month from February 17th to March 16th , a similar length of time as in India. Like with Tawang, China took the northern Vietnamese city of Lan Son, then withdrew.

But the Vietnamese have constructed a different narrative to that of India’s. Through its prism, battle-hardened Vietnamese troops put up a much tougher fight than Beijing had anticipated and gave the Chinese a very bloody nose.

While Vietnam proudly shows off that it has beaten three permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, France, America and China, on the battlefield. India still believes it lost against China in 1962.

To take another example from further afield, Britain’s catastrophic military, intelligence and political defeat by Nazi Germany at Dunkirk in 1940 has become a banner-waving legend of the nation’s plucky character and bravery in the face of adversity. 

Picture by Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street

The second strand concerns alliances. Talk of non-alignment and independence is all very well, but no nation is an island. Both China’s Vietnam and India border wars were short because it new greater powers were watching. In 1979, Vietnam had the support of the Soviet Union. In 1962, India’s had the U.S. 

This is not the place to discuss the pros and cons of India’s various alliances except to say, like Britain and Vietnam, it should think hard about how it tells the story about itself, its values, its courage and the spirit of its people – and which friend would have its back when the chips are down.

Humphrey Hawksley is a former Asia Correspondent and BBC Beijing Bureau Chief. His latest book is Asian Waters: The Struggle for the Indo-Pacific and the Challenge to American Power.

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IMRAN KHAN: Between the burden of history and the trap of geography

Pakistan has had to go through many painful transitions; political assassinations of top government figures, public protests that were often met with violence, a civil war that ended in East Bengal seceding in 1971 leading to the birth of modern-day Bangladesh, military coups, more assassinations and the rise of Islamic radical movements. In between civil governments powerful political dynasties took over and their rule was blackened by mass corruption; a main reason why a country of 220 million citizens, the fifth largest in population, struggles and is crippled by massive foreign debt; approximately $283 billion … writes Osama Al Sharif

Since its blood-drenched and dramatic separation from British ruled India, the newly born Islamic Republic of Pakistan had precious few years to engage in nation-building. It was a bizarre birth of a nation of two main but separate parts, East Pakistan and West Pakistan, later West Bengal. Less than three months later the new nation found itself embroiled in a long and costly war with India over disputed Kashmir—a conflict, along with the tragedy of Palestine, remains open and a constant cause of tension between the two nuclear neighbours.

But Pakistan has had to go through many painful transitions; political assassinations of top government figures, public protests that were often met with violence, a civil war that ended in East Bengal seceding in 1971 leading to the birth of modern-day Bangladesh, military coups, more assassinations and the rise of Islamic radical movements. In between civil governments powerful political dynasties took over and their rule was blackened by mass corruption; the main reason why a country of 220 million citizens, the fifth largest in population, struggles and is crippled by massive foreign debt; approximately $283 billion.

Pakistan’s conflict with India has come at a huge cost to its economic growth. The geographic trap has put it next to Afghanistan; a country rocked by internal and geopolitical tremors for decades but more seriously for Pakistan, with which it has the longest borders, since the Soviet invasion of 1979 and its aftermath.

Pakistan was a major ally of the United States during the Cold War. In fact it was the main CIA base in West Asia, keeping a close eye on Soviet republics and allies, including India. This was one reason why Washington looked the other way when Pakistani generals interrupted civilian life. Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq took over in 1978 and remained president until his death in a plane crash in 1988. His ruthless rule and his controversial imposition of ultra-conservative Sunni Sharia law is believed to have been a harbinger for things to come; the birth of puritanical Islamic schools, which many years later would bring out the Taliban.

Pakistan played a crucial role in the emergence of the Afghan Mujahideen who, armed by the US and trained in Pakistan, fought the Russians for years. Millions of Afghans found refuge in neighbouring Afghanistan—and many still do. Pakistan may have got more than what it bargained for by helping the Mujahideen and allowing strict Sunni seminaries to thrive.

Despite its alliance with and reliance on the United States, there are dark chapters in the US-Pak ties. What role did the infamous Pakistan secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence, play in enabling the Taliban and harbouring Al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden, remains to be divulged. One thing is true today: Pakistan is now facing radical Islamists movements and its own homemade Taliban who want to take the country backwards.

America’s rash and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last August has shocked its allies, including Pakistan; now ruled by charismatic former cricket champion turned politician Imran Khan. After decades of running against the establishment and the deep state, the 69-year-old was finally elected prime minister in 2018. His mission is to fight corruption, bring in social justice and impose the rule of law.

But his goal to extract Pakistan from its deep-seated challenges—both internal and external—seems almost impossible. His top intelligence chief was the first to land in liberated Kabul to meet the new Taliban government. This week he hosted an Islamic meeting to raise funds to help Afghan citizens who are suffering from food and medicine shortages.

He claims that, for the first time, he runs a corruption-free government. And yet under his watch, Pakistan has borrowed tens of billions of dollars to keep the struggling economy going. And he claims that no country is short of resources but it is the corrupt ruling elite who impoverish any country.

His mission is a tough one: internally he has to stamp out corruption and face radical revisionist movements that are likely to become militant, sucking the country into civil strife. On the foreign policy track, he has to recalibrate Pakistan’s role in a tumultuous and changing region. India is now closer to the United States than ever and his ties with Washington, as well as with traditional Arab allies, are being tested. He has to walk a thin line in dealing with toxic Afghanistan; making sure that the country does not implode and yet keeping a safe distance from the Taliban.

The burden of a bloody and unsettled historical legacy will plague Khan as will the turbulent neighbourhood his country finds itself in. In the past few decades, he is perhaps Pakistan’s best possible hope to stave off local and external dangers. He may not have the luxury of time or the abundance of resources. And with a back crushing foreign debt he certainly has a small area to manoeuvre. On the other hand, if there is one state player that can influence his Afghan neighbour, it is Pakistan and the world should appreciate this important fact.

(Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman)