Understanding the dynamics of Pakistan

by Ali Kassim

The UK prides itself on having a principled foreign policy that respects nations and their sovereignty and commits itself to not allowing the soil of this country to be used to wreak havoc overseas or colluding with any other person or country in meting out the same.

Then why is it that the previous Labour government as well as our incumbent Tory government is supporting or at least remaining silent over the issue of drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan. These attacks are killing innocent women and children and destroying the lives of a hundreds of thousands of human beings.

This brutal mass murder committed by the United States is against the UN ruling over respecting countries’ sovereignty and by the act of remaining silent and not supporting the moderate peace loving Muslims’ who oppose terrorist attacks and who are in favour of a composite dialogue to forge inter-faith harmony, the UK is playing into the hands of the extremist vested interests whose agenda is not Islam or anything but mere terrorism.

It is the need of the hour to revisit our foreign policy and not be swayed by selective media coverage of the minority fringes who are committing acts of violence in the name of Islam.

Hailing from Pakistan, I can safely assert, that 95 % of Pakistanis are peace loving, support the premise of live and let live and are peace loving moderate Muslims. In fact, they, more than anyone else, despise the so called ‘righteous’ who commit these acts of violence in the name of Islam, as this causes a dis-service to our peaceful religion in which we cannot even take our own life (commit suicide), let alone murder someone else.

Pakistan is a complex foreign policy landscape which carefully needs to be managed, namely by firstly promoting the UK as being the true friend of Pakistan, understanding the dilemmas the Pakistanis’ are facing not only when it comes to tackling insurgency and militants, but also the corrupt rulers who are destroying the country by only self serving. Assistance in educational development, Economic cooperation and high level diplomatic visits are needed from the UK to Pakistan to show the public the true friendship both countries enjoy. Hearts need to be won by taking a principled stance and rather than supporting a few select corrupt governments, who do not define ‘friendship’, the focus needs to shift to the country and its public.

The UK should also keep in mind that America has used and abused Pakistan many times and it should not follow suit by blindly supporting imperialism.