"Hate thy Neighbor"!

The bureaucracy has carefully and meticulously managed, if not manipulated and controlled the image of Quaid e Azam as it would have liked it to emerge upon "mature" reflection. This is for the "benefit" of future generations of Pakistan. Please dont get me wrong. I am not going to argue that Jinnah fought for a secular state and advocated for one in his 11 Aug extemporaneous remarks. Equating the freedom to go "to mosques and temples" with secularism is symptomatic of a very sick mind. Especially in a world where freedom of worship granted to 1.8 million Israeli Muslims cannot be seen as evidence of secular charater of the Israeli state.

An entire generation of "enlightened Pakistanis" has grown listening to the secular narrative on the Aug 11 speech in elite universities. The seculars represent the establishment as much as the state's administrative organs. They hail from one flank of the ruling class and serve the apparatus of the other flank by drawing a wedge between the intellectual curiosities of the rulers and the value judgements of the ruled; thus replacing conviction with confusion and often chaos. Chaos is always a good thing when control is the sought outcome, as it prevents the masses from gravitating toward a shared vision of how to use the organs of the state to enhance their own welfare.

No where is freedom from the value judgements of the populace more desperately needed than in the realm of foreign affairs. Actually no such area of enterprise exists anywhere in the Muslim world.

Though massively bloated bureaucracies exist to maintain status quo or implement ad hoc schemes when the foreign service is caught napping in the face of brewing diplomatic storms. Creative inertia and studious mismanagement by the pedantic protagonists of foreign affairs is the order of things. This branch of the ruling elite has mutated into a South Asian version of Oxford educated blue blooded and brainless oligarchs indifferent to the issues of the ummah. The whiskey guzzling, belly dance loving ruling classes dont believe in the concept of an Ummah. In this regard they are on the same page as Lawrence of Arabia. But the the ummah is repeatedly invoked to whip up public hysteria especially against the existential threat posed by India. Thus when the nation is called to declare its position on crises facing the ummah, its rulers invoke hostilities from the distant past to wriggle out of any threat of revising or rather devising a workable strategy that would give a trapped Muslim nation a way out and enhance the nation's stature and pride and make the foreign service a trifle less mechanistic.

Thus when Zafar ullah Jamali was asked about Pakistan's position on the Iraq War in 2003, he angrily replied: "who told you Pakistan was Iraq's defense line". True, given the perpetually fragile state that that the people and rulers of Pakistan collude to keep the country in, the reply was the correct official reply not an expression of the public sentiment, much less a considered political position of the greatest international challenge of the day. On such occasions the underdogs nation's negative position on Pakistan's "vital interests" (positions assumed decades earlier) are invoked to justify inaction and to evade any possibility of questions being raised on the sorry state of preparedness for any emerging foreign policy challenge. That government policies change from time to time, or more realistically from regime to regime, is completely discounted. The Afghans for example were against recognizing the "artificial" state of Pakistan. That was remembered on the eve of US attack in 2002; though it had never been an issue when the mujahideen were prosecuting Charlie Wilson's war on the jagged peaks and blood soaked planes of Afghanistan in the 1980s. No one of course ever mentioned in the delirious days of Musharraf's "sub say pehlay Pakistan" and "enlightened moderation" that the afghan forces guaranteed security of Pakistan's western borders when the 1971 conflagration was reducing Pakistani sovereignty and with it the country's prestige to ashes. The secular broad minded educated flank of the Taliban cobbling right wing establishment subscribes to the exact same view. Though for the record, the seculars hate all obscurantist forces: whatever that obscure term means. The educated elite that otherwise rants against the establishment has generally taken the same line on Gaza. No interference with pecuniary interests is acceptable. To that end they suddenly remember that Palestine never supported us on Kashmire- as since 1948 Palestine has been an empire or a super state with standing armies, roving navies and marauding stealth jets that could have put the Americans to shame. Knock knock does anyone remember that a Pakistani dictator had no reason to envelop the Palestinians in the darkness of "Black September: in 1970; and yet he did.

Coming back to the Quaid. When he was asked after accepting the June 3 plan in 1947 whether he would turn toward India or the Arab world he replied: "it is too early for me to answer such questions. But on the eve of his departure from Delhi on Aug 7, 1947 his mind was made up. "we will look toward the Islamic world" he said categorically. When it came to the Muslims the Quaid's policy was forward looking and constructive. He did not garden his grudges nor did he nurse malice. His response to Afghanistans refusal to recognize Pakistan was a redoubling of diplomatic efforts to mend fences with that country. He travelled to the Torgham border to personally shake hands with Afghan soldiers, mollified the Afghan government by entertaining its delegates and welcoming its ambassador. Something he said that day in May 1947 to the Afghan ambassador is more than instructive:

"Your Royal Highness has rightly referred to the natural bonds of friendship and affection which bind the people of our two countries. It could hardly be otherwise as these bonds are based on ties of faith and culture and common ideals. With such powerful bonds already in our favor we cannot, I feel, fail to bring the people of our two countries closer towards each other and closer than they were before the birth of Pakistan.”

Later in December he returned to the same theme. He was not one to wish problems away, but would deal with them with a diplomatic finesse almost non-existent in the country today: "we desire that the relationship between these two sister nations may be of the greatest and the most lasting friendship, and I hope that the two governments will soon be able to SETTLE AND ADJUST, in a spirit of goodwill for the benefit of both, all those matters which require our immediate attention".

There was hardly a more cautious ruler in Pakistan's history than the Quaid. but when principles of foreign policy, especially those that affected the Muslim world, were at stake, Jinnah could drive a stake right through the heart of international hypocrisy and make his views known in most uncertain terms to the most turgid of world leaders. He had seen the Nakba coming at least from 1938 onward and had been appealing to his "friends" in Iraq and Egypt not to allow Jews into Palestine. Thus on the question of the partition of Palestine he sent the following telegram to President Harry S. Truman who had under the influence of men like Clark Clifford sanctioned the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In the telegram the Quaid sounded almost like George Marshal on the Arab Question. The telegram from the Governor General of Pakistan Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to the President of the United states Harry S. Truman, dated Dec 9, 1947, is produced in full below:

"At this hour when the Muslim world has received a terrible shock owing to the most unfortunate decision of the United Nations Organization to enforce partition of Palestine, I would like to address to you, Mr. President, this personal appeal.

The decision is ultra vires of the United Nations charter and basically wrong and invalid in law. Morally it is untenable. Political, historically, geographically and practically it would be impossible to enforce partition against the united resistance of the Arabs who have the full sympathy and support of over three hundred million Mussalmans and many non-Muslim countries and not only those who voted against UNO decision.

In the long run it will and must fail. The very people for whose benefit this decision is taken—the Jews, who have already suffered terribly from Nazi persecution—will, I greatly fear, suffer most if this unjust course is pursued. Moreover, the decision presents a great danger to world peace.

May I therefore, at this eleventh hour, appeal to you and through you to the great and powerful American nation, which has always stood for justice, to uphold the rights of the Arab race. The Government and the people of America can yet save this dangerous situation by giving a correct lead and thus avoid the gravest consequences and repercussions."

Pakistan's categorical and courageous stand enhanced the country's prestige both in the eyes of the Muslim world as well as the Americans, including Harry S. Truman, who could not have expected a different response from any self-respecting Muslim leader. Furthermore the telegram was neither hostile to the Jews nor to the Americans and reiterated Pakistan's enduring commitment to world peace: to which the partition of Palestine was not conducive- the telegram concluded.

Today Pakistan's policy on Gaza is one of "studious and strict" neutrality. Though as Eamon de Valera noted: when considering a neutral country one must ask oneself the question "who is it neutral for"! Other Muslim countries have disgraced themselves more thoroughly by anchoring their strategy in active dislike and open hostility to the Gazan people. Gazans are not welcome as refugees anywhere. Nor are those who want to ameliorate the pathetic plight of the Gazans.

Had Hamas cared about the Gazans they would have taken these factors into consideration or at least obtained guarantees for the safety of their people. But Muslim people have the same predicament everywhere. They are objects in the wider world, subjects in their own territories. They can neither scrutinize nor question the decisions of their rulers. Their lives and honor, like their value judgments, count for naught. Their heart rending shrieks fall on deaf and unrewarding ears of their own ruling classes.

The Gazans should have realized this and should have counselled themselves that they were always playing on extremely sticky wicket before Oct 7, 2023.