It, therefore, seemed pretty outlandish – but expected – for White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby to repeatedly insist that: “No one is mourning Nasrallah’s death.” His regurgitation of this talking point spoke volumes. What it translated as is that no “civilised” human, presumably white and Western, is in a state of mourning. The obvious implication is that populations of the Global South are uncivilised barbarians and sub-humans, and hence, their sentiments can be disregarded.
Indeed, far beyond Lebanon, from Venezuela to Malaysia, millions agonised over the Hezbollah leader’s death.
One of the countries that wept heavily over the Zionist murder of Nasrallah is Pakistan. In fact, the anguish has not abated. But the grieving has metamorphosed into an impassioned and indefatigable resistance against the military-civilian regime in Islamabad.
The scenes of fearless women, children and the elderly – who compose the majority of the daily demonstrators in Islamabad and Lahore – have been surreal. These have been the same protestors who have not let a day go by without having massive Palestine solidarity rallies, culminating in a whopping show of strength on the one-year anniversary of the Gaza resistance factions’ prison break. This has been all the more remarkable considering the vicious state repression of these expressions of solidarity. The generals in Islamabad are loathe to displease their Zionist patrons-masters in the West.
What has also been noteworthy is how the people of Pakistan have transcended the decades-long infusion of sectarianism in the country. The House of Saud has worked hard to ensure anti-Iran and anti-Shia sentiment. Despite the poisonous nature of this perennial propaganda, former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Movement for Justice (MFJ) proudly proclaimed their admiration of Hezbollah’s legendary leader, advertising this admiration all over social media. Moreover, the MFJ has rallied around Iran’s armed response, enthusiastically celebrating the missiles hitting military targets inside Israel.
This has particularly enraged the Saudi royals and Pakistan’s military top brass – the latter utterly failing to suppress the colossal grassroots outpouring of support for the “Axis of Resistance” in West Asia.
Indeed, a message that has gone viral among MFJ activists and supporters asserts that Khan’s righteous defiance and resistance is akin to two “martyrs” according to them: the assassinated head of the politburo of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh and Nasrallah. What is significant here is not whether the comparison is accurate, but the fact that Pakistanis desire someone such as Haniyeh or Nasrallah, someone with the spirit of struggle.
This is the best indicator of where the pulse of Pakistanis is today.
The military-civilian regime in Islamabad is increasingly facing the loss of even an iota of legitimacy. The present regime has tried to ram down a constitutional amendment that would undermine the power of the Supreme Court. It would create a “Constitutional Court” that would be controlled by manipulating politicians safely in the pockets of the military establishment. The attempt at this heavy-handed measure is the immediate cause of the mass protests in the country, which have included both MFJ and non-MJF Pakistanis.
After two years of confronting some of the worst forms of state terror in the country’s history, the MFJ not only lives on, but has all but dispensed with the valid fears they have had of the “deep state” since the ouster from power of former PM Khan.
Obviously, all of this has been bad news for the praetorian guard ruling Pakistan. The generals and their hopelessly corrupt political minions, with the blessing of Washington, engineered regime change against the wildly popular cricketer-turned-politician in April of 2022. The West believed Islamabad’s military and political surrogates had eradicated the “Khan virus” once and for all. The US State Department had accused the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) leader of “aggressive neutrality”, laid out clearly in the secret diplomatic cable made public by The Intercept. The regime change was meant to finish Khan’s independent foreign policy and return the country to its traditional subservience to Pakistan’s rulers’ patron-masters abroad.
In its estimation, the Pakistani military high command’s promise of geopolitical allegiance to the US would enable more International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans for the impoverished country bled dry by the nation’s parasitic elites. But these loans, as usual, were quickly squandered by Pakistan’s oligarchs. With rising popular anger over skyrocketing inflation and widespread unemployment, the regime has now taken its begging bowl to Beijing. China has been requested to restructure the huge loans proffered to Islamabad and perhaps dole out a little more to keep the Pakistani economy afloat. This is the same Pakistan that was supposed to be the poster child of the grand success of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) flagship project, the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Instead, not only have Pakistan’s kleptocrats been incompetent partners in this multibillion-dollar venture, but expat Chinese workers and engineers being periodically targeted and murdered on the streets in broad daylight – has made Beijing livid.
The Islamic Republic’s hopelessly unscrupulous generals are now begging Beijing not to abandon its “all-weather friend” to the Southwest, offering the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership not just a fancy port at Gwadar in the province of Balochistan, but a foreign naval base. The situation has become so disconcerting that while Beijing may accept Islamabad’s obsequious offer, China has now issued a travel advisory warning its citizens not to visit Pakistan.
And China is supposed to be Pakistan’s best friend.
What makes matters worse is that sections of the US foreign policy establishment, ostensibly “friends” of the generals in Islamabad, have begun expressing a mea culpa sentiment, with anonymous “unofficial” leaks occasionally found in The New York Times (NYT). Neo-Cons of note, such as Ambassadors Zalmay Khalilzad and John Bolton, have launched public attacks against the Biden administration, furiously contending that Washington has royally botched its Pakistan policy since the ouster of Khan. More liberal voices in the Washington policymaking/think tank community are also joining the chorus, indicating extreme dissatisfaction at the blundering ineptitude of the latest incarnation of political hoodlums the US has helped to install.
Mainstream legacy media in the US are now giving credence to such views. Outlets like the NYT all of a sudden are putting Pakistan back on the radar and only now discovering the “democratic backsliding” plaguing the country.
The generals in Islamabad were forgiven for their “double-dealing” – serving Washington while winking at the Taliban next door – during the “Af-Pak” theatre of the “War on Terror”. After removing the stumbling block of Khan, Pakistan was now expected to be firmly back in the US camp.
But the past two years have seen Pakistan’s predicament, both politically and economically, reach abysmal levels. While Western mainstream mouthpieces and stenographers of power have ached to write about a “new page” of democracy and development in Pakistan, there has been nothing to show for it.
In addition, the overwhelming support for Khan and the MFJ within the Pakistani diaspora more than persuaded publications such as the NYT to pursue discretion over “valour” – a good choice considering the vitriol that would accompany any soft corner for what most Pakistanis regard as an utterly illegitimate regime in Islamabad.
In short, the NYT and much Western media have played it safe, adopting the “less said, the better” approach.
The US State Department, however, could not get off the hook so easily. Since April of 2022, it has had the unenviable task of trying to pepper over the incompetent and banana republic-esque political behaviour of its Pakistani proxies. Considering the state violence unleashed on society since the deposing and subsequent jailing of Khan, one marvels at the scale and perseverance of a seemingly undeterred nationwide political movement against the military establishment and its favoured kleptocrats.
What has been equally astonishing is how ordinary Pakistanis, young and old, male and female, have had the name of Nasrallah on the tips of their tongues for the past two weeks. Ruthless efforts by the Pakistani national security state to suppress anti-genocide solidarity protests have failed miserably.
Social media in Pakistan is simultaneously revealing another important expression of solidarity, this time with “freedom fighters” within the country itself. Prominent activists from the nation – the US – who facilitated the regime change against Khan are also becoming more conspicuous, including Dr Jill Stein of the Green Party and Medea Benjamin of Code Pink.
The generals in Islamabad find themselves in a mess, confronting an unparalleled political scenario in the country’s history. They are now not only despised by provinces wherein the armed forces have been violently deployed periodically over the decades, but also in the largest province of the nation, the one which the Pakistani military has long regarded as its main support base and recruiting ground: the Punjab.
Pakistan is witnessing the most serious and sustained direct confrontation with the military establishment in the country’s history today. The generals have been forced to make some symbolic concessions, such as loosening the grip on “misinformation” – which translates as criticism of their rule. These authoritarian elites never concede anything unless they are compelled to, and their tyranny knows no limits.
It’s crystal clear that the MFJ has been able to put up such a fight so as to push the military-civilian regime on the defensive. The rulers in Islamabad are now desperately trying to put the flames out, to manage and pacify the ongoing uprisings.
But the people of Gaza and figures such as Nasrallah continue to inspire. All one needs to do is speak to activists on the streets of Islamabad or Lahore to realise how the resistance in the Middle East has helped rejuvenate and revitalise mass action against the despots in Islamabad.
No comments:
Post a Comment