The UN’s humanitarian wing was able to collect nearly 80% of its targeted relief fund of approximately US$1 billion within 10 days of the Tsunami disaster. Yet it has managed to collect only 30% of its much smaller US$300 million target in twice as many days in the case of the Pakistani quake. Worse, if much of the required relief assistance isn’t forthcoming in the next three weeks or so before the winter snows and rains set in and make the terrain impassable, it will all be in vain. Why hasn’t the “Pakistani” quake elicited the same humanitarian response from the international community as in other international distress cases? Indeed, why is the “Pakistani” quake being referred to in the advertisements of western charities and relief agencies (as for example, by Oxfam, the leading such charity) as the “South Asia” disaster even though the rest of South Asia has fortunately escaped its wrath without a scratch?
Let’s face it. When you mention “Pakistan” to Westerners, they are inclined to immediately conjure up images of a national backwater bristling with nuclear and conventional weapons and infested with west-hating religious extremists, India-baiting generals and war-mongering jihadis in Kashmir. Until recently, we openly proclaimed that the odious Taliban were our friends. More children were named Osama in Pakistan after 9/11 than anywhere else in the Muslim world. Danny Pearl was beheaded in Karachi. Churches and Western consulates have been attacked, French engineers killed, multi-national food stores bombed. Minorities and women are routinely dehumanized. Islamic fanatics among the Sunni and Shia sects wreak senseless havoc upon one another every day. Western embassies issue advisories against travel in Pakistan and insurance companies charge premiums from those who ignore this advice. On top of it all, we make pathetic excuses about our lack of representative democracy, banish our popular leaders from the country, and even in a moment of acute national environmental crisis refuse to bury the political hatchet and solicit their assistance in galvanizing international humanitarian relief.
As if that were not enough, consider what some stalwarts of the ruling mullah-military establishment have been uttering to the international media these days. Dr Israr Ahmad, Amir of the Tanzeem i Islami who gets prime time on public and private media, warns Pakistanis to “beware of India and Israel” because the former wants to win the sympathies of the Kashmiris and the latter only wants to be “recognized” by Islamabad. He argues that “major calamities were inflicted on nations that defied Islam” while only minor travails have visited “the nation of Islam”. Tell that to the 60,000 Kashmir believers who lie buried in the rubble of the quake or to the 2 million faithful who are without food or shelter. Or examine what Riaz Hussain Pirzada of the ruling Muslim League said in parliament. “Why have we allowed Nato troops and helicopters into Pakistan?” he thundered, “why have foreign NGOs been permitted to lend a helping hand?” he screamed, “why has the LoC been softened?” he foamed at the mouth. “The quake was Allah’s wrath for abandoning the Taliban and assisting the US invasion of Afghanistan,” he insisted. Meanwhile, the august parliament of the NWFP expended much energy recently lambasting the chief military spokesman for “breakfasting on the morning of the quake” instead of fasting like a true Muslim.
In the middle of all this comes the news that Pakistan’s military is ready to cough up US$1.5 billion as the first installment on the purchase of 55 new Lockheed Martin planes plus 25 used aircraft.
If you were a Westerner asked to provide humanitarian financial assistance to a country led by a military government obsessed with the regional “military balance”, what would you think? Here is a wretchedly poor country in desperate straits and here is its military spending money borrowed from Western countries and agencies on conventional weapons that cannot provide economic or political security. And this, despite the fact that the military leadership says Pakistan wants to build enduring peace with India and that the nuclear bomb which Pakistan has manufactured at great cost and sacrifice is the ultimate deterrent to war in the region.
Every problem or difficulty is imbued with an opportunity. 9/11 was one such instance when General Pervez Musharraf seized the opportunity to try and turn Pakistan round. Similarly, he exploited the failed assassination attempts on him by Islamic extremists to launch the war against terror. The jihadi attacks on the Indian parliament persuaded him of the vanishing dividing line between terrorists and freedom-fighters and nudged him to open a realistic peace dialogue with India. In the same way, now more than ever, General Musharraf should seize the hour of the quake to abandon the notion of a conventional arms balance with India. He should announce that much of the money earmarked for military weapons purchases will be spent on the destitute victims of the quake in Kashmir. There can be no better or more visionary statement to make at home and abroad. It would do all Pakistanis proud. And it would enable Westerners to perceive Pakistan and its people and leaders in a better light and convince them that their money will be spent on deserving causes.