Side-effect

Before the Wikileaks made headlines internationally and a hype was created in our national media around stories linked to Pakistan, how many of us really thought that the world is a just place, international diplomacy is all about truth and human values, and our own ruling class, civilian and military alike, is visionary, prudent, independent and united among its ranks to serve the poor people of Pakistan?
I don’t know that much about other countries but in Pakistan, if we already thought as much of our dodgy state of affairs even before the release of a quarter million cables by Julian Assange and his team, what are we freaking out for? The leaks only confirm the assessments done all along by independent analysts and political commentators of our internal and external situations, the key players involved at all levels, of those who have clout and those who call the shots.
Let us begin with King Abdullah’s assertions about Iran and his soft corner for Nawaz Sharif vis-à-vis Asif Zardari. Who else but Pakistanis are witness to the Saudi-Iranian battle of overpowering each other played out in our own mosques, imambaras, streets and neighbourhoods? Saudis dread seeing any other Muslim country in the region raising its head. They have paid billions to the US and its allies to raze Iraq to the ground.
Besides, in Pakistan they have invested hugely in promoting a certain brand of extremist Islam which later turned militant with some factions taking on their own masters, the Saudis and the Americans. Saudis are comfortable with Nawaz Sharif for he is a confused Sunni Muslim who paid respects at the Sufi shrine of Data Ganj Bakhsh in Lahore, true to the tradition of his family and Pakistan’s majority, while at the same time viewed Wahabi Saudi rulers as caliphs and servants of Islam rather than kings put to the throne by British colonial support in the twentieth century. Part, short-term economic interest, and part, absence of any knowledge of history. Sharif spent his negotiated exile in Saudi Arabia too.
Is the information new to us that Benazir Bhutto got past both NRO and her return to Pakistan with General Musharraf through US and British support? And today, whether President Zardari wants his sister Faryal Talpur to be his heir or not if he is ousted, she is already making crucial decisions in the party?
Well, don’t we know that in Islamabad the American Ambassador has a vice-regal status? However, some of us may not know that this status is granted to her/him by our own rulers, even without being sought. The new ambassador of the US, Cameron Munter, has termed the Wikileaks disclosures unfortunate. Neither he nor his predecessor Ambassador Patterson have come out to deny or dismiss the information shared through these leaks.
This kind of audacity where substantiated allegations are simply rejected is only possible with our political leadership and state institutions, be it JUI’s chief Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman or our Foreign Office. Our own journalist-turned-diplomat Wajid Shams-ul-Hasan, high commissioner to the UK, has said that Wikileaks only embarrassed the US.
He is so right. Pakistani elite is flagrant, unashamed and truly pragmatic. If 80 out of 180 million living below poverty line, 50 per cent children of school-going age out of school, 75 mothers dying daily during childbirth, more than 11000 innocent people killed in bomb attacks over the past six years, fail to embarrass them, yeh Wikileaks kis khet ki mooli hay? (Wikileaks is worth crap to them, I mean.)

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet, political analyst and adviser on public policy. Email: harris. khalique@gmail.com