Islamabad diary
It’s been a close-run thing between the Foreign Office and the Capital Development Authority. And between these two august bodies and the government which has managed the impossible by stoking a controversy on what should have remained uncontroversial: the China-Pak Economic Corridor.
The FO put it down in writing before the Supreme Court that a ban on the hunting of the Houbara bustard was something terrible because allowing our Arab friends to hunt the bird was a “cornerstone” – the very word used – of our foreign policy. Endangering this sacred cornerstone could have dangerous implications.
And the CDA in a declaration submitted, again before the Supreme Court, maintained without hint of a blush that it was of the utmost importance to get rid of Christian slums in Islamabad – one in F 6/2, another in F 7/4, both posh sectors – because the Christians living there threatened the Muslim character of the capital. By this it was meant that we couldn’t afford to have more Christians living in Islamabad because the numerical majority of Muslims would be jeopardised. Call this a reverse Donald Trump. He wants to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States. The CDA was following the spirit of his position.
The CDA after it had provoked a howl of outrage was quick to backtrack. But the fact remains that at its highest rungs there were bright mandarins who came up with this argument to justify action against the slums. What is then so strange about the antics of the Lal Masjid cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz?
The Houbara petition is still before the Supreme Court and you can judge its seriousness from the fact that a larger bench has been constituted to hear it. The world of Islam is in turmoil as it is. There are wars going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have worsened after the execution of Sheikh Nimr Baqir Al-Nimr. It stands to reason that Pakistan should not add to these woes by triggering an aphrodisiac crisis which would surely result from the ban on a sport so dear to our desert friends.
The meat of the Houbara is said to possess aphrodisiac qualities. There is no evidence for this in science, no one having carried out clinical tests to prove this tantalising claim, but there must be something to the folklore that eating this bird endows one with mythical powers. So every winter powerful sheikhs and amirs descend on the Cholistan desert and the wastes of Balochistan. There elaborate tent villages are set up and with falcons specially trained for this purpose the hunting begins. Actually, it is more like slaughter because the Houbara birds in vast numbers are ensnared or killed.
Imagine then the consternation in those elite hunting circles when word of the ban would have reached them. And winter is already upon us and it will soon be over. If with its other troubles the world of Islam loses an entire season of Houbara hunting the consequences as far as the aphrodisiac crisis is concerned are grave.
No wonder the FO panicked. To impress upon the Supreme Court the importance of this matter it did not hesitate to pull all the plugs and designate the hunting of the Houbara as a “cornerstone” of Pakistani foreign policy. But it did not explain the rest of the mystery. If in our temple of foreign policy the Houbara is one cornerstone, what are the others?
In the midst of the row between Saudi Arabia and Iran some earnest souls have said that Pakistan could play the role of a mediator. This is well-meant advice but it is misdirected. Our desert friends are already upset with us because we didn’t jump at the opportunity of sending troops to Yemen. Now courtesy the Supreme Court there comes the ban on Houbara hunting.
On the strength of this ban our Arab friends are already muttering words to the effect that we are an ungrateful nation. Talk mediation and they are likely to hit the ceiling. They don’t want our mediation. They can do without it. What they can’t do without is their favourite winter sport. And unless we can move on that they are likely to say: keep your mediation with you.
Enough of this. Just when it seemed that Pakistani politics was getting dull, with nothing exciting on the horizon, we have this controversy over the route and the exact shape of the China-Pak Corridor. The one word we’ve worked to death while describing this corridor is ‘game-changer’. A country which can designate an aphrodisiac sport as a cornerstone of foreign policy and one of whose civic agencies can say that the presence of Christians in Islamabad threatens the Muslim majority requires more than highways and motorways to become ‘game-changers’. Openness of mind, less bigotry and more mass education would be bigger game-changers than anything else.
Still, roads and highways are good. Power plants we need. Chinese investment towards these ends is therefore welcome. But this should have been something about which there should have been no controversy. Just as the nation came together on terrorism and extremism after the Peshawar school attack, there should have been a consensus between all the provinces – and we just have four, plus Gilgit-Baltistan, and not a dozen or anything more – on this important undertaking.
This would have required openness and transparency and a bit of honesty on the part of those in the driving seat. That’s exactly the problem because, as journalist Saleem Safi has well documented in a number of columns, the PML-N government is playing games and pushing its own Punjab-centric agenda and hiding behind a wall of deceit and cunning to camouflage its true intentions. The impression being spread is that the KP government is making the corridor controversial whereas the truth is that it is the federal government which is doing this.
The government resorts to vague generalisations but shies away from placing all the facts before parliament or taking the matter to the Council of Common Interests from which approval in the first instance should have come. There is much talk about the western route but even a cursory look at the map shows that the real route where all the work is taking place or is expected to take place is the eastern route, the one running through Punjab.
For the country’s sake, for the sake of the other provinces, this bias should have been corrected. But the system of checks-and-balances which could have ensured this correction and brought a measure of equity and openness into this hugest of projects has all but collapsed. There is nothing to check the PML-N’s parochialism.
The army’s heavy hand brought about the consensus on terrorism. But as Gen Raheel Sharif enters his twilight year and the PML-N government wins back some of its eroded confidence the army’s ability to influence national policy stands diminished. So the PM and chief minister Punjab are free to do as they please regarding the corridor. And they are going about it in the secretive manner in which they run and promote their huge business empire.
Email: bhagwal63gmail.com