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Friday March 29, 2024

The debate on Yemen

It is a small sample, but an important one. The way public opinion has developed in the wake of news that Pakistan may be considering joining the Saudi strike force in Yemen shows how fractured and dangerously polarised national discourse has become in the country, and how secretive the ways

By Syed Talat Hussain
March 30, 2015
It is a small sample, but an important one. The way public opinion has developed in the wake of news that Pakistan may be considering joining the Saudi strike force in Yemen shows how fractured and dangerously polarised national discourse has become in the country, and how secretive the ways of both the state and the government are in dealing with issues of international importance.
It was first leaked by Saudi media and then picked up by a foreign news agency that Islamabad, along with Cairo, may be part of a larger force to knock out Tehran-backed Houthi rebels whose gains in the strategic underbelly of the conservative kingdom have made its rulers rush for global support. With Washington backing the get-Houthi-out campaign of Saudi Arabia, the news made immediate impact. Most eyes turned towards Islamabad for clarity on the matter.
The presser by Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam – whose mien increasingly carries the unfortunate flavour of disinterest and casualness – grudgingly admitted that such an option was being ‘examined’. And even this so-called precise word ‘examined’ – FO bureaucracy takes indulgent pride in its lingo even though most of it has lost all relevance and effect in the new info-universe – was almost extorted out of her by the keen-to-get-answers media persons.
What happened later was truly spectacular. Social media – where official influence is limited and private lobbies, interests along with genuine and fairly educated voices have maximum space – broke into several zones, bitterly divided, acrimonious and poisonous in terms of condemning the opposite point of view. One zone was dominated by the yes-group. These were mostly those whose religious belief system is tied to the kingdom’s. They proposed open strikes against any place where Iran even remotely possess any agenda or territorial ambition.
They suggested that Pakistan should do its duty by willingly becoming a front-runner of the campaign in Yemen and use every means (yes ‘every means’) at its disposal to send the rebel group across the gates of hell.
An attachment to this zone of opinion were statements that condemned the media lobby of the ‘minority’ group that was holding the ‘majority’ opinion hostage to their manipulative agenda.
The sectarian overtones and undertones of such suggestions (whose content of abuse obviously cannot be reproduced here) were matched in every way by the no-group. Proponents of this group used every harsh word available in their vast vocabulary to denounce the monarchy and insisted that Pakistan is being turned into an extension of the toxic ideology of hate that targets the worldview represented by Tehran’s ideologues. There were numerous references to Pakistan’s past where its forces acted at the behest of the kingdom and its friends in Washington. The Pakistani state was called a ‘paid agent’ and the government of Nawaz Sharif was described in a special manner because of its alliance and family ties to the House of Saud.
The third zone of opinion was formed by those who immediately introduced themselves as strategic analysts and postulated the pros and cons of Pakistan joining the alliance. Here in this zone the yes-group spoke of Pakistan’s role and responsibility as a global player and pressed for joining the strikes. With great (nuclear) power – the group argued – comes great responsibility, one of which, according to the group, was to play the role of peacekeeper in regional conflicts.
The other shade of opinion, however, had a different narrative on the power and capacity of the country. Their main contention was that given the country’s myriad social, economic and political challenges and the fact that the armed forces are stretched beyond reasonable combat limit at home, even a token association with a contentious military alliance would prove costly.
A similar conclusion was drawn by another cluster of opinions that more emphatically propounded neutrality but for different reasons: such a view feared that by joining the Saudi camp against the Iranian camp Pakistan would aggravate growing sectarian tensions at home, and in not so distant a future would be facing the same situation that has emerged in other states like Syria, Iraq, and even Yemen.
But perhaps the most spectacular zone of reflections was formed outside social media opinion trends. And these were official statements.
Pakistan’s state and government representatives through their statements and actions created and total confusion and gave zero clarity, fuelling social media debate and earning the ire of each category. High-level contacts with the Saudi kingdom and the Foreign Office’s ‘examining’ the situation created the distinct impression that the government was leaning towards joining the alliance.
The government may have been trying to defuse such anticipation when its representatives spoke of Saudi friendship and how in this hour of need Pakistan could not abandon the kingdom, but in effect they ended up reinforcing the image that Islamabad was going to assume some sort of a responsibility in this tricky situation.
It was this reinforced impression that led panicked members of the Pakistani community from Yemen to start to tweet and call home begging the Foreign Office to clarify Islamabad’s position as the rebel group in the host country had suddenly become totally hostile towards them. Pakistanis in Yemen feared for their lives as Islamabad’s civil, military and political bureaucracy waffled and hedged.
And when the so-called clarification finally came it generated more questions than answers. While ruling out Pakistan’s joining the alliance, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif still left the door of this possibility half open when he said: “Pakistan has pledged to defend Saudi Arabia in case of a threat to the territorial integrity and security of a friendly country.” Ironically, Saudi Arabia is justifying attacks on the pro-Iranian rebels in Yemen on the ground that they pose a direct threat to its security and territorial integrity.
Khawaja Asif’s references to taking parliament into confidence before sending troops to the alliance may have been meant to calm down different political parties angry at being kept in the dark, but in effect this suggested that the option was still on the table. Also General Asim Bajwa’s super hyper Twitter account (he tweets the most among all the generals in the world, including those tasked to represent the forces as spokespersons) remained unusually quiet. This kept the debate-point alive that perhaps behind the curtains of denials Islamabad is after all lending a long helping hand to the monarchy.
What does this broad review of opinions tell us in essence? First, it lays bare the harsh reality that the lava of Middle Eastern and Gulf hate has seeped deep in our midst. Social media opinion trends (reflected also in the mainstream media) are clearly split along sectarian lines, or to be less harsh, along the Saudi Arabia vs Iran division. We can no longer deny the fact that both these countries have invested heavily in creating lobbies on our homeland and now these lobbies are vast and entrenched with a life and purpose of their own.
Second, it shows that even more neutral views are oblivious to the reality of Pakistan’s role and responsibilities and certainly of limitations and needs in a complex new world. Superficially seen, this cluelessness may come from the habit of not reading anything other than TV news ‘tickers’ that stay on our screens for five seconds and are then replaced by other transient news. Dig deeper and you will find that there is an acute shortage of serious debate on how the world around us has changed and what new challenges it confronts us with. There isn’t a forum where such ideas can be projected and reflected on. Collectively, we remain uneducated about our surroundings. There are millions of opinions, but very few informed opinions.
Most importantly, it tells us how conflicted and confused our decision-making hierarchy is. It is reactive, secretive and, worse, devoid of any long-term foreign policy vision. It lives for the day. The Middle East, Africa, Gulf, Europe etc are in flux, but Islamabad’s political government and the military lords in Pindi remain in a fix over what to do about such fluidity. This is a natural consequence of decision-makers who are more concerned about building PR with their own public than to seriously grapple with issues that are testing even the most astute diplomatic nerves around the world.
The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV.
Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com
Twitter: @TalatHussain12