A visit to America – Zafar Hilaly
A visit to America – Zafar Hilaly
Just as everyone was wondering what exactly Mr Zardari had achieved during his six-day sojourn in America, Farhatullah Babar came to our rescue and told us, in a long press release, “the six tangible achievements” of the visit. Unfortunately, he quickly lost his claim to our attention when he described Mr Zaradri’s entirely forgettable, pedestrian effort of a speech at the UN, or the one at the donors meeting as an “impassioned plea,” for Pakistan. The UN speech, in particular, had the same effect as being flogged by a warm lettuce. Its only virtue was that it was brief.
The foremost “achievement”, according to Farhatullah, was the passage of the Kerry-Lugar Bill in the Senate. In fact, what probably assured the passage of the bill, with some of the objectionable conditionalities diluted, was not Mr Zardari’s presence but the heroic effort of the Army in reclaiming Swat, Pakistan’s unique importance in the American scheme of things for the region and the desperate straits in which America finds itself in Afghanistan and also some intense lobbying by the White House team led by Ambassador Holbrook. Mr Zardari, no doubt a very clubbable man, did well to keep out of these efforts. His reputation precedes him and tends to irk rather than assuage most American senators.
The second success of the visit listed by Farhatullah, the setting up of a Trust Fund, had nothing to do with Mr Zardari or his presence in America. Actually, entrusting the moneys meant for Pakistan to a Trust Fund rather than the government, and that too operated by the World Bank, is a sad reminder that the donors prefer to retain the release and use of the funds in their own hands. It is not, they imply, that corruption exists in Pakistan, it exists elsewhere too, but here it exists without indignation.
The third accomplishment ascribed to Mr Zardari’s shining presence in New York was the appointment of an International Energy Coordinator on how best to assist Pakistan on energy projects. Actually, the decision to appoint such a coordinator had been taken considerably prior to Mr Zardari’s arrival. At best Mr Zardari’s supplications may have led the coordinator to advance the date of his visit to Islamabad, which is hardly something to be touted as a major achievement of the visit. Besides, the American coordinator will no doubt, and naturally enough, hope to divert as many purchases needed by Pakistan to American suppliers. Earning goodwill and money for America must be a dream appointment for which America hardly needed Mr Zardari’s persuasive skills to appreciate or to agree.
The fourth achievement for which Mr Zardari’s visit has been credited is the assistance pledged by the Australian prime minister, the agricultural scholarships, the ADB Fund, etc. These are, in fact, the usual kind of measures, purely cosmetic when set off against the actual amounts required, that the west and western-dominated international financial institutions invariably adopt to dole out allies in distress. One sympathises with Farhatullah: he has been reduced to scraping the barrel to discover “achievements” for the visit.
The fifth achievement, the mere listing of which is embarrassing, is a sad commentary on where matters have reached in Pakistan. It would have been best not listed at all. To claim that “aid flows and projects will be made only with the endorsement of the government of Pakistan” suggests that they could have been made without our consent, but for Mr Zardari’s presence in New York. It is a mind-boggling assertion which, had it been true, would suggest that Pakistan has absolutely no control over what projects are implemented in Pakistan or how much money is expended on them. We may as well then formally hand over the control of our economy to foreigners. If Mr Zardari prevented that from happening, then we are indeed indebted to him. Moreover, the people should also be informed why, had Mr Zardari not intervened, the world is of the view that the economy is beyond the government’s competence to handle, let alone fix.
As for the sixth achievement concerning gains made during UN sideline meetings with such illustrious and universally unknown personages as the foreign minister of this or that country, or others of equivalent station, this too invites the comment as to why a president like Mr Zardari should even condescend to meet them. Or did other presidents at the UN not have time for him? The point is that such routine meetings hardly warrant mention, to say nothing of their being projected as a source of pride and attention.
One recalls one such meeting that our UN mission had fixed in 1996 for Benazir Bhutto with the president of Uganda. The meeting lasted about twenty tiresome minutes. Benazir was not sure why they had needed to meet. She asked me the reason why the Ugandans had been so insistent. “Well,” I recall replying, “it seems, Prime Minister, that the President wished to gawk at you.”
Before Mr Zardari left for his visit to America he would have done well to heed what Mrs Gandhi once said: “A nation’s strength ultimately consists in what it can do on its own, and not in what it can borrow from others.” A political philosopher described the Third World, though what he probably meant was Third-worldism, “as not a reality but an ideology.” It is indeed a dispiriting mindset, an emblem of ignorance, incompetence and failure, indeed what else when we end up living on what we can borrow from others. It’s an ideology, alas, which seems to have us in its grip. To emerge from it we need a different vision of ourselves. But who will provide it?
The writer is a former ambassador. Email: charles123it@hotmail.com
