Follow Us on Google News
ISLAMABAD: National Security Adviser (NSA) Moeed Yusuf on Thursday asserted that Pakistan needs to “unapologetically” share its narrative with the world, adding that India was spreading fake propaganda against Islamabad through fake websites.
Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad on national narratives, the National Security Adviser underscored the need for utilizing modern media techniques to build a reality-based positive narrative of Pakistan.
He highlighted the three words that captured his approach to narratives: proactive, unapologetic, and pragmatic. “The most important problem which bothered me the most was that there is something in our culture of communication we are shy in presenting our view unapologetically,” he said.
“Why wasn’t this conversation being done far more unapologetically — not emotively — to clarify that Pakistan is going to do XYZ,” Moeed Yusuf added.
“We were living in the world of public relations, press releases and responding to things at our own time. The world has moved on,” he stated, adding that other countries had moved onto forms of social media for real-time engagement.
Further highlighting problems, Yusuf added that Pakistan’s narratives did not always align with those of the West, particularly in the case of Afghanistan wherein Pakistan was used as a “scapegoat”, and “every problem was blamed” on Pakistan.
Moeed Yusuf further asked why Pakistanis were not being heard more and why more people were not presenting their point of view through writing or public appearances.
He highlighted that other countries have “lobbies against us” and gave the example of Indians who “spend more time undermining Pakistan than perhaps looking after themselves”.
National security Advisor said that the Western countries deliberately presented Pakistan’s negative image for the last two decades. “Pakistan believes in a national narrative based on reality,” said Yusuf.
He elaborated on his perspective of a national narrative, saying that he didn’t believe in striving towards a singular narrative. “I think there are multiple narratives that have to come together to create a whole which is what Pakistan stands for as a country and as a nation,” he added.
“Our model is to project our rightful reality to the world. Their model is to create a whole global network of fake news to malign others,” Yusuf said, referring to the EU DisinfoLab report that uncovered a vast network of coordinated fake local media outlets in 65 countries serving Indian interests.
