Prime Minister Imran Khan delivered another masterstroke of a speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this past Friday but our Pakistani mainstream media barely discussed the relevant points of his address. Instead, in a 25-minute speech, the mainstream media decided to focus on the alleged gaffe in the Prime Minister’s reference regarding US President Ronald Reagan referring to the Afghan Mujahideen as equivalent to the US founding fathers. Reagan had made many public statements during his tenure as US President on the Afghan Mujahideen describing them as freedom fighters struggling for the same founding principles that established the US as an independent nation-state from British colonial rule.
The Prime Minister’s address held up the mirror to the West, mainly the U.S. and India regarding their hypocritical positions on human rights, Islamophobia, and criminal transfer of wealth from developing countries to the developed world. But it appears that the mainstream media’s spite for one man, Prime Minister Khan, has led them to place Pakistan’s narrative and interest on the back burner and sadly, give comfort to our enemy’s narrative.
Let’s examine the more salient points of the Prime Minister’s speech to the UNGA that the mainstream media won’t tell us. PM Khan began his speech on climate change by admitting that Pakistan’s contribution to global emissions is negligible but among the 10 most susceptible countries in the world to the effects of climate change. Also, he outlined the actions taken by Pakistan to mitigate the impact of climate change so the world knows that Pakistan is acting responsibly on environmental issues.
Next, the PM speaks about the triple crisis of covid pandemic, economic downturn, and climate emergency. He emphasized the importance of vaccination for everyone to combat covid, the availability of adequate financing for developing countries to tackle the economic downturn, and climate change. The PM urged the world to develop investment strategies that help alleviate poverty, promote job creation, build sustainable infrastructure, and of course bridge the digital divide.
The PM then mentions money-laundering and shows the mirror to the developed world for being safe havens for plundered wealth from poor countries by their elite. Furthermore, the PM states the difficulty poorer nations face when trying to retrieve this stolen wealth from the rich countries and urges the UNGA to act. The PM suggests that at least begin with “naming and shaming” those safe havens and implement the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity’s recommendations.
PM Khan raises one of the most important issues facing the world’s Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 and the global war on terrorism is Islamophobia.
He mentions the rising trends of right-wing, xenophobic, and violent nationalists, extremists, and terrorist groups to target Muslims and calls on the Secretary-General to arrange a global dialogue on countering the rise of Islamophobia.
Along with Islamophobia, the PM effectively exposes the fascist face of India to the global community. Besides describing the Indian form of Islamophobia, namely Hindutva ideology; he also reveals the types of repression occurring in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian state. Furthermore, PM Khan demands a proper Islamic funeral and burial for the great Kashmiri leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, as the Indian government snatched by force his mortal remains. But deplorably, it seems that our media will only report what India says about Pakistan and not what our PM says about India.
Also, PM Khan clearly articulates the conditions in which the Pak-India dialogue can begin. One, reverse its unilateral and illegal measures instituted since 5th August 2019; two, stop its oppression and human rights violations against the people of Kashmir; and three, halt and reverse the demographic changes in the occupied territory.
After speaking about India and Kashmir, the PM talks about Afghanistan and how twice Pakistan suffered for getting involved in these US wars. He points out that 80,000 Pakistanis died, US$150 billion economic loss incurred, and around 3.5 million internally displaced Pakistanis. All this is due to Pakistan being a frontline state fighting against the occupation of Afghanistan. PM Khan reminds the U.S. and the world that the U.S. and Pakistan created and trained the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviet occupation during the 1980s. And then this same Afghan Mujahideen became the enemy of the US after the 9/11 attacks and turned against Pakistan leading to the formation of various militant groups within Pakistan like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
Furthermore, PM Khan explains that the Afghan Taliban received sympathies of the Pashtun people living along the Pakistani tribal belt bordering Afghanistan because most of the ethnic composition of the Taliban are Pashtuns not just because of religious ideology. The PM is trying to explain the point that Islam is not the sole motivating factor for fighting against the U.S. and the West but defending cultural codes like Pashtunwali. The history of Afghanistan clearly shows that Afghans always resist occupation be it the British, Soviets, or the Americans. Therefore, the Americans experienced the same defeat as previous empires.
The PM concluded his UNGA’s address by articulating solutions in dealing with the Afghan Taliban such as engagement and incentivizing them to fulfill their commitments to respect human rights, forming an inclusive government, and not allow the use of Afghan soil for terrorism.
These are some of the substantial points of PM Khan’s speech to the UNGA that our mainstream media won’t focus on coupled with the cold reception Indian Prime Minister Modi got at both the White House and the UNGA. Is the mainstream media hesitant in giving our Prime Minister his due for speaking out freely as he does not own foreign assets unlike their favorite leader sits in London with his illicit wealth?
