Ongoing case proceedings suggest Pakistan has much to fear from women with foreign nationalities
Ongoing proceedings before Pakistan’s Supreme Court threaten to reinforce our growing sense of victimhood. While there is no specific law barring dual nationals from serving in government departments, the proceedings suggest public representatives can’t have foreign wives and those who do may be undermining Pakistan and, above all, its ideology. The same goes for dual nationality. The picture that emerges in the mind of the patriotic Pakistan is this: the wife is here to spy through seduction of husband and will undermine the security of Pakistan by passing crucial information to the two enemy states: India and the United States.
Many states have laws against dual nationality but Pakistan’s case becomes complicated when seen together with other “habits” like seeing “foreign hand” in all sorts of incidents of violence involving Pakistanis gone crazy with religious enthusiasm and crime. The current “foreign wife” scene is not going to make things easy.
A Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) report to the Supreme Court says 922 wives of government servants are either dual nationals or foreigners, which must alert the all-seeing mind of Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who has gone suo motu over the question of “dual nationality.” Around 824 wives do have dual nationality while their civil servant husbands have declared them under law. Some 210 have however kept mum and can be brought to account. Of course Punjab scores ahead of other provinces, boasting 191 foreign wives, while 61 officials have decided not to declare.
Is Pakistan threatened? The honorable chief justice must be wisely thinking of what may occur in the future if it has not so far. But the mere fact that his efforts have brought to light such a large number of the state’s “insiders” keeping “foreign” nationals in their homes excites the national imagination. The clueless inspector generals in our provinces have so far “explained” acts of terrorism through “foreign hand”; now they have a new peg to hang on incidents that they can’t explain: “foreign wives.”
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“…by passing crucial information to the two enemy states: India and the United States”. I was surprised that the United States has been categorized in this commentary as our “enemy”. Can a state do the following for an “enemy”. Would like to have a response, if admissible under the rules.
Ever since our independence, we have made concerted efforts to forge closer cooperation with the Government of “Deja Sakhia”, as detailed below:
• Dennis Kux, a former State Department South Asia specialist, writes on pages 12-13 of his book: “The United States and Pakistan 1997–2000” that US Diplomat Raymond Hare met Jinnah in May 1947 in New Delhi and asked him about Pakistan’s future foreign policy. Responding to Hare’s query, writes Kux, Jinnah said that, “Pakistan would be oriented toward Muslim countries of the Middle East. Since they were weak, ‘Muslim countries would stand together against possible Russian aggression and would look to the US for assistance.’ The Muslim League leader said that although he did not personally share the view, most Indian Muslims thought the United States was unfriendly. They had the impression that the US press and many Americans were against Pakistan.”
• Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s state visit to Washington;
• Joining SEATO and CENTO;
• Placing Badaber air base at their disposal from where U-2 reconnaissance flights took off, resulting in the downing of one such plane by USSR, with its pilot Garry Power captured by them alive, prompting the Soviet Prime Minister, Nikita Khrushchev, to declare, at a press conference, that “Peshawar was now a Soviet target, marked with a red circle”;
• Facilitating Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing from Islamabad, which resulted in Sino-U.S. rapproachment at the highest political level;
• Our pivotal role against the occupation of Afghanistan by the Red Army of USSR, culminating in the disintegration of Soviet Union into fifteen independent states and fall of the Berlin Wall. (One of the proudest possessions of late Gen Hamid Gul was a piece of the Berlin Wall, presented to him by the people of the city in gratitude for “delivering the first blow” to the Soviet empire through his use of Jihadi fighters- modern day “Terrorists”);
• Since 9/11, we have been fighting a bloody fratricidal war (which President George W. Bush had once described as a Crusade) against our own people in FATA on behest of United States (reference reimbursements made from the Coalition Support Fund established by the Government of “Deja Sakhia” from time to time) by using massive firepower against them (infantry, artillery, armoured corps, F-16s, Mirages, gunship helicopters, killer drones (both U.S. and Pakistani) etc. It is essential to state here that India, despite being a Hindu majority country, has not (repeat not) used such a mammoth firepower against the Muslim Kashmiri people since their Intefada which erupted in 1989;
• According to the “glimpses” which appeared on the official website of U.S. Central Command in early 2002, this is what we did for the government of “Deja Sakhia”:
i. During the war, two-third of Pakistan’s air space was placed at the disposal of the United States;
ii. The Government of Pakistan was providing to the US military machine 400,000 liters of fuel every day;
iii. By using our air space and air bases, the United States conducted fifty seven thousand eight hundred air strikes against Afghanistan; and
iv. Due to this war, our economy received a loss of US$10 billion. (This is the figure of early 2002).
What we have received in return is mentioned in the book Friends, not Masters written by President Ayub Akah. The latest acknowledgement from their side at the Presidential level is as follows:
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!
7:12 AM – Jan 1, 2018