Mr Friedman, the world is not flat

Sonya Fatah | New Delhi | 8 December 2008 |

When the United States led its troops into Iraq in 2003, one of the champions of war was the thrice-Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author, Thomas L. Friedman. A widely read American opinion maker, the New York Times’ columnist has emerged since 9/11 as an ‘expert’ on the ‘Muslim problem.’

Friedman, who has demonstrated his visceral biases on numerous occasions, is now extending his ‘expert’ stance on the Middle-East to the escalating Indo-Pak crisis triggered by the tragic attacks in Mumbai on November 26 this year.

In a NYT op-ed piece last week, Friedman pulled up ‘all Pakistanis’ for their insensitivity to the Mumbai attacks. He said that since Pakistanis didn’t come out onto the streets in thousands, as they did when the Danish cartoons were published, and show their solidarity with victims of the Mumbai attacks, they clearly lack sensitivity. Moreover, he said Pakistanis and the entire Muslim world, would be on the streets in rage if 10 Hindus had committed the same act in Pakistan.

A few Pakistanis, Friedman acknowledges, do care that innocent people have died in the Mumbai attacks, but it’s just not enough. He proceeds to lecture Pakistanis on why they should feel outraged that 10 Pakistanis can enter foreign territory and carry out vicious attacks against individuals without so much as leaving a note.

Friedman’s writing reeks of simplicity and naiveté. He clearly doesn’t understand the dynamics of the India-Pakistan relationship. Neither has he taken the trouble to see why the Indo-Pak détente has graduated to this level of war-talk.

He chooses to ignore that one million people died in the violence of partition, that India and Pakistan have been to war three times, that there was a fourth war in 1999, and a near war in 2002. But let’s give Friedman a chance. He is right to say that Pakistanis need to come together to demonstrate their anger against terrorism and to stand as a collective against it. But what he doesn’t get is why thousands of people aren’t out on the streets protesting the involvement of 10 Pakistanis in the Mumbai attacks.

First of all, Friedman needs perspective. To begin with, the Indian government didn’t handle the situation very well. Before the night was out, the ‘foreign hand’ had already been discovered, in a typical response to any attack on Indian soil. Soon after, the Indian PM had summoned the head of Pakistani intelligence to India. Before an in-depth internal investigation had been conducted, every little detail was out and a trial, based on information from ‘sources’, was taking place in the media. In the Indo-Pak narrative this sort of proof doesn’t qualify for evidence. It’s seen largely as a typical Indian response, and a reflection of India’s refusal to recognise it’s home-grown terror problem. Of course, it could very well be that all 10 men are from Pakistan, that the attacks were planned and organised with assistance from rogue elements within the ISI. But Indian officials should have known better than to hand over every  detail to the media so that the public could decide the case and react in a massive orgy of hate.

In Pakistan too, the media has done the same thing. In response to the accusations, the arrival of the ever-efficient American officials, and global condemnation, Pakistanis have chosen not to believe the ‘facts.’ As anti-Pakistan sentiments are being drummed up in India, in Pakistan the Indian response to the attacks is seen as an attempt to jeopardise Pakistan’s already fragile stability.

After all, the focus in the Indian media has moved very deliberately from the tragedy to its consequences with Pakistan on the defensive.

Second, Pakistanis have been closely watching the ongoing investigation of one Colonel Purohit and India’s now-famous sadhvi who are being investigated for their role in recent bombings in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Pakistanis, however, were more interested in the investigation into the February 2007 bombings of the Samjhauta Express that runs between India and Pakistan. About 68 people, most of them Pakistanis, died in that attack. At the time, India roundly blamed Pakistan. Now, 21 months later the ATS is investigating the possibility that those attacks could have been the work of a militant Hindu outfit.

The Pakistani media has been hysterically reminding its viewers of this change of position, and questioning the veracity of the Indian investigation. In the usual language of South Asian diplomacy, the conspiracy theory mill is churning up a ready fare of possibilities.

Naturally, Friedman is ignorant of such dynamics. The reality is we are on the verge of a war-time situation, and the last thing Pakistan and India need is men of wisdom like Friedman comparing apples and oranges as they damn the reaction in Pakistan, sans any context.

It’s worth remembering Friedman supported the US war on Iraq and insisted on using war as a necessary means to  teach the Muslim world, about progressive politics, independent judiciaries, and rule of law. The war, he argued, would target the heart of the Muslim world and bring a rousing democracy to regions of autocratic dictatorship.

However, in a 2003 interview with Charlie Rose, his passionate outburst reflected a more sinister view. The US had to go and burst the bubble of anti-American rhetoric, he had said.

“What they [Iraqis] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad… basically saying, “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think  we don’t care about our open society… Well, suck on this! OK?” That Charlie was what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia… Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could, and that’s the real truth.”

They could have hit Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to Friedman, the only calculation for attacking Iraq was because America could.

Now, one fears Friedman may well use the Mumbai attacks to argue for an Indian strike on Pakistan.

Sonya Fatah is a journalist from Pakistan, living in India and writing for the Canadian media.