Aletho News

On Saudi Arabia in Paksitan

Angry Arab News Service | July 25, 2011

A comrade in Pakistan who wishes to remain anonymous wrote me this:

“Cmd. Junaid is correct that the Westernized, English-speaking elite of Pakistan is obsessed with Saudi Arabia to the exclusion of examining the US. It’s true that they are generally dependent on the latter for funding for their NGOs, that is, when they are just not so colonized mentally to think that Western bourgeois democracy is god’s gift to humanity, so that they actively and aggressively write crap like this:  — an article riddled with omission and inaccuracy. However, one should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. What has to be understood is that Saudi Arabia and, importantly, UAE have interests in Pakistan that, while on the whole are subordinate to US imperialism, also have a logic of their own.

This has to be contextualized in US strategy in West Asia, including particularly CENTO. (see Hamza Alavi’s article on the Pak-US military alliance here:) Pakistan was seen as a mercenary for West Asian reactionaries. To some extent, it did fulfill this role — for instance, Pak General Zia ul-Haq who later was dictator for over ten years was in command of Pakistani troops in Jordan who helped massacre Palestinian freedom fighters in Black September. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has funded political Islam in Pakistan since at least the late 1960s as a response to increasing leftist sentiment, according to Vali Nasr. This has to be seen as part of the same strategy that led to Saudi support for the Ikhwan in Egypt during the same period, i.e., as a response to secular nationalism and leftism. In 1970s, millions of Pakistanis migrated to Saudi and UAE to work (in shitty conditions, but relatively better paying), so that Pakistan’s political economy is structurally dependent on that of the Gulf. (Still, 40-45% of remittances come from just two sources — Saudi and UAE.) Moreover, Gulf capital is aggressively looking at Pakistan as a source of raw materials (incl. now skilled labour), a destination for excess capital, and a large market — classical imperialism…

That said, Junaid is correct that political Islam that now ravages Pakistan is primarily a result of 80s policies of Pakistan’s ruling elites, the US and the Gulf regimes — but the basic network was put in place in the latter 1960s and 1970s. More fundamentally, Pakistan’s ruling elites have sought to use these political Islamists as buffers and proxies against Indian expansionism. This has other spillover benefits for Pakistan’s ruling classes, who seek to use Islamic extremism as a counterweight to the secular nationalism of oppressed nationalities (e.g., the Baloch and Sindhi) in Pakistan. This is also an important angle that has to be identified.

Moreover, Pakistani mercenaries are hired by regimes in Oman and Bahrain, and probably others, to suppress uprisings there. Pakistan Army (and civilian elites too, note President Zardari speaking in favour of “stability” in West Asia) is seen as a vital ally of reactionary regimes in West Asia. So we have to understand the back and forth here in order to assess possibilities for liberation in North Africa/West Asia as well as Central Asia/South Asia. Meanwhile, let us be clear that Gulf countries are built literally on the back of migrant labourers which includes millions of Pakistanis, who do not receive the proper value of their work and are subject to innumerable abuses otherwise. These things are intimately tied, and strategies for emancipation have to take this into account.

I don’t know what is the state of this debate in Arab intellectual and progressive circles because I don’t know Arabic. In Pakistan, it is highly underdeveloped in both English and Urdu, not sure about the other nationalities’ languages. Rather than looking at this political history and political economy — and importantly, situating it in the context of world imperialism in which the leading and directing force is the US — Pakistan’s Westernized elite is obsessed with Saudi Arabia for its “cultural” imperialism (via Wahhabism). This means that it is harder for them to attend classical music programmes, or to wear sleeveless tops, or to drink alcohol — while the vast majority of the country is facing the obscene violence of not being able to make ends meet on a day to day basis, which is a result of dependent, neoliberal development in the context of US-led world imperialism.

July 25, 2011 - Posted by aletho | Economics, Timeless or most popular