No
country in this planet provides aid without motive/s. The kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, rich in petro dollar is also home of wahabi Islam, the
most rigorous Islamism practiced anywhere.
The citizen of Saudi Arabia enjoys
patronage from the royals in power as most of them are an extended family of
the house of Sauds. As no one outside the citizen of SA could own land,
business, housing etc. so practically every foreign investment has a Saudi
citizen involved. Naturally no one cares to do any work which involves hard
labor. So the king requires assistance to have an army of its own and Pakistan
is more than willing to oblige them with men and tactics. The royals maintained
a posse of loyal guards as king’s personal bodyguard which is supplied by
Pakistan. They even bought their ex army chief (Gen Raheel Sharif) for fighting
war for the Sauds in Yemen. In fact, Pakistani refusal to join Saudi Arabia
fighting war against Yemen has infuriated the Sauds so much, they promptly
invited Narendra Modi and conferred the highest civilian award of the nation.
The Sauds knew that nothing would hurt best to Pakistanis when it comes to
Modi…
Not
only men, Sauds provide aid to Pakistan with a tacit understanding that
Pakistan would supply them with nuclear weapons should they ever need one. In
fact, Iran’s nuclear program is threatening the Sauds which made the US to
re-enact the stringent sanction upon Iran, lest the Saudis would start looking
for the same in open market and who would be more than willing to sell a couple
of nukes for a suitable amount?
There
is also a third aspect of cash dole out. It started during the Afghan war when
Pakistan was willingly sucked into this war in Afghanistan. It is now an open
information that the Saudis provided money to Pakistan (on US initiative) which
the Pakistani generals used to covertly provide weapons to the Afghan
mujaheddin to fight the Soviets. Besides money, the Saudis also sent their
mullahs over to Pakistan particularly in Peshawar and Quetta to aid Afghans
(and Pakistanis) help fighting better along the lines of Islamic ‘jihad’,
essentially through wahabism, under the guise of basic education. Slowly but
surely, the wahabi islam started gaining foothold among both Afghan and
Pakistani youths which ultimately transformed into a breeding ground of
terrorism both for Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
All along, the Pakistani
establishment (or their stooges) knowingly turned a blind eye towards wahabism
which induced a stern view of the world and holding every western practice as
un-Islamic and in a cloak of ‘jihad’ against the unbelievers. The
US then was also encouraging the same (photo of the mujaheddin leaders in White
House) as it was serving their purpose until the 9/11 happened. The Saudi aid
by then has changed the psyche of the Pakistani youth who (by then) has turned
into an adult (with no job). The Saudi money introduced the Kalashnikov culture
in Pakistan and the Pakistani elites knowingly turned blind eye on them while
exporting their properties and children to US and Europe for a better life.
This inaction (rather can termed as ‘initiative’) essentially not only
destroyed two generations of youth in the Af-Pak region, but also destroyed the
very social fabric of the Kashmir valley (Hindu exodus from Kashmir) converting
an overall peaceful place into an ideologist fanaticism and lab rat of
extremism.
So,
in essence, the strings attached with these aids proved to be too costly not
only for Pakistan but to Afghans and Indians as well. Unfortunately, Pakistan
is (always was) in need for serious foreign currency reserve for meeting its
daily needs. So now, even knowing the harm it could mean to Pakistan, it has no
alternative but to surrender to Saudi Arabia’s interest and dance to its tunes.
The same Imran Khan, before being PM of Pakistan used to tell that he would
rather die than to go around with begging bowl around the world, has actually
went to the Saudis for $ 3 billion relief package and to China (amount unknown)
after becoming the PM. He has realized that the same jihad which capitulated
the Soviets and the US an undisputed world leader, the same jihad had literally
crippled the Pakistani economy so badly that it currently does not have enough
strength to stand up on its’ legs let alone walking. There is no other way for
Pakistan other than to desperately seek foreign aid for its’ survival and as
the big brother (US) is not quite happy with them, the conditions laid by IMF/World
Bank are too stringent for Pakistan to abide. As a result, there is
virtually noother way other than to accept aid from friendly countries
for help.
Hope
some day, Pakistan would be able to get over its debt ridden economy and would
not rely on any ‘friendly’ state to provide them with aid (read: alms) and
bailing them out from crisis. It would then remains to be seen if the country
has learned any lesson from its’ action in the past or continues the same path
which resulted this present condition. The country needs thorough overhaul of
its’ present education and healthcare system which, in future, would reap rich
harvest of educate manpower and healthy society to took upon challenges it
would face to overcome the losses it made in past.
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