ARE Pakistanis in the Gulf over-sensitive when news reports that are adverse to their country appear in local newspapers? I can hear the protests already, but please bear with me; this is not — I repeat not — my viewpoint. On this occasion, I am merely the humble messenger, and the story follows.

Earlier in the week newspapers throughout the world reported on the bombings in Sharm El Shaikh and subsequently on the fact that the Egyptian government had said they were looking for — amongst many others — six Pakistanis.

“Egypt hunts for six Pakistani suspects over resort blasts” was the front-page headline in the Dubai daily Gulf News. It was an angle to the story that was reflected in newspapers throughout the Middle East, although with varying degrees of emphasis on the Pakistani “link”.

I do not know the size of the email in-box at the Gulf News letters page, but I hazard a guess that it was very soon approaching the full quota level as Gulf Pakistanis responded with fury. Shock, bias, sensational, unfair, baseless and yellow journalism were among the words used in the letters that the newspaper subsequently printed.

The general feelings of many Pakistani readers were summed up by the Dr M.Z. Iqbal, the press counsellor at the Pakistani consulate in Dubai.

The headline, he said, was “utterly misleading, biased and damaging” and did not merit being the main story in the newspaper.

“It seems that an arbitrary and whimsical editorial decision was made to highlight the ‘Pakistanis’ which is not only a gross violation of pristine journalistic morals, which have always been the hallmark of your newspaper, but has also brought a bad name to our country.

“We expect an impartial, scrupulous and fair reporting/policy from the newspaper of the calibre and repute of Gulf News,” said Dr Iqbal. He suggested that President Musharraf’s denial of Pakistani involvement in terror attacks in London, Istanbul, Egypt and Africa, which was carried on page 27 of the newspaper, should have been the front-page story.

Other letter writers suggested that the newspaper was biased against Pakistan, and therefore, by implication, was pro-Indian.

“Even on other stories, your newspaper only highlights the events that present Pakistan in poor light, whereas a neighbouring country’s negative news is always glossed over,” said one reader.

This, I have to say, is a common complaint about the English-language newspapers here in the Gulf but, to be fair, for every such letter they receive from a Pakistani, there is another from an Indian reader who complains that the bias is in the opposite direction.

As a ‘neutral’ in such matters and having been involved with newspapers in this part of the world for many years, I can honestly say that the journalists I have encountered — and the majority come from Pakistan and India — have always tried to “report it as it is”.

As long as they continue to receive complaints in equal numbers from the two communities, they can presume they are doing a reasonably balanced job.

The Gulf News, however, was not prepared to take the criticism without fighting back. It highlighted the fact that newspapers everywhere — including Pakistan — reported the hunt for the six Pakistanis in a similar vein. But editor-in-chief Abdul Hamid Ahmad — and before anyone asks, he is a UAE national — had a sting in the tail of his refutation of bias:

“We call upon our Pakistani readers to take a dispassionate look at the news and not wear the badge of perceived ‘unfair discrimination’. Be objective in your criticism. “We will be the first to accept any misjudgment on our part. But are our Pakistani readers ready to do the same?

“Among the many nationalities in the Emirates, it is most often Pakistanis who take umbrage to and are most sensitive about any news they construe to be unfavourable to them or their country. But surely the silent majority among the community are more astute and discerning than that.”

I have a feeling we have not heard the last word on this subject...

‘PAKISTAN First’ was the two-word manifesto President General Pervez Musharraf gave to the nation in one of his major policy addresses.

In his July 21 address, the president spoke repeatedly and emphatically of the nexus between Pakistan and the ‘ummah’. ‘Pakistan’s destiny,’ he said, ‘was closely linked to that of the ummah’ as the ummah’s only nuclear and major military power.

Pakistan’s leading role in the global war against terrorism and proactive contribution towards “collective efforts in world affairs should put the ummah on the road to progress,” he said. Regrettably, however, the ummah as a whole was on a ‘descending course’. In spite of owning 70 per cent of the world’s energy (oil/gas) and 40 per cent of other natural resources (manpower, geo-strategic pivotal land-mass, etc), the ummah stays in the backyard of international affairs.

President Musharraf’s oft-repeated formulation seems to indicate that he regards Pakistan as the pivotal state of the ummah. The ummah, as a body, looks up to Pakistan for moral and physical support mainly in military terms, conventional and nuclear.

Hence the president’s own thesis of ‘Strategy of Enlightened Moderation.’ In simple language, this offers a judicious synthesis of Islam as a complete code of life and its updated relevance and application to our complex, modern world.

The strategy seeks to establish Islam as a living and thriving faith rather than a dogma split within by so many contending states, sects and cults. Might it not be a better idea, however, to do without the prefix ‘strategy’ attaching to ‘enlightened moderation’ No matter how we put it, the mere use of the word gives the theme a military dimension and restricts its conceptual and political scope.

It’s good news that the OIC has accepted ‘enlightened moderation’ as a guiding principle at the summit level. It is now in the process of finalizing its recommendations to give a ‘new dynamism and character’ to the organization and adopt this at a special summit in Makkah.

But how effective has the OIC been in serving as the representative body of the ummah and finding for itself a place on the world map as the saying goes, its constituents sit, talk and disperse. It seems to stay perennially in a state of suspended animation without its feet firmly planted in the grim ground realities facing the Muslim community.

And what is ‘ummah’ all about? Is it a league of Muslim (Islamic?) nations or just a conglomerate of countries professing the same faith, each in its own way and according to its own laws of jurisprudence and theology to suit its own national ethos.

Therefore, how can any country, even one militarily and physically as strong as Pakistan, aspire to the status of first amongst equals? Furthermore, would it not be wiser for Pakistan to first put its own house in order before aspiring to a leadership role in the ummah? Not to speak of countries as far apart as Morocco and Indonesia, Pakistan has a long way to go yet to mend its fences with neighbouring Afghanistan and Iran. One is aggressively proactive, the other discreetly quiet but hardly as happy as one might want it to be.

Besides in sheer sweep and diversity the ummah defies centrality and anything even approaching a unified, conceptual structure. The Islamic world today looks collectively as mutually divergent as ever. For Pakistan to beguile itself into the wishful thinking that it is being viewed as the leader of the ummah, besides meaning little, may even harm it in terms of realpolitik.

Pakistan’s sincere desire and effort to act as a laboratory for modern Islam has all but drawn a blank. It is time for us to turn inwards for the warts and moles waiting for overdue surgery rather than look outwards.

The crying need of the hour is a grand national reconciliation in the face of the mounting threat of fanaticism and intolerance in the name of Islamic jihad. The mere use of jihadi terminology inviting youth to wage a jihad against ignorance and extremists tends to keep the jihad image and vocabulary alive. Whether Jihad-i-Akbar for economic development or social sanity, the primeval image of jihad remains that of an armed crusade against infidels and renegades.

Rather than worry too much about the ummah, our guiding motto should be ‘Pakistan First’.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.