Ambassador Sherry Rehman; image courtesy of Google
My most recent associations with Pakistan have been divided
loyalties between East and West; the country's enmity with a strong U.S. ally,
India, though a fragile peace is currently on the horizon between these close "cousins";
and shock that the U.S. search for bin Laden ended up at a sheltered location
there. For me, that was just the Eastern aspect of Pakistan asserting itself,
even as it is badly in need of U.S. aid.
But all the above simplify a highly complex web of
conflicts. Violence occurs daily in her country, the new ambassador from
Pakistan to the United States told us in her first public remarks in this
country, hosted at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. What amazed
me the most about the brilliant and hugely accomplished Sherry Rehman was her
absolute mastery not only of the English language--she attended college here and
did outstandingly well--but of the idiom of diplomacy.
All terminology with any violent connotations is surrounded
with negatives (Pakistan is not just about "bombs and bullets," e.g.). Her
narrative is one of cautious hope even as she frankly complained about America's
"growing footprint" in her country. The media narrative of Pakistan is wholly
negative, she lamented, where there is also a vibrant, multifaceted culture
thriving in the context of a new and democratic government featuring elections,
a functional parliament that sets foreign policy, and an effective judiciary
who are beginning to cooperate well as other governmental institutions "striving
for equilibrium."
Amid all of this development, Rehman advocates a "strategic
pause." There is much to set right.
But are we speaking more than different languages? I have
that feeling about the impasse in the Middle East. Which country was it that
said that 9/11 occurs routinely there, though it was such a gaping,
mind-boggling shock to us? It could be that on that day not only was fear born,
but more of a commonality with the rest of the world, most of it on the same
extended continent, and therefore internal decay from mutual hostilities is
frequent history rather than a one-time, catastrophic trauma? We are so well
situated we had become spoiled and now are less so, based on an ambience of
fear. Air travel is no longer such fun as each U.S. outgoing or returning passenger
is forced to relive 9/11 at some level.
I greatly admire Rehman and others, including USIP, for
taking on such a complex web of issues and trying both to make sense of them
and to "reset" so much of what is wrong: daily occasions of violence among any
number of terrorist or extremist (or both) groups that represent multiple
nationalities and ethnic roots ("internal terrorism"); the NATO presence in
Afghanistan that was severely hampered when Pakistan cut off the thoroughfare to
Afghanistan that went through it in retaliation for the death of twenty-four
Pakistani troops at Mohmand on the international border, without the immediate
apology Pakistan expected from NATO.
That tragedy was the straw that broke the camel's back--forgive
the clichà ©--in 2011, a bad year for U.S.--Pakistan relations; the ambassador
expressed this event as an "end-line trigger of a series of "bilateral
catastrophes.'" The U.S. capture and killing of bin Laden was an affront to
Pakistani sovereignty. That is a conundrum for scholars of international
relations but fortunately did not in itself cause the outbreak of a war. The
event probably distills the "cognitive dissonance" or "trust deficit" that
plagues relations between the U.S. and Pakistan.
Even as I read and reread the text of Rehman's remarks,
which U.S.I.P. conscientiously distributed to attendees, I marvel anew at the
language, not steeped enough myself in diplomatic venues but feeling like an
outsider stumbling over British English for the first time and being amazed at
its elegance.
Does it conceal as much as it reveals? Is it a strong lid on
an explosive pressure cooker? Can it be called, very simply, "Euphemisms," period?
Even as the media embraced the first visit of China's "heir
apparent" to leadership of the country, Xi Jinping, with a front-page photo of our
mixed-lineage president warmly shaking the hand of the Asian diplomatic future
between these two countries, I noticed in a small, parenthetical entry that
Pakistan will now allow NATO to ship food to its troops in Afghanistan--the first
time this has been allowed after what the media called an accidental killing,
and we must believe this. I wonder if the coincidence between Rehman's visit and Pakistan's concession is purposeful.
Diplomacy is fraught with such complexity, hypocrisy (with
its harsh reminder from Wikileaks recently), a nation unto itself with its own
dialects, multiple layers, frantic attempts at communication amid this all. It
keeps as much peace as can be kept, is one perspective, that lid on the boiling
cauldron materialized?
The ambassador's speech contained so much more--her country's
pain at being left out of recent international negotiations and its "non-intrusive
peace offensive" [note the oxymoron, where the denotation of violence is
transformed] in its own region, "a concentric circle of countries" that include
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, and China.
Rehman professed no intention of "bringing a victim
narrative" to Washington, but instead a plan to publish weekly statistics on
casualties in her country that result from all forms of terrorism. The number
of civilian casualties in Afghanistan is at a historic high and her country
cannot afford another civil war there, she said. On the horizon is a "roadmap
of the terms of our renewed cooperation."
Watering the conflagration that is only part of her country's
story is the first "sustained elected government in many decades"--the U.S.
knows the "value of power rooted in democracy" and, concluded this protà ©gà ©e of
Benazir Bhutto, "I for one am known for speaking truth to power."
As a longtime advocate and activist for peace, I did not
feel terribly powerful myself--marveling at her dignity and euphemistic
challenge to find some treasure beneath the heaps of corpses that symbolize the
chronic discord her country suffers from.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
