By Asim Hussain
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Defence, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed Thursday said that the country needed strategic clarity to avoid becoming ‘a cat’s paw’ for any nation in the new Cold War era and transforming world that is emerging into a multilateral comity of nations shunning the old unipolar world order. He was delivering his keynote address at the book launch ceremony of Collected Works on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy by Dr Huma Baqai here at the Institute of Regional Studies. Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed termed the book a fine piece of document that would guide the professionals and common people alike. However, he also deliberated his criticism on the book.
He said that foreign policy was a subject that used to get comments everyday and termed the essence of the book as “seeing truth from facts”, a classic Chinese idiom highlighting approach of ancient Chinese scholars who paid great attention to acquiring solid facts in order to arrive at the correct understanding or conclusion.
While opining his critical views, he said the terminology of Indo-Pacific term was overloaded in Dr. Baqai’s book because the original term was Asia Pacific.
The Indo-Pacific term was used by the European Union (EU), US and others to rope in India which had its own ego of self-projection, he added.
The aspect of cold-war aspect is very importantly highlighted in the book, whereas mentioning of KSA-Iran reproachment was also significant is also crucial as it is one of the biggest achievements in the region, he said.
He commented that the way the world was developing needed to be focused as there was a lack of institutionalized decision making forum at the civilian and military side of the country which left it with only reactive approaches which also should be harnessed for prudent approaches.
“Pakistan has a strategic location and it needs to be friendly with all and should avoid becoming cat’s paw for any other nation in the new Cold War.
We are on the right side of history and this century belongs to Asia as predicted by Allama Iqbal in his poetry some 90 years back,” he said while ending his comments with the verses of Dr Allama Mohammad Iqbal. President, IRS, Ambassador Nadeem Riyaz moderated the panel discussion that highlighted discourse on the book.
Ambassador, Naghmana Hashmi in her remarks congratulated Dr. Huma Baqai on the publication of her book and termed it an excellent piece of publication.
She underscored that the book would be guiding document for intellectuals, Foreign Office professionals and youth interested in understanding the world affairs. The book, she said was based on the columns and articles of the author.
The author made a very careful selection of 46 articles out of a 100 written over the years by her and divided them in a chronological order while arranging them into the book’s content.
“She (Dr Baqai) has brilliantly covered the flux the world had witnessed. She takes us through the various stages the world passed from 2019 to sofar. The author also covered the flux Pakistan is going through from different levels of political, social and others,” she said.
Senior Journalist, Zahid Hussain while expressing his view said that the country was back to a brief 9/11 situation after the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan. He said the author Dr Huma has described how resetting of the nation could take place in this scenario. The author, Dr Huma Baqai said that it was her third book which she wrote with the vision that a book should be written in an eloquent manner which should be easily understandable to the readers.
The articles were picked up keeping in view their subject matter shelf life as out of my 100 articles there were many of her articles on contemporary issues that lacked shelf life.
“Our youth are directionless and our nation is intellectually starved because there is no book reading and writing culture in the society. However, youth is the only hope for our nation as they can drive the real change,” she added.
She commented that her book could serve as a brand of Pakistan which should have more Pakistani perspective in its projection. She added that intellectual hygiene was very important and this book would also be a guiding document for the journalists fraternity to understand the complex concepts of geopolitics and international relations.
