Pak Hosts OIC Meet: Islamabad Gets Wang Yi, But What Else?

The world no longer cares much about Islamophobia or Pakistan’s endless complaints on Kashmir.

It’s a setting made for him – a podium addressing the top bureaucrats of the Islamic world, even as his Army marches in an impressive parade to celebrate “Pakistan Day”. This day, 23 March, is marked to commemorate the passing of the Lahore Resolution in 1940, when the All-India Muslim League demanded a separate nation for the Muslims of the British Indian Empire.

The address is to the 48th meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which is being held – to the delight of the Foreign Office – in Islamabad. And the man of the hour is, of course, Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has long fancied himself as a leader of the Islamic world. And he got the Chinese Foreign Minister to attend. Khan’s cup appears full. Or maybe not.

Has OIC Become a Lost Cause?

The OIC has long faced criticism of being a talk shop and little else, doing little for its members and its cause. It has its ‘contact groups’ for Kashmir, for Palestine and since recently, for the Rohingya. It does not, however, have any such grouping for the Muslims of Xinjiang. In religion or in politics, power remains a constant. But things are changing. At the event, for the very first time, was the Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi. A US official was also present, meeting the OIC special envoy on Afghanistan, Amb Tarig Ali Bakheet. Russia is an observer, though no attendee was present. Perhaps they were gently dissuaded.

And the OIC, led by the Saudis and including 13 major oil-producing nations, has acquired added importance as oil prices go through the roof due to the Ukraine crisis. Riyadh was playing host to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who chose to come calling days before Riyadh executed 84 mostly Shiite Muslims in the largest such exercise ever.

In the stress of an oil crisis, London has clearly set aside the informal snubbing of the Saudis since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Besides, the Saudis, together with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), declined to speak to President Biden, while Riyadh put out an official statement refusing to increase oil production, preferring to abide by the OPEC Plus agreement of 23 countries, which includes Russia.

The OIC, therefore, at the moment, has quite a disproportionate clout in a climate where the world seems to be dividing itself into rabidly anti-Russia and not-so-hostile camps.

Pakistan Objectives at the OIC – the China Angle

For Pakistan, however, none of this counts for much. It has no oil, and no one cares very much about what it thinks of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. However, this particular OIC meeting served two distinct purposes. One, it has the distinction of having brought the Chinese Foreign Minister to the show.

The Foreign Ministry’s account of Wang’s points is a masterly lesson in international relations management. At a time when the US was inimical to China and locked in a virtual war against Russia, it called for ‘solidarity and coordination’, and a common development path safeguarding each other’s “legitimate development rights and interests” (think sanctions). Wang also emphasised South-South cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); in the field of security and stability, drawing upon “Islamic wisdom to resolve hotspot issues”, including Palestine; supporting an “inclusive” government in Afghanistan; “a mutual learning of civilizations”, and opposing “misrepresentation and denigration of non-Western civilisations”.

All this is heady stuff that is likely to have been lapped up with the members. More to the point, the Chinese Foreign Minister also mentioned that Beijing had invested $400 bn in 54 Islamic countries. That’s clout.

That Useful Islamophobia Issue

A second Pakistani objective was to highlight Islamophobia given its multiple uses. The Pakistani Prime Minister raged against it, saying that Muslim nations had done nothing to check the wrong narrative that Islam was somehow equated with terror. That is a noble objective. But it does indicate a selective memory disorder.

True, the Saudis had done much to fund a hugely conservative Islam in the past. But it was Rawalpindi that ‘operationalised’ it in Afghanistan by choosing a ‘jihadi’ movement rather than a war of liberation. The latter would have meant backing true nationalists like Ahmed Shah Massoud. Instead, billions in US aid went to the most extreme groups in a bid to stifle any Pashtun unity that could threaten Pakistan itself.

Today, Saudi Arabia has taken on a huge shift to modernity even while retaining its cultural values. Pakistan can hardly say the same. It is home to almost every single extremist group in the region, including al Qaeda. It is not Islam that is extremist. It is the Pakistani use of religion as an extension of policy.

That policy continues even today. At a time when the Prime Minister is under serious threat of being displaced, ‘Islamophobia’ gives the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) a strong internal platform to win over radicals, like by the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) headed by the young fire breathing Saad Rizvi, the new ‘kingmaker’ of Pakistan politics. From an army-patronised fringe element, it has grown in its own right, winning the third-largest vote share in Punjab. Its violent dharnas against the Charlie Hebdo cartoons resonated hugely within the country, drawing in thousands by the day.

The Prime Minister reacted by denouncing ‘Islamaphobia’ in France, never mind that one of the knife wielders of the Paris Attacks of 202 was a Pakistani youth from Punjab.

‘Islamophobia’, however, also has strong external reverberations. The Prime Minister’s office has used the cause in almost every prime ministerial speech, with the Foreign Ministry terming the adoption of a United Nations resolution declaring 15 March the day to “combat Islamaphobia” as a moment of unalloyed triumph. It is another basis for solidifying relations with Turkey, whose Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has chosen to walk the same path.

Now, the OIC has brought out a report on Islamophobia, identifying France and Britain as seeing the highest rates of Islamophobic activity, particularly through government policies. It also noted a similar pattern in Asia, especially with regard to India and Sri Lanka, identifying India as one among others who banned the hijab in government departments, universities and schools. That the OIC Report mentions India 91 times, is very useful for Pakistan.

A Facer on Kashmir

The OIC’s handling of Kashmir was largely standard. The OIC, as before, invited the Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. That was condemned, as before, by the Ministry of External Affairs. Its "Islamabad Declaration" again repeated its ‘call’ on Kashmir, though this time, it also necessarily included a reference to Article 370 and the charge of altering the demographic balance, language that must have been copy-pasted from a dozen Pakistan Foreign Ministry documents – and it held its usual contact group meeting. The triumph for Islamabad was obviously the mention of Kashmir by the Chinese Foreign Minister.

However, what was curious was that while he reportedly said “on Kashmir, we have heard again today the calls of many of our Islamic friends, and China shares the same hope”, there is no such reference in the official version. One assumes that the mention was made under considerable Pakistani pressure.

And here’s another facer for Islamabad. Even as Imran Khan was fulminating against India, delegates of some 33 companies from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia arrived in Srinagar to turn ₹3,000 crore memorandums of understanding (MoUs), signed earlier this year, into a reality, and government land allotted for the purpose.

In sum, the world has moved on from the issues that Pakistan holds so dear to official policy. It no longer cares much about Islamophobia or Pakistan’s endless plaints on Kashmir.

Economies are in trouble and every country is looking for stability in an extremely uncertain world. That includes the OIC countries, which have both internal and external turbulence to deal with. That also includes Imran Khan himself, caught in a political storm that could well carry him away. Taking the salute at that parade on Pakistan Day may well be his last hurrah.

(Dr Tara Kartha is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS). She tweets @kartha_tara. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)