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Prioritise economic growth over aligning with superpowers: Mansoor

Our Correspondent
Sunday, Jan 26, 2025

LAHORE: Former ambassador Mansoor Ahmad Khan Saturday said a rational approach would be for Pakistan not to take sides with either the US or China in the present world order by remaining independent and prioritising economic reforms first.

Addressing a two-day national workshop on ‘Building Bridges: Fostering Tolerance and Inclusivity among Youth’, the former envoy said: “Pakistan’s policy or narrative should be that we are not part of any camp, either of the US or China.”

Students of local universities, colleges and religious seminaries attended the moot organised by Islamabad-based think tank Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS). He said Islamabad should tell the world that we are independent.

Mansoor said no world order is permanent and due to military strength, economy, governance, technology and innovation, and social stability some countries have sway on other countries. He said Pakistan should focus on its economy by introducing economic reforms on the top of its development agenda and economy depends on political stability.

Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Chairman Allama Raghib Hussain Naeemi said it was the responsibility of all signatories of ‘Paigham-i-Pakistan’ to work on the implementation of this unanimous Islamic decree against extremism and terrorism but unfortunately they didn’t do. “As terrorism is again rearing its ugly head in the country, there is a dire need for adopting this document in letter and spirit,” he said, underlining that the signatories are on the back foot now. Academic and religious scholar Dr Ammar Khan Nasir said the ‘Paigham-i-Pakistan’ was an important document against those religion-based narratives of extremism and violence, which were prevalent in Pakistani society for the last 40 years. It explicitly says that Pakistan is an Islamic state with regard to its constitution and nobody can take law into his own hands on the grounds of religion, he added. Anchorperson and religious scholar Peer Ziaulhaq Naqshbandi suggested that an effort should be made to get endorsements from newly established educational boards for religious seminaries on the decree against extremism.

“An Awareness campaign should be launched about it to sensitize the public at large,” he added. Anchorperson and political analyst Habib Akram said the space for balanced and fair reporting had shrunk in Pakistan due to state censorship on media.

He said journalists were facing oppression of the state for speaking the truth. Columnist Gul Nokhaiz Akhtar opposed his view by saying that there were hundreds of ways to tell a news story, but anyone should have the art of how to present the information with some decency. Highlighting the need for combating fake news, he said some journalists usually presented one side picture of the story in their political reporting, which had made the society highly polarized.

PIPS President M Amir Rana in his concluding remarks urged the need for critical thinking, saying it means seeing anything with a new angle by using common sense.

“Common sense is cultivated through observation, acceptability and self-awareness,” he said, noting that youth should make their world view compatible with the entire world.