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Pakistan has moved away from historic threat perception: Mushahid Hussain

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has moved away from its historic stance on threat perception and there is a need for Pakistan to redefine national security in a much broader context than at present, Senator Mushahid Hussain, secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League, said on Thursday.

Hussain said this at a panel discussion on Exploring the South Asian Security Dimension: Military, Economic and Human” at the second day of the three-day 7th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC), organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), here on Thursday.

Hussain said Pakistan had moved away from its historic stance on India-specific threat perception to a realisation that the most significant threat was internal. He also argued that there was a need for Pakistan to redefine national security in a much broader context than at present. He suggested that military security was overemphasized and there was a need to focus on economic and human security as well.

Moeed Yusuf from SDPI analysed various academic and policy proposals on Kashmir presented between 1949-50 and 2004 and said that in order to arrive at a sustainable solution of the Kashmir problem, five issues must be part of the Indo-Pak negotiating agenda. These included autonomy to the entire Jammu Kashmir, softening of the Kashmir boundary, reduction of the military in the state, granting a formal role to Kashmiris in any negotiations and involvement of international actors besides the UN in the efforts to attain peace, he explained.

On human security, Dr Adil Najam from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, USA, argued that the insecurities of the two countries were far more profound at human level than at state level. He said that the state was well, as inter-state insecurities were likely to be dealt with much better by tackling the human dimensions of insecurity rather than the military dimensions.

Dr Najma Najam from Fatimah Jinnah Women’s University pointed out that the psychological dynamics of depression, learned helplessness and apathy could be effective tools to analyse and understand the increasing violence exhibited in the absence of tolerance for differences in opinion, religion, caste, creed and gender.

In the panel on “Women and Media: Problems and Prospects”, which was chaired by Sherry Rehman, a member of the National Assembly, panelists strongly called for a self-regulatory non-government media ethics commission along the lines of those in Sweden and UK to monitor both insensitive reporting and ensure implementation of a gender sensitive code of ethics.

Hussain Ahmed Khan in the session on “Violence, Displacement and the Issue of Identity –Post Partition Pakistan” said that feudal lords in southern Punjab had used Sufism and Islam to strengthen their control over the region.

Dr Saba Gul Khattak form SDPI stressed that the Wana operation had given rise to issues like identity, citizenship, displacement and loss of homes and livelihoods that were not finding a place in public discourse.

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