KARACHI: Pakistan is no more important for the US in this region because in the past it gave importance due to Pakistan’s geo-political position to counter the Russian threats.
As for America, Russia is no longer a threat to its interests, even the Russian president is very friendly to Donald Trump, so Pakistan has lost its strategic importance, said an American scholar Dr Charles Amjad Ali here on Friday.
Dr. Ali was delivering a talk in the post-USA-election perspective on “The Deep Distress: Causalities behind Trump and the Future Internal and External Trajectories,” organized by Pakistan institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) at the office of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) here.
“The USA is increasing its relations with India purely on market reasons due to Modi’s capitalist policies, said Dr. Charles Amjad Ali who is the Professor of Justice and Christian Community, Emeritus and Director Islamic Studies Program, Emeritus at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. He is also teaching at the Desmond Tutu Chair of Ecumenical Theology and Social Transformation in Africa, University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa.
According to him the USA does not need oil of the Middle East, its North Dakota state has enough oil, not only for USA consumption, but for exports, then it has alternative energy source. In the past America used to support Israel and Saudi Arabia, but this support would decline in future as there is a growing resistance among American against aid to Israel.
Realizing that the USA is not interested, Pakistan is now turning towards China and Russian that have some interest to access warm water through Pakistan, he added. It is essential democracy should continue in Pakistan, he added.
Giving an overview of the USA election Dr. Ali pointed out that 58% of white voters voted Trump, while 88% of African Americans and 65% of Hispanics voted for Clinton. The rise in spray painted swastikas, hate crimes and race-based violence in the week since the election does point to a racist element in this election.
According to him, both Presidential candidates were unpopular, but Clinton is a deeply unpopular figure disliked by both parties, and simply failed to mobilize voters, especially white middle class educated voters. “Although Trump’s total vote is actually lower than that for McCain and Romney, almost 10 million Americans who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 failed to turn out and vote for Ms Clinton,” he added.
Similarly, he said black voters did not turn up, even through a “legal rigging,” blacks were kept out of voting to give benefit to Trump. At least 300,000 eligible voters in Wisconsin state lacked the proper ID to vote in 2016 – Trump won by less than 30,000 votes there. In Florida, convicted felons are automatically disenfranchised, and have to petition the state for reinstatement of voting rights. This left a quarter of African American Floridians disenfranchised.
He said according to the narrative “The left behind/forgotten” white, blue collar, lower middle class voters, who have been feeling marginalized, dispossessed and disadvantaged rose up to vote for Trump because he (regardless of his personal nature) represents change, and would smash the system they felt had kept them back. Voters are not racist, just frustrated and wanting to smash the system. The Democrats didn’t take this demographic seriously enough, and so lost that vote.
This will prevent the left from coalescing, as they fight the individual brush-fires, rather than the overall structure. According to reports there have been over 400 hate crimes since Trump’s elections. The top four hate speeches are over 120 anti-immigrants; around 80 against blacks; around 38 against LBGT; and around 35 against Muslims.
The state will initially allow the bigots free reign without doing anything, but as minority response ratchets [already demonstrations all over the place] the state will begin to crack down on the demonstrators rather than the bigots, as they bow to “popular opinion” and against terrorists, traitors etc.
Greater intolerance on a structural level with classification of Muslims and crackdowns on “criminal illegal immigrants”.
