The New York Times Smears Pakistan
Conspiracy theory is a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players — the United States, India and Israel — change positions depending on the ebb and flow of history. Since 2001, the United States has taken center stage, looming so large in Pakistan’s collective imagination that it sometimes seems to be responsible for everything that goes wrong here.
“When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America,” said Shaista Sirajuddin, an English professor in Lahore.
via U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk – NYTimes.com.
Pakistani pro-democracy demonstrators
This story about Pakistanis and how their “collective imagination” supposedly blames America for “everything that goes wrong” in their country has been pinging around the blogosphere. I highly recommend you read Glenn Greenwald’s take, who got to the subject before me and did quite a good job.
Stories like these remind me why the U.S. media does such a poor job covering foreign affairs. To start with, your major papers — the New York Times, the USA Today, the Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal — barely cover the topic of Pakistan. And when they do, it usually is along the lines of, “How does this affect America?”
So when you get an article like this — where the author proclaims that Pakistanis have some sort of weird, irrational tendency to blame America with conspiracy theories for their ills — and you see no citations of poll numbers or any scientific analysis of what Pakistanis actually believe and why, you really can’t be surprised. American reporters just don’t know how to cover foreign countries. This particular one seems to have spent a little time on the ground in Pakistan, found some people who think America is really, really, nefarious and bad and have odd reasons for thinking so, and concluded that, well, that’s just Pakistan for you!
Imagine America wasn’t the most famous country on earth, that saturated the media airwaves on every country’s soil and was as unheard of usually as a country like, let’s say, Pakistan. Let’s say a Pakistani journalist came to the States, encountered some Glenn Beck viewers, and maybe one government official like Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) and found that these people believe:
- That President Obama’s plan to for health care reform was actually to control Americans’ lives in the vein of Stalin and Hitler.
- That a small community organizing group called ACORN is one of the most powerful groups in the world, with tentacles in every vestige of the US government.
- The United Nations is actually an organization dedicated to something called the “New World Order” that will eventually take over the world.
It’s true that there are Americans who believe these things. Most don’t, but there are some who do. But what if the Pakistani reporter said that these conspiracy theories formed the fabric of Americans’ “collective imagination” of their political woes, and that they used these facts to deflect from real problems? We’d be outraged — and rightly so.
Yet the New York Times — that august paper that is proud of containing “All The News Fit To Print” soberly printed this article as straight news and painted a picture of Pakistan that has nothing but crazed conspiracy theorists unwilling to look at their own flaws and who are ready to blame the United States for everything from poor weather to the existence of Al Qaeda. And as if that was not enough, the picture accompanying the article is of followers of a fringe Islamist group with signs that say “I HATE AMERICA.”
Not accompanying the aforementioned picture is widely available polling data that shows that only a single-digit number of Pakistanis view violent Islamists as a positive force in Pakistani politics. Also absent from anywhere in the article is that Pakistanis, who supposedly blame foreigners for all their woes, just got finished in the past couple years, successfully toppling a dictator by creating the political will for a democratic election that — shockingly to the American press! — didn’t revolve around America. I notice that the picture was also taken in Karachi, the mega port city to the south of the country where my parents are from. Karachi is a cosmopolitan city, and Islamists have next to no power there. You’re much more likely to see a college student in Levis’ jeans than you are to see a bearded fundamentalist condemning Zionist conspiracies. Yet that too didn’t fit the reporter’s narrative nor the paper’s sloppy smearing of the moderate Pakistani majority.
But the average American doesn’t know these facts, and they aren’t going to read any debunking. They’re simply going to read what America’s supposedly most reputable newspaper passed off as the plain truth, and move on with their lives. And an entire people — one that certainly does have some fundamentalist conspiracy mongers, but also brilliant writers, artists, engineers, doctors, and political activists who could teach America a thing or two — will be smeared in the eyes of the Times’ readers. And that’s a complete shame.
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PAKISTAN is land stolen from India, as is Palestine stolen from the Jews. These new ficticious states were created in corruption 60 years ago by Briton for 30 barrels of oil. Both are the cause of world terror today and should be dismantled.
All states created by Briton should be re-examined, including the terror sponsoring Regimes of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bangladesh, Jordan and all the Gulf states – these states did not exist any time in history before the Britons manufactured them 120 years ago.While Israel was created legally with the world’s nations voting – no one voted for the Arab states – these were done in secret, and constitutes the cause of all global mayhem.
OK but you see my points in particular right?
In response to another comment. See in context »There has never been a sentence of truth from the Islamic world, and its peoples are in a straight jacket if they examine and challenge. This is what happens when dictators are alowed to be given vast stretches of land they never owned before, and deemed as their private and personal properties.
Islamists mass murdered 70 Million Hindus when it invaded India, yet India has been the most generous to the Muslims. If Muslims treat India so horrifically, demanding more land after stealing a third of Bharat, and muslims appluading heinous terrorism, as we saw recently, what chance with America and Israel?
India must have metal and cease selling her nation’s soul for short term commerce and trade – this is also the error of America, who regards an evil empiure like Saudi Arabia as an ally and its national interest.
It will be nice to see Muslims issueing a Fatwah for Osama – instead of deeming him a neo prophet. It will be nice to see Muslims apprehending those who impudently commit the most vile acts and calling historical fiction as truth, such as:
PAKISTAN and the Arab states are sacred Islamic soil – these are in fact land robbed of other peoples’ who predate both Islam and the Arab race, including the Kurds, the Copts, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Jews and a host of Arabian peoples – Islam and the Arabs are the new kid on the block here.
Muslims must also confront the dumping of Mosques on the known sacred sites of other nations – such as in India and Jerusalem.
Muslims must now destroy the pagan Sphinx in Egypt and cease being hipocrits – because they destroyed the Buddha relics for that same given reason.
Muslims must confront Islamic women chanting in parades: GOD BLESS HITLER – WAIT FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST. What kind of Muslims are being reproduced and honored?
Muslims must confront their Regimes who allow heinous falsehoods like the Blood Libels and the Protocols to be presented as historical truth.
Muslims must stop calling the historical Jewish rtemple upon which they dumped a mosque as Islam’s third holy site – it is the Jews’ first holy site. There is nothing holy about stealing and lieing for true believers:
A FALSEHOOD AND THE HOLY ONE CANNOT ABIDE TOGETHER.
In response to another comment. See in context »You seem to have an agenda, and the only thing related to my post is the word Pakistan. I don’t like the New York Time’s racism and I don’t like it being in my comments either..
In response to another comment. See in context »How so – is anything stated incorrect or false? How is asking Muslims to issue a Fatwah for a mass murderer of innocent people an agenda? If Muslims demand this – it will not be America’s right to do so. One can also say, you have an agenda by gross omissions and silence of confronting applicable truths – which is endemic in the Muslim world. One must pursue truth boldly – even where it is seen as deathremental – therwise the belief itself is bogus.
In response to another comment. See in context »Haha. And so, Zaid, one of you points (Let’s say a Pakistani journalist came to the States, encountered some Glenn Beck viewers…) is mirrored in your comment section. Everybody’s got their crazies, and wow do the crazies have underdeveloped senses of irony.
In response to another comment. See in context »Good article! I am wondering if the New York Times can be trusted with the quality of their reporting with other issues beside foreign affairs like politics and the economy. Today I have to think they have an agenda like most other newspapers. Difficult to be a free thinker today with all the negative opinions and agendas floating around.