Daily Times

Separate incidents in Occupied Palestine and Occupied Kashmir over the past few days and weeks showed yet again how impotent the collective Muslim world is in international matters. Pakistan has passed resolutions in the national assembly and for once the OIC has also issued a very strong statement, yet nobody could stop Delhi from carrying out its recent delimitation exercise in Kashmir and giving Hindu-majority areas more seats in their legislature. The sham trial of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Yasin Malik by a kangaroo court also goes on towards its foregone conclusion. And Israel went further than its usual harassment, eviction, arrests and torture of Palestinians and short a veteran journalist in the face, then had her funeral baton charged just to show who calls the shots there, and nobody could do a thing about it.

The western world’s double standards when it comes to these things were exposed a very long time ago. Therefore, expecting to wake up one day to greater realisation in the west or the UN only amounts to wasting more time. But it is almost unforgivable that the many Muslim countries of the world, which combined are endowed with endless resources, wealth as well as influence, have also not been bothered enough by these two brutal occupations to put their foot down once and for all.

As sad as it is, these are definitely not going to be the last horrible headlines out of these two territories. Nor will the suffering, subjugation and murder of Palestinians and Kashmiris end anytime soon. And, of course, nobody is going to come to their help. The only realistic hope for them is for their indigenous resistance movements to keep up the fight till freedom is finally won. And that, of course, means there’s a lot more tears and blood to be shed before there’s even the slightest chance of peace.

Every day till that day is a ringing denouncement of the failure of the Muslim world to protect and nurture its own. *