Imran Khan is very angry:
Pakistan’s prime minister has lambasted western diplomats who have urged him to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, demanding to know if they thought he was their “slave”.
“What do you think of us?” Imran Khan asked as he addressed a public meeting in the town of Mailsi. “Are we your slaves? That whatever you say, we will do?”
The heads of 22 diplomatic missions in Islamabad, including those of European Union member states, published a joint letter on March 1 urging Pakistan to support a UN resolution condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The move to release such a letter publicly is rare.
What do you think of us? Well, Pakistan is a country that makes a great deal of its proud adherence to Islam, from the notorious blasphemy laws on down, and Khan never wastes a chance to parade his Islamic credentials. Next door, in China, Uighur Muslims in huge numbers are suffering a genocide at the hands of the Chinese state, quite specifically because of their Islamic beliefs. Khan's response? Nothing. Silence. Good relations with Beijing outweigh any possible concerns. So that's what we think of you, Imran: a hypocrite, an empty vessel making a lot of noise.
It's a familiar enough story: people proudly claim to belong to this or that religion or sect, then behave as though the very act of belonging guarantees that they no longer have to worry about common everyday morality: their belonging ensures that they're always moral, will go straight to heaven, and can get on with doing whatever they want to do. Nice work, I suppose, if you can stomach it.
Pakistan has become the first country to officially sign a huge trade deal with Russia at a time when Moscow has come under severe criticism for invading Ukraine. As part of the agreement, Pakistan will import two million tonnes of wheat and natural gas from Russia.
Mick Hartley 
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