It\u2019s a great honour for Pakistan to host the 48th session of OIC\u2019s foreign ministers, which is being attended by 48 countries plus China as special guest, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that this group is among the most toothless of its kind all over the world and hardly has any feathers at all in its cap to show for its work for the so-called Ummah.
\nIslamabad seems pretty upbeat about breathing fresh life into the Kashmiri and Palestinian struggles for freedom, for example, even if all Muslim countries put together haven\u2019t even been able to adopt a common line on them in more than seven-and-a-half decades.
\nIf they still can, more power to them, but it\u2019s unlikely that coming to Pakistan at a time when the PTI is in power was the missing ingredient all this time. There\u2019s also the feeling, for some reason, that Afghanistan\u2019s problems will finally begin to be addressed after this summit.
\nBut since there\u2019s already been a special OIC summit on the issue, also pushed and hosted by Pakistan, and nothing really came of it except a couple of pledges, what is going to change everything this time? Such gatherings aren\u2019t usually good for much except optics, so if Pakistan and its friends really have some special plan for this time, it will have to be truly game-changing. Yet it\u2019s more likely for the usual fanfare to be followed by the same old line; that there are simply too many differences and wide cleavages within the Ummah for it to function as one, fighting unit at this point in time.
\nTherefore, as much as it is a privilege \u2013 and even a challenge, given domestic circumstances \u2013 for Pakistan to play host this time, this summit should also provide some food for thought for OIC.
\nThese are turbulent times, after all, and the post-Covid environment, especially the Russia-Nato conflict have effectively stood the predominant international order on its head. The Muslim world needs to both form and present a unified stance since religious and racial differences continue to colour global politics very strongly.
\nChina\u2019s participation is telling, especially if it owes to the iron bond between Islamabad and Beijing. China is a major player in the recent global shift triggered by Russia, and the US is already pushing other countries to take sides between Washington and Beijing.
\nHow clearly the OIC members understand these new realities will become clear in a few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s a great honour for Pakistan to host the 48th session of OIC\u2019s foreign ministers, which is being attended by 48 countries plus China as special guest, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that this group is among the most toothless of its kind all over the world and hardly has any feathers at all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[215,1048,5231],"class_list":{"0":"post-250784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorial","7":"tag-food","8":"tag-oic","9":"tag-thought"},"yoast_head":"\n