Pakistan - Prime Minister Addresses General Debate, 74th Session
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00:00The Assembly will hear an address by the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
00:18His Excellency Imran Khan. May I request protocol to escort His Excellency.
00:28I have great pleasure in welcoming His Excellency, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of
00:36Pakistan, and I invite him to address the General Assembly.
00:42Mr. President, Honorable Secretary General, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I feel
01:06honored today to represent my country at this Forum of World Leaders, where we have a chance
01:17to discuss problems that the world is facing. I want to talk about a lot of problems, but
01:27just four today. And I especially came to this Forum despite a difficult time in my
01:37country facing challenges. I would not have come because I feel that there are some very
01:45urgent problems which the world must address. So first of all, I start with climate change.
01:55So many leaders have talked about climate change. But Mr. President, I feel that there
02:06is a lack of seriousness. Perhaps world leaders do not, some of the leaders who can do a lot,
02:15do not realize the urgency of the situation. We have a lot of ideas, but as someone said,
02:27ideas without funding is mere hallucination. Pakistan, I'll give you a start with my own
02:37country. Our country is amongst the top ten nations in the world which are most affected
02:47by climate change. We depend upon our rivers. We are mainly an agricultural country. And
02:5980% of the water in our rivers comes from our glaciers. The glaciers not just on the
03:08Pakistani side, even India. The river, 80% of the water in Ganges and the Indian rivers
03:19also comes from the glaciers, from the Himalayan glaciers, Karakoram, Hindukush. And these
03:29glaciers are melting at quite a rapid pace. We detected already 5,000 glacial lakes in
03:36our mountains. And if this keeps going, if nothing is done, we are scared that humans
03:47are facing a huge catastrophe. In my country, when my party came to power in the province
03:54of KP, we planted a billion trees in five years. Now we've set ourselves a target of
04:0210 billion trees in Pakistan. Idea being to counter this, the effects of global warming.
04:11But one country cannot do anything. This has to be a combined effort of the world.
04:24My optimism comes from the fact that humans, the Almighty has endowed humans with great
04:34powers. We can do anything, provided our survival instinct is stirred up. And this is really
04:45what I hope that the United Nations will take lead in this. There must be more emphasis.
04:54Richer countries must be pushed. Countries that are responsible for, mainly are responsible
05:00for greenhouse gas emissions. They must be pushed because our country contributes miniscule
05:08amount to greenhouse gases. So I feel that the United Nations must take leadership in
05:16this. My second issue for me right now is even more critical. Mr. President, every year,
05:35billions of dollars leave the poorer countries and go towards rich countries. Billions of
05:42dollars siphoned off by the ruling elites of the developing world. And they find their
05:49way into Western bank accounts, offshore accounts, tax havens, expensive properties hidden behind
05:58companies bought in Western capitals. Mr. President, this is devastating the developing
06:06world. This is causing more poverty, deaths. It's impoverishing the developing world. The
06:14difference between rich and poor countries is growing because of this. Money laundering,
06:21which happens because money leaves the poorer countries into rich countries, is not treated
06:27the same as, for instance, money from drugs or terror financing. The seriousness which
06:38terror financing and money from drugs, the way it is treated, it's not the same, the
06:46way the poor countries are being plundered by their elites. It's not happening. In my
06:53country, when I took charge of our government a year back, in the 10 years preceding that,
07:08our total debt went up four times. The debt we had accumulated in 60 years,
07:15just in 10 years it went up four times. As a result,
07:22the total revenue we collected in one year, half of it went into debt servicing.
07:28How are we going to spend money on our human beings, 220 million people, when half the
07:34money is going into debt servicing? Because our country was plundered by the elites, the ruling
07:41elite, and easily they could get the money out. When, Mr. President, we located properties
07:52in Western capitals bought by this money through corruption and money laundering,
07:59located the properties of these corrupt leaders, we find it so difficult to retrieve it.
08:08That money, if we retrieved that money, we could spend on our human beings.
08:14But it's so difficult. The law is protecting these criminals.
08:23We do not have the sort of money to have expensive lawyers and spend
08:29millions and millions of dollars. We need help from the rich countries.
08:33And, Mr. President, it's critical. The rich countries must show political will.
08:40They cannot allow this to happen. How can the poor countries
08:48spend money on human development, which the United Nations asks,
08:52SDG? How are we going to do it, when this money can easily leave our countries?
08:58This money can easily leave our countries. So unless the rich countries intend to build walls
09:08to stop economic refugees coming, as we see right now, they must take action.
09:14They must take action now. It must be a deterrent. Corrupt ruling elites should not be able to take
09:22money out easily and park it into foreign bank accounts and into these properties abroad.
09:30And I never understand why. Why do we have these tax havens? Why is this allowed?
09:39Why shouldn't rich people pay taxes? Why is it legal to have these tax havens where you have
09:46these secret accounts? Because, you know, the world is changing. The population of the world
09:53is growing. Sooner or later, you're going to have a crisis if the poor get poorer and the rich get
09:58richer. There is going to be a crisis sooner or later. So this is my second point. I hope that
10:06the United Nations takes a lead in this. It involves the IMF, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank.
10:16They must find a way of stopping this plunder of the developing world. My third point.
10:26My third point is Islamophobia.
10:31There are 1.3 billion Muslims in this world. There are millions of Muslims
10:37living in other countries, European countries, in the U.S. as minorities.
10:44Islamophobia since 9-11 has grown at a pace where it is alarming.
10:53Human communities live together. They should be understanding amongst them.
10:58But Islamophobia is creating a division. Muslim women wearing hijab, it's become an issue.
11:08It's become an issue in some countries. Hijab is some sort of a weapon.
11:15A woman can take off her clothes in countries, but she can't put on more clothes.
11:20How is this happening? Because of Islamophobia. And how is this happening?
11:28How did this Islamophobia start? After 9-11. And why did it start?
11:35Because certain Western leaders equated terrorism with Islam. Islamic terrorism.
11:46Radical Islam. What is radical Islam?
11:51There is only one Islam. And that is the Islam we follow of Prophet Muhammad. There is no other
12:01Islam. Radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, what message did they send to people in the West?
12:09And why is there Islamophobia? How is a person in New York, in the Midwest, in the U.S.,
12:19in European capital, how is he going to distinguish between who is a moderate Muslim
12:26and who is a radical Muslim? Because terrorism has nothing to do with any religion.
12:34This Islamic terrorism, Islamic radicalism, and sadly used by leaders,
12:43this has been the main reason for this Islamophobia. And it has caused pain
12:52among Muslims. We in Muslim countries watch this Islamophobia traveling abroad,
12:59and it's getting worse. And may I just say, Mr. President, that in European countries,
13:06it is marginalizing Muslim communities. And we all know that marginalization leads to
13:15radicalization. Some of the people who ended up as militants in Syria and other places
13:22were from marginalized Muslim communities. And my point here is that we must address this issue.
13:32I'm sad to say that we Muslim leaders have not addressed this issue either.
13:38After 9-11, when this thing came about war against radical Islam, rather than Muslim
13:46leaders trying to explain to the West that there is no such thing as radical Islam,
13:51in all human communities, there are radicals, there are liberals and rest are moderate.
13:57All human communities, Christians, Jews, everyone has it. But Islam is not radical,
14:04neither Judaism, neither Christianity, nor Hinduism. No religion preaches radicalism,
14:11or the basis of all religion is compassion and justice, which differentiates us from
14:19the animal kingdom. But unfortunately, the Muslim leadership was so scared of being
14:25called radical Islam that all of them became moderates. In Pakistan, we were in the eye of
14:34the storm. And our government coined a phrase called enlightened moderation. No one knows what
14:41it meant. But everyone started putting on Western suits that they were moderates, started speaking.
14:49Even those who didn't know English would speak English because they were moderates. No one had
14:53a clue what it was. Because we, in the Muslim world, did not explain to the West that there is
15:01no such thing as radical Islam. One of the reasons why after 9-11, Islam was supposed to be equated
15:15with terrorism was suicide attacks. Because the 9-11 bombers did a suicide attack, all sorts of
15:22theories came up that the Muslims are involved in suicide attacks because they will get virgin
15:30in heavens. Some came up with, what about women suicide attackers? So this bizarre thing happened.
15:38We, no one explained. Suicide attacks and Islam were equated. No one did research that before 9-11,
15:50the majority of suicide attacks in the world were by Tamil Tigers who were Hindus. No one
15:57blamed Hinduism, and quite rightly. What has Hinduism got to do with what desperate people
16:03were doing in Sri Lanka? We all know about, we've seen films about Japanese kamikaze pilots
16:12at the end of the Second World War doing suicide attacks. No one blamed the religion.
16:17But here we were, trying to prove we were moderates and not explaining to the West.
16:24But the most important thing I wanted to say here today, in explaining this Islamophobia,
16:31Mr. President, and I feel it's very important because I've spent, because I played professional
16:37sport in England, I spent a lot of time there. So I know how the Western mind works and how
16:43West views religion. So where the misunderstanding about Islam came,
16:49and it, one of the reasons it caused Islamophobia. That was,
16:57in 1989 this book was published, maligning, insulting, ridiculing our Prophet Muhammad
17:09and there was a reaction in the Muslim world.
17:12The West couldn't understand what was the problem.
17:16Because in the West, because I have spent so much time in the West,
17:19religion is perceived completely differently. They don't, they don't look upon religion like we do.
17:29And so,
17:33Islam was supposed to be an intolerant religion. It was against freedom of expression.
17:38And Islam took a rail beating 30 years ago. I still remember it became a watershed.
17:44And every two or three years, someone would malign our Prophet, peace be upon him.
17:51There would be a reaction by the Muslims. And again, it was Islam, an intolerant religion.
17:58Again, this time, I blame a certain section of the people in the West who deliberately provoked
18:10this, knowing the impact it would have. But the majority of the people in the West didn't
18:15understand. This is where again, Muslim leadership let the Muslims down. We should have explained to
18:24them what our Prophet, peace be upon him, means to us. So in one minute, I'll try and explain what
18:32he means to us. Our Prophet was the witness to the divine book, the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran
18:41is the book of guidance for Muslims and the Prophet's life was living the Quran. He was an
18:49example of what the Quran guided us to be. So he is the ideal we all try to get to.
19:00The Prophet created the state of Medina, the first state in Islam. That state was the basis
19:09of a Muslim civilization, which became the predominant civilization for the next 700 years.
19:17And what was that state? I hear such strange things about Islam that it is against women,
19:25it's against minorities. The first state of Islam in Medina, it was the first time a
19:37welfare state was set up. The state took responsibility of the weak, widows, orphans,
19:44poor people, handicapped. It taxed the rich, spent the money on the poor.
19:52The state announced that all human beings are children of Adam, hence equal,
20:01whatever the color of the skin. The state announced, the Prophet announced
20:10that slavery, the whole system depended on slavery as it did for many years
20:17in the Western societies. The Prophet said that one of the greatest deeds is to free a slave,
20:23but because the society depended on slavery, he said, but if you have to treat them as an
20:31equal member of the family. And as a result, something happened in a Muslim world which
20:39hasn't happened in any other civilization. Slave dynasties appeared, slaves became kings.
20:45The Mamluks, slaves who became, ruled Egypt. In India, they were slave dynasties.
20:52And then, with minorities, again, you hear that Islam is supposed to be against minorities,
21:04let me just make this clear. In Islam, the Prophet announced that everyone was free to
21:11practice his religion. It was a sacred duty to protect the places of worship of all religions.
21:22He announced that every person is equal in front of law, whatever his religion or his color.
21:30And this incredible case, and I always quote this, that the fourth Khalifa, the head of state
21:39of Medina, he lost a case, a court case, against a Jewish citizen.
21:46So, number one, it showed there was a rule of law, no one was above law. And number two,
21:53that a Jewish citizen was an equal citizen. So, Mr. President, when a Muslim society is
22:00unjust to its minorities, it is going against the religion of Islam and our Prophet, peace be upon
22:09him. So, it is important to understand this. The Prophet lives in our hearts.
22:23When he's ridiculed, when he's insulted, it hurts. As we human know,
22:32we human beings understand one thing, the pain of the heart is far, far, far more hurtful
22:40than physical pain. And that's why the Muslims react. And I always thought that if I ever had
22:48the stage, I would try and explain this to the world community, especially to the Western
22:53community, because having lived in the Western community, people didn't understand this. When
23:00I first went as a teenager to England, there was a comedy film on Jesus Christ.
23:12It's unthinkable in Muslim societies. So, we need to explain that, look, in a human community,
23:19we must be sensitive to what causes pain to other human beings. We have
23:25in the Western society, and quite rightly, the Holocaust is treated with sensitivity
23:33because it gives the Jewish community pain. That's all we ask, that when do not use freedom of speech
23:43to cause us pain by insulting a Holy Prophet. That's all we want.
23:47That's all we want. And now, the number fourth point, Mr. President,
23:55this is the most critical point, is the reason why I especially came here.
24:02It is about what is happening in Kashmir.
24:07Before this, before I go on this, I want to make one thing clear,
24:13that, when we came to power, my first priority was that Pakistan would be a country
24:27which will try its best to bring peace. We had been through this war on terror.
24:36We joined the United States war on terror after 2001, and Pakistan went through one of its worst
24:45periods where 70,000 Pakistanis died and over $150 billion was lost to our economy.
24:56And, Mr. President, I oppose the war because in the 80s, Pakistan had joined the Western country
25:05in what was the freedom struggle then in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
25:12And it was funded by the Western countries. These Mujahideen groups, which were treated in guerrilla warfare,
25:22were trained by Pakistan army, funded by the Western countries and especially U.S.,
25:29and they waged what was a freedom struggle in Afghanistan.
25:34The Soviets called them terrorists. We called them freedom fighters.
25:39In 1989, the Soviets retreated. The Americans packed up and left. Pakistan was left with these groups.
25:54Come 9-11, Pakistan joined the United States in this war on terror.
25:59Pakistan joined the United States in this war on terror.
26:05And now our government was supposed to—the reason why I oppose joining this war,
26:10because here we had indoctrinated them in jihad, meaning freedom struggle, against foreign
26:17occupation. Now, because we had joined the U.S. and the U.S. had occupied Afghanistan,
26:25now we were supposed to tell them that, no, this is not freedom struggle and jihad. It's terrorism.
26:33So that's why I tried to tell then our government that, you know, stay neutral, because you will
26:40have leverage over them. You will be able to control them. But if you join them, you become
26:46collaborators and they will attack you, which is what happened. They turned against us. We went
26:51through a nightmare. 70,000 people killed in a war we had nothing to do with. No Pakistani
26:59was involved in 9-11. Taliban were in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan. What had we to do
27:07with it? 70,000 Pakistanis died. So when we came to power, we decided that we would dismantle what
27:18was left of these groups. And this decision was taken not just by us, but by all the political
27:25parties in Pakistan. Unfortunately, they didn't implement it. So we came to power, we decided to
27:32implement it, and we dismantled whatever was left of the groups. And I know that India keeps accusing
27:41us that there are these groups there. I would like the United Nations to send observers,
27:47see for themselves what we've done. No Pakistani government would have dared to do this because it
27:52would have created strife. But we decided that there would be no militant organizations in
27:58Pakistan. So I need to give you this background and do what I'm going to say later on. And secondly,
28:08we started bending fences. I invited the Afghan president. We developed a relationship with
28:15Afghanistan. We had problems with Iran. We mended fences there. And then India. Now let me just
28:25give you a little background about my relationship with India. Because of cricket, and cricket being
28:33one of the, it's a passion in the subcontinent, I had great following in India. I have friends in
28:41India. And I loved going to India. So immediately when my party came to power, the first thing we
28:53did was to immediately reach out to India. And I spoke to President Modi and I said, look,
29:02we have similar problems. Climate change, poverty, let's get together. Let's resolve
29:09our differences through trade. Let's build a relationship on trust. Prime Minister Modi told
29:15me that there were terrorist attacks from Pakistan. I said, we have problems with you.
29:20There are terrorist attacks, which we know are instigated by India in Balochistan. We caught a
29:27spy, Kalbhushan Yadav, who admitted what was the sabotage going on in Karachi and Balochistan. So
29:34we said, look, let's leave that behind. Let's move forward. Our main priority should be our
29:40people. The highest number of poor people live in the Indian subcontinent. Unfortunately,
29:48didn't make any headway. Our foreign minister was supposed to meet on this in the UNGA last year.
29:55India cancelled it. We thought that it's their election coming up. It's a nationalist,
30:02ultra-nationalist party. It doesn't want to cozy up to Pakistan.
30:09So we thought, okay, we'll wait till the elections. Meanwhile, a 20-year-old Kashmiri boy
30:19whose father said was radicalized by the security forces in Kashmir blew himself up
30:26on an Indian convoy. Immediately, India blamed us.
30:35I spoke to the Indian public on television. I said, if you give us any iota of proof,
30:42we will immediately take action because we've clamped down on these groups.
30:48Rather than sending us any proofs, they sent their jets in. They bombed us. We retaliated.
30:56A jet, two of their planes were shot down. One pilot bailed out in Pakistan. We immediately
31:01returned the pilot, saying that, look, we do not want any escalation.
31:08Rather than taking that as a peace gesture,
31:12the entire campaign, almost the entire campaign of Mr. Modi in the election was
31:19how he had taught Pakistan a lesson that jets had killed 350 terrorists.
31:27Complete lie. They had just killed about 10 trees of ours,
31:31which was quite painful given that we are growing all these trees.
31:48The election campaign, Mr. Modi used words like, this is just a trailer. The movie is about to
31:59start. We will, I went into Pakistan and taught them a lesson. This was the election campaign.
32:06Okay. So we thought, you know, us politicians make all these statements to win elections. So,
32:11okay, after elections, we'll get back to our normal relationship. Well, the moment the elections
32:19ended, we approached India. No response. But then we discovered they were trying to push us
32:27in the fat of blacklist to bankrupt us. That's when we realized there was an agenda.
32:37And that agenda became obvious on the 5th of August when India went against 11 United Nations
32:47Security Council resolutions, which say that the people, Kashmir is a disputed territory
32:53and the people of Kashmir have the right of self-determination. They went against that.
33:00They went against similar accord, which is about bilateral, sorting out our differences
33:07through bilateral means, went against that. They actually went against the Indian constitution.
33:12Illegally, they revoked article 370, which gave Kashmir the special status.
33:19They got an extra 180,000 troops there.
33:23Total number of security forces in Kashmir now are 900,000
33:28and they put 8 million people of Kashmir under curfew.
33:38Mr. President, now I just briefly want to make you make the people understand how can
33:47anyone do something like this? And for that, I have to explain to you what is RSS.
33:58RSS, Mr. Narendra Modi is a life member of RSS.
34:08RSS was an organization that was inspired by Adolf Hitler and Mussolini came about in 1934.
34:15Mussolini came about in 1925. They believed in racial purity,
34:23racial superiority. They also believed they were an Aryan race like the
34:30Nazi believed they were an Aryan race. All that I'm saying can be verified. This is the time of
34:39information revolution. You can google all this what I'm saying, but it is very important for me
34:44to explain this to you so you know what is happening in India.
34:49This RSS believed in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from India.
34:57At one point, there was racial superiority of the Hindu race. Secondly, it was hatred for the
35:07Muslims and for the Christians because they believed that this golden age of Hindu civilization
35:17was stopped because of Muslim rule centuries back and then the British rule of India.
35:25So it was racial superiority and hatred for Muslims and Christians.
35:32This is openly stated. You look at the the founding fathers of RSS, Gulwakar and
35:42Savarskar. Just google them and you'll find out. This ideology of hate is
35:52what murdered the great Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It was this ideology of hate
36:03that made Narendra Modi in 2002 do a pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat when he was a chief
36:12minister. He allowed three days for these RSS goons who were inspired by the Hitler brown shirts.
36:19They actually wear brown shirts. This RSS, the previous, the congress home minister,
36:29the congress home minister gave a statement that in RSS camps, terrorists are being trained.
36:35These terrorists butchered 2,000 Muslims and 150,000 Muslims were made homeless.
36:43Narendra Modi could not travel to the US because of that. I need to make you understand this
36:49background before I explain to you that what sort of a mindset would lay siege to 8 million people
36:58with 900,000 troops? Women, children, sick people, locked in as animals. In fact of what I know of
37:08England, if 8 million animals were locked in, the RSPCA would have made a lot of noise about it.
37:16These are human beings.
37:18And Mr. President, what comes with racial superiority, these illusions of Aryan superior
37:28race is arrogance. The two go together. And it's arrogance that makes us think that we are
37:35going to win. We are going to win. We are going to win. We are going to win. We are going to win.
37:40of Aryan superior race is arrogance. The two go together.
37:46And it's arrogance that makes people make mistakes and do stupid things,
37:53cruel things like what Narendra Modi has done. It's sheer arrogance. And it's arrogance that
38:00has blinded him from the fact that what is going to happen when the curfew is lifted?
38:07Has he thought about it? This hasn't been thought through.
38:12What is he going to do when he lifts the curfew? Does he think that people of Kashmir will quietly
38:20accept the status quo because India has changed the constitution and taken away the special status,
38:27they'll accept that? Mr. President, 100,000 Kashmiris have died in the past 30 years
38:34because they were denied the right given by the United Nations, the right for self-determination.
38:43100,000 have died and 11,000 women have been raped.
38:48There are two human rights, United Nations human rights reports on this.
38:55The world hasn't done anything because India is a huge market, 1.2 billion people.
39:02Sadly, the material prevails over the human. But this has serious consequences.
39:10Again, I repeat, that's why I'm here. Look, what is going to happen when the curfew is lifted
39:20will be a bloodbath. The people will come out. There are 900,000 troops there. They haven't
39:28come to, as Narendra Modi says, he's done this for the prosperity of Kashmir. This is supposed
39:35to be for the development. These 900,000 troops, what are they going to do when they come out?
39:42There'll be a bloodbath. Has he thought it through what happens then?
39:49Mr. President, has anyone thought that what happens when there is a bloodbath,
39:58what do you think the impact will have on people of Kashmir?
40:04What do you think they will think the way they have been boxed in, in their houses,
40:10treated like worse than animals? No rights. Thousands of all the political leadership
40:17has been arrested, taken out of Kashmir. Even those Kashmiri leaders who were pro-India have
40:22been taken out. 13,000 boys have been picked up and taken to God knows which destinations.
40:31So what do they think? What will the people of Kashmir do when they lift the curfew?
40:36What will the people of Kashmir do when they lift the curfew? They will be out in the streets.
40:42And what will these soldiers do? They will shoot them. They've already used pellet guns, blinded
40:48young boys in the last five years, the oppression that has gone on in Kashmir.
40:57And so Kashmiris will be further radicalized. Mr. President, there will be another Palwama.
41:05And guess what? India will blame us. They're already blaming us. They're saying all this
41:11is happening because of Pakistan. One of their defense ministers said there are 500
41:18terrorists lined up on the border to go in. Why would Pakistan send 500 terrorists
41:26when there are 900,000 troops? What impact are they going to make? What will they do?
41:32And why would, don't we know that the moment there is some terrorist attack,
41:38all that will happen is there'll be further cruelty and oppression of the people of Kashmir.
41:42We will just give the 900,000 troops to further crush the people of Kashmir.
41:48And then we'll give the Indian government an excuse that, look, Pakistan is a terrorist state
41:56and this mantra that has gone on, Islamic terrorism. The moment you use this catch word,
42:04Islamic terrorism, the whole world turns away. No one talks about human rights. You can do whatever
42:11you want, which is what has happened in Kashmir, because they keep using this word,
42:15Islamic terrorism. And this is what they're doing right now. What do we benefit from?
42:21From further increasing the cruelty on the people of Kashmir. And why would we want this?
42:33But there is no other narrative left for India. As when they lift the curfew, whatever happens,
42:43Pakistan will be blamed. And there is always a danger of another Palwama. They will again,
42:49they might come and bomb us again, and then another cycle might start.
42:55And what does Narendra Modi think? That 180 million Muslims of India are thinking right now.
43:03Aren't they watching these Kashmiris stuck inside like for 55 days they've been stuck in?
43:11Aren't they watching? What do you think? Don't you think that the Muslims will be radicalized
43:17in India? And I'm talking about 180 million people. And when they get radicalized,
43:25there will be some incident in India somewhere down the line. Again, we will be blamed.
43:29And I'm warning you right now, again, we will be blamed.
43:35And Mr. President, what about 1.3 billion Muslims who are watching this?
43:41And they know that it is only happening in Kashmir because
43:46they're Kashmiri Muslims. This is not happening to Kashmiri Hindus.
43:51They know that this is happening because of their religion. So what do you think they will be
43:55thinking? What do you think the Jewish community would think if they were, forget 8,000 Jews
44:05stuck like this. What do you think Europeans would think? What do we think?
44:13I mean, any human community, if their members are stuck like that, what do you think they will
44:18think? Are we children of a lesser God? Is it not going to cause us pain? And then,
44:26and then, and then I'll tell you what will happen. People will, in the 1.3 billion Muslims,
44:41someone will pick up arms. I know we've been brought up with films, western films.
44:52This good, decent guy doesn't get justice. He decides to pick up a gun and start seeking justice.
45:00There was a film made in New York, famous film called Death Wish. This guy gets mugged by his,
45:08and his family, his wife gets killed or something. He can't get justice.
45:14He picks up a gun and he goes around shooting muggers and the whole cinema cheers him on.
45:21So what do you think the Muslims are thinking right now?
45:25If there is a bloodbath, there will be Muslims becoming radicals, not because of Islam,
45:32because of what they will see that there's no justice when it comes to Muslims.
45:38There were Rohingya Muslims, Myanmar, who are, God knows, almost a million people out,
45:46ethnic cleansing. What was the response of the world community?
45:51So what do you think will be the response of 1.3 billion Muslims? I picture myself,
45:59I'm in Kashmir. I've been locked up for 55 days.
46:07I have heard about, and there are rapes, Indian army going into homes, soldiers. Would I,
46:16would I want to live this humiliation? Would I want to live like that? I would pick up a gun.
46:23You're forcing people. You are forcing people into radicalization.
46:29When people lose the will to live, what is there to live for? And this is what,
46:35if you can do this to human beings, you are actually radicalizing people.
46:39And so, Mr. President, I,
46:48I want to repeat here, this is one of the most critical times.
46:55There will be a reaction to this. Pakistan will be blamed.
47:03Two nuclear-armed countries will come face to face, like we came in February.
47:10And before we head in that direction, the United Nations has a responsibility.
47:18This is why,
47:24this is why the United Nations came into being in 1945.
47:31You were supposed to stop this happening.
47:32I feel we are back to 1939, Munich, Czechoslovakia has been taken, annexed.
47:45What is the world community going to do? Is it going to appease a market of $1.2 billion,
47:54or is it going to stand up for justice and humanity?
48:03If, if this goes wrong, you hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.
48:17If a conventional war starts between the two countries,
48:21Mr. President, if a conventional war starts and anything could happen, but
48:31supposing a country seven times smaller than its neighbor is faced with the choice,
48:39either you surrender or you fight for your freedom till death.
48:44What will we do? I asked myself this question.
48:49And my belief is, la ilaha illallah, there is no God but one, and we will fight.
48:56And when, and when,
49:03and when, and when a nuclear armed country fights to the end,
49:09it will have consequences far beyond the borders.
49:14It will have consequences for the world, which is why I repeat I'm here.
49:19Because I'm warning you, it's not a threat. It's a fair worry that where are we headed?
49:25And it is, I've come here to tell the UN, you've got to, this is a test for the United Nations.
49:31You are the one who guaranteed the people of Kashmir the right of self-determination.
49:38They are suffering because of that. And this is the time.
49:43This is the time not to appease like in 1939 appeasement took place. This is the time to
49:50take action. And number one action must be that India must lift this inhuman curfew,
49:58which has lasted for 55 days. It must free, it must free all political prisoners and especially
50:06those 13,000 boys that have been picked up. Parents don't know where they've disappeared.
50:10And then the world community must give the people of Kashmir the right of self-determination.
50:28On behalf of the General Assembly, I would like to thank His Excellency
50:34the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and I ask protocol to escort His Excellency.