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La asamblea escuchará The assembly will hear an address by the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan addresses the UN General Assembly on climate change, illicit financial flows, and Islamophobia.
Key Takeaways
- Climate change poses an urgent threat to Pakistan and the world, requiring serious global commitment and funding.
- Illicit financial flows drain resources from developing countries, worsening poverty and inequality.
- Islamophobia is a growing global issue that marginalizes Muslim communities and can lead to radicalization.
- International cooperation and leadership, especially from the UN and rich countries, are essential to solve these challenges.
- Addressing misconceptions about Islam and promoting social inclusion are critical to global peace and security.
Summary
- Pakistan is among the top 10 countries most affected by climate change, with rapidly melting glaciers threatening water sources.
- Pakistan has planted a billion trees and aims to plant 10 billion to combat global warming but calls for global cooperation and leadership from the UN.
- Illicit financial flows from developing countries to rich countries through corruption and money laundering severely impact poverty reduction and development.
- Rich countries must show political will to stop corrupt elites from siphoning money into offshore accounts and tax havens.
- The growing wealth gap between rich and poor countries threatens global stability and requires urgent international action.
- Islamophobia has increased alarmingly since 9/11, marginalizing Muslim communities and fostering division and radicalization.
- Mislabeling terrorism as 'Islamic terrorism' has fueled Islamophobia and misunderstanding of Islam worldwide.
- Muslim leaders have not adequately addressed Islamophobia or clarified misconceptions about Islam to the West.
- The speech calls for greater understanding, unity, and leadership from the United Nations to tackle these global challenges.
- Imran Khan emphasizes the need for collective global efforts to address climate change, financial justice, and social cohesion.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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His Excellency Imran Khan. May I request protocol to escort his Excellency.
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I have great pleasure in welcoming His Excellency Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
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And I invite him to address the General Assembly.
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Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Iyyaka na'budu wa iyyaka nasta'in.
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Mr. President, Honorable Secretary General, Excellencies,
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Ladies and gentlemen, I feel honored today to represent my country at this forum of world leaders.
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Where we have a chance to discuss problems that the world is facing.
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I want to talk about a lot of problems, but just four today, and I especially came to this forum despite a difficult time in my country, facing challenges.
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I would not have come, but because I feel that there are some very urgent problems which the world must address.
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So first of all, I start with climate change.
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So many leaders have talked about climate change.
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But Mr. President, I feel that there is a lack of seriousness.
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Perhaps world leaders do not, some of the leaders who can do a lot, do not realize the urgency of the situation.
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We have a lot of ideas, but as someone said, ideas without funding is mere hallucination.
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Pakistan, I'll give you an start with my own country.
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Our country is amongst the top 10 nations in the world which are most affected by climate change.
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We depend upon our rivers.
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We are mainly an agricultural country.
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And 80% of the water in our rivers comes from our glaciers.
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The glaciers not just in on the Pakistani side, even India, the river in the 80% of the water in Ganges and the Indian rivers also comes from the glaciers, from the Himalayan glaciers, Karakoram, Hindu Kush.
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And these glaciers are melting at a quite a rapid pace.
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We detected already 5,000 glacial lakes in in our mountains.
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And if this keeps going, if nothing is done, we are scared that there we are humans are facing a huge catastrophe.
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In my country, when my party came to power in the province of KP, we planted a billion trees in five years.
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Now we've set ourselves a target of 10 billion trees in Pakistan.
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Idea being to counter this, the effects of global warming.
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But one country cannot do anything.
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This has to be a combined effort of the world.
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My optimism comes from the fact that humans, the Almighty has endowed humans with great powers.
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We can do anything,
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provided our survival instinct is stirred up.
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And this is really what I hope that the United Nations will take a lead in this.
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There must be more emphasis.
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Richer countries must be pushed.
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Countries that are responsible for mainly are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.
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They must be pushed because our country has contributes minuscule amount to greenhouse gases.
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So, I feel that the United Nations must take leadership in this.
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My second issue for me right now is even more critical.
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Mr. President, every year
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billions of dollars leave the poorer countries and go towards rich countries.
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Billions of dollars siphoned off by the ruling elites of the developing world.
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And they find their way into Western bank accounts, offshore accounts, tax havens, expensive properties hidden behind companies bought in Western capitals.
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Mr. President, this is devastating the developing world.
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This is causing more poverty, deaths.
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It's impoverishing the developing world.
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The difference between rich and poor countries is growing because of this.
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Money laundering, which happens because money leaves the poorer countries into rich countries, is not treated the same as for instance, money from drugs or terror financing.
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The seriousness which terror financing and money from drugs, the way it is treated, it's not the same.
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The way the poor countries are being plundered by their elites, it's not happening.
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In my country, when my when I took charge of our government a year back, in the 10 years preceding that, our total debt went up four times.
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The debt we had accumulated in 60 years, just in 10 years it went up four times.
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As a result, the total revenue we collected in one year, half of it went into debt servicing.
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How are we going to spend money on our human beings, 220 million people, when half the money is going into debt servicing?
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Because our country was plundered by the elites, the ruling elite.
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And they easily they could get the money out.
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And when, when Mr. President, we located properties in Western capitals bought by this money through corruption and money laundering.
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Located the properties of these corrupt leaders.
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We find it so difficult to retrieve it.
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That money if we retrieved that money, we could spend on our human beings.
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But there are such, it's so difficult.
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The laws protecting these criminals.
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We do not have the sort of money to have expensive lawyers and spend millions and millions of dollars.
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We need help from the rich countries.
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And Mr. President, it's critical.
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The the rich countries must show political will.
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They cannot allow this to happen.
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How can, how can the poor countries spend money on human development which the United Nations asks, SDG?
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How are we going to do it when this money can easily leave our countries?
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So, unless the rich countries intend to build walls to stop economic refugees coming as we see right now, they must take action.
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They must take action now.
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They it must be a deterrent.
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Corrupt ruling elites should not be able to take money out easily and park it into foreign bank accounts and into these properties abroad.
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And and and I never understand why,
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why do we have these tax havens?
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Why is this allowed?
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Why shouldn't rich people pay taxes?
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Why is it legal to save have these tax havens where you have these secret accounts?
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Because you know, world is changing.
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The the population of the world is growing.
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Sooner or later you're going to have a crisis if the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, there is going to be a crisis sooner or later.
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So this is my second point.
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I hope that the United Nations takes a lead in this.
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It involves the IMF, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank.
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They must find a way of stopping this plunder of the developing world.
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My third point.
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My third point is Islamophobia.
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There are 1.3 billion Muslims in this world.
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There are millions of Muslims living in in other countries, European countries and the US as minorities.
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Islamophobia since 9/11 has has grown at a pace where it is alarming.
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Human communities live together.
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They should be understanding amongst them.
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But Islamophobia is creating a division.
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Muslim women wearing hijab, it's become an issue.
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It's become an issue in some countries.
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Hijab is some sort of a weapon.
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A woman can take off her clothes in countries, but she can't put on more clothes.
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How is this happening?
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Because of Islamophobia.
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And where, how did this Islamophobia start?
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After 9/11.
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And why did it start?
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Because certain Western leaders equated terrorism with Islam.
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Islamic terrorism.
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Radical Islam.
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What is radical Islam?
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There is only one Islam.
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And that is the Islam we follow of Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
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There is no other Islam.
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Radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, and sadly used by leaders.
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This has been the main reason for this Islamophobia.
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And it has caused pain amongst Muslims.
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We in Muslim countries watch this Islamophobia traveling abroad.
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And it's getting worse.
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And may I just say, Mr. President, that in European countries, it is marginalizing Muslim communities.
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And we all know that marginalization leads to radicalization.
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Some of the people who ended up as militants in Syria and other places were from marginalized Muslim communities.
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And my point here is that we must address this issue.
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I'm sad to say that we Muslim leaders have not addressed this issue either.
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After 9/11, when this thing came about, war against radical Islam,
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rather than Muslim leaders trying to explain to the West that there is no such thing as radical Islam.
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In all human communities, there are radicals, there are liberals and rest are moderate.
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All human communities, Christians, Jews, everyone has it.
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But Islam is not radical, neither Judaism, neither Christianity, neither Hinduism, no religion preaches radicalism.
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All the basis of all religion is compassion and justice, which differentiates us from animal the animal kingdom.
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But unfortunately, the Muslim leadership was so scared of being called radical Islam that all of them became moderates.
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In Pakistan, we we were in the eye of the storm.
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And our government coined a phrase called enlightened moderation.
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No one knows what it meant.
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But everyone started putting on Western suits that they were moderates.
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Started speaking, even those who didn't know English would speak English because they were moderates.
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No one had a clue what it was.
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Because we in the Muslim world did not explain to the West that there is no such thing as radical Islam.
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Uh, one of the reasons why after 9/11,
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Islam was supposed to be equated with terrorism, was suicide attacks.
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Because the 9/11 bombers did a suicide attack, all sorts of theories came up that the Muslims are involved in suicide attacks because they will get virgins in heavens.
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Some came up with what about women suicide attackers?
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So this bizarre thing happened.
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No one explained.
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Suicide attacks and Islam came were equated.
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No one did research that before 9/11, the majority of suicide attacks in the world were by Tamil Tigers, who were Hindus.
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No one blamed Hinduism, and quite rightly.
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What has Hinduism got to do with what desperate people were doing in Sri Lanka?
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We all know about, we've seen films about Japanese Kamikaze pilots at the end of the Second World War doing suicide attacks.
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No one blamed the religion.
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But here we were trying to prove we were moderates and not explaining to the West.
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But the most important thing I wanted to say today, in explaining this Islamophobia, Mr. President, and I feel it's very important because I've spent, because of I played professional sport in England, I spent a lot of time there.
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So I know how the Western mind works.
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And how West views religion.
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So how where the misunderstanding about Islam came.
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And it had it one of the reasons it caused Islamophobia.
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That was in 1989 this book was published, maligning, insulting, ridiculing our Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
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And there was a reaction in the Muslim world.
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The West couldn't understand what was the problem.
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Because in the West, because I have spent so much time in the West, religion is perceived completely differently.
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They don't, they don't look upon religion like we do.
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And so, Islam was supposed to be an intolerant religion.
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It was against freedom of expression.
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And Islam took a rail beating 30 years ago. I still remember it became a watershed.
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And every two or three years, someone would malign our Prophet peace be upon him.
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There would be a reaction by the Muslims.
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And again, it was Islam, an intolerant religion.
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Again, this time,
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I, I blame a certain section of the people in the West who deliberately provoked this, knowing the impact it would have.
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But the majority of the people in the West didn't understand.
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This is where again, Muslim leadership let the Muslims down.
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We should have explained to them what our Prophet peace be upon him meant, means to us.
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So in one minute, I'll try and explain what he means to us.
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Our Prophet was the witness to the divine book, the Holy Quran.
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The Holy Quran is the book of guidance for Muslims and the Prophet's life was living the Quran.
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He was an example of what the Quran guided us to be.
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So, he is the ideal we all try to get to.
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The Prophet created the state of Medina, the first state in Islam.
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That state was the basis of a Muslim civilization which became the predominant civilization for the next 700 years.
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And what was that state?
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I hear such strange things about Islam that it is against women, it's against minorities.
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The first state of Islam in Medina,
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most it was the first time a welfare state was set up.
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The state took responsibility of the weak, widows, orphans, poor people, handicapped.
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It taxed the rich, spend the money on the poor.
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The state announced, the Prophet announced that all human beings are children of Adam, hence equal, whatever the color of their skin.
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The state announced, the Prophet announced that everyone was free to practice his religion.
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It was a sacred duty to to to protect the places of worships of all religions.
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He announced that every person is equal in front of law, whatever his religion or his color.
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And this this incredible case, and I always quote this, that the fourth Khalifa, the head of state of Medina,
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he lost a case, a court case against a Jewish citizen.
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So number one, it showed there was a rule of law, no one was above law.
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And number two, that that a Jewish citizen was an equal citizen.
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So, Mr. President, when a Muslim society is unjust to its minorities, it is going against the religion of Islam and our Prophet peace be upon him.
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And then,
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And then I'll tell you what will happen.
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People will in the 1.3 billion Muslims, someone will pick up arms.
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I know.
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We've been brought up with films, Western films.
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This good decent guy doesn't get justice.
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He decides to pick up a gun.
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And start seeking justice.
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There was a film made in New York.
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Famous film called Death Wish.
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This guy gets mugged by and his family his wife gets killed or something.
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He can't get justice.
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He picks up a gun.
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And he goes around shooting muggers.
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And the whole cinema cheers him on.
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So what do you think the Muslims are thinking right now?
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If there is a bloodbath, there will be Muslims becoming radical.
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Not because of Islam.
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Because because of what they will see that there's no justice when it comes to Muslims.
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There were Rohingya Muslims, Myanmar, who was who are God knows almost a million people out, ethnic cleansing.
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What was the response of the world community?
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So what do you think will be the response of
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1.3 billion Muslims?
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I picture myself.
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I'm in Kashmir.
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I've been locked up for 55 days.
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I've heard about and there are rapes.
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Indian army going into homes, soldiers.
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Would I, would I want to live this humiliation?
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Would I want to live like that?
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I would pick up a gun.
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You're forcing people.
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You are forcing people into radicalization.
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When people lose the will to live, what is there to live for?
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And this is what.
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If you can do this to human beings, you are actually radicalizing people.
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And so, Mr. President, I, I want to repeat here.
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This is one of the most critical times.
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There will be a reaction to this.
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Pakistan will be blamed.
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Two nuclear armed countries will come face to face like we came in February.
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And before we head in that direction, the United Nations has a responsibility.
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This is why.
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This is why the United Nations came into being in 1945.
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You were supposed to stop this happening.
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I feel we are back to 1939, Munich.
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Czechoslovakia has been taken, annexed.
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What is the world community going to do?
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Is it going to appease a market of 1.2 billion?
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Or is it going to stand up for justice and humanity?
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They are suffering because of that.
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And this is the time.
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This is the time not to appease like in 1939, appeasement took place.
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This is the time to take action.
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And number one action must be that India must lift this inhuman curfew, which has lasted for 55 days.
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It must free.
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It must free all political prisoners and especially those 13,000 boys that have been picked up.
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Parents don't know where they've disappeared.
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And then,
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the world community must give the people of Kashmir their right of self-determination.
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Thank you.
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En nombre de la Asamblea General, le agradezco a Su Excelencia el Primer Ministro de Pakistán y pido al protocolo que acompañe a Su Excelencia.
Topics:PakistanImran KhanUnited NationsGeneral Assemblyclimate changeillicit financial flowsmoney launderingIslamophobiaglobal inequalitysustainable development
