imran khan simply brilliant on denton last nig

Why can't politicians like George Bush see the blatantly obvious? I thought Imran Khan was superb.

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Most Australians know him as one of the greatest cricketers of all time, but the world has changed and a decade and a half since Imran Khan left the crease and so has his mission. Here is an excerpt from a documentary he made for English television a few years ago.


ANDREW DENTON: To talk about Pakistan, and what its current state of turmoil could mean for the world please welcome Imran Khan.

Applause and music



ANDREW DENTON: For those tuning in who think we’re going to talk about cricket, I should just explain that is long behind you isn’t it your cricketing life?



IMRAN KHAN: Sixteen years that’s the last time I played and that was in Australia.



ANDREW DENTON: And you’ve since sold all your memorabilia, pretty much?



IMRAN KHAN: Because I was setting up a Cancer Hospital, so I had to do a huge amount of fundraising for it. And most of it went into auctions, so yes by the time my Sons have grown up and now, I didn’t realise they would love cricket, so now I have nothing to give them.



ANDREW DENTON: But you can play backyard cricket with them?



IMRAN KHAN: I do play cricket with them.



ANDREW DENTON: And you give them some chin musics and some bouncers, some of the…



IMRAN KHAN: Too old for that…



ANDREW DENTON: [laughs]…



IMRAN KHAN: Too old for bouncers but I do try my best.



ANDREW DENTON: A lot of people here would not have been to Pakistan a lot of people watching. What is it about Pakistan that you love?



IMRAN KHAN: The two things from childhood I love about Pakistan were the mountains, the Himalayas, because all our summer holidays were spent in the mountains. Summer was very hot in the plains, so with my family and my Mother, my Sisters, my Father we used to end up in the mountains so from childhood I loved the mountainous part of Pakistan and some of the highest mountain ranges are there. And then we have, on the western rim, this wild area called tribal area of Pakistan, which still has always been autonomous, independent and it has these tribes living there who still live like as if it was wild west.



ANDREW DENTON: I’d like to talk a bit about that, in fact to help people I’ve got a little map here just to give some sense of where this all is in the world. Here’s Pakistan, here’s Afghanistan and this is the tribal area and this is the Patan region where you went in the early ‘90’s because that’s where your ancestors are from?



IMRAN KHAN: That’s right. Now the Patan’s live all over…



ANDREW DENTON: All over yes…



IMRAN KHAN: They live on this rim of Afghanistan. And all this is also Patan. But this is the tribal area where it’s a very, it’s a rugged mountainous area where they’ve always lived independently and it’s part of Pakistan but only 40 Laws of Pakistan apply there. I mean there’s no Pakistan Police there, there’s no Civil Service there. They run them themselves, so it’s called the tribal area of Pakistan.



ANDREW DENTON: And why it’s relevant to what we’re going to talk about later is this is allegedly the area where Osama bin Laden is, certainly where a lot of the insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan are based. When you went there, to trace your ancestry, there’s a culture of the Paten, the way of the Paten, can you explain what that is?



IMRAN KHAN: I mean no one knows where Osama Bin Laden lives. I mean you know it’s just an assumption. That he lives there, but I mean the mountains in Afghanistan they’re equally unexplored and rugged and he could be anywhere. It is the most rugged area, it’s mountain area but it’s very difficult to find anyone there. I mean and that and then the border of Afghanistan is two and a half thousand kilometres, and every month about 150,000 people cross over to Afghanistan and come back, because there is no border.



ANDREW DENTON: I’d like to show some photos from your journey there this was in ’92 and what you discovered is that pretty much everyone, all the men in the region had a rifle usually a Kalashnikov is that right?



IMRAN KHAN: Look every super power that has come there starting from Darius who was a Persian when Persians were super powers, to Alexander, to the Mongolians, to the Mongols who were a super power, to the British, to the Russians, every super power has when they’ve got stuck there. Because every man is a warrior, every man is armed even now every man carries a gun. The important thing to understand is that which I’ve actually tried to explain to the American Senators and Politicians, basically what they’re asking Pakistan to do, what they were in the beginning, that there was something like 800 to 1200 Al Qaeda supposedly in that tribal area, to get them they had basically they’re pushing about a million armed men towards them. Now to get 800 to 1200 people, it is the most moronic policy that they’re alienating a million men who are potential recruits to Al Qaeda.



ANDREW DENTON: I want to talk more about this in a minute and I guess what you’re underlining here is as a basic military rule never make a million men with automatic rifles angry?

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: Or the common sense is to catch 800 to 1200 people you don’t push people on their side, you win them over to your side for them to hand them over to you.



ANDREW DENTON: Like to talk a little bit about your family and your family background. Your Dad, Ikram, even at the height of your fame, you’re still probably the most famous individual in Pakistan, and certainly when you won the World Cup you were there was hysteria around you. Your Dad was not particularly impressed by your fame was he?



IMRAN KHAN: Well he always thought that cricket was you know it was you know it was just a sport and you have to do some serious work. So he always asked me to do…

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: He says “why are you wasting your time playing sport all the time? You do some serious work.”



ANDREW DENTON: There was an occasion where you stayed at a Hotel, and you were with your dad, and the person that ran the Hotel came to you rather distressed?



IMRAN KHAN: We came at night, and somehow the word had got round that I was there. And the next morning we were woken up the Hotel was surrounded by thousands of people, and my Father didn’t know what had happened…

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: He kept thinking what’s going on here you know [laughs].



ANDREW DENTON: Can you tell me a bit about your Mum, Shaukat, have I pronounced that…



IMRAN KHAN: Shaukat



ANDREW DENTON: Shaukat you were very close to your Mum weren’t you?



IMRAN KHAN: Yeah she was the greatest influence on my life.



ANDREW DENTON: Within Islamic culture the Mother holds a particular central place in the family is that right?



IMRAN KHAN: That’s right. Well the saying of our Prophet is that 'Paradise lies under the feet of the Mother'. In other words, the sacrifice of the Mother, the unconditional love of the Mother, is so much and she gives so much of her life to bringing up her children that the children then have this duty to always look after their Mother.



ANDREW DENTON: And in what way was she the greatest influence on your life?



IMRAN KHAN: In every way really, I mean first of all the unconditional love which gave me so much security in life, unconditional love sort of the feeling that whatever you do there’s someone who will always love you. And I think apart from that, the values, you know she was the one who gave me very strong values in life. And even when I you know I was only 18 when I got selected to play for my country, and I was going to play in England join the Pakistan touring team in England and she only gave me permission if I finished my University education. I think that was invaluable because you know what happens in sport is that you get so single minded. But that insistence that you must finish your education was so beneficial to me, not only in cricket but in life afterwards.



ANDREW DENTON: Your Mum was struck down by cancer in 1985 and as you were seeking treatment for her you discovered a side to Pakistan that you didn’t know is that right?



IMRAN KHAN: Well, it changed me in the sense that sports has, you know, that the sportsman to succeed is ruthless. There are no prizes for coming second. So you actually that compassion which human beings should is killed by sports, in the very competitive atmosphere. And so you know I was no different to other sportsmen, it was really her getting ill with cancer and then watching her in pain, there was no Cancer Hospital in Pakistan. And I think that’s what changed my life because in the sense I might still have ended up sort of just playing cricket or living off cricket or it’s a very easy existence really. But it was actually watching that pain that made me change directions that I wanted to build a Cancer Hospital. I realised that you know if I with my resources went through this hell w watching my Mother slowly dying of cancer and watching that pain, what happens to a common man? You know, I could afford to take her abroad, but what happens to 95 per cent of the population? So that’s how I started the idea of building a Hospital. And then building the Hospital changed me further. Because I realised that people with money, I went to the most expensive School in Pakistan and people with me were the richest people of the richest families. So when I wanted to collect money for the Hospital, I thought it would be very simple, I would just go in all these people I knew from School all my friends, and I will be able to collect the money. When I went to them I got a lot of encouragement, but no money. And money actually ended up coming from common people in Pakistan. You know, people who didn’t have much. They were the ones who actually helped me with the Hospital.



ANDREW DENTON: Because they understood the need?



IMRAN KHAN: Not only that I think, that’s why I ended up getting into Politics because I realised that we had this elite class in Pakistan which was corrupt, which was decadent, which never paid any taxes and which didn’t care what happened to the common people. And the country had evolved such that the whole country only catered for a small elite. And that’s why I decided that you know that’s why called my Party Movement for Justice. Not just and justice was only, if you if you had money you got you could buy justice, but if you were a common man you know y you couldn’t afford a Lawyer, our gaols and by the way I ended up in gaol for a week, I discovered that over 60 per cent of people in our gaols were innocent. The crime was poverty.



ANDREW DENTON: In ’96 somebody set off a bomb in your Hospital that you’d spent 10 years building. I can’t think of a much lower act than to set off a bomb in a Cancer Hospital. Who would do that? Why would somebody do that?



IMRAN KHAN: I never quite understood why that was done you know I never understood that.



ANDREW DENTON: Do you have any idea who?



IMRAN KHAN: Well there was an investigation and we never found out who did it.



ANDREW DENTON: You directed some of your anger at Benazir Bhutto who came to visit, who offered to help rebuild it. You didn’t meet her and you declined the offer of help. Why were you angry with her?



IMRAN KHAN: Well I was angry with her because her Government, for some they got, they felt threatened I wasn’t still in Politics, but I also used to speak out against corruption and then in her Government in that in that second term of her Government, we were rated as the second most corrupt country in the world according to this International Organisation called Transparency International.

So, you know, I spoke out against corruption and by this time I was getting politicised because seeing the corrupt elite on one side and there’s the poor people helping with the Hospital on the other side, so I also used to speak out against her. And I think she and her Husband particularly who you know who’s known as 'Mr 10 per cent' and who now unfortunately is our President.



ANDREW DENTON: He might just get you to the number one spot as most corrupt…

Laughter



ANDREW DENTON: I mean it’s something.



IMRAN KHAN: He, yes. He used to be 10 per cent; we are all scared he could be 100 per cent now.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: But anyway so they started making it difficult for me to collect money. The people owned the Hospital. It wasn’t built by one person, the entire country contributed to it and so it was such euphoria when it opened. And a few months later this bomb goes off, so there was it was like a National tragedy and so she wanted to just you know, her Husband particularly wanted to come and cash in. So that’s why I didn’t want them to have that opportunity.



ANDREW DENTON: The Movement for Justice Party, your Party, you eventually got a seat in Parliament. The fact that you got one seat was that because of your celebrity? Was it because people didn’t want to hear the message against corruption? Why were you not able to be more effective in gaining representation?



IMRAN KHAN: Well the first election went which I fought was you know our Party was only five months old. The second election which I fought was when General Musharraf had taken over. Now he offered me to be his Prime Minister, but I real and I supported Musharraf in the beginning and then I realised that he was a conman. That he had he you know he had this art of faking sincerity



ANDREW DENTON: Doesn’t that go with the job?

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: Yes, but he conned me I mean I was completely taken by him. And it took me a couple of years to discover that he was a total conman, and I had been taken for a ride. All he wanted to do was to be in power and used all these slogans to get our support and I never, I mean I didn’t want to be a Prime Minister of some military dictator.



ANDREW DENTON: Mm. You mentioned you were briefly in gaol at the end of last year as Musharraf cracked down on those who were agitating for civil rights, and you went on a hunger strike and there were protests including in London and your former Wife Jemima was one of those who made a public protest. I infer from that even though you were divorced a few years ago, that you and she still have a strong connection?



IMRAN KHAN: Well I mean normally you know divorces are very acrimonious. Divorces can be, you know, cause such bitterness amongst couples that they never speak to each other, or they hate each other. In our case it was a different type of divorce, because it was just that after a while, both of us realised she couldn’t live in Pakistan.



ANDREW DENTON: Because?



IMRAN KHAN: Because firstly it’s very difficult to live away from where you’ve grown up, it’s one of the and especially if you if you are as comfortable and the way she was in England people do migrate, but in her case it was just she had wonderful her family, friends, social life everything and so to move from that is difficult anyway. I mean in any for instance London was a second home to me. Some of my oldest friends are in London. I could never live in London. If someone told me to live outside Pakistan, I can’t. So it that was, we reached a conclusion after a while, she couldn’t live there, I couldn’t live anywhere else and there was nothing really we could do about it. And so, you know, when we did divorce it was obviously a very painful experience. But it was not bitter, there was no anger towards each other.



ANDREW DENTON: Which is a great model for the children too?



IMRAN KHAN: And yes and so for the children too although you know whatever happens I mean children do suffer in a divorce.



ANDREW DENTON: Before you were put in gaol, you were briefly on the run and you recorded a message, a three minute long message, which was released to the media. I want to show a little excerpt of that.

Showing excerpt



ANDREW DENTON: Now you said you believe that America is impotent in the war on terror why is that?



IMRAN KHAN: Well, you know, terror is an idea. You don’t fight an idea with a conventional Army. To win a war on terror you have to win the hearts and minds of people. If the people from whom, from where the terrorists are operating from. If you win their hearts and mind and get them on your side, you’ll win the war. If those people start regarding the terrorists as freedom fighters, history has told us that you can’t win the war.



ANDREW DENTON: 86 per cent of Pakistanis see Osama Bin Laden according to Polls as a hero. Many Pakistanis, and many in the world of Islam, believe that the war on terror is a war on Islam. Is that also your belief?



IMRAN KHAN: The masses in the entire Muslim world, not Pakistan, the majority think that the war on terror is a war on Islam. It’s the way the US has conducted the war. I’m here someone sitting here from day One opposed it. We all supported the US on 911, everyone. I mean I was being in Politics I can tell you from the right to the left, whether they were religious people or whether they were secular, everyone supported the US. Because everyone felt there was a terrorist attack on the US and we should help them. It’s the way the war on terror was fought that the US began to alienate the public opinion in the Muslim world.



ANDREW DENTON: What was it about the way it was conducted?



IMRAN KHAN: Well firstly bombing of Afghanistan. I mean if Afghanistan had suffered because of a cold war between the US and the Soviets. 1.3 million Afghans have died out of a population of 50 million and the country was devastated. Now if Al Qaeda was the enemy why hit the Taliban?



ANDREW DENTON: Was there not sufficient evidence at the time however that the Taliban were shielding the people responsible for the 911 attacks?



IMRAN KHAN: The Taliban consistently said that you give us evidence and we will hand you over, over Osama. I’m not trying to defend the Taliban, because the Taliban were an embarrassment to us Muslims, because their brand of Islam was embarrassing to any educated Muslim, but there was to, you have to be fair they were not terrorists, they no Taliban was involved in any terrorist activity. I mean they were medieval people. They were semi literate people who didn’t know a world existed outside Kabul or Afghanistan.



ANDREW DENTON: In the second Presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, both men stated very firmly their belief that America is the greatest good force for good in the world. How do you respond to that?

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: Well [sigh] yeah you know, America encompasses all sorts of public opinions. You know, I mean I most of the Americans now agree with me. What I thought of George Bush then, majority of the Americans think of that him right now.



ANDREW DENTON: Could you summarise that in three words?

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: Well put it this way, he’s not very clever.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: And he’s completely, I mean his, what he has done to the world, you know it I just the bloodletting. I mean I’ll just give you an example of his war on terror. I he’s spent something like almost a trillion dollars. The estimates are that anything up to a million people have died and what he has done is has he made the world a safer place? In my opinion he’s made the world a far more dangerous place. These are now nurseries for future terrorists.



ANDREW DENTON: Barack Obama said in the Presidential debate, the second one that in response to a question about America breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty to fight terrorists, he said that if we had evidence that there was Osama Bin Laden whether or not Pakistan wanted to co operate we would go in there and go after him. How does that sort of unilateral action play in Pakistan?



IMRAN KHAN: For four years the Americans have been using these drones to do missile attacks in Pakistan. What has it produced? It has produced more terrorists, it’s produced more hatred. It has rather than killing these militants, it’s multiplying the militants. Pakistan is paying the price for this because what happens, the Americans send the drone from Afghanistan which kills people in the Pakistan tribal area. What do the tribal’s do? They then attack the Pakistan Army. More Pakistani soldiers have died today than American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq put together.



ANDREW DENTON: You talk about an army that is now starting to crack under the pressure it’s been put under. What is to stop that wave of fundamental thought, that radical thought sweeping through the army and the nuclear arsenal it controls?



IMRAN KHAN: None of the political parties today who are in Pakistan, everyone has a consensus that the nuclear program should be kept safe, not because we are worried that it will fall in fundamentalists’ hands, because in Pakistan it gives us safety from a neighbour which is seven times our size, where we’ve had three wars against India. So the fear is that, you know, if we are without a nuclear program, there’s a nuclear armed India seven times our size, it’s exactly the reason why Israel has a nuclear arsenal, because it’s surrounded by hostile neighbours much more in numbers. It’s exactly the fear that Pakistanis have and that’s why there is a consensus in the political spectrum from the right to the left, that the nuclear program must be secured.



ANDREW DENTON: The hatred towards America seems so deep and widespread in Pakistan, do you see a new man in the White House changing anything?



IMRAN KHAN: In Pakistan the US was always loved. It was Britain which was hated because of the Colonial past, because, you know people felt that you know there were Colonials who exploited us and there’s always resentment against the Colonials. I’m not sure you in Australia, when England and Australia play again.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: You know, you know what you do, you all what. I mean when we won the World Cup here playing against England, the whole crowd was supporting us.

Laughter


IMRAN KHAN: And I know it was because of the Colonial past.



ANDREW DENTON: Can I just say two words, Five Nil Ashes.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: So but you know US was never hated in Pakistan. It’s just that since 9:11 the way the whole thing has gone and I think that, well I’m hoping that the right man comes in Washington.



ANDREW DENTON: And who would that be?



IMRAN KHAN: And I won’t say the right man in front of you but I think, I’m sure all of you will agree with me who the right man should be.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: I think that they will change at the point.



ANDREW DENTON: Sarah Palin.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: She’s got a great smile I must say.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: I’m not sure about her other views.



ANDREW DENTON: The decision of the Australian Cricket Team not to tour in Pakistan, which is now listed as one of the most dangerous countries in the world – do you understand that?



IMRAN KHAN: I can understand that but having said that I also know that cricketers would never be under any threat from terrorists. Reason is that the terrorists rely on support from the masses because that’s where they get their recruits and cricket is a game which is so loved and there’s such passion in Pakistan, that the terrorists know that if a cricket match is bombed, they’ve had it. I mean the public will just turn against them.



ANDREW DENTON: Pakistani Politics is a dangerous game. You haven’t had bodyguards in the past but you must know that as an outspoken critic that you are in the firing line as well. Have you considered or thought much about the possibility that your sons, who are still young, may grow up without you?



IMRAN KHAN: There are millions of ways of dying. You know we somehow think that there are some guarantees in life, that we will always live forever. The fear of anything, failure, losing your livelihood, or fear of death should never come in the way of you achieving your objectives or your goals in life. I have no fear of dying, you know. I don’t have bodyguards, I will, I never intend to have bodyguards, because it’s just such an intrusion on my privacy, you know, to have someone with a gun walking beside you.



ANDREW DENTON: If it’s of any comfort, I will offer my services as your body double.

Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: Then I would be more worried about you.

Laughter



ANDREW DENTON: Fair enough. Your two boys, Sulaiman and Qasim they live mostly with their mother in England so the- they’re growing up in two cultures, is that an advantage do you think?



IMRAN KHAN: I think so, you know. I benefited so much from going to university in England and then spending 18 summers of my life in England playing professional cricket because your horizons broaden, you have a better understanding of human beings. You know, this ignorance about other cultures is what creates this racism. I mean racism is this a typical product of ignorance of other human beings and us and them.



ANDREW DENTON: What would you say to a suicide bomber? If you met a young man who you knew who was intent on giving to the cause he believed in that way, what would you say?



IMRAN KHAN: Hatred and desperation is what creates these suicide bombers. It’s got nothing to do with religion. The roots of terrorism lie in politics. Osama bin Laden when he was interviewed by Robert Fisk in his book, he asked him what why was he so angry against the US – the three reasons he cited, number one, US support for Israel. Number two, the US support for the Saudi monarchy and at the time, number three, US troops in Saudi Arabia. All three political reasons. So he might use Islamic terms but the root cause always is political. So to find solutions for terrorism and religion is barking up the wrong tree.



ANDREW DENTON: You’re here for the Commercial Radio Awards, now I don’t have this image of you listening to Australian FM breakfast radio on shortwave from Pakistan.

Laughter



ANDREW DENTON: How does that fit into your universe?



IMRAN KHAN: Well you know when I was here I played a season for NSW, long time ago, almost 25 years ago.



ANDREW DENTON: That was a good season.



IMRAN KHAN: We woo- yeah
Laughter



IMRAN KHAN: We won everything. But I remember, I used to love Australian radio. It was all sort of, you know in the morning we were all full of life and good morning and all this and remember Dennis Lillee one morning calling me up and I was half asleep, it was part of this thing you know he was saying, “Hello this is Dennis Lillee,” I didn’t realise I was on the radio, you know. Anyway I used to love that and so they invited me, it’s a great honour to be here.



ANDREW DENTON: It seems to me you you’ve chosen a hard and honourable path, does a small part of you sometimes wish that you weren’t instead in the commentary box with Chapelly and Greggy signing cricket bats and going on endlessly about the good old days?



IMRAN KHAN: I made it my point in my life that the past was never to live in, it was only to learn from and move on so I, when I left cricket I took a conscious decision that I would never go back into cricket again. The only time I go back to cricket is when I run out of money and I need to do some commentary to sort of make enough money to pay my bills, otherwise I’d never go back into cricket.

Laughter



ANDREW DENTON: Do you believe that one day you’ll be Prime Minister of Pakistan?



IMRAN KHAN: I have never had any doubt that I will one day become the Prime Minister.



AUDIENCE MAN: Yes you will, he will.

Applause



IMRAN KHAN: But I was already offered the Prime Ministership but the Prime Minister I want to be is the one who can then make a change in the country. You can only make a change if you have the support you have the big public mandate, to fight the tiny vested interest that is very powerful and controls the resources, you can only defeat it if the public is standing next to you. No one has ever done it in my country. Everyone who has come into power in my country has aligned themselves with the establishment. And I would never want to be a Prime Minister who’s just there like a ceremonial Prime Minister because I already, God has been kind to me, I have more than I have asked for. I have everything and more and so the only reason I would want to be in power is if I can change my country.



ANDREW DENTON: I wish you well, Imran Khan thank you.

Applause

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