On 16 August 2021, Prime Minister Imran Khan launched the Single National Curriculum in Islamabad. He spoke about how cultural imposition being tantamount to ‘mental slavery,’ saying Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery.” His comments came as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan:
“When you acquire English medium education, you adopt the entire culture and it’s a major loss because you become slave to that particular culture.”
Since his retirement from international cricket back in 1992, and particularly since he joined politics in 1996, Imran Khan has been presenting himself as an enlightened individual, who understands Western culture, but is not besotted or overawed by it, so does not consider his people as inferior to Westerners. As part of his harsh criticism of Pakistan's Westernised elites:
So, he portrayed himself as one who was heavily exposed to Western education and deeply immersed within the atmosphere of the Western elite, but wholly unaffected by it, remaining Eastern and loyal to his people.
However, when he became Prime Minister of Pakistan, he turned his back on all that he stated previously.
Imran Khan has been acting exactly according to the intellectual hold of his Western culture and the dominating political influence the Western elite has over him. He has certainly not broken the shackles of slavery of the West.
As for now, after the fall of Kabul, the US has become a
laughing stock on the world stage and so her agents, including Imran Khan, are trying to save face. So his saying that Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery” is just to cover his regime's shear embarrassment in front of the Muslims of Pakistan, as they rejoice at the defeat of the US in Afghanistan. Indeed, he himself is the prime example of political and intellectual slavery to the West.
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