welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. tonight the war on terrorism has no greater partnership than the united states and pakistan. but trump's tough talk is taking relations to a new low. i speak to former foreign minister hina rabbani khar about their fall out. plus my conversation with the a british author and journalist on race, identity, and belonging in the modern age. "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support

of. >> good evening, everyone and welcome to the program. every since new year's day when donald trump woke up and tweeted not about the media, not about hillary clinton but about pakistan, this earth while ally has called america a friend who always betrays. the u.s. president accused pakistan of playing a double game and he cut billions of dollars in security aid. the two countries have a tortuous relationship but they do need each other. for one thing pakistan gives the u.s. critical access to afghanistan and its forces there. the former minister hina rabbani khar joined me this evening, and i ask whether they can put relations back on productive track. welcome to the program. >> so good to be here. >> let me just read you president trump's new year's day tweet because i want to ask your reaction on some issues.

so he basically says the united states has foolishly given pakistan more than $33 billion in aide over the last 15 years, and they've given us nothing but lies and deceit thinking of our leaders as fools. they give safe haven to our terrorists and no more. do you believe your government will retaliate by closing off routes, by closing off airspace, all the vital loegistics the u.. needs to supply its forces? >> currently like it or not the u.s. is currently the super power. currently we are far away from a multipolar world. if you're going to tweet away management of our foreign policy relations, then clearly we are

at a place where i would, frankly, if i were sitting in the foreign office of pakistan i would totally ignore this tweet. i would respond to the policy statement they gave on south asia which is not encouraging for pakistan because that was a government approach. here this is frankly speaking a habitual tweeter who tweets rather flippantly. and, you know, as i said externalizing the massive failure is not a solution at all. and unfortunately in the last many years we've seen this earnest need on the other side. but you know, christiane, and i'd hope you'd agree with me, the difference this time is this is a president who's tweeting or a country or government, you know, is taking some action in terms of taking away the aide, which i think pakistan is not dependent on at all. i think it's exaggerated the

assistance. i can tell you our reliance on them is vastly exaggerated. so coming back to the response and the tweet, i would just say, honestly, after all the other tweets that one keeps on reading i think we should be concerned about the tweeter rather than the tweet. >> today one pakistani writer basically described the u.s. and pakistan as locked in a monstrous pact they made during soviet occupation of afghanistan, when they walked in with their saudi friends carrying suitcases full of cash to give the ussr a bloody nose. what do you say to that? because it appears that you and the u.s. are locked into this paradigm. >> you know, i do not believe one requires to be a stable genius to do some very basic mathematics. the great new year tweet president trump tweeted after

there were many other interesting tweets, including calling all african countries shitholes, but that's not what we're discussing right now. as i said it does not take a genius to understand basic mathematics. he talks about $33 billion pakistan received from america in terms of assistance. pakistan has received somewhere to the tune of $4.8 billion under the head of military assistance and somewhere to the tune of $5.2 billion in the realm of civilian assistance. and i'm not one who believes pakistan has not had its own faults. we've had many, many faults. giving space to terrorist for pretty much in every military regime almost has not been something that has -- that has done pakistan any good. i think the relationship that pakistan and the u.s. got on the

invasion was one that the pakistan and the u.s. got out of, and the loss was ours to bear. because all the majority which had been trained on our soil, all the infiltration of terrorist extremist which was left in our peoples minds was left for us to deal with. and america was happy moving away to sanctioning pakistan and moving onto more adventures. >> let me just ask you. did you ever think as a foreign minister of your very conservative country, you would use that word on global television? >> which is? >> oh, the "s" word. >> yes, it's the president of the united states. i have to quote him of what he said. as a representative of pakistan, i have to quote the president of the united states when he chooses to use these words. and that's where we are going.

that's where the world is going. >> let me and cryou then becaus pakistan is defensive. and you've laid out a position why you're right and the u.s. is wrong. but isn't it true that the pakistan military has essentially taken control and convinced people, politicians that permanent war is a good thing? they look at india as an existential threat rather than afghanistan and the very hard line terrorists, taliban and haqqani network as being your major threat? and isn't it true that for instance the taliban who's assassinated politicians, they've blown up churches and schools, they have normalized this behavior amongst pakistanis? and the murder of school children is called collective sacrifice. again, this is what observers are saying. you're saying you've made giant leaps forward but this is very debilitating for your country. >> absolutely, christian.

and i'm one person who truly believes it was our effort together with the united states of america in ridding from the soviet invasion which instills this extremism, it changed the society forever and ever. i do not also believe that we want to win any argument on the status of victim hood, because we do. we sacrifice what we sacrifice for the sake of our children's future, not for the sake of anyone else. i believe we'd been happily scapegoated for this emenimmens failure of which pakistan is a victim. we cannot be flippant to what's happening on the ground. the president rouhani has literally tried to push out and accepted the resignation of the

governor who's refusing to leave. this is the type of governing structure that you have. there's warlords all over the place. taliban has been taking over there. blaming each other has happened for the last ten years. it hasn't helped. >> do you think this moment is solidifying pakistan turning away from close ties with the united states and more towards the chinese sphere? >> you know, christian, as a foreign policy practitioner, i do not agree that you have to turn away from one to turn towards another. china is regional strategic pattern, perhaps the only real strategic partner pakistan has had not for the last four years but for decades. as someone not a believer in conspiracy theories, i am

increasingly starting to believe it's not for peace and stability, but as george foreman says in his book for the next 100 years to create chaos in this region so that russia and china and many other centralation republics together with iran perhaps can be contained. as i said, not a conspiracy theorists by design, by my dna. but the more i see how we're going and how one war is being fought, the more i believe this is happening. >> you know the death and the rape of this young girl, this 7-year-old, her body just found on a trash heap has sparked a whole new level of outrage around the world. what can you tell us about why the pakistani police or the regional police, you know, didn't get onto this case as quickly as the parents would have liked, for instance? >> christian, as you know

frankly speaking in a country like pakistan the training and efficiency leaves much to be desired. what this has done in pakistan is really woken up the consciousness of the nation. i think much more than the world. pakistan is currently in a state of mourning on this one incident. and you know as well having covered incidents and events all over the, sometimes it takes one incidence to spark the confidence and concern on matters which are true, in pakistan because of the cultural inhibitions about speaking about such issues, this particular issue i think has just woken up the consciousness of the entire nation. and people are now creating an entire curriculum of the

government, on creating awareness of sexual assault and how children can protect themselves and how society can protect them. >> well, that's interesting because in fact an opinion writer on cnn wrote the following. that there is no such thing as sex education in pakistan let alone childhood prevention abuse. teaching a child what sorts of behavior an adult or older child must never inflict is believed to be the same as teaching an innocent child about having sex. and therein lies part of the problem, right? >> absolutely, christian. i think like many other things pakistan is trying to correct right now, this very sad incident is literally breaking the taboo as we speak. >> it's not just this one event. this has now brought to light many, many child abuse and sexual predators and murder.

and still it was the parents and the family who identified the, cctv footage which showed this poor little zana walking away with an older man. it wasn't the police. and they say the police should have been able to do that and perhaps the guy would have been arrested. >> i think a lot of the footage obviously came from a general response we have all over pakistan now to try and take care of crime which has to do with the safe cities projects, which has to do with the cctv footage off streets, markets, et cetera. so that is in some ways a step forward who has been taken to allow this kind of footage to appear in the first place. but i don't think i disagree with you. and i don't think anyone in pakistan disagrees with you at the political level and social level that much, much more needs to be done to make sure our children are safe.

the protection of children will have to break those social taboos. you know, for instance malala's incident woke up the nation to a different type of challenge. and i think this incident has woken up people to a very clear social danger which is certainly not only in pakistan but over the world, but in pakistan i think people are now demanding the government whether at the provincial level or federal level do much more to basically face this issue very, very aggressively. >> you mentioned malala. of course she was the little pakistani girl who was shot in the head for just wanting to go to school. and she has since created a movement and won a nobel prize. i think the whole world perhaps knows malala. you have daughters. do you think the country is safe for your daughters? >> my children go to school in this country. i have no other nationality. i intend to live in this

country. i intend my children to live in this country. i can tell you -- i think post 9/11 pakistan went through the worst possible effect of terrorism permeating the borders into the pakistani territory. and we went through many, many bomb attacks and many, many strikes and assaults. but i can tell you pakistan is currently living the fruits of its older reputation. and i think pakistan in the last ten years is a country which is in active war. our soldiers are dying on a dally basis to t daily basis to try and get this country back to normal. our territory, large skagparts the territory is now back under

the government. so i believe our direction is right. >> on that note former foreign minister rabbani khar, thanks for joining me. in a recent meeting about pakistan, president trump made a point about asking a korean american analyst where she was from. repeatedly he asked her. and when she finally said her family originally came from south korea, the president asked why she wasn't working on north korea then? something that's constantly faced by minorities and the most persistitant reminder of that sense of not belong, she said. in her new book she grapples with the universal concepts. welcome. this is the book. >> thank you. >> about belonging, identity, and race. and the stories we tell to

convince ourselves or to describe the sense of belonging, what kind of stories the. >> well, i think i wrote this book because in britain i think we are quite awkward talking about heritage and race and identity. and so people ask about it in quite strange ways. so the question it's really funny, because people say it lot often in a very well-meaning way. i'll say i'm british and they'll be like where are you from, and i'll say i come from london and they'll say where are you really from? sometimes they actually say, yes, but where are your parents from? really what they're getting at is why are you brown? what's the story. and it's really well-intentioned often curiosity. but the point i want to make is i know many white british people who more fascinating cultural

heritage. but it is constantly the sense of being othered. we want an explanation before we can accept you're one of us. >> you mention you play with them by saying i was born in norway. i wonder what you think about the serendipity that president trump in one fell swoop insulted africa with the "s" word including the country i come from, ghana, and praised norway. >> he obviously doesn't know there are black norwegians. norway like most european countries now is multicultural. and there is a whole generation of black norwegians just like there are black british people, black french people asking why isn't that we can't just feel british or french? what is the problem with us just

being accepted, and it's a lot more than just being asked the question. it's actually what's underneath it. i believe in britain there are very fundamental questions about the british history. the most arguable event ervin british history, the reason why people like my mother came to this country, and most british people don't fully understand. >> why did she come? how? >> so my grandfather got black listed when democracy kind of deteriorated in ghana and so fled for his safety. and they weren't able to go back like so many. and that in itself was the legacy ghana was handed its independence. the british having cleared the place out, nut a single chair, not a filing cabinet, you know, no data. >> just didn't want to hand over

-- >> coming back to trump's point about shithole countries, where's the context? it's this a historical idea they came out of nowhere where decided to be dysfunctional. there are more people affected by this. >> you know, it's not until the president of the united states says it that, you know, global television can use a word that we would never be allowed to use. but i want to ask you actually about that, about the word he used. president trump has a history according to the people who have studied him of racist sayings and some would say racist activities. whether it's what he did in his real estate, saying last year haitians all have aides, nigerians would never return to their huts after seeing the u.s., mexicans, et cetera. what does it mean when he says

these things? what is the global impact of this? >> this might sound counter intuitive. but i think it's helpful. i've found in my life when you're keenly aware of prejudice of people from other ethnicities. it can be very hard to articulate it. when you have a government that speaks multiculturalism but hasn't solved those very deeply embedded problems, it can be hard to make a case for it. and i think president trump is actually showing the world how much baggage america has around race. you can't deal with something until it's on the table. >> so it's a constructive thing. it's not pretty. >> i wouldn't celebrate it. for example, i've been wondering why african countries haven't taken a tougher stance on his remarks before. and i wanted the african

countries to take a stance. and they have now. i think that weirdly a positive step. >> so interestingly you say your book is not for the die hard racists. >> we all go people are overtly racist. this is based on my old life experience. i had a privileged life. i grew up in an affluent part of england, i went to private school, and had all the advantages society can offer. what i found is that even in these very privileged educated settings the same prejudices survive. they're just coded much more cleverly. they're more sophisticated. >> in your privilege upbringing at 14 you had a pretty major sock in the face when i think a friend said to you, don't worry,

we don't consider you black. >> exactly. that to me says so much about the way we think in this country. it was their attempt to make me feel welcomed. they couldn't understand in saying that they had internalized all of these ideas there's something bad about blackness. so the best thing we can offer you is sweep it under the carpet and everything will be fine. and i think the nation is playing that out. we have leaders who say weave a british approach to history. if you can't celebrate it, don't teach it. now, that doesn't solve the problem. it just exponentially increases the number of people affected. >> can you go back to that moment when you were 14. did you just laugh or were you just stunned? >> there were other nicknames. people used to call me troll. these were the days when trolls were those classic things with

the sticking up hair. i constantly had the feeling there was something wrong with me. that moment was the moment i was able to articulate it for myself. that blackness was seen as something bad. my mother took me to ghana for the first time. >> i was going to ask you about that next. when you went to ghana, that was also a little weird because there you were white just for that. >> exactly. this is real thing of being mixed race or multiple heritages you grew up in a country like britain and you're black. and the reason you feel this crisis of identity is because you are the black person in the room. so in my teenage mind i thought if the reason i'm other is because i'm black, then if i go to ghana i'll fit in. and as soon as i get to ghana they call me white person. ask i will never forget the

sense of shock. and if i'm honest, it's like betrayal because in my mind this was the place it would make sense. of course now i understand ghana better i understand why, and i represent somebody's who's had access to all the advantages of life in britain. and i can't speak the language. i speak like a white person as far as they're concerned. but i understand it now. at the time it was painful, but it was the first moment i realized you can't find identity by going somewhere. there's no solution in a place. >> do you have solutions? >> as a result of understanding there's no place that has the answers, i reconciled myself with the fact we have to solve the problems here. we can't run away from them. all the things we don't say that are awkward and sometimes painful in saying we don't have a choice but to grapple with these things. and i really hope people will start to have these

conversations. >> what stunned you the most when you got to ghana? >> the immigration, the police, the portrait of the president all black people wearing suits. i realized in that moment i had never seen black people wearing suits until then. >> that is really an incredible observation. thanks for joining us. and that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs. and join us again tomorrow night. "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support of roselyn p. walter.

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