Naive Bush slights Pakistanis with a short-cut


President George Bush's fractured command of international nuance landed him in yet more trouble yesterday as Pakistanis protested over his casual use of the abbreviation "Pakis", which is widely regarded as an offensive epithet.

He was trying at the time to defuse tensions, saying: "We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis that there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war." However, he was not quite working hard enough.

Syed Adeeb, the editor of the Washington-based Pakistan Times, said that he had received about 50 emails from readers complaining they had been insulted.

"Not only here but Pakistanis in Pakistan and all over the world feel this is insulting and derogatory. President Bush is not the only offender. A lot of Pakistanis in the New York area have complained to me that government officials have been using the word," he said.

Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, did his best to mollify hurt feelings, without actually apologising. "The president has great respect for Pakistan, the Pakistani people and the Pakistani culture. Pakistan has been a strong member of the international coalition in the war against terrorism," he said.

However, there has long been a sense that Mr Bush's respect for Pakistan has never extended actually to knowing anything about the place. During the presidential election campaign, he was famously caught out when asked to name the Pakistani president, General Musharraf, now one of his most important allies.

Most sensitive Britons acquired a distaste for the word about 20 years ago when "Paki-bashing" was used by hooligans to describe beating up members of any ethnic minority.

Mr Adeeb believes it would have been acceptable had Mr Bush dropped one letter and referred to "the Paks". But four years ago the Clinton administration's national security adviser Sandy Berger began talking about "the Paks" and was forced to apologise.

Pennsylvania-based linguistics expert, Pradyumna Chauhan, said at the time that in the 1950s English racists wrote: "Keep The Paks Out, Keep The Pox Out", on the Thames Embankment, in London, implying that Pakistanis brought smallpox to England.