That a picture is worth a thousand words is a profound adage in several languages, including English, Russian and Arabic, is a fact. It literally means, among other things, that even most complex ideas can be conveyed by a single still image or picture.

It does better than a one thousand-word verbal description, so to speak. It was on last Friday in Goa, India, where SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev, Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister Sirodjidin Aslov, and Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO RATS Ruslan Mirzayev, posed for a group photo during the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers’ meeting.

The point that I wish to make is that the photograph clearly showed the conscious and unconscious movements and postures by which attitudes and feelings are communicated.

India’s minister for external affairs, for example, is a strong case in point as his intents with regard to the presence of Pakistan’s foreign minister at the event were clearly expressed in his body language.

Later, his diatribe against Pakistan confirmed that India has been harboring ill will and resentment against its neighbour.

Mohyuddin Khanzada,

Karachi

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023