I once asked a factory supervisor what keeps him awake at night. He didn’t mention inflation, politics, or even power outages. He said, quietly: “If one order slips, hundred homes feel it.”

That sentence has stayed with me. Because it tells you more about Pakistan than any five-year plan ever could. And that is why what happened in Geneva is not some harmless ripple in the political pond.

You may dress it up as advocacy. You may insist it was just a son speaking for his father. You may even wrap it in emotion and say-What else could he have done? But politics is not a tale told by the fireside. It is a game of shadows and signals. What is said matters. Where it is said matters more. And who is listening matters most of all.

And in rooms where nations are weighed-not by sentiment, but by risk-even a whisper can travel like a storm.

Let me put hard numbers before you.

When personal battles travel abroad, Pakistan’s workers-not its politicians-pay the price

When personal battles travel abroad, Pakistan’s workers-not its politicians-pay the price

The European Union takes roughly one-quarter to one-third of Pakistan’s exports-the lion’s share of a fragile pie. Pakistan sends around $8-9 billion worth of goods annually to Europe, with textiles carrying the burden like Atlas holding up the sky. In fact, textiles alone account for over 70-75% of Pakistan’s EU-bound exports, and more than half of our global exports.

One may poke holes in its sustainability, but reality dictates that Pakistan has put too many eggs in one basket-and that basket rests on GSP+.

GSP+ is not a ceremonial ribbon. It is the difference between survival and suffocation. It opens doors that would otherwise remain shut, allowing duty-free access across vast tariff lines. Without it, Pakistani exporters would find themselves running a race with lead in their shoes, facing tariffs of 10-12% in markets where margins are already thinner than a razor’s edge.

Now pause. Think again.

In such a brittle arrangement, what happens when political actors carry domestic quarrels to international forums tied directly or indirectly to these very lifelines?

A recent discussion around the Geneva episode, echoed across policy circles and digital spaces, fed a familiar narrative: Pakistan seeks preferential access but stumbles on compliance. Whether fair or not is beside the point. Once such impressions take root, they linger like a bad coin-circulated, examined, and never quite trusted.

Business leaders, who live closer to the edge than politicians ever will, are already raising red flags.

One textile exporter described Pakistan’s advantage in Europe as “extremely thin and largely preference-driven”-a house built on sand, vulnerable to the slightest tremor. Another was more blunt: “$9 billion exports… and 10 million jobs are at risk.”

Ten million livelihoods.

This is no longer politics. This is playing with fire in a room full of dry straw.

And yet, we behave as if the world is a stage and consequences are optional.

It’s time we stop chasing shadows: no leader of any party is bigger than Pakistan.

History has taught us this, though we seem slow to learn. Nations are rarely undone by the swords of their enemies alone; more often, they are weakened by their own divisions. The fall of great states-from Rome to more recent histories-did not begin with invasion. It began with internal decay!

Let me be clear. No one is saying Kassem or anyone else, for that matter, does not hold the right to criticise or protest. Criticise all you want. Protest all you want. We have examples from Maryam Nawaz to Benazir Bhutto launching street movements for the sake of Nawaz Sharif and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Governments must be questioned. Leaders must be held to account. But there is a line-a thin red line-between dissent and self-inflicted harm.

That line is crossed when political messaging begins to brush against economic fault lines.

Supporters will say the sons cannot come to Pakistan. That doors are closed. And that this, somehow, justifies taking the matter abroad. Yes, the government would do well to facilitate their journey to Pakistan, give them a chance to meet their father. However, no one’s stopping them from launching protests in London or Paris, are they?

We also hear how no explicit call was made against GSP+. Some fact-checks suggest no direct demand for suspension was voiced. Fine. But politics is not a courtroom where only the letter of the law matters. It is judged by the company you keep, the stage you choose, and the echo your words create.

You stand in Geneva. You speak of Pakistan’s internal fractures. You share space with voices already critical of the state. What do observers hear?

And once risk enters the bloodstream of perception, it spreads.

We are already seeing the contours of this shift. A Geneva-side discussion placed Pakistan’s GSP+ status under sharper scrutiny, linking trade preferences with broader concerns. This is how reputations are shaped–not in one stroke, but in layers, like sediment settling over time.

Pakistan’s reliance on GSP+ has only deepened. A vast majority of exports to the EU now enter duty-free. We have become one of the largest beneficiaries of this system, tied to it more closely than we care to admit.

So when political actors flirt with narratives that shake confidence in Pakistan’s standing, they are not merely scoring points against a government. They are sawing at the very branch on which the economy sits.

And the consequences, as always, are uneven.

The politician can return to the microphones and their families back to cushy mansions. But the worker in a factory directly impacted by the tariff waits. Like a soldier in the trenches. Hoping the supply line holds.

That is the cruel arithmetic of our politics. The powerful cast the dice. The powerless pay the price.

So I ask you. Where does this road lead?

If every grievance is carried beyond our borders, will the state itself become a casualty of political ambition?

Because that is the slippery slope before us.

A country already walking a tightrope cannot afford such theatrics on distant stages.

Criticise the government. Challenge it. Fight it tooth and nail. But do not set fire to the house just to smoke out its occupants.

Because once the flames take hold, they do not ask which room you intended to burn.

They consume everything.

The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.

© Daily Times