Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Janus Effect
The ancient Romans gave the world much, some good and some bad, and it is one of their innumerable gods who gives us the name of the first month of the year of the Roman calendar - January. Janus was the name of the deity who presided over the first month of the year and was the god with two faces, one looking forward to the future and the other back into the past. Heathen iconography may have no place in the modern world but Janus provides us with a reflective metaphor, a time of looking both forwards and backwards, and for Pakistan looking in either direction today the view is far from pleasant or encouraging.
The year just passed dawned with the country still in shock from the murder of a woman who, had she lived, would have been either its president or its prime minister today. Instead, the president is her widowed husband who daily trades on the legacy of her memory but has yet to make himself even one-tenth of the leader that his dead wife was. The prime minister is a man few outside the political world had ever heard of before the February elections, and who has yet to carve himself an identity befitting of the position he holds. Before either of them arrived where they are today, there was what was arguably the free-est and fairest election since Pakistan gained nationhood. Much to the surprise of most the polls in February passed off relatively peacefully, rigging was evident but did not affect the outcome significantly as it has in the past, and the ordinary man got the government he voted for. The PPP was ascendant, the PML-N a brave-faced second and the PML-Q, that Frankenstein creature that never truly had independent life and thought, a dead duck. Enter a new age of Pakistani politics: - fraternal greetings, gracious deference and a patina of civilization. It lasted about a fortnight.
The short-lived New Age quickly gave way to the customary back-biting, eye-gouging and all-around skullduggery that characterises our political life. Promises were made and as quickly broken – no judges were reinstated nor does it look like they ever will be, for instance – and the fragile alliances formed pre- and post-election quickly fell into disarray and recrimination where they remain today. The writing that had been on the wall for Musharraf ever since he pulled the rug from under the judges who were about to pull the rug from under him; got ever bigger and harder to ignore and he seemed to live in a world increasingly unreal. The inevitable happened on the 18th August and Musharraf stepped down. That both the election and the transition from one president to another were accomplished (relatively) peacefully and constitutionally made a refreshing change, but it was soon to be business as usual in the president's office.
Mr Zardari, perhaps the principal beneficiary of his wife's death, stepped into the presidential shoes thereby accomplishing a trick that makes Lazarus look an amateur by comparison. As he donned the mantle of power and began arranging matters to his satisfaction, a number of delayed-action bombs, the legacy of the previous dispensation, begun to detonate. The economy, which had looked in reasonable shape under the care of that old smoothie Shaukat Aziz was revealed to be all smoke and mirrors. Inflation took off at a gallop, forex reserves started to haemorrhage, the stock-exchange nosedived and then the lights started to go out rather more often than was politically convenient. The common man, author of the success of the PPP government, began to get decidedly disgruntled.
As things began to fall apart on the upper decks, there was trouble in the hold and bilges. The Taliban were about to make a reappearance in a production that was literally to take the nation by storm. By years-end large parts of NWFP (…and whatever happened to 'Pakhtunkhwa' we wonder) were under the control of the boys in black, the army and paramilitary forces were making no headway in Swat or Bajaur or anywhere else for that matter and there is a real possibility that the new year could see an extension of the influence of extremism to the rest of the country. Dozens of bombs killed hundreds of innocent people in Peshawar, Wah Cantt, Lahore and at the Marriott in Islamabad among a host of other locations. Assorted shopping malls went up in smoke or simply collapsed. There was an earthquake in Balochistan that exposed the lack of progress since the 2005 'quake in terms of a national emergency and disaster relief service. Polio got its deadly grip on the land once again. American drones repeatedly violated our airspace and killed many – most of them innocent. The economy continued to degrade under the relentless battering of power-failure. In November the first letters began to appear in the press calling for a return of Musharraf. The presidential smile remained fixed…and looked increasingly like a death-rictus. And then there was Mumbai.
The ever-fragile relationship between Pakistan and India was shivered to its foundations by an attack on hotels, railway stations and a Jewish centre in Mumbai. Allegations were quickly hurled by the Indians that the terrorists were Pakistanis and they may well have been – but the Indians did themselves no favours by failing to come up with the proof and Pakistan anyway went into a state of denial as far as its involvement, or the involvement of its nationals, went.
Now, on the last day of the year we look, like Janus, both backwards and forwards. Within the last month Pakistan has once again been labelled a 'failed state'. It is certainly a state under pressure and there are what may be termed 'pockets of failure' within it – but it is not yet failed. Much of Pakistan despite the predictions of many and the hopes and machinations of some, is still up and running and in business (just). Looking back further than the last year we see that Pakistan has always appeared to be teetering on the brink of catastrophe or collapse – and it never has tipped over into the abyss. Are things so different today that the nation will, finally, make the death-plunge? Almost certainly not. Pakistan will survive the worst efforts of its politicians and extremists. The economy will struggle upwards a few points and the stock-exchange will recover. Mr Zardari will be seen to have been an 'interim' figure and things will carry on much as before, close to the edge but never falling. What will probably see the end of the nation eventually is the toxic crop of babies, desertification, flood, drought and famine. And all are much too far in the future for anybody to worry about today, aren't they?