Are we Becoming a Banana Republic?
Introductory note: This is an edited version of the original article
~ indicators of identifying a banana republic
~What impact for it can have on international security scene.
…Yasser
By Dr Tariq Rahman
In a banana republic, the state is not run according to the constitution. We have had three constitutions none of which survived the opportunists. Indeed, the fear of elections promised by the 1956 constitution made Iskander Mirza declare martial law. But he could not control the genie of the army that he had so selfishly and foolishly allowed to escape from the bottle.
Ayub Khan then perpetuated himself for a decade. But when he was forced to leave he violated his own constitution (of 1962), handing over power to the army chief.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made the 1973 Constitution but the amendments to it almost did away with its spirit. Then Ziaul Haq, seizing power when Bhutto was about to reach an agreement with the opposition, mutilated the Constitution and made a mockery of it. And now the same mutilated Constitution is being made to support military rule again.
The second characteristic of a banana state is that the rule of law does not work. Instead, the police, army, paramilitary forces or intelligence agencies become very powerful and nearly autonomous. This happens in highly centralised totalitarian dictatorships too. In both kinds of states the first casualty is the truth; the second is freedom and the third is moral courage.
Journalists and academics stop speaking the truth, and sycophancy becomes the order of the day. The rulers become more cruel since nobody dares to oppose them any longer. Academic originality, research, innovation and even art suffer because these are the products of free minds and people who can think on their own. Such people go into exile or are liquidated and silenced. Mediocrity rules and the country becomes stagnant and backward-looking.
Yet another mark of a banana state is that its rulers are afraid of a free and bold press. The press is the major antidote or corrective to the follies and aberrations of society. It tells us about events — including gun battles — at the risk of the lives of brave young men and women who expose themselves to the wrath of the state and its supporters among intelligence agencies, political parties, etc.
A major indicator of ‘bananisation’ is the stifling of the press. In this crisis alone we have seen how two TV channels were attacked and almost every other day the press is threatened and warned. Another indicator is unauthorised, illegal acts such as the murder of the additional registrar of the Supreme Court and the arrest and incarceration of a DIG from Sindh. If the rule of law comes to an end, if religious and ethnic groups hold ordinary people hostage, if the press is intimidated and gagged, then what we have is a banana republic.
There are many obscure African and Latin American countries which are banana republics. Nobody seems to care about them except, of course, their own citizens assuming they can still think critically. But Pakistan’s case is different. We are an important state which should not be destabilised if the whole of South Asia is not to be dangerously destabilised.
Moreover, we are a nuclear state. An unstable Pakistan with such extremist contenders for power as militant religious groups and an ethnically charged ruling elite can be very threatening. We know that the United States perceives threat from all unstable countries — especially if they are Muslim — so we should be very careful not to give the impression of not being not in control to the rest of the world. This is so important that it had to be written. It is, in the words of Hermann Kahn, which he used in another context, the ‘thinking of the unthinkable’.
In short, the situation is so alarming that one is brought to the level of pleading, appealing and wishing to those who are in charge to see reason and make amends. If we are to survive we have to think seriously about this country. It will not be forever that we can play with the fortunes of this land of 160 million because banana states cannot even be played with: they hold their populations hostage; they play with their people.
http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/22/op.htm#2