21.07.2013 Fatal decline
With every change of government, a new set of politicians rise to prominence with old slogan of giving birth to a new Pakistan, but…..
By Dr Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi
With its waning social gauge, degenerating economy, dividing society on ethnic, sectarian basis and the government’s mislaid priorities, Pakistan is emerging as a disturbed state. Institutions like independent judiciary, strong vibrant civil society and moderate-thinking Pakistanis are delaying its fatal decline.
Pakistan as a state is weakening but the Pakistani society is strengthening with every passing day. If state has failed to counter insurgency, terrorism, extremism, intolerance, ethnic and sectarian divide, the society has made itself indifferent to such monsters. Both are working in isolation. However, this indifference is making Pakistan more feeble and society more artificial.
Who hurt the state? All. General KM Arif in his latest book says: “Pakistan is a wounded nation, hurt by both friends and foes. Her national body is riddled with injuries of insult, neglect and arrogance inflicted by dictators and democrats; judges and generals, the bureaucrats and media. None of them are blame-free”. On international scene, she has been badly treated by its friends, situated thousands of miles from Islamabad. Pakistan has been more harmed by its allies than by its enemies in the name of Cold War, détente, and the war on terror, to name a few.
The power corridors believe in guided democracy with a byproduct of political stability. Had it been vice versa, Pakistan history would have been based on strong pillars of tested democracy mustered by political constancy. Transformation for economic growth, national security, and Islamisation were given precedence in the past and every effort was made to bring out a concrete shift from the past to present.
It was a superficial change which eroded civilian and democratic institutions that pushed the country further into deep troubles. Enlightened moderation with selected accountability was also tried. But by now, larger population of the country has turned extremist, kudos to the CIA’s war against Soviet Union in Afghanistan and drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan. This resulted in a permanent threat to democracy and challenged faint political stability.
With every change of government, a new set of politicians rise to prominence with old slogan of giving birth to a new Pakistan. Ayub Khan tried to be the rebirth of Jinnah. Bhutto was the second most popular politician after Jinnah. General Zia was ‘the Mard-e-Momin Mard-e- Haq’. Benazir was ‘Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah’, the sister of Quaid-e-Azam. Similarly, Musharraf wanted to bring a new generation of competent politicians to power by putting electoral bars on old politicians and by introducing a new local government system.
However, none realised that the success of democracy is to give more time to democracy for its nurture and maturity. Adopting names do not change disposition of a person. A crow sitting on a hill-top can’t become an eagle.
In a democratic setup, politicians make mistakes and learn from them in the long run. Today, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his governing team are more mature than 12 years back. Had their government not been overthrown in 1999, they would have been more mature and competent than today. Failure of democracy brings technocrats in power. But politics is to politicians and not to technocrats. Non-elected can’t be equated with the elected ones. In the past 65 years of Pakistan’s history, the only thing we have failed to understand is to differentiate between the servants of the nation and representatives of the people. Representatives serve the nation with the help and assistance of servants. We deserve more wisdom to know the difference.
Pakistan would be a stable state with conducive and permanent relationship between the Centre and the provinces. A democratic reform strategy is based on equitable and balanced distribution of powers and resources between the Centre and provinces.
During military rule in Pakistan, provinces always cry for their rights and thus result in centrifugal forces. However, in a democratic setup, provinces are satisfied with their due share granted to them with mutual consent. 18th Amendment provided provinces their due right. Fiscal and administrative powers were devolved to federating units and hence, all the four are moving in harmony and with their support, a strong federation is working in Pakistan.
Keeping in view the Balochistan situation, military operations in Waziristan and the TTP insurgent movements in other parts of the country, any blow to 18th Amendment would result in a huge shake of the nation for which it is absolutely not ready. This means stability grows from below — from districts to provinces and from provinces to the federation.
Rulers of Pakistan always idealise vision of the country in shape of compassionate slogans like “Saab Se Pehlay Pakistan”, “Politics of Reconciliation”, “Real Democracy”, “Nizam-e- Mustafa”, “Basic Democracy” and “Naya Pakistan”. But they are neither good strategists nor good implementers. They always have permissive or lax attitude towards result-oriented projects. They talk more and act less. Their short-sightedness is costing the nation immensely. Had they been far-sighted, we would have had a successful negotiation round with the Tahreek-e-Taliban-e- Pakistan (TTP), we would have a friendly Afghanistan, we would have a motorway and bullet-train from Peshawar to Karachi, we would have a strong economy based on friendly ties with IMF and the World Bank, we would have had very friendly and sincere ties with the US, we would have won the War on Terror (rather the war on terror would not have started in the first place), we would not have been deceived by our allies during the War on Terror, and over and above, we would have a stable and secure Pakistan for the Pakistanis.
Violence is another mean of damaging a country’s security and stability. Pakistan is eroded by its domestic cancer of sectarian, ethnic and regional violence. With every passing day, their death squads intensify their war against their opponents. Most of them are fighting a proxy war on behalf of other hostile countries to harm Pakistan.
Economic stagnation, high rate of growing poverty, bad governance, unequal distribution of wealth between haves and have-nots and lavish style of government produce frustration amongst the common man. Thus a foreign funding to any small group to play a subversive role in Pakistan makes a huge dent in the country’s security. A group of deprived people, starved of basic necessities of life, after receiving foreign funding, consider themselves as ‘the Mujahid of Islam”, or “Anti-Americanism” and wage a jihad against the “stooges of the West” and “usurpers of the rights of underprivileged”.
Organised violence, including suicide attacks, can never bring any change in foreseeable future of Pakistan. Every militant organisation has to change its discourse and disposition from militancy to political entity. This is the way to their success. By acquiring power through electoral and democratic means, their agenda, appreciated and recommended by the majority of the populace, will be implemented through democratic means. This will give not only permanence to their entity but would also reduce a sense of threat to the people of Pakistan.
The author teaches at the Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar syedshaheed@hotmail.co.uk)