Wednesday 13 June 2012

Pakistans flawed policy paradigm by Raoof Hassan

For all the years that Pakistan has been in existence, its relations with the US have been like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to the other, but rarely attaining a semblance of normalcy. This is in spite of ceaseless statements emanating from the leaderships proclaiming the abiding nature of the relations between the two countries which, over decades, have been tied together through various regional and international treaties and scores of bilateral contracts and understandings.

While serious questions have been incessantly debated regarding Pakistan’s lackadaisical bent towards the US after independence, these relations could never settle down to becoming a solid platform for launching any sustainable initiative for the progress of the new-born state. Instead, they have been a heavy cross to bear and a drain on the possible options that should have been more openly and productively considered in the realm of putting the nascent country on the road to attaining internal cohesion and a viable relevance as a regional player.

The dastardly attack on Salala was perceived as a pre-meditated assault to diminish Pakistan’s resolve in meeting the myriad challenges it confronts internally and along its eastern and western fronts. In the east, it is principally a challenge to rationalise the peace initiative that has taken over six decades in coming and, in the west, it is a challenge to address the lacerating issue of human trafficking of the non-lethal and the not-so-non-lethal types. Together, they present a platter demanding a subtle combination of the best in diplomatic and military skills and an unbending political resolve in the face of multiple diminishing factors.

There are some critical ingredients that Pakistan ideally needs to formulate and promote a sustainable policy paradigm to meet the mammoth challenge: the credibility and quality of its leadership, the functionality of its institutions, the viability and sophistication of the tools it could craft and use and the courage and character of its people.

Pakistan’s leadership has traditionally suffered from the twin-debacle of lack of credibility and competence and surfeit of greed. In the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, it was hoped that the PPP government would move quickly to atone for its past mistakes and lay the foundation of a truly democratic, egalitarian, tolerant and equitable society led by able and deserving people. After over four years of laborious existence, Pakistan has a leadership consisting of a convicted president, a convicted prime minister and a coterie of ministers and advisors with dubious credentials including reprieve through controversial presidential pardons and sworn allegiance to powers other than Pakistan by virtue of their dual nationalities.

Having come into power wearing the yoke of the NRO that legitimised crime and corruption alike, its politics have been a crude mixture of crass coercion, exhibition of an undying penchant to attain political martyrdom and clinical and debilitating compromises to win over sworn enemies of yesteryears.

Its rule has seen the collapse of the national institutions, rampant corruption, an unending confrontation with other pillars of the state, unprecedented inflation, an abominable increase in the number of those living below the poverty line, wilful abdication of authority over huge chunks of Pakistan’s territory, an aggravated law and order situation and a comprehensive collapse of governance at the centre and in all the provinces. This leadership has effectively plunged the country into a critical state of incessant haemorrhaging banishing any conceivable prospect of recovery.

The art of developing and using tools best suited to fight national battles has never been a favourite of the corrupt ruling mafias. Instead, a self-destructive macho approach has been systematically promoted. The impoverished millions of the country have been the victims of the strategy by becoming hapless pawns in the hands of their crafty manipulators. They have also been exaggeratingly exposed to the damaging effects of the obscurantist propaganda profusely spilled out by the madrassas. Against living proof to the contrary, Pakistan has been assiduously promoted as the invincible bastion of untenable ideologies. Logic, statecraft and the art of diplomatic manoeuvring were consigned to the backseat as jingoism and all its attendant instruments held perpetual ascendancy. The legitimate voice of the majority was mercilessly silenced through craftily-coined mechanisms, ensuring dominance by the status-quo proponents.

East Pakistan became Bangladesh, but we did not learn. The bitter setback suffered at the Kargil only precipitated another military takeover. Internally, the faulty mindset contributed to the emergence of a violence syndrome and, externally, it promoted the perception of a country embracing militant ideology and instruments to attain national objectives.

Having suffered endlessly at the hands of succeeding rulers, the unsuspecting people of Pakistan appear quite resigned to their fate. Their every-day struggle is survival which takes all of their time and most of their enthusiasm and energy. They are left with nothing to invest in any meaningful effort to improve their condition. Their existence depends on placating the thanedar and patwari – the power-wielders at the local level – who, patronised by the criminal ruling mafias, control their destinies.

They have been traumatised by the contrived emergence of ravaging gangs of militancy-spouting thugs who roam the streets garbed as saviours. For all their existence, they have hoped to be able to stand up for their rights, to be at peace with themselves, their fellow countrymen, their neighbours and their surroundings and to be able to invest in their progress and that of their coming generations in consonance with the parameters of civilised co-existence among people and among nations of the world.

By and large, they remain uneducated, unenlightened, economically-enslaved and socially and culturally traumatised. Their dreams perished a long time ago as they gradually wilted under the dictates of the criminal gangs who contrive a majority election-after-election. They remain grossly underprivileged and gruesomely deprived of even a miserly slice in the fruits of development. Left to the convicted prime minister, they should leave the country: “Why don’t they? Who is stopping them?”

Standing on these weak and crumbling pillars, the state of Pakistan is showing increasing signs of internal strife and external alienation. More is being demanded by powers, led by the US, with overriding stakes in the region as Pakistan has become increasingly afflicted with a diminishing capability and capacity syndrome. It is the natural consequence of a faulty policy paradigm. A major surgery is the likely remedy where most of its artificial attenuations may have to be amputated to control the spread of contagious infection.

For facilitating change, the basic ingredients will have to be improved with bravado giving way to sustainable logic and jingoism replaced with pragmatic policies that reflect the inherent strengths of the country and cater to addressing its weaknesses. Sprinkled with a heavy dose of legitimacy through all echelons of power, this should then go through the mill of time to cultivate trust and confidence of its people and partners alike. Suffering from a terrible dearth of good intentions and heavily plagued with confrontational politics and policies to the exclusion of accountability and acceptance of the rule of law, the dice seems heavily loaded against any imminent redemptive outcome as Pakistan continues to bleed at the hands of a corrupt leadership that, lacking in both vision and resolve, has been rendered effectively insolvent.
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