By Zafar Hilaly
When talking of our plight it is easy to blame Asif Zardari, a bipolar guy, if not worse. Nor should the political entertainment provided by our glitzy channels and gaudy anchors determine our agenda. For a start, most of us don’t make a living out of that fast food stuff which is served up, including Gurda-Kapoora prepared in ear-splitting Takatin style. ‘The print media should do a lot better’ says a friend. So, instead of sobbing over our condition better we look for solutions.
In our setting, the current hybrid political system has proved unworkable and infinitely corruptible. There are a lot of reasons for that; and it’s not only because our current leaders have taken a pledge not to tell the truth or that they are all corrupt and venal schizos. Very similar systems were tried in the past (1947-58) and 1988-99 and those too failed.
We don’t have the time to go about retooling the one we have, so it’s best to make do with what we’ve got. Although the system most suited to our genius is probably the Presidential one (with a free press et al) as we have a penchant for maximum leaders, which suits our feudal bent and the ‘cosa nostra’ like leadership pattern of our political parties.
That said, it’s not really how well crafted a constitution is that makes the difference. It’s the people who work it that matters more. Unfortunately, our political parties remain incapable of overcoming the suicidal animosities towards each other that has built up over many years of strife.
Nor has the deep antagonism between the military and the civilians given way to mutual respect and close cooperation for the collective good. Why else would an Army Chief issue a statement, as Kayani did recently, warning the government to belt up or face the consequences? Why else would the Army Chief brandish his swagger stick, as Waheed reportedly did, when prevailing on a prime minister and a president to quit their posts in 1992? For that matter, in which country have the army and air force chiefs been abducted at the behest of the president (ZA Bhutto), as Gul Hasan and Raheem Khan were in1972?
The continuing distrust deep between the civilians and the military makes less sense than it might have seemed some years ago. Today, neither side can take the hydra-headed bull by the horns on its own, certainly not the civilians whose political strength has been dissipated on petty power-games and much else.
We desperately need to gel as a coherent polity, develop traction in the economy, and repair the brakes on our steam- engine train before it takes us over the cliff’s edge as lemmings often do in an inscrutable act of collective suicide. Surely that’s not asking for the moon?
Our problems used to be democracy, the economy and national unity. They still are, but by nourishing extremists in our midst we have added to them and made matters a lot worse. So much so that extremism poses an existential threat to our country and is poised to strike at the core of our way of life and our social and political institutions.
Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel laureate, said that ‘the first step towards the dethronement of terror is the deflation of its hypocritical self righteousness’ but that’s too cerebral an approach for our deluded medieval fanatics (nor did it work in Nigeria). What is far more likely to work is a judicious mix of force and reason. But when it has to be force it must be overwhelming force, applied with a determination and bloody mindedness that will never leave the result or the resolve in any doubt.
More than five hundred years ago, Machiavelli reminded his readers that a nation cannot use patience and goodness to subdue enemies; it must exact vengeance and annihilate them lest their successors think twice of pursuing policies that risk the same response.
Instead, our response has been feeble. We fight back but seldom take the initiative. It took the occupation of all of Swat by the Taliban to get us moving against them. Similarly, in South Waziristan; and even in North Waziristan, where admittedly the situation is more complex, we have not yet shown much initiative. Instead, we seem prone to striking deals with the enemy, and at times, releasing those captured in the futile hope of earning their favor or because in reality, the judges are too terrified to convict them. There are many excuses we proffer for pulling our punches but what is really infuriating is the excuse that the enemy ‘are our own people, albeit, misguided and deluded’. In fact, they are as much ‘our own people’ as are our serial murderers, who deservedly get the noose whenever they are caught.
We have the advantage over the TTP when it comes to weaponry, manpower and resources but that is not always reflected in the outcome of the fighting. The public, for instance, is told but seldom shown evidence of enemy casualties. Unless that happens, no one will buy stories about our victories and successes. In the kind of war we are fighting, all the enemy needs to show is that he is alive and kicking and able to bounce back.
We cannot afford to obfuscate and pursue pusillanimous policies because they have landed us in deep waters, both internally and externally. Yes, the Americans by their ham-handedness have made matters worse, but the problems were already there thanks to the strategic concepts we pursued against Afghanistan and India, our use of non state groups as surrogates, and the problems of governance and economic mismanagement that have dogged us for so many years.
The fact is that parts of our territory remain a source of serious threat to other countries, including China our only ally, which now finds itself facing a growing problem in Xinjiang, mainly because of the use of our territory by their extremists who continue to operate in alliance with al Qaeda and our Taliban in the tribal belt.
This is a double whammy for us—because it threatens to undermine our critical relationship with China and also because western China is our long term economic life-line, the one thing that could help to transform our economy and put it on a solid footing over the long run. And it is not just China that has been affected by our inabilities and inanities. The tribal belt also poses a threat to many countries, including our other Central Asian neighbors. This is not to say that removing this strategic threat to our sovereignty and internal recovery is a simple matter. Unfortunately it isn’t, but it is one that must concentrate our minds and bring us together.
Meanwhile managing the US-Pak relationship so that it does not get out of hand is something that deserves a lot of attention. Excessive and distractive anti-Americanism won’t do anymore. Of course the Americans too must be serious about resetting ties with us in the light of all that has happened and the precarious situation in which we find ourselves. But they don’t seem to care perhaps because know they have us in their grip and can squeeze us till the pips squeak--- so great is our reliance on their largesse and goodwill.
So in addition to generating national unity, restoring the economy and providing a modicum of good governance, our next leader will also have to do a much better job of tackling extremism and the challenges of overcoming the suffocating and increasingly humiliating American embrace.
And if it is to be Imran Khan, he should spend less time in the muddy dangal grappling with his oily opponents and more on turning his party and his advisers into a cohesive team to tackle the daunting issues. And rather than give one liners he must engage with the other players, including the establishment, on how he proposes to do that. That would be a far more sensible investment than to suck up to has-beens or wannabe’s or to appear too often in fast-food political talk shows.
The writer is a former diplomat.
