Can Pakistan Work?

Romair,

Your constant attempt to present the `religious parties` as the party of the masses is beyond me ... living here in Pakistan I just don`t see it... MMA does not represent the `havenots`... PPP has that vote bank... some 3 times as much without even the presence of its leadership.... MMA`s votebank (significantly less than PPP) was based on the anti-American sentiment and the registration of Afghan Pushtuns... Now you can say all you want about how the rural vote is skewed by the feudals... fine but ask any thelay wallah, any sweeper, any chaprasi, any naib qasid, any rehri wallah and they will say PPP.

Furthermore the `religious parties` have never forwarded any agenda of the masses? Trying to ban the car token tax or the fire arms licence fee was hardly the agenda of the `havenots`.... forcing people to pray is hardly the agenda of the havenots... Colluding with a Military dictator to pass the 17th amendment was hardly the agenda of the havenots...

My dear friend ... it will be much better if you don`t write such things with such awesome conviction.... when you don`t have anything to back it up with...

-YLH

re ijaz_gul #35:

Let`s say I had to golf at Gymkhana`s golf course and I had both Ghulam Rasool and Mike Cowan(Tiger`s ex-caddy) available. Which one would I choose? I`d say Ghulam Rasool because the guy has spent most of his adult life there and knows the course like the back of his hand. Now let`s say I have the same choice but I am playing at Pinehurst. Ghulam Rasool I am afraid doesn`t make the cut here. Same thing with native writers. I`d be more than happy to give more credence to the gentlemen you`ve mentioned in your post with regard to Pakistan but I am not sure if we are playing at the same course! I hope you get my drift.

``But would it stand the test of an apriori, let alone demarcation or epistomology``

Good point. A gentleman by the name of Ravi Batra wrote a book titled ``The Great Depression of 1990`` in the late 80`s. The book was a runaway bestseller and earned Prof. Batra a lot of fame. Needless to say the events of the 90s proved him to be completely wrong. However if you check his website, he is still actively ``forecasting`` and defending his thesis. Does anyone listen to him? I am sure they do...at their own peril. Same thing with Mr. Cohen, it would behoove those who are criticisizing him and Prof. Hoodbhoy to present counter arguments and let time tell who is right and who is wrong. Casting aspersions on the motives of the people involved or questioning the the patriotism of expats will not do anyone any good.

later
-sac

Another baraat with lots of band-baajas and hulla-gullas but with doolah missing!
Pakistan will survive but the military will remain firmly in saddle as long as Pakistani awaam buy the idea of continuous rivalry with India. When they give up this rivalry, they would become another nation like Canada where the civil society rules.

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Thanks, Parvez Hoobhoy for bringing this discussion to the Chowk.

Cohen`s review seems very reasonable. Musharraf right now is the only hope for saving Pakistan from Chaos. Hopefully, he will be able to educate, cajole or coerce the deluded Pakistanis from heading headlong in to the disintegration.

The most important changes that need to be effected in Pakistan are preventing the Masjids to get the public funds, tightening the educational requirements with emphasis on modernity and quality to put the madarsas out of business of education, separate state from religion`s pernicious influence by adopting the principles of equality - initially for all sects of Islam and sequentially and necessarily of all religions - and finally working for the improvement of the lot of the deprived and poor.

Above can be achieved only when Pakistanis clearly enunciate the objective as betterment of the financial lot rather than delusory religious dogmas and/or competition with India.

Dear Nikki,
That explains why the juggernaut massed up on our border and didnt have the you-know-what to cross over....

besides probably half of your army is malnourished and incapable of waging combat...just like the cricket team :)

Dear Mantolives (#49 by Mantolives on October 20, 2004 10:02am PT)

Romair`s prophecy of war between ``haves`` and ``have nots`` is out of Soviet-era, and communist Chinese era. It has no relevance to modern times. I also think that Romair cannot stand negative criticisms, from inside or outside, of the armed forces of Pakistan and the religion of his choice. He promptly tries to diffuse the criticisms to include wider sections. From some readings of essays and discussions that I have had with my Pakistani friends, it seems that Pakistani army is not just a defensive organization in Pakistan. It has evolved its role in constructing economic, and social fabric of Pakistan society. Another progressive aspect is that Pakistani armed forces are more secular in nature than Pakistani society at large.

Therefore, don`t you think that it would be better for democratic forces in Pakistan to accept this fact. And possibly use it as the start line, and force democratization, and transformation of economic, educational and social organs and institutions that Pakistani army has created and at the same time these democratic forces can insist on spreading secular theme of Pakistani army into society at large through the cooperation from Paksitani armed forces.

In case of economic institutions, for instance demand could be to rid armed forces monopoly, and allow market forces to takeover and come into play. As far as educational and social institutions created by Pakistani armed forces, make them to open and accept civilians as well. Why destroy something which is good, instead let it also train better Pakistanis for non-military roles too and work for the greater good of the society.

Once the above processes start and armed forces role in non-defense area diffuses and transformation of various institutions that attract people aspiring for non-military roles too, I feel armed forces role will automatically start to devolve back into defending the country. many times it is not worth taking the bull by the horn, but sapping its sources of energy and diffusing them constructively is more sensible strategy.

I somehow think that Mushraff is doing an excellent job, in helping this transformation, and he probably sees that the threat to Paksitan is from within and not from outside. Although, there may be a danger of ``renting`` Pakistan to foreign interests, in the game plan he is playing. I also think that evolution of Pakistani institutions is destined to pass through a transformation from a military organization first. There is nothing wrong with this process, as long as it happens. Love to know your views and those of others with progressive thoughts.

Anil

Ref nikki7777 #48

On the other hand, Pakistan has a friend with the following statistics:

Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age

Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 379,524,688

Military expenditures - dollar figure: $60 billion (2003 est.)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 3.5-5.0% (FY03 est.)

And as you so aptly pointed out on another board, these guys have both their ba!!s intact whereas our men seem to be handing over theirs to Sonia Gandhi.

Ref dost-mittar #51

[Pakistan will survive but the military will remain firmly in saddle as long as Pakistani awaam buy the idea of continuous rivalry with India. When they give up this rivalry, they would become another nation like Canada where the civil society rules.]

No, they would become another nation like Turkmenistan where Turkmenbashi Saparmurat Niyazov was elected President for Life. No, Turkmenbashi does not mean ``he who bashes the Turkmen`` though that is actually what he does. It is supposed to mean something like ``Father of the Turkmen`` which might quite possibly have been true if he had started on a particular vocation when he was younger.

Canada is Pakistan for people like Romair.... their dream country where the people are disciplined, a few ``moderate`` Muslim MPs get elected, they can go to Gerard Street in Toronto for their badaa khaanas and chhota pegs but their women still wear black burqas.

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anil

I would be indebted if you elaborate how you have reached the conclusion that Pakistan army is more secular secular in nature than Pakistani society at large. [The army constitutes the bulk of the armed forces and calls the shots, the the other services are orphans at worst, shamil bajas at best!]

So far as the religio-political orientation of Pakistani society is concerned, suffice it to say that in all the elections so far held, even those that were massively rigged and tinkered with, the popular vote captured by the so-called ``religious political`` parties was far, far less than those captured by those parties who did not stylize themselves as thakaydaars of religion.

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There has been talk of Pakistan`s ``burgeoning`` middle class, and its increasing purchasing power during the past five years.

One would have been much enlightened if one had been given a definition of this middle class in terms of their monthly take-home salary packets.

The ground realities in Pakistan indicate a situation that is the exact opposite. The white collar worker, who constitutes the largest phalanx of taxpayers has been thoroughly impoverished.

The financial institutions in Pakistan, quite a few of them still state-owned, have been plagued by a glut of liquidity that simply refuses to abate. Investment in large scale industry, small and medium scale manufacturing is at a low, and the banks have been constrained to offer credit even for white goods such as refrigerators, deep freezers, television receivers and vacuum cleaners which as a category were never financed by banks till very recently.

If this constitutes an increase in the middle class``` buying power, so be it.

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There has been much talk about ``enlightened moderation`` too.

The infamous Hudood Ordinance, the Blasphemy Law as well as the other abominations implanted into Pakistan`s Penal Code by the Zia military usurpation are still enshrined in the Statute Books. The Qisas and Diyat Law of 1990 is being amended to make the misnamed ``honour`` killings compoundable.

And of course, in the name of ``enlightened moderation`` the MMA was cobbled together weeks before the 2002 General Elections, and in the name of the selfsame ``enlightened moderation``, Maulana Fazlur Rahman was granted the status of the Leader of the Opposition.

With a view to accelerate the pace of this ``enlightened moderation``, curriculum reform, a long standing demand of the education practitioners was unceremoniously scuttled, and Javed Ashraf Qazi, former head honcho of the enlightened and moderate ISI was made Federal Minister for Education!

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Come to think of it, shouldn`t the article in question be titled ``Can Pakistan be made to work?``

Or do we subscribe or are just hostages to the spontaneous dynamic of events external to and foreign to our collective will?

Cohen`s analysis, of necessity will be from a standpoint that cannot be congruent with the perceptions and vision of the Pakistanis.

What should the Pakistanis do to make Pakistan work, and to make up for three generations of peace and prosperity that has already been lost?

To the naysayers of pakistan i say this: this article reminded me of tariq ali`s book in the 70s called, `Can Pakistan Survive?` and his hypothesis was it couldn`t and now 30 years later, alhamdulillah, it is still surviving (it`s on life support but still hanging on in there.)

i believe there are only two ways to solve pakistan`s problems: (1) a genuine islamic revolution led by a moderate mainstream muslim (eg a sincere version of tahirul qadri) --but i don`t think that`s going to happen until imam mahdi alayhisalam`s appearance so the probability of this happening before the Mahdi is sufficiently close to zero to be negligible and

(2) genuine democratic reform of the political process leading eventually to our own unique brand of islamic democracy and not a mere attempt to lift a european concept and force it onto the people of pakistan where it doesn`t belong. but we can learn a few things from india such as their respect for democracy as far as the actual process of electing/removing political leaders is concerned. this can perhaps be achieved best by a pakistani muhatthir muhammad or (1) above...

the alternative is to continue along as we have been doing in limbo for the foreseeable future...

This is another typical rant by Dr. Hoodbhoy. No surprises there then. (His thesis: Everything Western = Good; Everything Islamic = Bad).

But what gets me annoyed is not him but the people on here who have always criticised Musharraf for being a dictator, who hate dictators, who think that democracy is the best thing since sliced bread (and i am not criticising it) but just because Busharaf is anti-Islam they have the gall to say that `oh the fact that he is a murdering dictator are not important since his ECONOMIC reforms are good...`

The sheer hypocrisy!

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SAC and HP,
Good points and I agree. There was one Schumann who in 1947 predicted that Pakistan would fall apart in 50 years. His central theme was the currupt fuedals who had rallied around Jinnah. Though East Pakistan broke away, Pakistan did not fall apart.

In my article on the State and civil Society, I had concluded the foibles of Pakistan and proposed that the state open more spaces for the society in the spirit of instrumentalism and pluralism. This is a more patriotic way of suggesting an evolving devolutionary process that ultimately leads to a pragmatic Pakistan. It means the same.

What I dont like about HB is that he picks up themes with the currents of the western perception. Rather than become a more dedicated teacher of physics in the QAU, he wastes so much time on this stuff. The biggest bluff is, and his friend Nayyer`s desire to suddenly change the education system in Pakistan. Why? because uncle Sam wants it, or that he has good friends with Cohen, Kreppon or Rocca who is touring Pakistan and would surely give him audience.

By the way, the matric and FSC syllabus in Pakistan is far superior to the US high school system. These kids compete with the A levels and do well.Just because they feel that history is framed and there is talk of Jihad in Islamyiat etc, they are condemning the whole system.

Cheerios

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