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Editorial A failed state? Descent
into chaos agenda
Politicians
against themselves Signs
of failure Editorial We at TNS did not want to use the term. Not even with a question mark. “Failed state” does not quite fall within the purview of indigenous analysis, we thought. This is an outsider’s way of looking at countries of the world; the think-tanks based in “successful states” formulating definitions and attributes and indicators that categorise countries accordingly. We were wary of this kind of analysis. And for obvious reasons: for the last many years Pakistan continues to be included in the top 10 or 12 countries that are on high alert among the list of failed or failing states. Though within the country, this might be news for many. The discourse within the country literally shunned the term for all domestic purposes. Externally, we did recognise failed countries among Sudan and Somalia and Zimbabwe. When some voices from the Middle East or North Africa recently referred to their countries being reduced to the status of an Afghanistan or Pakistan, it surprised us no end. Afghanistan yes but not us. We are a viable democracy with regular elections and all. We have functioning institutions. We’re the most philanthropic people, Pakistanis keep telling each other. Of the endless list, their last refuge: no harm could come to a country created in the name of Islam. In recent months, though, things just happened one after the other in a way that we were, like others, forced to ask the question: Is Pakistan a failed state? Up until now, we were familiar with our problems. Balochistan, we knew, was a sore point. Fata bled and bled others because of what we made of it. We allowed others (our own countrymen) to deny this country federalism, secularism, democracy and linguistic diversity. Extremism, we thought, was a temporary phase. Our distorted history and textbooks were scary and we knew we had forgotten to laugh without a sense of guilt. We understood the challenges posed by the “national, non-pluralistic agenda” of the establishment. We despaired of our increasingly irrelevant political parties. Nor were we all too happy with our economists who lacked political commitment and pretended to act as mere technicians. Somehow we thought we shall leave this all behind and move ahead. The political commentators placed a lot of faith in Pakistan’s silent majority. The people here had after all, unlike other countries in the Muslim world, managed to oust dictators and autocrats through popular uprisings. But if Salmaan Taseer’s murder shocked us, what shook the ground from under our feet was the reaction of the silent voices who celebrated his murderer. Anybody who lives here could see the slide with his own eyes. Shahbaz Bhatti’s killing came about in exactly two months and the silent response is almost deafening. Pakistani state has failed none other than its own people. In Faisalabad. In Peshawar. Everywhere. We have just put on our pages some sane suggestions, to stem this downward slide, if someone is willing to heed.
A failed state? The old implicit social contract has given way to an explicit play up of religiosity and extremism, leading to violent assertiveness and social and regional divisiveness. Religion has divided, rather than united, the people. A new social contract is therefore the crying need of the day By Dr Pervez Tahir Extremism, militancy, political uncertainty and economic instability have played havoc with our social fabric. Under the banner of Aman Ittehad (United for Peace), a large group of civil society organisations from across the country has for the past two years conducted a dialogue on critical issues of peace and prosperity. The deliberations have brought up the need for a new social contact. What must be the elements of this new social contract? At the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan inherited a constitution in the form of the Government of India Act. A Pakistani constitution should have followed, reflecting mutually beneficial rights and obligations and a code of morality embodied in the constitution of a Pakistani society. Before this could happen, constitutions informed by the implicit social contract embedded in the All India Muslim League rhetoric were made and unmade. With the establishment taking over early to set up a national, non-pluralistic agenda, an informal, unwritten constitution of the state gained pre-eminence. The old implicit social contract, derived from liberal Muslim aspirations of the first half of the 20th century, and reflected in varying degrees in several constitutions after independence, has broken down. In fact, the state created to reflect this social contract fell apart in 1971. It has taken another four decades to demolish the underlying social contract. The implicit social contract has given way to an explicit play up of religiosity and extremism, leading to violent assertiveness and social and regional divisiveness. Religion has divided, rather than united, the people. This has come sharply into focus in recent months with Pakistan rapidly relapsing into the state of nature where no social contract exists. Behind the façade of the familiar pillars of the state - legislature, executive and judiciary - operate, with impunity, the predatory forces of exploitation, opportunism, discrimination and exclusion. Even the so-called Fourth Estate has contributed to this chaos in no small measure. The Left is not even shouting, the Right is employing the language of violence, and the Centre has disappeared or is silent as if in acquiescence. The Pakistan society is in ferment. A new social contract is the crying need of the day. The previous social contract was built around the security of the state: citizens were made to surrender some liberty to preserve the integrity and solidarity of the territorial state. It ignored the first duty of the state to protect the dignity, life, liberty and property of its citizens. It disregarded the second duty of the state to treat all its citizens equally and fairly and to redress inequity through an independent judiciary. It had no respect for the third duty of the state to ensure effective delivery of public services, particularly, education and health. It did not care much for the fourth duty of the state to ensure decent livelihoods and social assistance for those unable to find work or not able to work at all. In short, human security has for far too long been subordinated to state security. The failure to provide the former has been the undoing of the later. If citizens are disinclined to pay what is due to the state, reflected in the chronically low share of taxes in the gross domestic product, they are only expressing a lack of confidence in the state and a dying social contract. Human security can only be ensured by a transition from the national security state to a welfare state. The present state of nature must be replaced by a civil society in which rights create a sense of moral obligation between individuals, and the state and individuals. The new social contract will have to be explicit rather than implicit and agreed by the representatives of the entire strata of the population: I. Life of dignity for all citizens, especially the culturally, socially, politically and systemically excluded II. Freedom to practice one’s religion without let or hindrance; the state shall have nothing to do with religion; all discriminatory laws to be repealed; rejection of all forms of religious extremism III. Rejection of all forms of violence; none but the public officials allowed to keep weapons IV. Indivisibility of peace within and without: peace and trade treaties with the neighbouring countries and cross-sectional peace committees in each union council V. Democratic and participatory governance at federal, provincial, local and grassroots levels VI. Right of the electorate to recall its non-performing representatives at all levels of government VII. Election to reserved seats for women, minorities on the basis of proportional representation VIII. Direct elections for the senate IX. Freedom to form new provinces for any reason - cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious, administrative, economic - supported by the majority of the concerned group of people expressed in a referendum X. People of FATA should be asked in a referendum to vote for either joining an existing province or for a new province XI. Federal-provincial relations respecting provincial autonomy in political as well as fiscal space. XII. Abolition of centralised service groups; provinces and local governments should have their own service groups and the federal government should borrow officers from the provinces on the basis of agreed quotas XIII. Independent judiciary to ensure justice to all, rule of law that holds everyone accountable, and due process XIV. The rollback of the State must end, with its resources reprioritised away from national security and towards ensuring equity through institutionalised response to preserve the rights to livelihood, health and education, justice and human dignity. XV. Citizens have natural and constitutional right under the social contract. They also have duties, the most important being the duty not to infringe upon the rights of other citizens, pay taxes, respect just laws and sanctity of contracts and defend community. The breakdown of social contract occurs whenever power concentrates excessively in some pillars of the state or institutions, and in the private sector in the form of monopolies and cartels. Sustaining the social contract requires checks and balances and fair distribution of power and resources. Descent into chaos By Waqar Gillani Javed Ahmed Ghamidi , a sane voice among religious scholars, has been threatened out of this country, just like scholar and political philosopher Fazlur Rehman was in the 1960s. When two of Ghamidi’s colleagues were killed last year, he decided to quietly leave the country. Still optimistic about the future of this country, he shares his thoughts with TNS on telephone. TNS: How do you assess the
current situation of Pakistan? Is it leading Pakistan towards becoming a
failed state? Javed Ahmed Ghamidi: I am an optimistic person and I don’t think that Pakistan is a failing or failed state. However, I fear if we did not improve the situation and revise our policies, we would move to such a situation. The kind of role our governments, religious and political parties, security and intelligence agencies and bureaucracy are playing needs to be reviewed. The time has come to learn from past mistakes and to make Pakistan a torch-bearer of peace and prosperity. Otherwise we may proceed towards total anarchy. TNS: Why have we come to such a pass? JAG: It is because of the role of different governments in the past several years: the way religious parties have been used for political purposes; the way the sacred act of jihad has been misused with the kind of activities which do not fall in the jurisdiction of jihad. These are some of the major reasons that have instilled fear in people’s minds and are leading us towards anarchy. TNS: What is the role of religion and religious groups in the current anarchic situation of Pakistan? JAG: Such a wave of religiosity is present in every part of the world. There are many Islamic countries in the world which are framing religion-oriented policies. However, the way we are using religion in Pakistan is leading us towards chaos. There are three strong traditions in our Islamic countries which are strictly followed -- the state controls mosques, Friday sermons and education up to 12 years. However, we are doing exactly the opposite. We are operating like state within a state. And all these three things are out of state’s control. If we survey Islamic countries, we see that religiosity pre-dominantly prevails but here this religiosity, because of loose control, is causing anarchy and law and order problems. These mosques and sermons are being used for promoting sectarianism and have become hubs to be used for political purposes. In Pakistan, education system is totally uncontrolled up to 12 years whether it’s the madrassas or English medium schools. TNS: Do you think religious parties can take over at some point? JAG: Though religious parties have the power to overturn things but chances of their takeover are very few. Religious parties can take the situation towards anarchy and at the brink of collapse. But they do not have the capability to take over. They are fully capable of creating anarchy or have their say or managing the fulfillment of their agenda for which the issue of blasphemy, in the recent past, is a clear example. TNS: Are political parties playing their due role in resolving these issues? JAG: Political parties are totally distorted. They are just trying to please the religious forces by bending to their demands but they don’t have their own opinion on important religious issues. This opportunism is going on since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s regime when larger goals were missed for short-term political benefits. It is important that political parties come up with clear religious thoughts and agenda and bring that agenda in public to get their support rather than getting blackmailed by religious parties. TNS: What must be done? JAG: The military and bureaucratic establishment has to immediately and clearly take the position that they would not use the religious groups as their tools to attain certain objectives. The other solution is to be made by politicians -- as to what kind of religious thought they want in Pakistan; Allama Iqbal’s religious philosophy or this destructive approach of today’s religious parties. TNS: Do you see a political and administrative willingness to understand issues and taking steps to resolve them? JAG: Not at all. The rulers are following the policy of avoid and escape. They are continuously denying ground realities. Sane voices are being silenced or threatened to leave the country. No signs of improvement are in the scene yet. But it does not mean we should lose hope. I believe there are many faces in the parties who want to change the system and they are quiet and not raising their voices. I believe we should not stop making efforts. vaqargillani@gmail.co agenda Plural society, monolithic state The imperative of building a new nation that negated the recognition of multiplicity and imposed the fictional idea of one nation, one religion and one culture By Rubina Saigol When Pakistan appeared on the world map in 1947 as an independent country, it was an ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse entity composed of multiple identities. At least five ethnic/linguistic groups - Bengalis, Pakhtuns, Balochis, Sindhis and Punjabis - comprised the major constituents, while a number of smaller linguistic and ethnic groups, within the larger units, represented a segmented and layered society typical of other South Asian nations such as India. The five main components voluntarily joined the new country albeit after some internal conflicts over whether or not to join the emerging nation. The multiplicity of language, religion, culture and interests required several measures. Firstly, it was imperative that the new state should have a federal structure with equality between the federating units. Secondly, the recognition of plural interests necessitated a democratic state wherein the competing interests and aspirations of all the nationalities could be accommodated. Thirdly, it was essential for the state to be secular so that religious diversity could be acknowledged without privileging one religion over others. Fourth, all the languages spoken in the new state needed to be recognised without prioritising a single language as the national one. However, the imperative of building a new nation out of highly diverse realities negated the recognition of multiplicity and imposed the fictional idea of one nation, one religion and one culture which, understandably, led to resistance movements against the false homogenisation by an increasingly authoritarian state. One by one Pakistan failed to take any of the measures that were indispensable to keep together a country feebly stitched together by tenuous bonds. Negation of federalism The Pakistan Resolution adopted in March 1940 had declared that the federating units would be autonomous and sovereign. Maximum provincial autonomy was envisaged with the provinces having control over their resources and governance. This was negated several times over in various ways. A highly-centralised government in West Pakistan repeatedly denied the rights of the federating units with conflicts ensuing in former East Pakistan, Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa. The exploitation of the resources of the provinces, coupled with uneven development and the failure to recognise the principle of autonomy, finally led to separatist movements. The refusal of the West Pakistani civil and military rulers to acknowledge the right of the Awami League to run the country after it had overwhelmingly won the election of 1970, culminated in the break-up of what was always a fragile union. The creation of One Unit in 1955 was a denial of the autonomy and rights of the units that comprised West Pakistan, and this step fomented dissent among a disillusioned population, thus further loosening the precarious bond based on a specific version of one religion. Denial of democracy The concept of democracy, in its ideal sense, contains the capacity to accommodate and reconcile competing interests and rights. Uninterrupted democracy, however messy and unpredictable, nevertheless has a much better chance than authoritarian rule to uphold the diversity that characterises society. If democracy had been allowed to flourish in Pakistan, a mature leadership would eventually emerge to allow the full expression of plural interests while keeping the units together. However, Pakistan was subjected to prolonged ‘states of exception’ when martial rule suspended all basic rights and freedoms and centralised the state by resorting to arguments based on religion, survival and national security. One consequence was enhanced disintegration and alienation from the state that seemed to serve interests external to its own citizenry. Ayub Khan’s repeated appeals to forget that we are Bengalis, Pathans, Sindhis, Balochis or Punjabis and to remember only that we are all Muslims and Pakistanis are a case in point. Many citizens could not identify with ‘Muslim’ for they were not Muslims, and others became even more attached to their older ethnic identities when the new identity of Pakistani was unable to deliver on its promises. Rejection of a secular ethos Pakistan consisted of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis - an array of religious identities at the time of its birth. Even among Muslims there was a daunting diversity of sects, beliefs and interpretations. Religious plurality required the state to be secular so that it could treat its citizens as equals. The reality on the ground implied that no law, policy, procedure or order be formulated with reference to any religion for it would lead to exclusion, the very antithesis of democracy. But the interests of a small but powerful elite prevailed and the Objectives Resolution was passed in 1949 overriding the fears and concerns of the non-Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly. This paved the way for religion to be used as a prime instrument of forced homogenisation by successive civil and military governments. Over time, a singular, narrow and literalist interpretation of religion became dominant and increasingly violent, even murdering those who dared to differ. Erasure of linguistic diversity A country that boasted the presence of multiple languages needed to recognise and respect all its regional languages as a measure of the equality of all citizens. Since language is the repository of culture, thought and collective memory of a group, it is central in the consolidation of identity and the vehicle of consciousness. The denial of the status of equality can potentially lead to the atrophy of the underprivileged language. By declaring Urdu, a language spoken by only 4 per cent of Pakistanis at that time, the Pakistani state alienated all its nationalities and in 1952 resistance to this move arose in former East Pakistan. Bengali was the language of the majority, yet it was relegated to a secondary status. The language conflict went a long way in engendering linguistic nationalism which culminated with the liberation of Bangladesh. Our history shows that the consistent attempts to impose a monolithic, centralised state upon a plural and diverse society led to disastrous consequences for the country. Ironically, the very attempt at nation-building through the imposition of one religion led to the fractures and fissures that now threaten to break Pakistan apart. Politicians against themselves It might have been possible to enjoy the suicidal dance of the politicians if it were possible to banish the fear that our children may not be able to pay the bill By I. A. Rehman The gruesome killing of Shahbaz Bhatti and its aftermath has thoroughly exposed the bankruptcy of the country’s political elite. It has been found wanting not only in capacity to prevent a disaster but also in ability to manage its fallout. That an important member of the federal cabinet was brutally cut down in broad day light in the capital city, that is swarming with more law-enforcing personnel per square meter than any other settlement in the country, and this soon after the assassination of the Punjab Governor, did surely raise questions about the efficiency of the security paraphernalia. While it is probably true that if a group of militants has decided to eliminate a person, even at the cost of their lives, the task of protecting the target becomes nearly impossible. But this argument could not be offered in the instant case as a big security lapse was clearly evident. There was some justification for taking the Interior Ministry to task but the demand for the resignation of the Minister concerned seemed urealistic on two counts. First, it was premised on the assumption that ministers still possess some real power over officials supposed to be working under them. Secondly, the demand was rooted in an ancient concept of ministerial responsibility for unsavoury incidents in their departments, a concept that became obsolete in Pakistan long ago. Nevertheless, an inquiry is still required to determine as to who slipped up and why. The explanations offered so far carry little weight. The Interior Minister’s wail that some other party had not been effective in security matters did not bring credit to him. The story that Mr Bhatti himself had dispensed with his guards in preference for his own plan to spend nights at a supposedly unmarked place did not absolve the security authorities of their responsibility. After all security people are seen all the time telling the dignitaries under their charge what they cannot do. Did anyone high in authority warn Mr Bhatti of the risks he was running? All such questions need to be answered. But security lapse was not the sole issue raised by terrorist acts in Islamabad. The excessive importance given to this aspect of the ghastly affair could only be attributed to the decline in the quality of national politics. On one side stands the PPP government whose acts of omission and wrongdoings have created a climate in which it does not get credit for anything good it may off and on manage to accomplish and is blamed for everything that goes wrong more than it might have deserved. On the other side are quite a few groups that have apparently launched their election campaigns and some of them are posing as if they are going to come into power day after tomorrow. From one corner comes a call for the armed forces to take matters in their hands and clean the stables. The lesson learnt by Pakistanis at a terrible cost that the military never acts in any other party’s interest seems to have been forgotten. A soothsayer is predicting that a large party will have no place in the cabinet if the Prime Minister’s doli moves from one Multan haveli to another. One also hears a plea, made in all seriousness, that the politicians, the judiciary and the army should sit together to find a way out of the national crisis. Such proposals may be helpful in ingratiating oneself with institutions that should have nothing to do with politics, they clearly amount to politicians’ abdication of responsibilities only they can discharge. One is constrained to admit that the politicians of Pakistan, who were always supported by democrats in their confrontation with dictatorship, are now looking more and more like the chess players of Lucknow who had no time to observe the march of Company’s forces towards their Nawab’s palace. The leaders of all political parties seem to have missed, some more than others, the grave political implications of Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder. The event must be seen in the context of the surge in excesses against the non-Muslim communities and citizens, from social and economic discrimination against them to forced conversions, target-killings and blasts at their prayer houses. It is not only the minorities’ future that is threatened, at stake are Pakistan’s democratic polity, its integrity and its people’s mental heath. Pakistan will not remain livable for any sane person if minority-bashing is not stopped soon, cleanly and firmly. Are our politicians alive to the danger? And if they are what are they doing to avoid the catastrophe? It is time the politicians, those in power as well as those competing for the crown, realized that they cannot fulfill their obligation to defend and promote the rights of the minorities, which indeed amounts to protecting the rights of the entire Pakistani nation, by parroting out some constitutional provisions or recalling some observations of the state’s founding father whom they have totally disowned. Nor will the policy of offering palliatives to non-Muslim victims of violence carry us any far. What the times demand is a concerted action by all political parties, at least those who do not seek salvation by butchering people in the name of belief, to promote communal harmony on the basis of equality of citizens regardless of belief. At the same time the political parties need to realize that the storm clouds gathering on the horizon have no favourites among them. All of them are threatened. They have suffered much in the past by persisting in the folly of treating one another as their greater enemies than the elements that are hostile to all of them. Neither they nor Pakistan can afford a reproduction of this sordid play. The time for such costly pastimes is over. It is the irrational antics of politicians that allow their rivals in the state an open field to play and cause Pakistan to be labelled a failed state. The state is a method of managing a human collective; it cannot fail or succeed by itself; when it does not work as well as expected the fault lies not in it but in its human masters, the rulers and the ruled both. Unfortunately most of the political actors on the national stage seem to be inebriated with self-righteousness. Each one of them invites all others to join him apparently in the belief that he alone can guide the stragglers on to the path of salvation. In the absence of legitimate political activity and in view of a near total alienation from the people the shepherds without flocks have only developed oversized egos and lost the ability to look beyond their narrow interests. In the present situation looking for a way out of the quagmire by changing the federation’s chief executive or by including this group or that in the ruling coalition or by holding snap elections is an exercise in self-delusion. Nothing short of a national consensus on the democratic essentials of the polity and a united front against the demons of violence and intolerance can help Pakistan regain its respect in the comity of responsible nations. The political parties are unlikely to see this road to safety without effective goading by the people. There should be a movement to mobilize the people to act in self-interest and stop watching he farce being staged before them. It might have been possible to enjoy the suicidal dance of the politicians if it were possible to banish the fear that our children may not be able to pay the bill.
Down and out in the South-West Balochistan has been and continues to be a major political challenge for the federal governments of Pakistan - civilian or military. One manifestation of which is that the province is under the grip of an insurgency and remains largely off limits to the media. The grievances of the biggest province, in terms of area, mainly stem from economic deprivation and disempowerment of local populations in the development process, such as the Gwadar Port. Target killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in a face-off with Musharraf’s military regime in 2006 and rape of Dr Shazia Khalid in 2005 added fuel to the fire of insurgency in Balochistan. In this backdrop, it remains to be seen if the reconciliation process started by the democratic dispensation of PPP in the shape of Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan eventually bears fruit. Infinite number of people With an estimated population of over 170m people in 2010, Pakistan ranks as the sixth biggest country of the world in terms of population. That is an ‘improvement’ over the statistics in early 1994 when the population of Pakistan was estimated to be 126 million, making it the ninth most populous country in the world. Efforts to contain population growth had started as early as the 1950s. Later, the government began to fund the association and planned to reduce population growth in its First Five-Year Plan (1955-60). Today, efforts by the government and donor-funded NGOs are on to contain the rate of population growth, which is among the world’s highest. According to CIA World Factbook, Pakistan’s population growth rate is estimated to be 1.589 per cent this year. Understandably, Economic Survey of Pakistan 2009-2010, shows an increase of merely 0.4 per cent in the per capita income of Pakistan. That establishes a clear link between population growth rate and increase in per capita income. Case for medicines and books Education and health sectors have been low on the priority list of governments, partly owing to absence of a proper planning and partly owing to budgetary constraints. That explains why governments have spent only around two per cent of the GDP on education during the last decade or so, though they planned to increase it to the ambitious seven per cent digit. The situation in the health sector is not very different. The government has allocated Rs16.945 billion for the health sector under the PDSP for this fiscal year 2010-2011. The amount allocated for this year is Rs6 billion less than that allocated in year 2009-10, which amounts to 27 per cent less. Despite considerable assistance from foreign donors, such as the US and other agencies, there is a lot to be done in these two sectors. Human flight According to UNHCR, Pakistan continues to host about 1.7 million refugees from Afghanistan, in addition to 3.6 million Afghans repatriated with UNHCR’s assistance since March 2002. Pakistan also has to brace with the internal displacement of people. The war on terror since the early 2000s, massive earthquake of 2005, and recent floods in 2010 caused a huge number of people from within Pakistan to relocate themselves, some 1,550,000, according to data released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) on November 26, 2010. UNHCR’s latest data about Pakistan says there are 1,894,557 IDPs, out of which 1,106,396 have returned to their homes. Internal displacement has taken place in Fata, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan since 2004. While the displacement increased since 2007, the crisis multiplied during the floods of July-August 2010. Women issue Everyday is a bad day for most women in Pakistan. This is one aspect common among all the countries on the failed state index and therefore a significant indicator of how poorly a country is doing. We have had certain landmarks. We recently passed a Women Workplace Harassment bill, which will make sexual harassment at work illegal; there is a record increase in the number of women in educational institutes, working and legislating in the parliament - the Speaker of the National Assembly, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, several provincial and cabinet ministers, heads of departments at universities are women. However, the situation on ground is as poor as it is in Congo, Afghanistan and sometimes even Somalia. Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill, 2009 has not yet been passed. The judicial apparatus and laws, especially family laws to seek divorce and child custody, are still challenging for women. No vacancy Whenever we get a chance to sift through our mail inbox, me come across scores of incoming messages marked unread. Most of these carry CVs of job aspirants. To tell the truth, most of these CVs have stayed there unopened, unread and not forwarded to anybody. People it seems are not picky when it comes to job selection. This hints at the ever-increasing rate of unemployment in the country where state is no more the main job provider and the private sector is failing miserably. The alarming population growth rate, lack of specialised skills and vocational education, rapid mechanisation in industry and agriculture and layoffs by non-viable businesses has further aggravated the situation. Widespread unemployment is a major indicator of a failing state. It’s linked directly to abject poverty which leads clueless people to indulge in criminal activities and terrorism - a correlation proven at multiple forums. Brain drain When Asim Ijaz Khwaja, the first Pakistani to be awarded tenure at the Harvard Kennedy School in US, was asked by this magazine some time ago if he ever considers returning to Pakistan, he said, “A significant part of my research has been on Pakistan and this has kept me both physically and mentally engaged with the challenges the country faces.” He made no mention of returning to Pakistan any time in future. Probably, he serves the country better from Harvard than he possibly can by staying in Pakistan. The fact remains that many Pakistani such as doctors, IT experts and other professionals and young university graduates prefer to settle abroad. More and more want to venture out to the US, UK, Canada and Australia. They see their future not in their home country but in any country other than their own. This flight of highly educated individuals from Pakistan has become the zeitgeist today, creating an alarming brain drain situation back home. Resultantly, as the educated are away, the uneducated play in the country. Outside interference According to a cable of US embassy disclosed by WikiLeaks, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US Adel al Jubeir is quoted as saying, “We in Saudi Arabia are not observers in Pakistan, we are participants.” Role of the US, UK, UAE and Saudi Arabia in Pakistan’s internal affairs is an open secret. Another cable of March 2009 when tension among different political players was high in Pakistan, then-US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson wrote: “We should encourage Zardari to continue efforts to ease tensions and ask the Saudis and UAE to weigh in with their respective allies.” This sums up the role of external forces in the internal affairs of Pakistan. In trust we lack A report issued by Legatum Prosperity Index (LPI) on ‘Regional Ranking: Asia Pacific’ Pakistan ranks 110th on count of ‘social capital’. It says, “Pakistanis exhibit little social cohesion despite strong familial and religious networks. Less than a fifth of people surveyed in 2009 believed others could be trusted, and only 21 per cent had helped a stranger in the previous month, indicating poor community relations. Just one in five respondents to the survey had donated to charity in the last month, and a low 8 per cent had volunteered their time to an organisation.” While this report presents a bleak picture of trust among people in Pakistan, we know that the nation rose to the occasion every time there was an emergency in the country. We witnessed it first when earthquake hit Kashmir in 2005 and then when floods rendered millions homeless in July 2010. To say that people shy away from extending a helping hand does not sound so true. The findings of the LPI need to be explored further, perhaps. Laughter in small doses “By and large, rich countries are happier - and that’s no coincidence”, reported Francesca Levy in the Forbes magazine, last year. Happiness is quite a problem in Pakistan. There’s little of it available. But it isn’t just poverty that makes this tricky. The top ten countries on the Forbes list had several reasons going for them: healthcare, high standard education, lack of corruption, low start-up cost for business and civil liberties played a pivotal role. In countries like Netherlands, people trusted the government and each other. Ninety four per cent New Zealanders believed they enjoy environmental beauty. “The other six per cent must be blind” says Levy. What do the people here have to laugh about?
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