By Yasser Latif Hamdani
Our right-wingers and religious extremists with their unthinking rhetoric are leading Pakistan to disaster. The politics of NATO supply lines is the pound of flesh they wish to extract from a wretched establishment that has long utilised them for their own agendas. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
There is a consensus across the board amongst analysts and policy makers that Pakistan’s bilateral ties with the US are extremely important for the country. It is the US that is Pakistan’s largest trading partner — a partner that largely sustains our legitimate economy. Yet the expediencies of politics are driving all major parties in Pakistan to take a hardline approach towards the US that will in the final assessment only hurt Pakistan’s interests home and abroad.
For long we have ignored the sordid reality of post-1977 Pakistan. Not only has continuous war on our western front drained us economically, it has annihilated us socially. What does the world see when it sees us? It sees an economic basket case, which is constitutionally and in practice a theocracy. It sees a state that persecutes people and discriminates against them in the name of religion. It sees a state that tolerates domestic violence and relegates women to a second-class status. In short, we are today exactly the opposite of what we wanted to be in 1947, thus bringing into controversy the very creation of this state. It is time to look into the mirror without any illusions. We are a ghetto of festering intolerance, dysfunctional democracy and a military establishment that seems to have isolated itself from reality by conflating its own interests (defined by a 20th century military mindset entirely out of step with 21st century realities) with those of the state. Add to that a judiciary that the world at least sees as hell bent on destabilising a nascent and troubled democracy by quoting Kahlil Gibran.
Our right-wingers and religious extremists with their unthinking rhetoric are leading Pakistan to disaster. The politics of NATO supply lines is the pound of flesh they wish to extract from a wretched establishment that has long utilised them for their own agendas. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
There is a consensus across the board amongst analysts and policy makers that Pakistan’s bilateral ties with the US are extremely important for the country. It is the US that is Pakistan’s largest trading partner — a partner that largely sustains our legitimate economy. Yet the expediencies of politics are driving all major parties in Pakistan to take a hardline approach towards the US that will in the final assessment only hurt Pakistan’s interests home and abroad.
For long we have ignored the sordid reality of post-1977 Pakistan. Not only has continuous war on our western front drained us economically, it has annihilated us socially. What does the world see when it sees us? It sees an economic basket case, which is constitutionally and in practice a theocracy. It sees a state that persecutes people and discriminates against them in the name of religion. It sees a state that tolerates domestic violence and relegates women to a second-class status. In short, we are today exactly the opposite of what we wanted to be in 1947, thus bringing into controversy the very creation of this state. It is time to look into the mirror without any illusions. We are a ghetto of festering intolerance, dysfunctional democracy and a military establishment that seems to have isolated itself from reality by conflating its own interests (defined by a 20th century military mindset entirely out of step with 21st century realities) with those of the state. Add to that a judiciary that the world at least sees as hell bent on destabilising a nascent and troubled democracy by quoting Kahlil Gibran.
