Why Pakistan must reform

Addressing Mumbai

Saturday, January 03, 2009

By Babar Sattar http://www.thenews.com.pk/arc_news.asp?id=9 The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School External pressure diminishes the ability of people to undertake critical self-evaluation. It is natural to get angry over the beating that Pakistan's image has taken in the international arena. But we must not allow false pride to create a disconnect between Pakistan and the reality as the rest of the world sees it, or stand up to defend the indefensible just because we find ourselves isolated in a corner. We can curse our misfortunes as a nation or wish for better luck, but we need to play with the cards we have been dealt with. And there is a whole lot that we can do to help ourselves. But in order to get out of the hole we have dug ourselves in we need to develop national consensus over three fundamental questions: One, as a nation-state how do wish to be characterized in the comity of nations? Two, how do we define our identity as a nation? And three, what kind of a society do we wish our children to grow up in? Let us start with the first. Probably the gravest national security concern shared by analysts in Pakistan is that global powers are not comfortable with Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and wish to take our weapons out. There are at least two doomsday scenarios painted in simulation exercises in western capitals that provoke a desire to take control of Pakistan's nukes. One, that the Taliban prevail over the armed forces in their insurgency against the state and succeed in assuming control over Islamabad. And two, that support for jihadists within the armed forces grows to a stage where the military can no longer be trusted as an ally by the US-led international community. In short, the biggest threat to Pakistan's nuclear capability could be posed by a shared international belief that Pakistan army is either an unreliable partner in the struggle against terrorism or too weak to contain the Taliban and other insurgents within Pakistan. If the whole world were to gang up against Pakistan's nuclear programme, there is only so much we would be able to do to save it. This is not to promote a sense of defeatism, but only to highlight the need to be viewed by peers as a responsible nation-state. And as a responsible nation-state the one thing we cannot do is employ abhorrent and proscribed means to realize legitimate state interests. Notwithstanding the acrimony that we might feel toward India, nurturing jihadists to undertake subversive activities across border or even looking the other way is not an option. Even if we have proof that RAW has its handprints all over FATA and Balochistan, Pakistan's official policy cannot be to respond in kind. The proxy wars that Pakistan and India are fighting through non-state actors must end if we wish to shed the clouds of violence that are hovering over South Asia and consuming innocent civilian lives. The second pressing issue we need to address is what kind of national identity do we wish to carve out for ourselves. Have we reconciled with our existence as a Muslim majority state that shares a border and a tumultuous history with a neighbour that has an equal number of Muslims that constitute a minority? Irrespective of the affinity we feel toward the Muslims of India, can we ever be at peace in our neighbourhood so long as we allow Hindu-Muslim relations within India to determine the state of India-Pakistan relationship? How long will we remain mired in the concern that the Hindu-mindset has not accepted the creation of Pakistan? Once we begin to view the events of 1947 and the reasons for the creation of Pakistan as a matter of history and are secure in our existence as a sovereign state, what purpose could a certificate of acceptance from India serve? So long as we continue to be consumed by the construct provided by the two-nation theory, we will remain unable to have a candid debate on the role religion should play in the state as well as in shaping our national identity. If we accept ourselves as a diverse pluralistic nation comprising various ethnicities located across the four corners of Pakistan and united in our allegiance to our constitution, we will be less motivated by a desire to wage jihad in protection of Muslim minorities who are citizens of other states. Our faith is not in jeopardy and neither is our ethnicity. What we need to build upon is our identity as Pakistanis. Once we make our shared bond as Pakistanis cohesive enough and reorder our national priorities to maximize the interests and welfare of ordinary citizens instead of being overly anguished by miseries of non-citizens, we will automatically transform from a national security state into a welfare society. But the most crucial question of all is what kind of society are we becoming? Is it compatible with the role we wish to play in the world or reflective of the value structure we wish our future generations to emulate? In parts of Pakistan we have a tribal culture the proponents of which justify live burial of women. In another part we have an organized militant movement, inspired by a depraved form of faith, that wishes to burn down all schools, ban female access to knowledge and drag us back to the stone ages. We have seminaries in the centre that are imbibing flocks of impressionable youth with an ideology of hate and violence. And now we apparently also have hire-a-suicide-bomber establishments that provide self-annihilating human machines to settle monetary and political feuds. And despite all this, we somehow seem to lack the moral clarity and the resolve to shut down our jihadist outfits. We must shake ourselves out of complacency. Any attempt to draw a distinction between good and bad jihdists is a terrible idea. We need to withdraw all state-support or tolerance for non-state actors preaching hate to citizens or training them in the art of violence. We need to press upon our informed religious scholars and legitimate political parties organized under the banner of Islam to attack the ideology of hate being spewed in the name of religion. And we need to address the joint evils of disempowerment, unemployment and poverty that lead disgruntled and misguided youth into the trap set by merchants of terror. The question for us is not whether to eradicate the roots of faith-inspired militancy, but how to go about doing it in order to minimize collateral damage. The argument that the world should refrain from pressing Pakistan too hard on the issue of terrorism or else they would stir up the hornets' nest will not wash for too long. If we refuse or are incapable of effectively tackling the forces of terrorism within our territory that are eating us up internally and threatening others around the world, sooner rather than later the outside powers will step in. And in such event the cost that Pakistan will end up paying will be exorbitant. Even if we resolve to mobilize all energies against the merchants of terror, it will be a time consuming process and drying up support for religion-inspired militancy in Pakistan will not be easy. But the state cannot continue to play ball with jihdists just because there is no neat way of decommissioning them and taking them on runs the risk of turning the Frankenstein inward. This is payback time for the imprudent path our state took almost three decades back. But let us not dither now just because the challenge is mighty. This is a fight we will need to fight with all our resolve to secure our future and that of our kids. Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu