MORE often than not, history has been invoked by some of us (fellow Cassandras) to alert our countrymen through our columns to the perils of ignoring history. Pakistan is not unique — operating differently to the laws of physics, economics, history, or the universe more broadly, as many of our countrymen, including sadly most of our leaders, have tended to think.

However, history ‘cuts’ both ways. While providing us with numerous examples of countries that have collapsed, faded into oblivion, while many Neros of the time fiddled while the fires burned, modern history at least, also provides us with examples where nations have triumphed over great odds.

While people like to talk about the rise of Japan and Germany from the ashes of the Second World War, I feel a more pertinent example is perhaps afforded by Colombia, and its fight against the terror unleashed by the Medellin cartel under Pablo Escobar in the 1980s and early 1990s.

As its profits grew, the cartel’s influence spread to the point where it had become clear that the state could not tackle this issue on its own. The law enforcement apparatus was reluctant to move against the cartel, while any arrests made could not be prosecuted due to intimidation and murder of witnesses (as in Karachi) and judges. In response, the Colombian government signed an extradition treaty with the United States, the biggest market for the cocaine produced by the Medellin cartel. The backlash to this treaty from Pablo Escobar and the cartel was vicious. The Medellin cartel essentially launched a terror war against the state, with a series of car bombs and a wave of assassinations in Colombia’s two biggest cities. After refusing to move against the extradition treaty, despite warnings, death threats were issued to Supreme Court judges. When these were ignored, a full-scale assault on the Supreme Court was launched by the M-19 guerilla group in November 1985 (the Palace of Justice siege). In the ensuing attempt to free the hostages, nearly half of Colombia’s Supreme Court judges, among many others, were killed.

Other atrocities committed by the Medellin cartel included bombing of shopping malls and high-rises, and the killing of innocent citizens, including schoolchildren. The worst atrocity was its bombing of an airliner over Bogota in an attempt to kill a presidential candidate — who had not boarded the plane — in which 110 lives were lost.

After losing thousands of policemen, members of the security forces, judges, journalists, politicians, and ordinary Colombians, and at least one justice minister, the steely resolve of a determined few to bring the Medellin cartel to justice finally paid off. Pablo Escobar and most of his cartel lynchpins were hunted down and either killed or captured, bringing relative peace to a troubled nation.

Or, consider Italy’s long on-off fight against the stranglehold of the Mafia, specifically the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. The Mafia’s penetration and buying-off of law enforcement agencies, the legal system, politicians, the civil service, the media and even civil society ensured that it literally ruled the roost of Italian life — murdering opponents, blocking inquiries by high-powered commissions, and terrorising ordinary Italians at will.

The hold of the Mafia and its political supporters and sympathisers was so strong — especially in the dominant Christian Democratic party — that while Italy first decided to take on the Mafia in the aftermath of the Second World War, it took two decades for the word ‘Mafia’ to even make it into Italian legislation! In fact, arguably at the peak of its political clout, the Mafia’s most highly placed political asset was found to be none other than three-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti.

While Pakistan’s war against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and its allied extremist organisations — and their hidden handlers — is far more vicious and has taken an exponentially larger toll, yet few in Pakistan can perhaps appreciate the fear and near-paralysis of the state engendered by the Mafia’s control of large swathes of Italian public sphere in the 1960s through the early 1990s.

While the fight against the Mafia and organised crime still goes on six decades after its initial tentative start, a few watershed events — and a handful of courageous Italians, journalists, police officers, public prosecutors and judges — helped to turn the tide. A potent game-changer was the assassination in quick succession by the Mafia of prominent anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone (along with his wife) and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.

The exceptional courage of these men (and their families) and many of their colleagues in the police, public prosecution, security forces and the media who laid down their lives in the fight against the Mafia has paid off.

The lesson from both these examples is that it takes the resolve of just a few individuals at the helm of affairs, and their willingness to sacrifice their lives if need be, to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. The fight against the Medellin cartel or the Mafia was also “do-or-die” for the countries involved, for the rule of law and for justice. One Colombian president who decided to take on the Medellin cartel no matter what the cost, and two fearless judges in Italy, ensured that the sacrifices of thousands others did not go in vain. Pakistan can overcome the gauntlet of mortal challenges thrown at it. It has already sacrificed many of its best sons and daughters — from the security forces, the police, the FC, and intelligence agencies, to school teachers and school-going students to many, many ordinary Pakistanis. All it requires is a man of steely resolve at the top — not the leader who spoke to the nation with a defeatist tone.

The writer is a former economic adviser to government, and currently heads a macroeconomic consultancy based in Islamabad.