Copying China

Published July 19, 2016
The writer heads INSPIRING Pakistan, a progressive policy unit.
The writer heads INSPIRING Pakistan, a progressive policy unit.

THE search for alternatives to democracy enthrals many Pakistanis. China’s rapid rise has led them to see its novel political system as a panacea. Recently, I got into a conversation with some fans of China at an airport departure lounge.

China has a one-party system under its atheist communist party (CCP), I said. Should we retrieve the Communist Party of Pakistan to create an atheist, one-party system under it? Being devout Muslims, they said, of course not, we must stick to Islam. Communism is dead. You are being too literal. We must adjust its model for our context! I apologised and suggested we look at other parties to lead a one-party system, besides the PPP and PML-N. They agreed, happy I was now showing sense.

What about the PTI, I asked, the big hope for many? One said yes, but the others were unsure. The PTI is less corrupt, but it has not done much in KP and is slowly co-opting corrupt people, they said. It may misuse absolute power in a one-party system. I agreed but said other parties are no better.

They said it need not be a party: we can adjust and have an autocracy under any institution able to rule well. What about the bureaucracy, I asked? They felt bureaucrats were like politicians. I agreed. My slick business/CEO friends say that given a chance, their types can fix Pakistan. I told them this, but they felt overpaid CEOs and traditional businesses were part of the problem.


Unique political systems cannot be copy-pasted.


That left only Pakistan’s premier institution. But after a moment’s deferential silence, they expressed doubts. The army has ruled for decades but always messed things, they felt. Delighted, I said CCP succeeded only by reprioritising from focusing on territorial disputes to development. Our jaunty generals simply cannot curb their regional ambitions, which soon undermine what little development they achieve. Gen Ayub Khan’s economic ‘miracles’ ended once he was pushed into the well of the 1965 war by Bhutto — despite re-emerging, the damage was done. Gen Musharraf’s decision to host the Afghan Taliban fanned local terrorism.

They agreed. Who then, I asked? They said we must be creative — either find a way or create one. If we cannot find an existing party, we can create one led by clean technocrats!

I asked how it would attain power. That is easy, they said. The army will instal it and judges will give legal cover. The ISI has done this before and knows exactly how to do it, they said with a wink. I asked if we could get diaspora technocrats for this job. No, they said, our national ego hates imported rulers; we must focus on local talent. We attempted to draw up a list but could not agree on one name, finding major faults with each suggestion.

I then threw in another spanner. CCP’s success has to do with its strong presence throughout China’s enormous geography, which allows it to monitor bureaucrats, mobilise people around state policies, and obtain feedback. How will our newbie party achieve this capacity? Despite being fans of China, they seemed unfamiliar with its history.

When asked how CCP had done so, I said it had fought a guerrilla war for years. This shocked them as they could not see our armchair techno-saviours doing the same. Even so, I continued, it misfired badly for 30 years. Its policies created a famine which killed 20 million (against a few dozen in Thar) and led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands (against 14 in Model Town). Only then did it find form. Alarmed, one of them blurted: actually we will skip the bad, hard parts and only have the good, easy ones. But their enthusiasm had waned as they realised, like mice that wanted to bell the cat, that things are easier said than done.

Sensing an opening, I gave them my standard political science 101 lecture. Novel political systems like China’s emerge naturally from specific societal traits and cannot simply be copy-pasted by societies lacking those traits. The problem with Pakistan and so many developing societies is that given their ethnic divisions, low education, short histories etc, they are incapable even in the medium-term of producing strong political or CCP-like institutions that can deliver good governance. And there is little that can be done to overcome this malaise artificially. Civil society initiatives can help, but only so much. Thus, we must prepare mentally for years of bad governance, with very slow upturn.

Okay, but what about Singapore and South Korean models, they said weakly. I had my arguments ready but their flight got called. The moral of this story is the Urdu idiom about the crow which lost even its own gait in copying swans.

The writer heads INSPIRING Pakistan, a progressive policy unit.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

www.inspiring.pk

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2016

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