LONG after General Musharraf departs from the scene of his triumphs, and long after the heroes and malcontents of this hour have sped on their journey, Pakistan will still be around. The waters of the Indus will still keep flowing to the sea.

Why this declaration of faith? Because while giving vent to its angst - a pastime at which it excels - the Pakistani political class, and its drawing room followers, do not draw a sharp enough line between the country and the jokers whom a playful Providence places over its destinies. In lambasting Pakistan's rulers and calling attention to their follies, which is the correct thing to do, unwitting strength is lent to the sentiment that, somehow, the country itself is a doomed enterprise: fated to suffer a succession of eclipses until, consumed by its own fire, it goes off into the great void like a collapsing star.

A free press and military rule, an inflammable combination, have given a fillip to doomsday scenarios. To wit, there is a mad rush for American visas. Money is being sent abroad in huge quantities. The country is being denuded of its best brains. (This last a wonderful thought: what have the best brains been up to for these past 53 years?)

A foreign writer has only to convey an apocalyptic vision of Pakistan - one Robert Kaplan being the latest prophet in this series - for serious-minded Pakistanis to quote and circulate his darkest thoughts. Any fly-by-night journalist has to visit Dar-ul-Aloom Haqqania in Akora Khattak (where Maulana Samiul Haq preaches the true word) or interview Hafiz Muhammad Saeed of Lashkar-i-Taiba, who has some strange ideas about jehad, for the cane-chair liberati to bemoan Pakistan's negative image in the West and the dangers posed by fundamentalism.

Pakistanis have to be among the most impressionable people on the planet. And with about the lowest self-esteem. Forget ideas, they borrow even their fears and prejudices from abroad. When the demon-gods of the IMF and the World Bank laid down the advantages of the trickle-down theory of wealth, development economists in Pakistan became this theory's most ardent advocates. When the winds shifted, we shifted with them.

Now that globalization is the rage, the economic and social tribe in Pakistan has taken to the newest cliches with a vengeance. A few years ago no such animal as 'civil society' existed. Nor such a word as 'governance'. Since their discovery at the hands of western ideologues, anyone in Pakistan able at a pinch to look solemn and knowing is fearless, and indiscriminate, in deploying the same concepts. In other countries fast food is just that: junk food. With us a visit to McDonald's or that unmentionable Colonel becomes high cuisine for the family.

Given our impressionable nature, small wonder if negative stereotypes too prove infectious. If fundamentalism is the new swear-word and is directed at us, then we surely stand in danger of its malign influence. If others say we are on the verge of being a failed state, the currency of despair finds ready users, and a receptive market, within the country.

A nation prey to such despondency, and beset by such fears, is already half defeated. In 1940 France surrendered to Germany later. The will to fight it lost first. What was Churchill's achievement? Even when Britain's back was to the wall and the continent under Germany's heel, every word he spoke breathed defiance. Pakistan of course is engaged in no mortal combat. Still, when bewailing the country's future has become prime national pastime, it pays to remember two things: (1) that in a situation such as ours the line between intellectualism and defeatism is often a thin one; and (2) that defeatism of the spirit saps a nation's morale, robbing it of the last vestiges of self-esteem.

What is the principal item of our moaning? That our affairs are in a mess, which they have been for a long time, and that once again, for our sins, we are having to endure the ravages of military rule. Fine. Military rule is no answer to anything. We know this from experience. It should therefore be opposed. But who is doing any opposing?

The political scene presents the aspect of a graveyard. Activism of any kind is a dead thing. Those doing the most criticising will not put their Scotch highballs (the most powerful aid to the higher criticism) at risk for the sake of their convictions. Which is better, activism or drawing room chatter? Activism gives tone and strength to the temper of a people. Empty moaning is enervating and a form of escapism. It destroys the spirit.

As for the standard-bearers of democracy, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, they have turned in extremis to newspaper writing: Benazir regularly and the Wonder of Raiwind for the first time on the anniversary of his ouster (in an article titled 'Bear Witness, My countrymen'). Whether for his other sins Sharif deserves any punishment or not, for the syntax and garbled thought of this article (at least in its English translation) he deserves a stint in purgatory. Benazir, too, for the self-righteousness with which her articles are replete.

But the point to note is that the buffoons and charlatans with which the history of Pakistan is littered do not make up the totality of Pakistan. Benazir, Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf are not Pakistan. Wondering at the comic turns provided by our various leaders should be no excuse to doubt the viability or strength of the country.

When the Colonels seized power in Greece (1967) they were opposed, often at great risk, by many Greeks but even the fiercest opponents of military rule, even as they suffered at the hands of the junta, did not despair of Greece. The Pinochet dictatorship in Chile was more tyrannical than anything we have known in Pakistan. But even at the height of its repression, Chileans opposed to it did not give up on their country. And look at Chile today: a country which has regained its vibrancy (in part, admittedly, because of the harsh economic medicine administered by Pinochet).

So what reason for Pakistan's despair? Is ours such a flimsy enterprise that a statement by Altaf Hussain in London (in which he questioned the genesis of Pakistan) should send shivers down the national spine? We have had nationalist waves in the smaller provinces before but with time and economic integration they lost their force and were absorbed into the national mainstream. Altaf Hussain's is not the cry of a wounded messiah but the bleak utterances of a fuehrer who got it wrong and led his community up a blind alley. Certainly, what he says should be considered carefully. But none of it should be reason to take fright.

Does this amount to taking refuge in complacency? No. It means striking a balance between complacency and a morbid preoccupation with the darker side of things. The Soviet Union had Stalin, too much control, and then it had Gorbachev, too little control. A balance between these two extremes it could not strike thus ensuring the crackup of a mighty empire. In Pakistan for a long time we have been knights of myth and fantasy. Now under military rule (a paradox indeed) we are testing the limits of glasnost and, in the process, turning the expression of hopelessness and despair into an art form.

But no matter. Like so much else before, this too will pass, leaving some benefits in its wake. A year ago it was not the fashion to criticise the army by name. Or the judiciary for that matter. Now both these holy cows stand stripped of their invulnerability. Our two new columnists, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, already stand discredited before the bar of public opinion. When democracy comes again, as it must sooner or later, there will be these many less shibboleths to conquer. So even as we keep up the moaning over our Scotch highballs, fairness demands that we also count our blessings.