WHY does nothing sound strange or novel in Pakistan anymore? Is it that we have exhausted all tricks and have to make do with the endless repetition of old ones? Or is it that the cynicism born of our cumulative experiences has killed all enthusiasm?

No road in Pakistan is more extensively travelled on than the one leading back to democracy. At the same time, no road is more signposted with the crucifixion of hope than this one. It is not in our military coups that we have betrayed ourselves so much as in our return marches to democracy. If every coup has kindled the irrational emotionalism which forms so strong a part of our national character, the aftermath of every coup has gifted us a fresh set of problems, more complicated and intractable than those originally meant to be solved.

What makes General Musharraf think he is an exception? He is travelling down the same road as his predecessors. What makes him think that unlike them he will reach the golden kingdom? His methods are the same, his philosophy similar. The smart uniform he proudly wears and the impressive array of medals which adorn his chest would fit any of the three military saviours whose shades have preceded him. Yet he thinks he is different, that somehow he can break the cycle of cause-and-effect. He has a strong faith in himself. So did all his predecessors.

After 'good governance' there is no phrase more calculated to make a cynic reach for his pistol than 'roadmap to democracy'. So many roadmaps we have had that to put them all together would make a venerable archive. Yet as if there was room for more we have received another one which looks, feels and smells like all previous ones. Why should it lead to different results?

In three years Hitler (a bad example but I am making a different point) had brought about the economic recovery of Germany and readied it for the greatest war in history. In three years from Pearl Harbour the United States went from huge military setback to the brink of victory. In three years, starting from the Musharraf coup in '99, all we will have achieved is a return to a pock-marked democracy, with an overbearing president, a cowed and subservient parliament, dazed political parties grateful for the crumbs thrown their way, and a people sick and tired of politics.

Does General Musharraf's roadmap to democracy, unfurled on August 14, contain anything more? If it does it comes well disguised, at least for mortal eyes which can pick out nothing new. Time is not on our side. More than the wastage of water or the ravaging of the environment it is the wastage of time we cannot afford. The world is marching by while we are grappling with the ghosts of the past, fighting old battles and traversing the same highways over and over again. Yet all of Pakistan's military saviours have behaved as if eternity lay at their feet. General Musharraf's roadmap to democracy also treats time as a luxury.

In a setting such as Pakistan's the only justification for military rule is speed, efficiency and ruthlessness. In theory, what plodding civilian governments cannot deliver, the military can. But our own history shows that this theory is a fallacy. The Pakistan army is a conservative institution incapable - by training, background and ethos - to understand, let alone deliver, any kind of radical social or economic agenda. To state the obvious, it is not a people's army headed by a revolutionary leader like Mao or Castro. The examples of Ayub, Yahya and Zia amply demonstrate that when it steps into political waters it ends by muddying them further.

Why then such a long-drawn-out roadmap to democracy? What are the Ataturk reforms this government has initiated that it seeks to protect them from future repudiation through constitutional safeguards? If the military's idea of national renewal is Mian Azhar, Chaudry Shujaat Hussain and the newly-elected district nazims, why put the entire nation through a form of Chinese torture? After winter comes spring, after the darkness of night the light of the rising sun. After General Musharraf's roadmap to democracy, what?

It took General Musharraf a full year to change his tune towards India. It took him two years to understand the harm being done to the country's image by the posturing of the religious right (hence his path-breaking speech to an assembly of clerics on the occasion of the Holy Prophet's birthday this year). It has taken all the strength and wisdom of the corps commanders, the highest patriotic body in Pakistan, to settle for a safe breed of district nazims.

It has taken the military government two years to wake up to the danger posed by the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and the Sipah-i-Muhammad. Even then the decision it has taken is largely an academic one. While the two organizations have been banned, no real victories can be claimed in the fight against sectarian terrorism. In the passing of tough laws Pakistani governments have never been found wanting. It is in translating words into action that their problems arise.

It will take another year for the perfection of a democratic order which does not ruffle the feathers of the military. It will take another two years after that for the military and the new civilian set-up to learn to coexist with each other. That is, if fresh tensions do not crop up and like so many systems before, the one being fashioned now does not crumble under the strain of its internal contradictions. Can Pakistan afford to play these games? Do we know where we stand? Do we have an adequate measure of our problems?

Pakistan's most pressing need is not to reinvent the past but to reinvent itself. We may have a flattering image of ourselves but others do not see us in the same light. We are seen as a country which has betrayed its promise, which is living in the past and is unable to forge ahead. The extravagance of previous years has turned us into an international beggar. We have foreign policy pretensions which are out of sync with our resources. We continue to live beyond our means.

These are not insuperable problems. Other countries have lived through worse times and come out of them successfully. There is no reason why we should be overwhelmed. But for success we will have to follow a different tack. We have to get out of the cycle of military coups and flawed democracy. If the army cannot eschew the temptation of political interference Pakistan will never attain political stability. And without this prerequisite all plans for national renewal will remain stalled.

Islam is not on the line and never will be. At issue is our place in the modern world. Can we break our begging bowl? Can we give our people the basic necessities of decent living? Can we turn the ingenuity we have shown in making nuclear weapons into other fields? Can we learn to value education and knowledge for their own sake? Can we begin to understand the importance of the arts? Music, sculpture, painting, dance are no threat to anyone's morals. They dignify and adorn human existence. Worse than anything physical is the Talibanization of the spirit. Once that happens the capacity of the human soul to soar and search for the stars is lost.

All this is not a cry of despair. It should be seen as a summons to action. Only when we realize the depth of our problems can we fashion the correct responses to them. Given the extent of our problems, what we need is Herculean action compressed into a tight time scale. What we are getting from this latest attempt at national redemption is a long march to nowhere.