September 3, 2005

WHILE it would be churlish and even unpatriotic not to rejoice over an economy growing at 8.4 per cent — specially since people in Pakistan seem to have so little nowadays to rejoice about — it is important to put this growth rate in its proper perspective. There is a cyclical quality to the way in which Pakistan is governed.

Economic growth and prosperity are linked in the case of our country not to fundamental transformations in society and economy but to the convergence of three factors: election of bellicose US administrations determined to save the world from the threat of the decade — communism, national liberation movements, Islamic revival; a military-led government in Pakistan desperate for some form of legitimacy; and induction of an army of technocrats mouthing the latest nostrums from Washington.

As these factors converge, no wonder the economy grows at 8.4 per cent, and we hear the usual claims: Pakistan is on its way to being a rich and prosperous country, in fact another Asian tiger. After a decade (or less) of growth, the cycle goes into a downturn as the bellicose US administration is replaced, and the “threat” of the previous decade seems to have waned. And not surprisingly, our economic growth splutters to a halt.

The military, unable to sustain the legitimacy of their rule without the glow of economic prosperity and competence, hands over the country’s control to a weak, disorganized group of politicians. When the dust clears, we realize we have missed another historic opportunity to bring about fundamental transformations.

Each time, we are told this time our alliance with the US will be different. Of course, when it is clear that it was the same old cycle — those responsible for it have already fled to abroad, some of them to be close to their Swiss bank accounts. Ordinary Pakistanis are left to pick through the debris of another wasted decade. To cap it all, those NGOs, think-tanks and international organizations which previously lauded the country for turning the corner start calling it a failed state whose nuclear capability, they now assert, must be ‘rolled back.’

Many supporters of the US policies point to the way in which American stewardship of Japan and Germany helped these countries get back on their feet in less than 30 years after suffering a total military defeat. This model, it is argued, can be useful in many Muslim countries, where American know-how applied by America-trained technocrats, at the behest of a national leadership that sees its own survival being dependent on the US goodwill, will bring about a great improvement in the life of people of these countries. This argument ignores the fact that before their defeats Japan and Germany were already great powers militarily and economically, a status they had achieved by guarding their autonomy.

Prosperity cannot be separated from control over one’s national policies. People of the Third World should know this better than anyone else. Take the example of British rule over India. At around about 1800 the difference between the average income of a Briton and Indian was minimal. However, after 150 years of British rule by a colonial administration composed of dispassionate “incorruptible” technocrats, income differentials had diverged to the extent that the average Briton’s income was 20 times greater than the average Indian’s. In more or less the same period Germany and Japan managed to build the foundations that would make them the great powers that they are.

Each time we have aligned ourselves with aggressive American leaderships we have done so at the expense of making common cause with those who seek to transform the international system. As a result Pakistan has been on the wrong side of its own long-term interests. We have been on the side of those who want to maintain the unjust and hierarchical world order that discriminates not only against Pakistan but also against the Third World.

We could say that in the past it was a matter of less significance, for the enemies of America were the Soviet bloc states and they were never our friends; thus we could oppose the decolonization of the Middle East and we could set our face against national liberation struggles without embarrassment.

This time, however, the Americans have an enemy in Islam itself — that is, the desire by Muslims all over the world to make Islam meaningful in their lives. The restoration of Islam is the real target of so called ‘war on terror’ and we are being dragged into this war against Islam by a leadership which claims it is “putting Pakistan first.”

The strategic myopia that afflicts the ruling establishment is not that difficult to understand — after all given the mix of arrogance and ignorance of our elite, it is easy to see how they are apt to confuse wishful thinking with prudence again and again. What is more remarkable is that ordinary people who have no illusions about the cupidity and mendacity of our elite seem to fall in line behind another strategic plan based on delusions.

If the example of Germany and Japan is at all instructive, it is in their respective leaderships’ recognition that without sovereignty there can be no long-term prosperity. The leaders of Germany and Japan set about the transformation of their societies according to their specific needs, and not according to the whims of foreign rulers. Their leaderships recognized that ultimately, the strength of a country lies in its people, and not in the acclaim of foreign governments or the fawning of foreign media.

A country which allows foreign advisors to entrench themselves in its decision-making process forgoes its capacity to serve its own national interests. More importantly such a nation loses its ability to make its own history, becoming in effect a country without history.

History is to a country what a memory is to an individual. Without memory an individual loses his personality, in fact ceases to be an individual. It is history which provides the ties that bind a people and form a political community. A country without a history lacks the web of associations and recognitions that gave it a past, that allow it to navigate its present and to aspire to a future.

A country which cannot keep its people together, cannot project itself into the future, has no sense of its past, and no capacity to control its present is a country without meaning or purpose. A country without meaning is simply a geographical expression, a land ripe for appropriation and exploitation. By surrendering our capacity to make our own history, our current leadership is eroding the very being of Pakistan. Rhetorics like “enlightened, moderate, modern, progressive, democratic” cannot cover up the holes that are appearing in the fabric of society.

Unlike many other countries Pakistan is not the re-emergence of a nation after the flood of colonialism has abated. Nor can it be described through the prism of western nationalist fantasies in which one people, speaking one language, living in one land obey, and identify with, their one true government.

Pakistan is not the resurrection of the Indus valley civilization, nor is it a revival of the Delhi Sultanate, and nor a Mughalistan revisited. Pakistan is an ex-nihilo polity; its establishment echoes the formation of the first Islamic state based on nothing more than a promise. The Islamic order founded by the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and enlarged by the Caliphs was not a reconstruction or expansion of a previous Arabian state. It was the building of a new entity out of nothing.

It is this echo between the initial Islamic state and Pakistan, which, among many other reasons, ties its fate with Islam. Pakistan is a promise that offers Muslims a political destiny. The tragedy is that those who believe in this promise do not run the country and those who run the country do not believe in this promise.

Conventional wisdom sees the formation of Pakistan not in terms of its promise but as a scandal which interrupts the essential unity of Mahabharat and its fundamental (Hindu) identity. Not only does the ‘partition’ ruin the Hindu-ness of Greater India, it challenges the language of West’s superiority (Westernese). It denies the assumption that the West is the destiny of the world.

The idea that Muslim identity could be the basis for the construction of a nation weakens the argument that only western philosophy in the form of nationalism can found nations. The achievement of Pakistan was not simply the creation of the largest Muslim state in 1947, but also a signalling of the possibility that Islam did not belong to the past like some relic. It had a future. It is precisely this future that is continually being deferred by a political elite that neither cares for, nor comprehends the nature and meaning of Pakistan.

The promise of Pakistan can only be redeemed by a deep decolonization that goes beyond simply replacing white with ‘brown’ sahibs. The promise cannot be fulfilled within the confines of an iniquitous domestic and international order; hence, decolonization is not a luxury but a necessity for the prosperity of the country. It is understandable that an establishment that has no higher ambition than being the loyal sepoys of an American Raj experiences vertigo when confronted with the possibility of decolonization.

Pakistan needs radical reforms, which finally do away with the belief in the West’s superiority and set out to fulfil the promise of Pakistan, a promise that cannot be bought for a decade’s worth of superficial economic growth.

The writer is a research fellow at the University of Leeds, UK.

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