NATIONS do not normally have to strive consciously for a consensus on the kind of country they wish to be. Social and economic pressures and the consequent political decisions shape them over a period of centuries.

But a relatively new state like Pakistan does need to conduct an internal debate over the path it wishes to take. Although the founding father of the nation, Mr Jinnah, pointed us in an unambiguously secular, progressive direction, he died too early to transform this vision into reality. His successors were too weak to pursue it effectively, and allowed this concept to be subverted to the point where it is but a distant memory. Whereas Mr Jinnah saw Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent where the minorities would be equal citizens, obscurantists and self-serving politicians hijacked this vision and transfigured our country into a cockpit of warring religious militias and a haven for terrorists.

Indeed, what we are seeing today is a victory for a revolution by stealth. there has been no call to man the barricades, no stirring appeal to fight to the last man. And yet the political topography has been transformed beyond recognition over the last quarter century. Now if foreigners think of Pakistan at all, it is in the context of religious fanaticism, military juntas, heroin smugglers and illegal immigrants. From being a respected developing country that was making excellent progress, we have slipped into a sickly state which has brought it on the brink of bankruptcy.

The irony is that this metamorphosis has taken place without a debate over the kind of country we wish to be. The previous issue of Newsweek ran a long story about Pakistan and the jehadi organizations operating on our soil. According to this report (which quotes active members of these militias as well as unnamed military and civil sources), militants are getting training here and conducting operations in Indian-held Kashmir. The report goes on to conclude that if this government were to crack down on these groups, most Pakistanis would rise in protest.

Fortunately, this ominous conclusion is not justified by any objective yardstick. As we survey the political wreckage around us, the one positive element we see is the continuing and consistent refusal of the Pakistani electorate to vote for religious parties. For instance, all these parties put together only managed to gain a meagre six seats in the National Assembly out of a total of 210. While the majority of Pakistanis are practising Muslims, they are clearly not convinced that their many problems can be solved by leaders who want to drag the country back to the seventh century.

Given the good sense displayed by Pakistani voters in election after election, the extremist tilt in our politics becomes harder to explain. Clearly, unlike the Iranian revolution, religious parties command no huge following of the faithful marching in the streets, calling for the imposition of a theocratic order. The reality is that a number of sects and leaders are vying to impose their versions of Islam on the national polity, and this multiplicity erodes their appeal and credibility.

So while there has been no dramatic revolutionary movement to bring in the Shariat, what we have witnessed is the gradual, piece-meal reduction in the space for secularism. General Zia-ul- Haq, undisputed military dictator of Pakistan for eleven years, did more than anyone else to push us backwards. Edward Gibbon, the 18th century English historian, observed in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "All that is human must retrograde [this is the word used in the quotation] if it does not advance." When Zia and his many toadies blocked the path of social and intellectual progress in the name of religion, we began our long slide into chaos.

Once this agenda had been set, weak politicians like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had neither the political will nor the gumption to take on the religious right that had been strengthened by Zia and provided with much largess by the state. Hardened veterans of the Afghan war provide the muscle and semi- literate graduates of religious madrassahs run by various fundamentalist parties are the foot-soldiers in the undeclared war against the state and its organs. Their sympathizers in clandestine government agencies and the media have given them covert and overt support to the point where they now set the national agenda, specially on Kashmir and Afghanistan. Ignorant leaders who have no understanding of global realities pressure the government to maintain a hard line on complex issues like the CTBT and talks with India.

General Musharraf had raised early hopes when he took over in October last year that he would halt the tide of fundamentalism that threatens the foundations of the state. His public pronouncement of admiration for the secular Turkish leader Kemal Attaturk and his outwardly liberal stance made us think he might take a stand against the armies of the night. But in the four months he has been in power, the only positive action we have seen is the fact that the firebrand Maulana Azhar Masood has been placed under 'protective custody'. According to the Newsweek story, several of General Musharraf's colleagues are fundamentalist sympathizers and presumably would try and block any modernist, secular policies his government might wish to follow. As it is, several religious leaders have attacked the liberal tendencies of some of the civilian ministers and advisers he has appointed.

The situation now is that the religious right has pre-empted the political high ground, and dissenting voices are silenced with the charge of apostasy as well as violence. To all intents and purposes, we are in free-fall without a parachute. Although the dangers of extremism are obvious to all thinking people in and out of government, they seem unable to act to prevent the disaster now facing us. They resemble a rabbit that is frozen into inaction in the headlights of an onrushing car.

Clearly, our best interest lies in following a path of reason and moderation towards peace and prosperity. But perversely, our leadership has permitted the fanatics to divert us into wasteful and pointless confrontations that have bled the exchequer white apart from isolating us diplomatically. We cannot sustain such policies without becoming bankrupt. Ironically, at a time when the government is pursuing bank defaulters, we as a nation are on the verge of default at an international level.

Speaking at a rally in Hamburg in 1936, the Nazi leader Herman Goering said: "We have no butter... but I ask you - would you rather have butter or guns? ...preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat." But the hungry would rather have butter; they are too thin to worry about calories.