IN a recent interview, Pamela Constable, a Washington Post correspondent, explained what she saw as the primary contradiction in Pakistanis’ relationship with the United States.

How odd is it, she questioned, that while groups as disparate as mullahs and rock musicians rant and rave against the US, the lines outside the American embassy continue to be yards long.

This central conundrum lies at the heart of the baffled confusion that typifies US reaction to the news of the ever-increasing tide of anti-Americanism in Pakistan: do they love us or do they hate us? Ask American experts as they scratch their heads. Are the crowds at American fast-food franchises worthy reflections of the feelings of Pakistanis or should one believe the anti-American vitriol painted on walls in Karachi and Peshawar?

While there are no easy answers to these vexing questions there are some considerations that can provide some insight into a schizophrenic relationship that vacillates inexplicably between edification and vilification. Take, for instance, the seemingly ironic desire of wanting to migrate to a country so unequivocally constructed in the Pakistani political psyche as the source of its troubles. The reasons are simple: economic success promised by America represents the evasion of the overwhelming troubles of remaining in a country where connections rather than achievement define one’s chances at success.

Migration to America thus represents that slim chance at a windfall, at the opportunity to evade the structural constraints that impede success in a society where the accident of birth defines access to a comfortable life. The decision to pursue migration represents thus not an ideological conversion that suddenly sees the inherent value of American capitalism. Rather, it represents the pragmatic search for exits pursued by the middle-class, educated public of any conflict-ridden country: the practical pursuit of self-preservation in an environment where all is threatened. The constituency that stands in line outside the American embassy — opening itself up to some truly condescending scrutiny — represents those to whom economic progress represents a more convincing practical reality than any fundamentalist ideology. Simply put, if America is to woo Pakistanis it must focus its energies on the Pakistani middle class. The reasons for this are simple. First, elite Pakistanis benefiting from the status quo that grants them a tax-free bonanza based on land holdings and industrial enterprises have few expectations from the US other than to be the evergreen provider of aid packages that can be diverted to their private coffers.

Similarly, the poor in Pakistan are too entangled in the rigours of everyday survival and too entrenched in tribal and feudal allegiances to provide a credible support bank within the country. Their current condition being little better than those of landless serfs of medieval Europe provides few opportunities for considering political choices and even fewer for mobilisation to demand accountability from institutions.

The Pakistani middle class, on the other hand, while small in size, represents the most upwardly mobile, entrepreneurial and educated cadre of the country. It is the members of the middle class who are interested in whether their children can get to their schools, whether they can open their shops and whether they can enjoy the occasional meal at a restaurant with their family.

It is they that are most directly threatened by the Taliban, by religious extremism and by the instability that harms business and endangers the education for which they pay so dearly. In being inherently entrepreneurial and self-made they represent those that are most likely to invest in their communities and lift the country out of archaic feudal and tribal systems. If there is one crucial mistake in the current American plan to woo Pakistanis it is the failure to recognise the Pakistani middle class as the target audience towards which any campaign must be directed. Like their fellow class members around the world, the Pakistani middle class is characteristically most driven to chase social stability and economic success, both of which are naturally opposed to insurgency and political upheaval. To be successful, an American campaign to woo members of the middle class would have to emphasise both cooperation and investment. Unlike the abstract broad-based aid package promised in the Kerry-Lugar bill, a strategy directed at empowering them would focus on providing specific trade incentives for small exporters, setting up institutions of higher learning with subsidised costs and expanding small exporters’ access to the US market. Furthermore, given that the public consumption of news and information is a staple of the Pakistani middle class, investment in media is an ideal avenue that can represent an intersection of American goals towards democratic empowerment and Pakistani goals towards institution- and infrastructure-building. Examples of initiatives that would further woo natural allies among the Pakistani middle class would be the provision of specific grants to further art and cultural initiatives at a time when these forums are most under threat.

In this way, relatively small sums of money could provide huge dividends in terms of empowering those artistes, writers and performers who, despite the constant and consistent threat of bombings, have not capitulated to the cultural bullying of fundamentalists. Such investments would refocus American rhetoric from its current single-minded focus on Al Qaida and the Taliban towards substantive support for those already on the cultural, economic and ideological front lines.

While reconsidering military/strategic initiatives is crucial the Obama administration must realise that much of its failure in winning Pakistani hearts and minds has been because of its failure to identify which hearts can indeed be won. A strategy that seeks to amend this omission should undertake a reconsideration of current initiatives for a narrower focus towards empowering the Pakistani middle class through the facilitation of projects that directly affect their lives. The answer to the vexing question of how Pakistanis can be wooed may thus quite simply be to know which ones to pursue. n

The writer is an attorney and director at Amnesty International, US.