Forget about that electricity-charged entity, the Muslim ummah. This is not the place to cry over its woes or bemoan its imprisonment at the hands of some of the worst and most mediocre rulers anywhere on the planet. What about the Pakistani public? To borrow from that Urdu phrase, what snake has it smelt?

We are fond of castigating the West and attributing the evil afflicting our collective lives to some nebulous conspiracy hatched on alien and infidel shores. But when it is the same infidel West where people in their millions - yes, their millions - march against the war plans of the Bush administration's gung-ho Nazis, it's a huge blow to our collective complacency.

The good thing about the Muslim world is that it is not even ashamed of its supineness. Any sense of shame in these matters was lost a long time ago. If any still exists it is nurtured in private, behind closed doors, and expressed in a manner not calculated to reach American ears. Anyhow, we are no contractors (thekedars) of the Muslim ummah. If there is any such thing as the ummah, let it fend for itself and let it stew in the juice of its own weakness - a combination of ineptitude and pusillanimity. We have to look at our own face in the mirror.

Let one illusion be nailed to the mast right at the outset. No one is expecting any miracles of resistance or audacity from the Musharraf regime. Based on the experience of the last three years, the Pakistani public knows that this regime will take no risk or do anything even remotely dangerous out of the fear of undermining its grip on power. Perish the thought of an independent line. Perish the thought of doing anything to upset the Americans. That's not in our lexicon even if matters of life and death be involved.

Resistance to American designs is for the infidel French and Germans, not for us righteous Muslims. Negotiating a fair deal for the use of bases and other facilities is for the Turks. See what they are asking the Americans: a package of 25 billion dollars. Whether they get it or not is beside the point. At least they are not selling themselves cheaply. They are not being stampeded into panic stations as the formidable generals of the Musharraf order were after a single telephone call from the US secretary of state, Colin Powell. Says something about the state of our nerves.

Agreed, settling for cheap wages has been a national predilection, a pastime indulged in by almost every government faced with important decisions. There's one small difference this time. Driven by a sense of insecurity - a common failing among Third World dictatorships - or God knows what else, the Musharraf government set a lower price on the country's services than perhaps any of its predecessors.

So no point in entertaining brave expectations from that quarter. But what about the Pakistani people? Whatever's happened to them? Why no protests against the war aims of the Bush administration? Why no rallies and demonstrations? It's odd, to say the least. Or perhaps it is not so odd. The exercise of freedom comes naturally to people used to freedom. It doesn't come naturally or easily to those habituated to the ways of servitude.

The people of Pakistan have never protested against their own condition, against the jokes played on them by successive rulers. They have swallowed military dictatorships and inept democracies. Once upon a time they were given to protesting when there were still some illusions left in the air of Pakistan. Not any more. Wiser and more mature, and perhaps more cynical too, they have become painfully aware of the futility of protest. That protest leads to no change, only to more of the same. So why protest at all?

And if this is their attitude to their internal afflictions, it is a bit too much to expect that they should get worked up about Iraq or any other international problem. A nation resigned to such experiments as General Musharraf's glorious referendum or the ennoblement of the Q League will resign itself to anything.

Even so, the silence across the Pakistani landscape is deafening. The government's attitude, and that of the Q League, is understandable: they are on the side of caution and even on pain of death will not bestir themselves.

The PPP's attitude is also understandable. The one abiding principle of Benazir Bhutto's politics has been to stay on the right side of the Americans. In sticking to this principle her party has lost its soul, what to talk of its sense of direction. To its credit, the PML-N, has announced anti-US rallies later this month. It remains to be seen how its call is answered.

But most striking of all is the MMA's silence, or its relative silence. Its anti-American zeal burnt bright when the Americans launched their war on Afghanistan. Its ardour on the question of war on Iraq is considerably cooler. Why? Perhaps because it doesn't want to imperil its stake in power. The Jamaat chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, is talking of a million-man march (no women please, we're Pakistanis) sometime next month. Even if that comes about, the conclusion will be hard to shake that the MMA's conscience was a bit slow in waking up.

Where are our NGOs, our professional classes? To judge by their silence, all on a long winter vacation. Do we have anything to be proud of? Cravenness is writ large all over the national psyche. Let us not even in our dreams compare ourselves with the North Koreans. Even if it is all over with Iraq, the US will not meddle with North Korea knowing that the regime there will stand for no nonsense. You may say that North Korea has a million-strong army but then we too have a large army. And we are also a nuclear power, as we never tire of proclaiming. But for all the credibility of our military might, we could be living on different planets.

Which is not to say that North Korea should be a working model for Pakistan. We can do without North Korean belligerence and its starving people. But here we are talking not so much of those things as of being pushed around. North Korea refuses to be pushed around. We allow ourselves to be pushed around all the time. While belligerence is something to be shunned, a bit of spine would do our posture a world of good.

At any rate, this should be a sobering moment for all armchair jihadis in Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world. If the American military juggernaut now in motion comes to a halt, and the people of Iraq are spared any more trials, it won't be because of us or anything done singly or collectively by the ineffectual world of Islam. It will be because of the force of public opinion in western countries.

This should also be a moment for some soul-searching. What accounts for our toady and craven behaviour? Simply stated, the lack of freedom across the Muslim countries. Lacking freedom and the rule of law, how can we walk, behave and think like free men and women?

And another thing: look at the order and discipline of the anti-war marches across the western world. Huge rallies but no disruption of public life, no tyre-burning, no window-smashing. Everything orderly. We could do worse than to emulate this example.

Ah, but this is to put the cart before the horse. Before thinking of what is orderly or disorderly, we'll have to wake from our deep slumber. Of that there are no signs as yet. In the unfolding drama over Iraq all the action is coming from elsewhere. The Muslim world and we in Pakistan are playing the role of a mute chorus.