Pakistan’s big image problem
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Pakistan was an attractive country with a good society, and a growing economy in its formative phase. These were times when the country had one of the best airlines in the world, which is likely to be auctioned off next month for losing close to one trillion rupees over the decades without any effort to stop the rot created by those who were supposed to address its decline. By the second decade of its existence, Pakistan’s economic growth was bigger than any other neighbor, and the pace of its industrialization was higher than any comparable post-colonial state. It was a peaceful country with a manageable population of less than one-quarter of what it is today, with plenty of water resources to support agriculture and industrialization. Even by the end of the 70’s, tens of thousands of tourists worldwide, mostly from European countries, could be seen in the bazaars, cultural sites, and trekking on mountain trails. That is not the case anymore.
Everyday events and stories reported with muting buttons on national media and splashed across the globe portray a state and society in trouble at best, if not in total chaos, disorder, and anarchy, which some argue might be the case. The roots of its trouble lie in its troubled political history of conflicts, elite corruption, and the rise of violent extremism. The country has been facing insurgencies, political violence, and internal strife for the last half century now if you count the years of 1974-77 insurgency in the border provinces of the country. By the end of that decade, wilfully getting sucked into the second wave of the Cold War, 1980-88, changed forever the soul, spirit, values, and culture of harmony and tolerance. While the great powers left the Afghan scene, Afghanistan and Pakistan had to deal with the humanitarian, social, and security effects of one of the most ruthless wars ever fought in a third-world country.
A reversal and reconstruction were possible, but those who followed the demise of the third Martial Law regime (1977-88) were inept, corrupt to the core, demagogues, and engaged in a dirty civic conflict of evicting political rivals from power with the support of invisible hands. After a decade lost in political squabbling and erosion of the state’s capacity to govern, another general, Pervaiz Musharraf, took over with a promise of a ‘new Pakistan,’ socially liberal, moderate, stable, and prosperous. Actually, the purpose was to shift back the power to the military for the fourth time. And then, America’s ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan, provoking a backlash which every successive government has found difficult, costly, and intractable an issue for internal security. Over time, it has become woven into religious and social discourses, ethnic grievances, and endless political conflicts among the elites, producing and reinforcing patterns of intolerance, extremism and violence.
There is no deliberative effort to invest in rebranding a narrative of a national image of a warm, hospitable, and welcoming society, which it is.
- Rasul Bakhsh Rais
In the recent past, we have seen citizens lynching suspected robbers in the streets of major cities and celebrating such successes, policemen killing blasphemy suspects in their custody, and enraged people attacking police stations to drag out such suspects and torture them to death. When there are laws to take care of offenders, why would members of any society become accusers, judges and executioners? The answer is that there is distrust of the police, judiciary, and, among all, the political class at war with itself. The violence against women and minorities, the two weakest sections in any society, would never miss the attention of the world media in an age where questions of freedom, justice and equality, at least theoretically, have gained prominence.
Pakistan’s once soft image of a vibrant society, deeply rich in strands of colorful diversity, creative in arts, like poetry and folk and Sufi music, placed on the world stage by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and heir of the Indus Valley and Gandhara civilizations is overshadowed by the corruption of its elites, their unending feuds, political engineering by the establishment, and the deteriorating capacity of the state to govern, and rein in extremist groups. Failures continue to produce more failures.
While society at large is apparently resilient, even with its sagging soul, and the country is endowed with rich natural and historical heritage, there is no deliberative effort to invest in rebranding a narrative of a national image of a warm, hospitable, and welcoming society, which it is. The elite cannot take refuge in blaming the ‘bad press’ when stories of lynching, custodial executions, honor-killing, and attacks on minority communities cease to happen. Presenting Pakistan in the lost historical image of pluralism, openness, and progressive orientation on the world stage would require changing facts on the ground. Pakistan’s elite will have to recognize that the currency of national prestige has changed to economic growth, innovation, technology, and a hospitable and tolerant society.
- Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017). X: @RasulRais
