Home >> South Asia >> India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal

     Email   Print 

Balkanization, Not Talibanization, is the Real Threat Facing Pakistan

Yousuf Nazar - 12/1/2007

Pakistan’s establishment and sections of its media have perfected the art of projecting the most irrelevant topics as national issues of paramount importance. Uniform is one such example. Some newspapers even published comments to the effect whether it was the beginning of a drastic transformation. Really; transformation to a completely failed state from a ‘failed state’? Another general? So what?

Hitler was not from the Army. He never really wore a general’s uniform. So he never had to take it off. But that did not alter the fact that he was a dictator whose third Reich led to Germany’s worst defeat and complete destruction.



Ayub Khan took off his uniform in 1962 but ruled for another seven years as a military dictator without many problems. He was the most ‘moderately enlightened’ of all generals. He introduced private enterprise to the Army as well as to his family. He wore fine dinner jackets to the state dinners in Western capitals and swam with beautiful British call girls [see photo of Christine Keeler left] in his leisure time. But the extreme inequalities and regional polarization caused by his misrule led to the dismemberment of Pakistan (presided over by another general) after two years, eight months, and twenty two days of his exit as the President of Pakistan. So much for the stability that his ‘economic achievements’ had supposedly brought to Pakistan.

One would think that Pakistan’s elites (although intellectually depleted to a debilitating degree due to massive brain drain over the past three decades) having lived most of their lives under military dictatorships, would have learned that only two generals in the modern history brought about any positive political change, Napoleon and Atatürk. And they would therefore focus on more substantive issues. Is this too much or too rational to expect?

Let us now look at some real issues: The history teaches us that all generals behave in exactly the same manner when they have power. They protect their own power and the military’s institutional interests. It is of little consequence if they rule with or without uniform. Or with ‘rubber-stamp’ parliaments or without even the pretense of having an election or a parliament.

Musharraf’s both coups were desperate acts of a man who saw his career coming to an end. Both the coups showed complete and contemptuous disregard for the constitution and the interests of the country. He acted with impunity in a brazen display of naked power that showed no regard for any other consideration other than his self. What really led to his ‘dismissal’ by Nawaz Sharif was his misadventure into Cargill; a historic blunder whose sole purpose was to sabotage the peace process initiated with Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. A peace process that could have led to a period of greater stability and development in the sub-continent and a reduced role of the military.

After eight years of his misrule, what has Pakistan really achieved?

* Not only Pakistan does not have a democracy, it does not have even a chance of holding free and fair elections that would be at least as ‘fair’ as they were twenty years back in 1988.
* Pakistan is as corrupt, if not more, a country as it was on October 12, 1999. The biggest loan defaulters and arguably the most corrupt family in Pakistan’s history – the Chaudris of Gujrat – are Musharraf’s principal backers and lead the ruling party.
* Pakistan has been declared the most dangerous country in the World by the Americans, his best friends.
* Pakistan’s judiciary had a tainted record but it still operated with some semblance of respect. Now it stands completely destroyed.
* And the economy? The massive inflow of funds (over $65 billion) during the eight years has been a wasted opportunity. The greatest beneficiaries have been the generals, bankers, stock brokers and their friends without any real development, whatsoever, in the country.
* The general was shrewd to utilize the 9/11 to end his own international isolation but in his desperation to undo the blunders committed by the generals (himself included) that earned Pakistan the reputation of a ‘terrorist state’, his regime has made the biggest compromises on Pakistan sovereignty and independence in the country’s history of; compromises that may ultimately lead to Balkanization, and not Talibanization, of Pakistan.

Why Balkanization? A major fallout of the prolonged periods of military rule (1977-1988 and 1999-to date) since the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, has been that the country no longer thinks nationally. For example there is no real national Party. The PPP which once played that role was squeezed out of that role by the Army and its minions, like Nawaz and Chaudris, with the slogan “Jag Punjabi Jag” and mindless repression and persecution of its followers.

The ANP,MQM,MMA and PML(N) are either purely ethnic Parties or at best Provincial entities. Similarly on issues such as Kalabagh Dam, division of assets, etc; the discussions, regardless of which Government is in power, are conducted on the basis of provincial rather than national interests. Musharraf says that the Army provides the glue to Pakistan’s integrity but implicit in this dangerous argument is the admission that nothing else holds the country together.

In any case as the situation exists, Baluchistan is in the midst of a war for secession, and the Northern territories of Pakistan are on their way to forming autonomous entities with their own justice system, tax collection regime, police force, and fairly effective militias.

From a Federation we seem to be evolving into a de facto confederation which is usually a prelude to independence. The question may no longer be whether this slow motion disintegration of Pakistan can be stopped but whether it can be managed peacefully.

This is the question Pakistan faced in 1969-1971 and failed. The apologists for the Field Marshals and Generals dismissed the possibility then. They are again ignoring such warnings now. But history and conditions do not seem to be on their side, never mind the ‘pragmatism’ of the Busharraf followers, moderates, realists, etc. The threat of Balkanization is not an issue of ‘idealism’ or ‘morality’. This threat has never been so real since 1971.