General Musharraf left behind a legacy that would shame any nation on earth. In his nine-year rule, Pakistan has earned most unenviable global distinctions from being the “ground zero” of the US war on terror to being the breeding ground of extremism and terrorism. Today, Pakistan's name instantly raises fear and concern as the “most dangerous nation on earth” and as “the most unsafe country in the world.”
Throughout our indepen-dent statehood, like Alice in Wonderland, we as a nation never cared which way we were going. And now it doesn't really matter which way we are gone. After a long spell of dictatorship, we had a lifetime opportunity to return to the demo-cratic path but alas, we are still lost and looking for a Cheshire Puss to show us the direction. We are now running after illusory “Friends of Pakistan” with a begging bowl in our hands and ready to barter if not ransom whatever sovereign inde-pendence is left with us.
Instead of fixing the fundamentals of our governance and choosing to live our own lives as an independent nation free from fear, want and ignorance and raising our children with honour and dignity free from the fear of violence, oppression and injustice, we are back in the hands of a handful of countries who wish to help us to advance their own agenda and protect their own national interests. This is what we have been doing ever since we began our “indepen-dent” statehood.
Had Quaid-e-Azam lived longer, he would have only been embarrassed to see how we have acquitted ourselves as a free and sovereign country that he thought and aspired will be one of the greatest nations on earth and an ideal democratic state in the world. After the Quaid, Pakistan was left without any sense of direction and in a state of perpetual drift. It started cutting itself into pieces, losing within less than quarter of a century not only its own half but also the very urge and rationale to remain an arbiter of its own destiny.
Pakistan came into being in the name of Islam and democracy but it has lived without practising the essence of both. A country which was considered “twentieth century miracle” and which was fought and won entirely through democratic and constitutional struggle has spent its lifetime in struggling for democracy and constitutional primacy. Alas! Quaid-e-Azam did not get to know us well. By nature, we are a nation of slaves and beggars.
In the early '50s, with growing concern about our security and survival, we entered into alliances with “friends” whom we said were not our masters in the hope that they will provide strength to us in the face of looming threats to our existence. We became the “Cold Warriors” through those harsh Cold War years and allowed the policy of containment to be enacted on our soil. As a major player in the Cold War, we did not blink despite the intensity and proximity of the Soviet gaze.
We undertook historic errands on behalf of our “friends-not masters” which included the use of our air bases by US spy planes in the ’60s, and a seminal contribution in the 1970s to the US-China rapprochement. As a result of those alliances, we did receive some aid but our experience in terms of support for our independence did not match our expectations. When it came to fighting wars to defend ourselves against India in 1965 and then again in 1971, we fought them alone, and in the process lost half the country.
Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979, Pakistan again became a key ally of the US and also the front line state in the last and decisive battle of the Cold War which hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union and its symbol the “Berlin Wall.” We were paid a five-year $3.2 billion aid package as price for our role in that war. Once the war was over and the Soviets pulled out, the US just walked away, leaving Afghanistan and its people at the mercy of their fate.
In the aftermath of 9/11,
Pakistan is once again a pivotal partner of the US in its war on terror. As a battleground of this war, Pakistan could not escape the fall out of the crisis in the form of a heavy toll on its already volatile socio-economic environment as a result of protracted violence, instability, trade and production slowdown, export stagnation, investor hesitation, and concomi-tant law and order situation. We now claim to have suffered more than $35 billion in losses. But no one knows what has happened to the $12 billion paid by the US as “alimony” to General Musharraf after the 9/11.
Our situation has never been so bad. Let us not blame America or India. We ourselves are responsible for our problems. General Musharraf left behind a legacy that would shame any nation on earth. In his nine-year rule, Pakistan has earned most unenviable global distinctions from being the “ground zero” of the US war on terror to being the breeding ground of extremism and terrorism. Today, Pakistan's name instantly raises fear and concern as the “most dangerous nation on earth” and as “the most unsafe country in the world.”
As if this was not enough, we are killing ourselves in almost daily suicide attacks. We as a nation now face a double jeopardy. On the one hand, we are fighting a full-scale war against our own people in our tribal areas, and on the other, we find ourselves utterly helpless in the face of continuing US military incursions and drone attacks inside our territory with public accusations of not doing enough. This is exactly what happens to nations that bind themselves in chains of servility and shackles of dependence on their “donors” and “masters.”
All these problems that we now face have nothing to do with our foreign policy. They are rooted in our gross domestic failures and leadership miscarriages. In fact, there is no foreign policy in the absence of good governance. And we never realise that in foreign policy there are no friends. Foreign policy is all about national interests. We never defined our national interests, and from the very beginning of our indepen-dence, we allowed ourselves to be possessed by “friends” who became our “masters” and are now our “donors.”
During the Cold War, we were at least playing the role of mercenaries involving “aid for services.” Today, we are presenting ourselves as beggars by choice without realising that beggars ultimately have no choice. The only thing we can offer to our “friends” is a nicely-ribboned compendium of “dossiers” containing more than sixty projects in five “agreed” areas that we think should be financed by the “Friends of Pakistan” — a group that we cobbled together last September in the hope that we will be able to extract $100 billion from them, and if nothing else, we thought “we will get tools from them to catch fish.”
But no one, not even the “Friends of a Democratic Pakistan” as the group is now called trust us even with a penny in cash. Richard Boucher made it clear at the last meeting of Friends of Pakistan in Abu Dhabi that there will be no cash on the table. And there is no cash on the table in Tokyo. Japan has pledged only up to $1 billion “to support our economic reforms and counter-terrorism” efforts. The US has already linked its pledged $1.5 billion aid to our “good behaviour” with India and meeting the terrorism-related benchmarks. A total of over $5 billion are said to have been pledged in Tokyo. But not a penny of the pledged amount will come to us without a quid pro quo.
We expect our “donors” to complete the projects in our dossiers over the next five years, while a few of them we could wait to be completed in 10 years. How generous we are. We have already established a secretariat in Islamabad and a directorate in the Foreign office to give permanency to the “Friends of Pakistan” and perhaps would not be averse even to creating a new ministry in our cabinet to look after the work related to this group. A Trust Fund has already been established to which the Group will debit all their meetings and travel expenses.
The meeting in Tokyo will probably be followed by many meetings in future in other nicely located cities of the world. Since September, it has already had meetings in New York, Abu Dhabi and Tokyo. Not bad. The remaining favourite meeting places will, of course, be London, Geneva, Paris,
Bonn, Washington, and New York. The Group itself will follow the familiar multilateral path and calendar. It will be yet another forum in hundreds of UN-related bodies and groups where “pledges” are made but never honoured and which draw “work plans” that are never implemented.
The Group will go from country to country enjoying 7-course dinners in Seven Star hotels, making speeches for the security and stability of Pakistan and expressing “solidarity” with its benighted people. If all goes well, in the year 2018, the Friends of Pakistan will celebrate a “decade of friendship and cooperation” with Pakistan at a special gala 'summit' in New York at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. And in Pakistan, we would still be left without any tools “to do our own fishing.”
For now at least, no one trusts us even for a penny in cash. The government's trust deficit and credibility gap is too real. No one has faith in its policies or promises. The world has seen a tradition of broken oaths, dishonoured commitments and breached pledges. No one is ready to give us funds without an oversight mechanism and rigorous control. We are left with no choice other than leaving us at the mercy of IMF which, whether we like it or not, seems to have not only become relevant to our current crisis but also indispensable for the revival of our credit rating and investor's confidence.
The die is cast. There is no alternative to the bitter pill now. Perhaps at times, painful surgical procedures has become necessary to recover from systemic failures. IMF's disciplinary codes might warrant “surgical” remedies to revive our economy through fiscal correction measures. But one thing is clear. Artificial breathing will not do. Shaukat Tareen will have to move beyond his plans A, B, and C, and bring the government out of its tunnel vision mode. He must prove himself more than a banker.
Capital does not grow on trees, nor does it come through loans. Loans or borrowed liquidities are not capital; they are a liability. We should avoid depending on liability as a matter of habit. An economic recovery blueprint requires judicious planning to match national needs and resources as well as capabilities. The country has to be put back on the path of “self-reliance.” This would require working full time on domestic growth and production, and home-grown remedies to our economic ailments.
Materially we are a rich country in terms of human and natural resources. Let us capitalise on our resources. We need our own solutions to our current economic problems. Liquidity alone will not help. This is the time for tightening of belts to reduce governmental spending and borrowings, controlling inflation, rationalising GDP targets, restoring macro-economic balance, banning non-essential imports and luxuries, and reviving industry to reduce the trade gap. We need to focus on domestic savings and foreign trade.
We will have to restore our own credibility as an independent state, and concentrate on increasing agricultural and industrial output. We will have to ensure law and order in the country to stop capital flight. But there will be no seriousness of purpose in any of these activities unless our rulers themselves set an example of austerity. They must give up their lavish and luxurious lifestyle, and cut down on foreign visits.
For God's sake, give up Marco Polo culture. No more World Eco-nomic Forums, no more state-funded Umra junkets. And no more blind faith in “Friends of Pakistan.” Let us be our own friends and seek home-grown solutions to our problems. Let us make our country Pakistan again before it is too late. Look at India's prime minister. Make him your model. Give up your SUVs and seven series Beamers lest people decide to snatch them from you.
Time is running out. The people are fast reaching a stage where they would want not only a change of faces to run their government but also a new system based on justice, rule of law, constitutional supremacy, and good governance. This could also mean a revolution. But we must avert a revolution that can be hijacked by the people who are already threatening the state and its writ in parts of the country. In the ultimate analysis, a nation's strength lies in its people and institutions.
We need to strengthen our people and our institutions before it is too late. No country is respected or has ever succeeded externally if it is weak and crippled domestically. Even a superpower, the former Soviet Union could not survive as a superpower only because it was domestically weak in political, economic and social terms.
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