[Dawn] THE new conventional wisdom is that democracy has failed in Pakistain. The trappings of democracy have. From what I've seen, there's not true democracy -- the rule of the demos -- in Pakistain. It's neither a good thing nor a bad thing. Democracy isn't actually necessary for good governance. A monarchy can work perfectly well, as can a bureaucratic imperium like the Chinese had for about 3000 years. Competence is necessary, though, whatever the form of government, and its lack in Pakistain can only be considered a bad thing.
Yet again. It seems so obvious to everyone that this is now the overwhelming, unquestioned, uncontested consensus. Even very honourable and well-meaning members of the National Assembly, the main beneficiaries of democracy, have announced its failure.
They've been pretending its existence, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Some concerned citizens and analysts have, as always, asked the military to intervene, yet again, while others have suggested that this would have happened many months ago, but that it is the military which is reluctant to take on such a huge mess supposedly created by elected representatives.
The oligarchs, who're the real rulers of Pakistain, are still trying to chase down the last military dictator and have him publicly flogged.
The list of democracy`s failures is extensive and impressive.
Call it "the list of Pakistain's failures" and I'll agree...
The economy is usually at the top of the list to accentuate democracy`s failure. Pakistain`s economy is said to be in a crisis since the day the PPP government has been in power.
"President Ten Percent." Does that ring any bells? Does anyone think he's anything but representative of Pak politix?
Everyone who knows absolutely nothing about how the economy functions has an opinion on it, arguing that it has hit `rock bottom`, it is facing its `worst crisis` ever, and other such colourful, descriptive terms.
It's weak and it's regarded as a cash mine for oligarchs. There's be a 30 percent increase in Pak GDP without the baksheesh factor.
But, the broad consensus is that the economy has collapsed completely.
We don't have a graphic of hyenas eating a dead wart hog, do we? I guess we'll have to settle for just the hyena...Lawlessness and growing ghunda gardi
Hindi: Rowdiness. I think it refers to the (Pak) gangster lifestyle. John Frum can probably explain better than I...
at the local level is another manifestation of the failure of democracy as is always Bloody Karachi`s ethnic and political strife. One cannot mention democracy and not mention corruption, of course, for it is assumed that democracy in Pakistain is a system which is just another name for corruption.
The system is what it's made to be. Actual democracy is susceptible to corruption because it's easy to vote yourself somebody else's money. Oligarchy masquerading as democracy says the oligarchs are the ones who're getting rich, not the demos.
The fact that the rupee has fallen some 30 per cent is also democracy`s failing,
It's just another debased currency, backed up by a government's discernible willingness to pay. In Pakistain nobody can discern any willingness to trade Krugerands or dukats for pieces of paper with the Quaid's picture on them.
and of course, the power crisis, for which only democracy must be held responsible.
If the money for fuel's raked off the rate of the fuel's consumption is unaffected. If the funds for maintenance are raked off the breakdown rate's unaffected. If the capital budget's raked off the rate of demand expansion remains unaffected. With the proper piece of paper hanging on my wall I'll betcha I could make $500 an hour pointing out obvious stuff like that. Of course my report would likely just be filed someplace and forgotten, since hiring a consultant to prepare a report is usually confused with doing something. And I'm sure my fee, if I got paid at all, would be raked off. We're talking about Pakistain, remember.
Baloch separatism? Of course, due to democracy`s failure.
Balochs are a separate ethnic group, who're being oppressed by Pashtuns and Punjabis. Why wouldn't they buy into separatism? It would allow them to oppress themselves, which is different from being oppressed by outsiders.
Militancy, and `religion-based enthusiasm`? These have to be democracy`s biggest failures. How could one disagree?
This happens because it's not only allowed but encouraged to happen. Jihad is built into the nation's officially expounded ideology. "Strategic depth" could be termed "Son of Great Gamery." And the conviction that nobody can see through the subtle plans of Pakistain's oligarchic masterminds is, shall we say, misplaced.
This is just the very top of a list which runs very deep. This ability of democracy to do such extensive damage to the economy, society, even to politics must surely be the envy of every other system known to society.
Yet blaming everything that has gone wrong with Pakistain on democracy only emphasises the fact that those who do so fail to understand what democracy is supposed to be, what purpose it serves and, importantly, how one evaluates successes and failures.
It's a cultural difference, not a political difference.
It's not unique, of course; prior to the inauguration in 2009 one of Obama's flunkies announced that he was "ready to rule from Day One." I could tell at that very moment that we were looking at a failed presidency. Americans are not ruled, they're governed. Our demos consists in theory and still in many ways in practice of free citizens, with a right to be left alone to make our own mistakes, which is why everyone should hate smoking Nazis and people who want to tax us for being porky. We see government's function as that of a referee, making sure nobody cheats at the game of civil life.
Paks, and Muslims in general, are ruled. They're told what to do. When the nawabs decide everybody should quite smoking the gaspers are tossed. If holy men decide that porkiness is un-Islamic everybody diets. If they don't, they're apostates and have to be killed, preferably by having their heads chopped off. They're told what to think from birth, starting which what religion they're supposed to be. There are nawabs and sardars and all sorts of big turbans running things, and there are The Masses™, who don't have any actual rights and whose obligations consist of reaping and sowing and hewing wood and drawing water. They don't qualify as peasantry; most aren't even out of serfdom.
Given that kind of tradition and that kind of mindset there's no wonder common folk are often literally enslaved. Human life is cheap because it has no value. Death is welcome because the afterlife can't be any worse than what they have now.
It also reveals a complete absence of a reading of how history has affected, and continues to affect and burden, the present, and amnesia about the past. Or, how social forces and social structures influence, even determine, current outcomes and a host of other social phenomena which have a bearing on social and political relationships.
The willingness to believe five impossible things before breakfast has a lot to do with the the state of anarchy pervading in Pakistain.The expectations from democracy in Pakistain have been highly and unrealistically exaggerated. To expect that democracy is a solution to any of Pakistain`s economic or social problems, or a counter to militancy and `religion-based enthusiasm`, is to misunderstand what it is that democracy ought to deliver.
To imagine, by any stretch of the imagination, that Pakistain is governed by its demos is to believe a sixth impossible thing before breakfast.
More importantly, it is to be completely unaware of the structural and social conditions which constitute Pak democracy: messy, compromised, reconciliatory, inefficient, just like the rest of society, and which explain so many of Pakistain`s recurrent failures. To expect Pak democracy to be some angel-like, ideal, pristine system of government is foolish. Pak democracy only reflects what Pak society is.
Which is why it's a shambles.
For a country which has only known either military rule or electoral politics dominated by the military in the last 35 years to suddenly expect democracy to `succeed`, without any historical precedence, is equally absurd. Importantly, one needs to compare similar forms of representation from the past to evaluate the current form of governance rather than some abstract notions of democracy.
For the demos to govern themselves (and Pakistain) the cititzenry would have to be free to think the way the the individual pleased. That includes religion, and as long as Pakistain finds it religiously impossible for a non-Muslim to be president or prime minister or anything but a victim awaiting despoilment there is no democracy to be found, only the oligarchy of hereditary politicians, nawabs, sardars, an incompetent and greedy military, and rapacious holy men.In other words, they ain't got a chance.
There is no denying the fact that the current government has been an abject failure in addressing many of the issues mentioned above. However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
to hold democracy responsible for this failure is to confuse form with content. It is the government which fails, not necessarily the system which brought it to power.
Systems are made up of people and Pakistain's problem lies with the people in power. The people in power are symptomatic of the evil shambles that Pakistain has made itself, starting with Maulana Maududi, the Great Apostasizer. Pakistain wallows in problems not only of its own making but of its own nurture, too beloved of the system to be set aside.