Re: Pakistan at brink of Civil War
It is the same situation as in erstwhile Yugoslavia whether you take state structure into account or political developments. Established after WWI, Yugoslavia was actually destined to be the state of Salav people in Southern Europe. Initially, Salav identity held it togethor but after WWII communism under the leadership of Marshal Titto emerged as another binding factor for Salavs.
Serbia was the dominent province in Yugoslavia; Slovania, Bosnia, and Crotia were other prominent provinces in Yugoslavian federation. In order to give equitable representation to smaller provinces, Serbia had been split into two parts. But, after the death of Marshal Titto, Serbians, under Milosovic, under the belief that strong Serbian unity would garauntee integrity of the country, tried to re-assert Serbian political authority over other ethnicities, which inflamed the already simmering ethnic tension.
Another development that happened was the economy of Yugoslvia. By 1980, Yugoslavia had borrowed heavily from foreign countries and had huge external debt. In early 1980s, it tried to get loans from other countries but there was economic recession( like the one today) at that time, so no country gave it loan. Ultinmately, it had to get loan from IMF. But due to stringent conditionalities attached with the IMF loan, common masses came under sever ecnomic burdon and high inflation so much so that by 1980, food and power crisis arose. By 1990, it inceasingly became evident that Yugoslavia federation cannot be sustained and so Yugoslavia started falling apart.
In case of Pakistan, there are other problems e.g. poplation explosion (by 2020 Pakistan would have 220-260 millions people approximately 80-100 millions more moths to feed and provide public amenities with), extremism, worsoning law and order.
The 60 millions dollars question is, who is going to be Pakistan's Milosovic? Nawaz Sharif or General Kiyani.
It is high time that something is done and political and state forces from Punjab show some patience and don't overthrow Zardari's govt to create other crisis in the country.