The economist has done a big series of articles on Pakistan.
You can have read of some of them or listen to the interview of the author here.
Amina Jilani has summarised some of the not so nice parts of the articles
Amina Jilani
A lot of people around the globe – those interested – have learnt a lot about Pakistan this past week. The Economist has a vast and international readership. A banner headline across the top of the cover of the July 8 edition announces ‘Inside: ‘Unstable Pakistan, A 10-Page Special Report.’ The writer, James Astill, spent time here in April, and he has certainly got our number – he is spot on. He interacted (to use one of our President General’s favorite words) with quite a few people in the know, all of whom are unusually named and thanked.
Our media, at least our famed ‘article writers’ employed by the InfoMin, has selectively dwelt upon the odd good point and wisely ignored the rest.
The editorial, ‘The trouble with Pakistan,’ pointedly focuses on the country’s involvement with international terrorism which “if it can be said to have a centre, it lies in the training camps, madrassas and battlefields of northern Pakistan and south-eastern Afghanistan.”
President General Pervez Musharraf has been lumped in with the “venal democrats and clumsy dictators” who have overseen Pakistan’s wretched history. “He has not done very much to make Pakistan a less dangerous place” and “he continues to do grave damage to the long term political health of Pakistan.” Oh dear !
Worse, in the aftermath of the July 11 Mumbai train bomb blasts, is the mention of “The most dangerous outfits, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (the Army of the Pure) have been banned only to reappear under new guises.” [This is pertinent, because the question to be asked after such acts of terrorism is always ‘qui bono?’ and in this case the militant groups and the military are valid candidates because neighbourly peace is hardly to their advantage.]
The report itself has been harsh on the General, and even harsher on his third prime minister, technocrat and banker Shaukat Aziz, and has made it abundantly clear that neither is the miracle worker, that neither is responsible for the economic turnaround. It was all due to one “ethnic Pakistani currently in American custody, Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, the architect of the attacks on September 11th 2001.” This, of course, is nothing new.
We and the world are told that the state is weak, that one-third of our 165 million people live in poverty, and only half are literate, that thousands of youths are being prepared for holy war in our radical Islamic schools, that Pakistan is a bigoted place, and becoming more so, that the poor cannot afford meat or to ride in rickshaws but that even beggars are buying mobile phones, **that the 2002 elections were rigged and that “the one thing that can be said with certainty about the next election is that General Musharraf’s supporters will rig it.”**Strangely (or perhaps not) Musharraf comes out of the whole thing smelling far sweeter than his predecessors, civil and military. His record, even though he presides over “broken and predatory institutions,” even though he has made little progress in his six-year old famous seven-point agenda, and even though The Economist five years ago labeled him a “useless dictator” (and has not changed its mind), has surpassed that of the rest. His failing is that he accepts criticism from no one – he alone wields the wand to rule along the way to ruin.
The consensus being that there is little an outsider can do to halt the slide into decay, the worry is what will Musharraf leave behind him – because the day has to come when he will go, one way or another. And when that happens, it is a fair bet, moots Astill, that a new army chief would take over, elections or no elections.
On the government presided over by Banker Aziz, we have the quote of quotes, the quote to beat all quotes, the quote of the past year, thought up by a former minister who sensibly recently left the government. “There is a whiff of shame, something repugnant in the cabinet.” Brilliantly put.
Where to begin, asks Astill, on the 63 (should it not be more?) member cabinet? “Mr Aziz cannot control his ministers,” is one truism. And there are many more. Ministers take few important decisions as everything that matters is decided in Army House – and wisely so since the ministers include “many opportunists gathered around a clan of conservative Punjabi landowners.” Most are defectors from the two parties which rubbished the 1990s, who were offered inducements to join the General’s party or threatened with prosecution for past corruption, and there are even several who were already convicted.
The national assembly [the kakistocracy] is a joke that can seldom raise a 25 percent quorum and is largely ignored by the barrage of ministers who have more lucrative business at hand. The most important policies come in by ordinances, the General has 44 to his record [the latest being that related to Zia-ul-Haq’s Hudood ordinances, which was fluffed up on the advice of the slap-happy bully-boy law minister]. “So this is a Punch and Judy democracy show, reminiscent of those put on by a succession of earlier uniformed and civilian puppeteers.” If this pathetic parliament does manage to break all records and actually complete its term, it is only the “measure of its irrelevance.”
If any of the cabinet members have read the report, including the first amongst equals, and if any possess even a tiny vestige of shame (highly unlikely) he or she would resign and quit – quickly.
E-mail queries and comments to: [email protected]