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COMMENT: Is Islamist peril only a myth? — Tanvir Ahmad Khan
What Pakistan needs is a grand social contract of which the armed forces are a part. More important than retrenchment is the elimination of the present disconnect between the army and the people. It is not a simple numbers game. It warrants a revolutionary reconstruction of the mission of the armed forces. This is not an easy task
At a time when Pakistani liberals are by and large content to be the cheerleaders of their government’s armed confrontation with local and foreign Islamists in some of the most sensitive regions of the country, a French analyst has drawn upon his study of Pakistan during his stint at Islamabad’s French embassy from 2003-2005 and challenged several assumptions shared by Pakistan’s Westernised elite and the government.
The challenge comes in a new Carnegie Endowment policy brief “Pakistan: the myth of an Islamist peril” authored by Frederic Grare. As one reads his unorthodox analysis, one is almost equally aware of his incisive mind and also a probable subliminal presence of the new vintage Hussain Haqqani.
Grare’s retrospective look and present scrutiny lead him to definitive conclusions. First and foremost, he asserts that by “focusing on only Islamist militancy, Western governments confuse the consequence and the cause: the army is the problem”. He alleges that that the sectarian and jihadi groups “were the creation of the army and remain by and large under the army’s control”. A Carnegie brief is nothing if not a recommendation to the US government.
Western governments, he advises, should not let fear of an Islamist threat distort their dealings with Islamabad. He argues that arms sales to Pakistan “will also increase the Pakistan military’s leverage to block major internal reforms”. His recipe, at once drastic and utopian, is a true demilitarisation of Pakistan’s polity.
Grare’s boxed snapshot of Pakistan Army’s influence claims that generals, including brigadiers, in Pakistan number 770-940 while the US, the strongest military power in world history, has only 881. It also traces the army’s grip on the educational budget, national universities, foundations, administrative training institutions etc — a presence that weakens the civilian elite. The basic premise from which Grare has arrived at the imperative of army’s retrenchment is that “the Islamist threat is neither as great nor as autonomous as many assume”. Secondly, the Pakistani army has “used Islamic organisations for its purpose at home and abroad”.
Pakistan has a lively debate of its own on civil-military relations and on the role of the state in the genesis of militant groups. Indeed, it is the staple of TV talk shows and the op-ed columns of the national newspapers. Every day formation of such groups with malafide intentions is discussed threadbare. Unfortunately, much of this debate is conducted from a partisan viewpoint and suffers from a deficit of objectivity.
Ever since a leftist emphasis on social and economic causality of political trends became unfashionable for the Pakistani liberals, they have been increasingly reduced to borrowed Western semantics and constructs. The most fundamental problem in Pakistan is as to why and how it created such a huge reservoir of disenfranchised, disadvantaged and disenchanted people from which the extremists and terrorists are able to draw an inexhaustible supply of recruits. One look into this bottomless reservoir and you know that lawlessness, violence and rebellion are not myths.
Democracy is the inalienable right of every citizen to participate, however indirectly, in the decision-making process. Democracy is, therefore, intrinsically good. Creativity and innovation come more naturally to democratic societies. Democratic freedoms engage the deepest recesses of the human soul. It provides norms of collective life and sustains institutions of civil society.
Democracy is simply not compatible with the extrapolation of the doctrine of unity of command to civilian political life for it cannot but be pluralistic. While there is bound to be a difference of degree, military and civil governments alike have fought shy of letting genuine participatory democracy take roots. We have been a largely disenfranchised nation.
Democracy is also crucial to the daunting task of mediating competition for resources, power and influence among our federating units. The recent polarisation on the management and development of water resources and other “mega projects” illustrated the difficulties in carrying through plans drawn up by closed-door bureaucratic cabals without a proactive engagement with the genuine representatives of the people. Military rulers have certainly exacerbated these difficulties but relations between the centre and provinces were not much better under autocratic civilian rulers. This has constrained development.
Economic development in Pakistan follows periods of high and low tides largely depending upon access to external resources. It is tragic that even in 58 years we have not been able to develop national models that satisfy our specific needs of combining growth with social justice. Naturally, periods of economic stagnation hit the disadvantaged segments of population particularly hard. But these groups do not find much reprieve when the high tide also bypasses them completely with nothing but a fantasy of a trickle-down effect to transform their lives.
In dozens of countries, such classical concepts have undergone a creative reinterpretation to reduce the usual polarisation of incomes and the widening of gaps in the society. Under authoritarian rule economic managers spend more time on propaganda than on finding creative solutions to the problems faced by the people. Doctored statistics weave a web that blurs their vision and salves their conscience.
There is no walk of life where social inequalities determine inequitable access to quality facilities as in the education sector. During the last decade or so, education has become by far the most divisive factor in our national life. It pits provinces against provinces and within the same province one social class against the other. An elitist approach to education is locking millions out of opportunities.
What Pakistan needs is a grand social contract of which the armed forces are a part. More important than retrenchment is the elimination of the present disconnect between the army and the people. It is not a simple numbers game. It warrants a revolutionary reconstruction of the mission of the armed forces. This is not an easy task as it presupposes that the leaders of this disciplined force would transcend their personal ambitions and allow the Pakistani state to recover its integrity and its holistic order.
The writer is a former foreign secretary. He can be reached at [email protected]
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...1-4-2006_pg3_2
COMMENT: Is Islamist peril only a myth? — Tanvir Ahmad Khan
What Pakistan needs is a grand social contract of which the armed forces are a part. More important than retrenchment is the elimination of the present disconnect between the army and the people. It is not a simple numbers game. It warrants a revolutionary reconstruction of the mission of the armed forces. This is not an easy task
At a time when Pakistani liberals are by and large content to be the cheerleaders of their government’s armed confrontation with local and foreign Islamists in some of the most sensitive regions of the country, a French analyst has drawn upon his study of Pakistan during his stint at Islamabad’s French embassy from 2003-2005 and challenged several assumptions shared by Pakistan’s Westernised elite and the government.
The challenge comes in a new Carnegie Endowment policy brief “Pakistan: the myth of an Islamist peril” authored by Frederic Grare. As one reads his unorthodox analysis, one is almost equally aware of his incisive mind and also a probable subliminal presence of the new vintage Hussain Haqqani.
Grare’s retrospective look and present scrutiny lead him to definitive conclusions. First and foremost, he asserts that by “focusing on only Islamist militancy, Western governments confuse the consequence and the cause: the army is the problem”. He alleges that that the sectarian and jihadi groups “were the creation of the army and remain by and large under the army’s control”. A Carnegie brief is nothing if not a recommendation to the US government.
Western governments, he advises, should not let fear of an Islamist threat distort their dealings with Islamabad. He argues that arms sales to Pakistan “will also increase the Pakistan military’s leverage to block major internal reforms”. His recipe, at once drastic and utopian, is a true demilitarisation of Pakistan’s polity.
Grare’s boxed snapshot of Pakistan Army’s influence claims that generals, including brigadiers, in Pakistan number 770-940 while the US, the strongest military power in world history, has only 881. It also traces the army’s grip on the educational budget, national universities, foundations, administrative training institutions etc — a presence that weakens the civilian elite. The basic premise from which Grare has arrived at the imperative of army’s retrenchment is that “the Islamist threat is neither as great nor as autonomous as many assume”. Secondly, the Pakistani army has “used Islamic organisations for its purpose at home and abroad”.
Pakistan has a lively debate of its own on civil-military relations and on the role of the state in the genesis of militant groups. Indeed, it is the staple of TV talk shows and the op-ed columns of the national newspapers. Every day formation of such groups with malafide intentions is discussed threadbare. Unfortunately, much of this debate is conducted from a partisan viewpoint and suffers from a deficit of objectivity.
Ever since a leftist emphasis on social and economic causality of political trends became unfashionable for the Pakistani liberals, they have been increasingly reduced to borrowed Western semantics and constructs. The most fundamental problem in Pakistan is as to why and how it created such a huge reservoir of disenfranchised, disadvantaged and disenchanted people from which the extremists and terrorists are able to draw an inexhaustible supply of recruits. One look into this bottomless reservoir and you know that lawlessness, violence and rebellion are not myths.
Democracy is the inalienable right of every citizen to participate, however indirectly, in the decision-making process. Democracy is, therefore, intrinsically good. Creativity and innovation come more naturally to democratic societies. Democratic freedoms engage the deepest recesses of the human soul. It provides norms of collective life and sustains institutions of civil society.
Democracy is simply not compatible with the extrapolation of the doctrine of unity of command to civilian political life for it cannot but be pluralistic. While there is bound to be a difference of degree, military and civil governments alike have fought shy of letting genuine participatory democracy take roots. We have been a largely disenfranchised nation.
Democracy is also crucial to the daunting task of mediating competition for resources, power and influence among our federating units. The recent polarisation on the management and development of water resources and other “mega projects” illustrated the difficulties in carrying through plans drawn up by closed-door bureaucratic cabals without a proactive engagement with the genuine representatives of the people. Military rulers have certainly exacerbated these difficulties but relations between the centre and provinces were not much better under autocratic civilian rulers. This has constrained development.
Economic development in Pakistan follows periods of high and low tides largely depending upon access to external resources. It is tragic that even in 58 years we have not been able to develop national models that satisfy our specific needs of combining growth with social justice. Naturally, periods of economic stagnation hit the disadvantaged segments of population particularly hard. But these groups do not find much reprieve when the high tide also bypasses them completely with nothing but a fantasy of a trickle-down effect to transform their lives.
In dozens of countries, such classical concepts have undergone a creative reinterpretation to reduce the usual polarisation of incomes and the widening of gaps in the society. Under authoritarian rule economic managers spend more time on propaganda than on finding creative solutions to the problems faced by the people. Doctored statistics weave a web that blurs their vision and salves their conscience.
There is no walk of life where social inequalities determine inequitable access to quality facilities as in the education sector. During the last decade or so, education has become by far the most divisive factor in our national life. It pits provinces against provinces and within the same province one social class against the other. An elitist approach to education is locking millions out of opportunities.
What Pakistan needs is a grand social contract of which the armed forces are a part. More important than retrenchment is the elimination of the present disconnect between the army and the people. It is not a simple numbers game. It warrants a revolutionary reconstruction of the mission of the armed forces. This is not an easy task as it presupposes that the leaders of this disciplined force would transcend their personal ambitions and allow the Pakistani state to recover its integrity and its holistic order.
The writer is a former foreign secretary. He can be reached at [email protected]
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...1-4-2006_pg3_2
Could it to be a truism that “the Islamist threat is neither as great nor as autonomous as many assume”.
Stifling democracy is as good as having a national of serf and slaves!
Especially when the jackboot is planted firmly on the posterior of its citizens at large!
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