One of my cousins who lives in the US once asked me if anything good ever happens in Pakistan? He was brought up in the US and has visited Pakistan only once. Though he has no interest in Pakistani politics, but he has been exposed to Pakistani news channels watched by his parents to keep a link with their country. Once, he told me that after seeing Pakistani TV channels, he would never want to settle in Pakistan.
A few days back, I asked one of my batch mates from a course we took together about his job in the US embassy. He said his biggest challenge was to counter negative perception about Pakistan. I got a similar response from an Army officer deputed in Afghanistan. He told me that from the government to an ordinary person on the street, Afghans consider Pakistan to be the perpetrator of chaos and anarchy in their country. The recent attacks, claiming more than 90 lives, were attributed to the Haqqani Network. For quite some time, it has become a pattern that both Pakistan and Afghanistan blame each other for terror-related activities in their countries. This is a self-defeating mechanism. Since playing blame game without finding a solution to the problem is increasing acrimony between the two countries.
In recent years there has been a significant reduction in terror activities in Pakistan. Some economic indicators have also been encouraging. For the first time in ten years, Pakistan’s GDP has risen to 5.2 per cent. All these developments should have rehabilitated Pakistan’s image abroad, but that is not the case. The efforts to defeat terrorism at home and making Pakistan safe for investment has not won us many laurels. The negative perception persists. The US Congress keeps pointing the finger at Pakistan for watering the seeds of terrorism in the region. Surprisingly, whenever Pakistan is accused of providing a haven to the Haqqani network, Afghanistan rocks with blasts and bombshells. Not that there is any nexus, but the recent attack serves as a reminder that unrest in Afghanistan has only increased over the years, and that Pakistan, according to the Afghan government and intelligence agencies, is contributing to increasing it further. Let us return to Pakistan’s perception problem and try and understand what is eating the nation from inside.
During the ‘60s, Pakistan’s development model was praised the world over. We often remember how the UAE sought the Pakistan International Airlines’ assistance in developing the Emirates Airlines. We also reminisce about Pakistan lending funds to Germany to help it rise from the World War II debris. However, the pins that had held the country’s institutions together started falling apart by late 70s as we joined the Soviet-Afghan war theatre, and altered our national narrative.
A new layer of the upper-middle class was allowed to emerge on the back of oil money from the Gulf States. The state took a lenient view of the narcotics smuggled into or taken out of Pakistan. Soon, Pakistan was a place where people were more interested in individual advancement. Groups became powerful turning into mafias. New political parties were birthed from the womb of agencies to screw the PPP primarily. As far as the Pakistan Muslim League was concerned it had no direction of it own. Its masters changed hands as often as there were dictators on the helm.
The last four decades have been a fight for the survival of democracy with an intervening 10-years span of General Musharraf’s regime. After the signing of Charter of Democracy between the PPP and PML-N, the only sense that has prevailed among the political leadership is to never raise their division to a level where a third force can make an easy incursion.
There has been a reduction in terrorist activities. Some economic indicators have also been encouraging. These developments should have rehabilitated Pakistan’s image abroad, but that has not been the case
Amid this entire debacle some important developments did take place, such as the restoration of the judiciary after its sacking by Musharraf in 2007 and the passage of the 18th Amendment that realigned the Constitution to salvage it from dictatorial era amendments. These developments, however, remained superficial; their benefits never trickled down. In the case of the judiciary, lower courts still await reforms. Instead of serving to strengthen the social sector devolved to the provinces, the 18th Amendment has been used as an alibi to turn provinces into independent states with resistance to federal government’s intervention. This has raised new governance issues especially in Sindh.
Internally, the country has been consumed by governments that worked only on consolidating their power and enriching themselves. When political parties are mentioned, it is rarely their work that is discussed. Instead, it is usually the influence of their leaders that is talked about. Each party has become so powerful on the back of their business stakes that the Supreme Court judges, in the recent judgment in the Panama Papers case, could not help but mention the word Mafia.
Corruption is perhaps the main phenomenon contributing to the negative perception of Pakistan abroad.
The country has been looted so thoroughly that not a single institution seems to be working professionally. State-owned enterprises have been turned into leeches sucking the blood of the Exchequer, or the taxpayers to be precise. The trust deficit among institutions has become so wide that each institution sees the other as an enemy in disguise that should be sorted out. Judiciary is being abused in public. The Army is thrown tantrums at — remember Dawn Leaks. There is no foreign minister to represent Pakistan’s case abroad. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2016-17, the literacy rate in Pakistan has gone down by two percent. Pakistan’s new poverty index reveals that four out of 10 people live in multidimensional poverty.
This situation would take time to change, and not until the leadership takes difficult decisions. In the meantime, however, media could play its part by stop working on others’ agendas and by start looking at the authorities in the eye.
The writer is a journalist. She can be reached at [email protected]