Daily Times

In the aftermath of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) release of the Panama Papers, it has become public knowledge how many powerful people, including world leaders, have kept, circulated, and hidden away huge sums of money using tax havens.

The Panama Papers also reveal a certain fact about Pakistan: it is not a poor country as its citizens or the world generally imagines. If Pakistan really was a poor country, as many are fond of stating, this many of her prominent citizens would not be on the list. Maybe it’s time to think of a different image of Pakistan, kept poor by gross structural imbalances, and voracious monetary appetite of a corrupt political class. The list of political elite of Pakistan is quite extensive in the leaks. The shock value aside, we shouldn’t lose sight of the connection between this corruption and extremism.

We spend a lot of time talking about the language by which violent extremism is framed, but not nearly enough time talking about the violence itself. By and large, all humans have an expectation of fair treatment. Likewise, we become upset when things do not work out that way. Some people turn their anger inward. Others turn their anger outwards, reacting violently against societies they perceive as rigged. That doesn’t make the mode of their protest moral, but it should make it more comprehensible. The sad fact about the modern Muslim world is that its own leaders have held it back.

The hegemonic role of the power elites has been purportedly been responsible for radicalisation to a great extent in the Muslim world — by default, design or misplaced intentions. This is one of the reasons why we are now starting to see grassroots agitation in those Muslim countries that have seen such hegemonic or corrupt rule. Pakistan is one such example. How can a country that has developed nuclear weapons fail to offer energy and food security to its people? Perhaps the Panama leaks have given us an insight into why this has always been a problem.

In the colonial past of many Muslim countries, the colonising force was a symbiotic entity with local elites who opted for a favourable compartmentalisation of policy, as against a uniform national political arena that would have allowed populist politics to flourish, and put at risk the fragile vested interests. The unbridled monarchies of Gulf States and tribal chiefs in East Africa and Nigeria, along with feudal, and now industrial, interests in Pakistan are such inclusive entities, besides many others. When direct rule from the centre broke down in countries such as in Algeria, this espoused the cause of the elites in reaching centrestage in politics in many post-colonial Muslim nation states.

In many such nascent states, the inherent power relationship structures within colonialism were perpetuated in continuum by these elites till they met expressions of resentment; this is also happening right now in many Muslim countries. This seems to be somewhat the situation in present day Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, all states that are most affected by violent radicalisation, Islamism and tribalism; not coincidentally, autocratic and corrupt leaders in these states have been blamed for the current dilemmas of these states.

Muslim leadership in the 20th century has seen a bewildering array of kings, military dictators, clergy, democrats, tribal men, etc., and adding to this motley arraignment of leadership are newly emerging aggressively ultra-right literalist Islamist movements. Unfortunately, most of these leadership frameworks share the commonality of having a sole political agenda of survival or sustaining of foisted regimes on a populace. Thus, besides issue of corruption, nepotism, suppression of freedom and democracy, this elite-political Islam has fostered radicalisation in many Muslim states through the devices of governance frameworks solely enacted in the hope of self-sustenance, in the process dooming their constituencies in many cases to spirals of violence.

Let me put it simply; consider an ordinary citizen of Pakistan weighed down by spiraling utility bills, not able to make ends meet, having fed a liberal diet of political claptrap about progress by different governments. Then, he finds out through the Panama Papers (though he should have known already) that the mantra of attracting foreign direct investment is a delusion tailored just for him, especially when his leaders send most of their money abroad. Oh, a slight correction, they send most of his money abroad. Should he continue to have hope in surviving in this scenario in this country? If not, may he not turn to violence as a last resort, if for nothing else but to vent his impotent anger? Probably, I would turn to religion, seeing as my society is already deeply informed by religion.

The Panama Papers are just the tip of the iceberg. There are likely many more. After all, Mossack Fonseca is merely the fourth-largest tax haven law firm. Imagine, for a moment, how much money Middle Eastern royals, dictators, and various crony capitalists have stashed away, laundered, or simply shunted around. Consider the present condition of the Middle East, and how many billions, if not trillions, of dollars were thrown away in pursuit of pleasure, acts of hedonism, vanity projects, cults of personality and grudge matches. Money that could have been invested in the future of a region that was once one of the most dynamic in the world.

Drive by the majestic constitutional avenue in Islamabad, and look at how some of the leaders live in our country. Then, look at the adjacent shanty towns and slums, and answer one question: how can the political elite of our country come again and again on media, and poker faced, announce some measure against extremism and terrorism they are supposedly undertaking? Do they not understand that they are a part of the problem by deluding some poor sob like me into thinking that I am protected, and when my delusion breaks badly, perhaps I too shall hurl a stone? Of course, they do.

It is a tragedy, and yet there will be no change until and unless we understand that the roots of our extremism lie in indignity. And, that it lies, probably, in many more Panama Papers and offshore bank accounts.

The author is a former Inspector General of Police and former head of National Counter Terrorism Authority Pakistan