Our skewed world view won't let us see the real Pakistan

The west can no longer afford to impose its values and notions of democracy on countries that neither want nor need them : * Jason Burke, The Observer, Sunday 15 March 2009

First for the good news: Pakistan is not about to explode. The Islamic militants are not going to take power tomorrow; the nuclear weapons are not about to be trafficked to al-Qaida; the army is not about to send the Afghan Taliban to invade India; a civil war is unlikely.

The bad news is that Pakistan poses us questions that are much more profound than those we would face if this nation of 170 Millions, the world's second biggest Muslim state, were simply a failed state. If Pakistan collapsed, we would be faced by a serious security challenge. But the resilience of Pakistan and the nation's continuing collective refusal to do what the west would like it to together pose questions with implications far beyond simple security concerns. They are about our ability to influence events in far-off places, our capacity to analyse and understand the behaviour and perceived interests of other nations and cultures, about our ability to deal with difference, about how we see the world.

Pakistan has very grave problems. In the last two years, I have reported on bloody ethnic and political riots, on violent demonstrations, from the front line of a vicious war against radical Islamic insurgents. I spent a day with Benazir Bhutto a week before she was assassinated and covered the series of murderous attacks committed at home and abroad by militant groups based in Pakistan with shadowy connections to its security services. There is an economic crisis and social problems - illiteracy, domestic violence, drug addiction - of grotesque proportions. Osama bin Laden is probably on Pakistani soil.

For many developing nations, all this would signal the state's total disintegration. This partly explains why Pakistan's collapse is so often predicted. The nation's meltdown was forecast when its eastern half seceded to become Bangladesh in 1971, during the violence that preceded General Zia ul-Haq's coup in 1977, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, when Zia was killed in 1988, during the horrific sectarian violence of the early Nineties, through sundry ethnic insurgencies, after 9/11, after the 2007 death of Bhutto and now after yet another political crisis. These predictions have been consistently proved wrong. The most recent will be too. Yesterday, tempers were already calming.

Some of the perpetual international hysteria is stoked by the Pakistanis themselves. Successive governments have perfected the art of negotiating by pointing a gun to their own heads. They know that their nation's strategic importance guarantees the financial life support they need from the international community. More broadly, our understanding of Pakistan is skewed. This is in part due to centuries of historical baggage. Though few would quote Emile Zola on contemporary France, Winston Churchill, who as a young man fought on the North-West Frontier, is regularly cited to explain today's insurgency. This legacy also includes stereotypes of "Mad Mullahs" running amok, an image fuelled by television footage that highlights ranting demonstrators from Pakistan's Islamist parties though they have never won more than 14% in an election.

For many Britons, Pakistan represents "the other" - chaotic, distant, exotic, dirty, hot, fanatical and threatening. Yet at the same time, Pakistan seems very familiar. There is the English language, cricket, kebabs and curries and figures such as Imran Khan. There are a million-odd Britons of Pakistani-descent who over four decades have largely integrated far better in the UK than often suggested.

It is the tension between these two largely imaginary Pakistans that leads to such strong reactions in Britain. We see the country as plunged in a struggle between the frighteningly foreign and the familiar, between fanaticism and western democracy, values, our vision of the world and how it should be ordered. Yet while we are fretting about Pakistan's imminent disintegration, we are blind to the really important change.

Recent years have seen the consolidation of a new Pakistani identity between these two extremes. It is nationalist, conservative in religious and social terms and much more aggressive in asserting what are seen, rightly or wrongly, as local "Pakistani" interests. It is a mix of patriotic chauvinism and moderate Islamism that is currently heavily informed by a distorted view of the world sadly all too familiar across the entire Muslim world. This means that for many Pakistanis, the west is rapacious and hostile. Admiration for the British and desire for holidays in London have been replaced by a view of the UK as "America's poodle" and dreams of Dubai or Malaysia. The 9/11 attacks are seen, even by senior army officers, as a put-up job by Mossad, the CIA or both. The Indians, the old enemy, are seen as running riot in Afghanistan where the Taliban are "freedom fighters". AQ Khan, the nuclear scientist seen as a bomb-selling criminal by the West, is a hero. Democracy is seen as the best system, but only if democracy results in governments that take decisions that reflect the sentiments of most Pakistanis, not just those of the Anglophone, westernised elite among whom western policy-makers, politicians and journalists tend to chose their interlocutors.

This view of the world is most common among the new, urban middle classes in Pakistan, much larger after a decade of fast and uneven economic growth. It is this class that provides the bulk of the country's military officers and bureaucrats. This in part explains the Pakistani security establishment's dogged support for elements within the Taliban. The infamous ISI spy agency is largely staffed by soldiers and the army is a reflection of society. For the ISI, as for many Pakistanis, supporting certain insurgent factions in Afghanistan is seen as the rational choice. If this trend continues, it poses us problems rather different from those posed by a failed state. Instead, you have a nuclear armed nation with a large population that is increasingly vocal and which sees the world very differently from us.

We face a related problem in Afghanistan where we are still hoping to build the state we want the Afghans to want, rather than the state that they actually want. Ask many Afghans which state they hope their own will resemble in a few decades and the answer is "Iran". Dozens of interviews with senior western generals, diplomats and officials in Kabul last week have shown me how deeply the years of conflict and "nation-building" have dented confidence in our ability to transplant western values. Our interest in Afghanistan has been reduced to preventing it from becoming a platform for threats to the west. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the west has glimpsed the limits to its power and to the supposedly universal attraction of its values.

The west's dreams of a comfortable post-Cold War era have been rudely shaken. We have been forced reluctantly to accept the independence and influence of China and Russia. These are countries that we recognise as difficult international actors pursuing agendas popular with substantial proportions of their citizens. Other countries, particularly those less troubled than Pakistan or Afghanistan, are likely soon to join that list.

This poses a critical challenge in foreign policy. Worrying about the imminent collapse of Pakistan is not going to help us find answers to the really difficult questions that Pakistan poses.

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Burke has it right on the money, although authors such as Mohammad Hanif have also commented on this bifurcation of media and bifurcation of values in Pakistan.

If you want to know what Pakistanis are thinking, find someone who can read Urdu and ask them to read Jang's or Express's or Ausaf's editorial page, or the talk shows on GEO. Sober Dawn and Daily Times editorials aren't going to get you anywhere.

What? A balanced, rational article on Pakistan? Jason, Jason, Jason, you left out the hysteria and the paranoia that is absolutely obligatory when writing on this topic.

I would have agreed entirely with you until Pakistan was forced to join the "war on terror" at bomb-point, against the wishes of both the government and the people of Pakistan. It didn't help that, after throwing out the Taleban, the US washed its hands of the place and left Pakistan to try and cope with the mess. The result can be seen in Swat. Are those who fled the fighting in the area rushing back to raise their families under fundamentalist rule?

There is also the problem of the role the army and the ISI play in running the country.

A very strange and basic piece of commentary, that simply reinforces the stereotypes widely held in western discourse of Pakistan.

"It is a mix of patriotic chauvinism and moderate Islamism that is currently heavily informed by a distorted view of the world sadly all too familiar across the entire Muslim world. This means that for many Pakistanis, the west is rapacious and hostile."

Absurd generalization in a country of 160 million, where every other person wants to run off to the west to seek better opportunities. I am not being defensive (I am not averse to critically analyzing anyone), but I just simply don't hear that view at all. What is many? I am Pakistani, middle class and all my friends are middle class. I don't EVER hear anyone say the west is "rapacious". I hear a lot of people cursing britain and the usa for what it did in Iraq, afghanistan, pakistan's tribal areas and palestine. There is a lot of revulsion for that....but RAPACIOUS??? Have you never tuned into MTV Pakistan, Indus Music etc? The sad little kids on those channels are so busy emulating 80s west, I doubt they have time to hate the west.

There are definitely conservatives who dislike western values. But they are by far few. Don't take my word for it, just look at how successful conservative parties are in elections (i.e. for those who don't know they hardly won ANY seats).

I could respond to a lot of the article (and actually it does make sense in places). It seems to imply that Pakistan is going to be dangerous because it's view of the world is going to be different from the west's. Are you arrogant enough to imply that west's view of the world is automatically the best one?

One sees the thoughts and influences of Imran Khan in this article, who now a days is carrying himself as one of the authorities on the current Pakistan's Islamic phenomenon. The fact is that Pakistan is a complete mess with a powerful Punjab that is trying to run the state in an imperial manner and using fundamentalism/militant Islam to control peripheral nationalism of Pashtuns and grabbing territory in the west (Afghanistan) and the east (Kashmir).

It is a very dangerous country and its links with fundamentalis Islam are so strong and unbreakable, that if not dealt with effectively would keep sending destablizing currents into South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, and the world over.

The author's knowledge of Pakistan nationalism is also superficial. There is no strong feelings of nationhood in the citzens of Pakistan. They are either Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, Pashtuns, Siraikis, etc. This especially true of the smaller ationalisties who live under the oppressive rule of Punjab's military elite.

Really majnoon sahib?

I have no doubt most Pakistanis are truly moderate, peace-loving people interested in making a living. The problem lies in the way the Pakistan ideology has been implemented by the state, the conspiracy theories that have been allowed to flourish, the atmosphere of a lot of Urdu media and out-of-control security services.

If what the author said is false, explain to me why when I go to Karachi and pick up a newspaper or watch TV I am treated to headlines like one in the back sports page of Jang "Jewish institutions may be responsible for Bob Woolmer's death" or I turn on Geo and get to see an animation in terrible taste of the Twin Towers coming down implying Jews or the US was behind it, or people on talk shows saying with a straight face that India was responsible for the Swat Taliban, and them blowing up all schools is OK just because the army based themselves in some schools and made them all targets.

Explain what was done to the Qadianis legally in 1974 and 1985 by some means other than a emotional expression of Pakistani religious nationalism and insecurity of precisely the sort the author is talking about. Fine, they're a somewhat batty cultish group of people with weird ideas (and I should know, I had the misfortune to be born as one) who can't read Quran correctly and don't kill anyone. Why on earth did Pakistan government and Pakistani people stand complicit in what was done to them and what is being done to them for any other reason then what was described above.


Where Jason goes wrong is in judging what the Afghans want. Let the Afghans speak for themselves. See "Afghan Envoy Assails Western Allies as Halfhearted, Defeatist" at


To daimanMujnoon
"Are you arrogant enough to imply that wests view of the world is automatically the best one"?
Well,I can,t speak for Jason Burke,but personally,if one breaks the chains of Liberal-fascist cultural relatavism and moral equivalence and speaking as a westerner, I would answer "yes".
And the more westerners that take that "arrogant"view the easier it will be to defeat home grown Islamic terrorism.
Of course there are those (mostly in the west for some strange reason),who would,as they do,insist that no opinion,view,culture,system or religion is superior to any other.
Thereby undermining western democracy,human rights,and unwittingly validating the very ideology that stands in direct opposition to it.
Old Arabian proverb"a falling camel attracks many knifes".

Actually Pakistan was supposed to collapse the day after its creation because the British did not release the funds/foreign reserves. But thankfully the Prince Agha Khan and Nizam of Hyderabad extended currency.
As for Pakistan being hot of fundamentalism; I had to call my relatives in Pakistan and tell them not to send me clothes are sleeveless and pants riding up my calves.

The west can no longer afford to impose its values and notions of democracy on countries that neither want nor need them

I don't like this strapline, because it seems to imply that if the west could afford to then it might have a case. I would say that the west should not impose its values and notions of democracy on countries.


Thereby undermining western democracy,human rights,and unwittingly validating the very ideology that stands in direct opposition to it.


Jason, I think you have eaten one too many kebabs. This piece is nothing but a confused, incoherent defence of the indefensible. Pakistan needs to become literate, democratic and secular in order to survive. You can deride them as

"The west can no longer afford to impose its values and notions of democracy on countries that neither want nor need them"

but you would not be doing any service to Pakistan by this.

When political scholars, pundits and observers bought into Francis Fukuyama's 'end of history' tripe, it was largely based on blindly accepting the notion of the so-called universality of American and British democracy.

The rude awakening, and only a small minority are actually showing signs of waking up, is not only that democratic values are tenuous, breakable and conditional, but that an abrupt return to communal political ideologies is definitely a possibility.

In the face of the contemporary economic boondoggle capitalism has parked at front door of far too many ordinary people, the ever triumphant free market is very likely facing the biggest reality check it has ever dealt with.

How it plays out in the Islamic, second and third world is going to be very interesting; and large, marginalized and Islamic societies like Pakistan will be worth watching because they will serve as the canary in the mine.


Winston Churchill, who as a young man fought on the North-West Frontier, is regularly cited to explain today's insurgency.

Really? Regularly? Where?

My understanding of the NWF, unassisted by WSC, is that it was, is, and will continue to be a turbulent and barely governable place.

Pakistan, as a whole, is a deeply corrupt, unstable, and economically backward country which unfortunately possesses nuclear weapons.

I only hope that someone will fix up the mess there before something worse happens.

Pakichick,

You are fighting a losing battle against stereotypes, just laugh at it, as I do about depictions of India as this monolithic Hindu country. I find it particularly amusing since I am not Hindu despite being very Indian.


I don't know much on Pakistan, but I would point out that, whilst Emile Zola was but a novelist who dabbled in political journalism, Winston Churchill was a politician for nearly half a century, holding various cabinet positions, was Prime Minister twice and died a Nobel Prize-winning historian. So it is possible that, only forty years after his death, some of his views might still be of interest to someone considering international politics.

Of course he was a racist, and his history may still judge that he presided over various war crimes, but he did manage to squeeze an awful lot of academic writing in when he wasn't signing off on the levelling of entire cities...

I don't EVER hear anyone say the west is "rapacious". I hear a lot of people cursing britain and the usa for what it did in Iraq, afghanistan, pakistan's tribal areas and palestine. There is a lot of revulsion for that....but RAPACIOUS???

You made some good points, but "rapacious" means "greedy", or "given to taking by force".

I heard UK ethnic Pakistanis use language that would suggest they think the UK is rapacious. I have used lanaguage that would suggest it (though I've never used the term). I certainly believe it.

And, given your own statement about Pakistani revulsion to the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think the term is quite fair.

Perhaps you think it means something else. But calling the UK and the US rapacious is quite fair, and shared by very many people in the world, including millions of Britons and Americans.


This partly explains why Pakistan's collapse is so often predicted.

Actually the entire subcontinent was supposed to collapse a long time ago. Predictions that India would collapse abounded in the western media until India experienced her economic boom.

@SelimTheGrim

If you want to know what Pakistanis are thinking, find someone who can read Urdu and ask them to read Jang's or Express's or Ausaf's editorial page, or the talk shows on GEO.

Are there any english translations of these pages available??

--------------------------------
As for Pakistan I don't expect it to collapse, especially the eastern half. I would not rule out a complete loss of control of the western half though. In fact that process is seemingly already occuring.


First for the good news: Pakistan is not about to explode. The Islamic militants are not going to take power tomorrow; the nuclear weapons are not about to be trafficked to al-Qaida; the army is not about to send the Afghan Taliban to invade India; a civil war is unlikely.

So claims \Mr. Burke with all of 1.23 years of international relations, and experience of Islamic extremism to back his assessment, so we should all rest easy;

If Pakistan collapsed, we would be faced by a serious security challenge. But the resilience of Pakistan and the nation's continuing collective refusal to do what the west would like it to together pose questions with implications far beyond simple security concerns. They are about our ability to influence events in far-off places, our capacity to analyse and understand the behaviour and perceived interests of other nations and cultures, about our ability to deal with difference, about how we see the world.

it is in my view more a question of "when" Pakistan's collaps will come about rather than if.

However Mr. Burke need not worry about;

The west can no longer afford to impose its values and notions of democracy on countries that neither want nor need them

seeing that Pakistan will do a lot better on their own, in my view it would only be fair to afford this country what Mr.Burke is advocating. *leave them alone to kill each other).

Let's see how long (in terms of days) it will take before an all out Indian invasion of Pakistan will commence once we withdraw our involvement.

I wonder if Mr. Burke will want to go back and report (perhaps begging the international community to intervene).

There you go with that ( liberal knee-jerk ) reaction again.
Thats the "moral equivalence and cultural relatavism " I reffered to.
In WW2,we said, "the Germans" and "the Japanese".yet nobody stood up and said "hey,you can,t demonize all Germans or Japanese like that ",because it was understood that not every single one was not a facist.
Guantanamo or not,there is such a thing as a "collective consciousness",and I prefer the Left-wing,Liberal "collective consciousness,"that claims to support universal human rights and stand against totalitarian,6th century desert bedouin,rantings,and yet much to my dismay...fails to do so.
People are at last,now begining to write entire books to expose and analyis this strange phenomena of liberal-fascism which is specifically evolved to prevent dissent and creatre a moral vacuum.White,post-colonial guilt and cultural suicide.

... in Great Britain's previous Carry On Up the Khyber.

Pakistan, as a whole, is a deeply corrupt, unstable, and economically backward country which unfortunately possesses nuclear weapons. I only hope that someone will fix up the mess there before something worse happens.

Substitute "Great Britain" for "Pakistan" and you express my sentiments exactly. Both countries are mired in a Parliamentary system that breeds an endless supply of deeply corrupt politicians, both are in military trouble because said corrupt politicians embraced Uncle Sam & Uncle's cynical "war on terror".

Both countries have found out that the embrace of Uncle is the kiss of death. Unless these two economically backward countries manage te rid themselves of nuclear arms & corrupt politicians, I see no alternative to WW3, because Great Britain's current invasions of Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, plus Great Britain's reckless support for similar rapacious excursions by Uncle in Africa, and Great Britain's complicity with Israel in invading Palestine & Lebanon as well as threatening Iran, plus Great Britain's diatribes against Russia & China - all these actions of Great Britain are stirring a global instability that will trigger WW3 just as surely as Winston's carry-on up the Khyber (and similar Imperialist carry-ons) triggered WW1, which bred WW2.


Pakistan is not ready for true democracy. The people in charge of Pakistan today and the opposition squabbling to get in have all been caught with their fingers in the till in the past. When General Musharaff came in to power, he went after the corrupt and the tax dodgers and was on the way to establishing a technocratic government with a new grass roots political system by banishing the criminals and uneducated from holding office. The most able of the corrupt and tax dodgers fled from Pakistan at the time in their droves. What went wrong for Musharaff (and Pakistan) was 9/11 and the War On Terror where Pakistan, its forces and resources were forced into battle on its north western border whilst an agressor was making threatening noises on its eastern border trying to somehow rope in Paksitan into the 9/11 blame game. In the years following 9/11, Islamic fundamaentalism has grown in Pakistan fueled by a Pakistan public that have grown fustrated by the role of Pakistan in the war on terror and the effects on its muslim neighbours and border areas. The corrupt and the tax dodgers added to fuel (and finance) to the fustration from their foreign safe havens and manipulated thier way back into power by stoking up internal strife and cosying up to the West by offering to bring democrarcy back into Pakistan. No sooner as they are in power they have got sidetracked by their usual squabbles on who get thier hands on what and normal democratic chaos ensues. Only now Pakistan is a nation in trouble, with problems on each border as well as internally and the corrupt leaders in charge have no clue on how to deal with this. Pakistan now needs its military to take control of the nation. Bring back Musharaff, stop the war on terror and suspend democracy whilst Musharaff is given a free hand to sort the country out once and for all.

Good piece
But has anyone asked the question, just what the hell are indians doing in Afghanistan? , they have no culture or language common.

Which leaves only one reason to harm Pakistan
Sorry but it is a fact!


Perhaps the UK Government can explain why National Insurance Fund contributors who retire in Israel receive annual upratings on 6 April each year, whilst those who retire to Pakistan don't. It sounds like those in Pakistan could do with the extra funds. It sounds as if the UK Government are guilty of discrimination. This could easily be fixed if the UK Government had the will.



At least your article shows you have spent some time THINKING. i really must congratulate you on this.

As a middle class Pakistani, I would tend to agree with you that we are becoming some of the most anti-Western countries in the world. And I am actually proud of that. It shows that the sycophantic attitude of some of our leadership is not echoed across the board and that many of us have enough self-respect and knowledge and taste to judge that history is not a linear progression where we must all end up like the US of A. There are many other ways of living in the world and thank God for that. This rampant anti-Westernism is born of a number of factors: a) relative to many parts of the world and especially Muslim countries, we have had relative freedom of information for a long long time now. We are exposed to points of view from across the world, through the academia and the media and through interaction with our sizeable diaspora in the West and the Middle East. So when we are exposed to works of Said and Chomsky and Finkelstein, why will we think that the West is purer than milk in its great effort to 'democratize' the world. b) sometimes with our permission and often against our will, our politicians have prostituted us in doing the West's bidding in return for money and perks. by allowing ourselves to be used that way, we have developed a prostitute's hatred for the trade and for the customers who pay to use her body like that. if our rulers had had more self-respect and stood up to the West more, we wouldn't hate the West so much. if many of our people are in love with western cultures and appear westernised themselves, it is because they are attracted to western popular culture and technology and NOT western politics and foriegn policy. c) we were the VERY FIRST decolonized nation of the world (if you discount Ireland). that just hints at the level of independence and pride we have. what's more, before we were colonized, we formed one of the greatest and richest empires in history, with an incredibly cosmopolitan civilization which continues to be renowned for its literary, physical and architectural wonders. and this was very very recent too. THATS where we are coming from. that is what India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are. We very jealously guard our culture and links with the past. (to a different extent, this also included Afghanistan) Take dress, for example. South Asia probably has more English speakers than any other region of the world. (So there is your example of Western culture). But behold, on important occasions and in everyday life on a consistent basis, you will see us wearing indigenous dress. and celebrating indigenous music and dance on a HUGE HUGE scale. while the rest of the world is increasingly favouring trousers and shirts and you will be hard put to find indigenous costumes being worn in modern cities. and we see little paradox in that.

this is why we are a mixture of the familiar and foreign and will be terribly hard to tame, so don't try too hard. learn to coexist. you don't have to be terribly good friends with everyone. keep us at arm's distance if you want, watch us warily, but stop trying to FORCE us.

Mr. Jason Burke, while i find your article very insightful indeed, I get a very disturbing vibe from it. It is as if the West is this solid unchanging object, which is disliked by some "difficult" international actor and we must watch those people carefully. And the word - difficult - what does that mean? We use it for people who are either badly behaved children or semi-senile elderly people who it is very hard to reason with as well as those people who simply have personality issues. The tone of your article seems to hold the implication that the energies of the West are only to be turned to changing how those actors behave but not towards changing how they themselves behave. You know, it is not because of their colour or race that we don't like 'the West'. (Personally, I like to avoid the word 'hate' just for my own mental health if nothing else). Race or colour is not something that the 'West' could change. We dislike them for something they can change: the way they treat us. That an intelligent writer like you seems to miss that sort of change as an option in trying to figure out Pakistan's future makes this a grim grim situation.

The bad news is that Pakistan poses us questions that are much more profound than those we would face if this nation of 170m, the world's second biggest Muslim state, were simply a failed state. If Pakistan collapsed, we would be faced by a serious security challenge.

I wonder if that would still be true if the West simply disengaged, stopped giving Pakistan any aid whatsoever, and made it a great deal more difficult for Pakistani nationals to flit back and forth. Obviously Pakistan has nukes but the West is out of range and MAD ought to ensure that Pakistan never becomes quite so foolish as to deploy them aggressively.

I keep reading about Pakistan's supposed "strategic importance" but once you drop the idea of "saving Afghanistan for democracy" I don't really see how it's of very much importance at all to the West. To India, sure, but to the West?


States don't fail in a day or a year. It is a decades long process.

Pakistan is a failing state. The trajectory of Pakistan is clear to any objective observer.
*The original Pakistan has been split into Bangladesh and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
*The idea of a secular state has degenerated into an officially Islamic nation with a constitution that specifically promotes Islam and Sharia law.
*The tribal areas are not under the central governments control.
*The Swat valley and other non-tribal areas are less under the governments control.
*The government itself is out of control. Dictatorship vs democracy. Military vs. civilian. Punjabi vs. Sindhi. Sharif vs. Zardari. Sunni vs. Shia.
*The ISI/military complex is out of control.
*The Taliban is out of control of the central government.
*The sanctioned terrorist groups like the Kashmiri groups (LeT)) are out of control.
*The economy is out of control and on the brink of bankruptcy.
*The educational system is out of control.
*The nuclear technology is out of control. (ask Libya, Iran, North Korea)

Mr. Burke writes, "They know that their nation's strategic importance guarantees the financial life support they need from the international community." Really?

Jason Burkes article is simply a headline but no substance, facts, data, or logic.

One of the problems when trying to discuss Pakistan in a rational way is that people have no idea of the uneven demographics of the area. To take one recent example: The government has allowed some form of Sharia law to be used in Swat. Now I agree with teacup that this is bad for the women of Swat, but the total population there is only about one and an half million, while there are 80 million in the Punjab and about 50 million in Sind. What happens in Swat does not give any indications about the future of Pakistan as a whole. The same is true for the tribal areas in general.
While there may be a few attacks in the heartland of Pakistan, these are not part of the every day life of the vast majority of Pakistanis.
Let us not forget that abortion continued to be banned in Northern Ireland while it was legal in Britain. I don't want to push the analogy too far, but the presence of large Catholic minority and strongly Protestant majority made it necessary for the British government to acknowledge that this province was special. Could the same not be true in Pakistan?
Just as London was hit by IRA bombs occasionally, so Islamibad is hit by suicide bombers occasionally, but nobody referred to the UK as a failed state, or argued that compromises with the UDA or IRA would give terrorists access to nuclear weapons.
Pakistan is in a difficult transition moment from a military dictatorship, which people like Mr Burke supported, to a democracy. There will be many crises along the way, but to argue that events in a small rural province are harbingers for a change in Pakistan itself are nonsense.
Mr. Burke, Virulent anti-UK, anti-west sentiments are surprisingly extremely common in the so called moderate, well integrated, eucated British citizens of Pakistani origin - when they think they are among their own discussing such issues. Pakistan is a corrupt nation with an ego and it has learnt to extract huge sums of money from the international community to maintain this. If USA and UK stopped paying for this "strategic" advantage, Pakistan will see there is no money in terroris and correct itsef and become a normal nation. There is no need for a "strategic importance" in there except for UK & USA wanting to grandstand. even then there are other less egotistical nations there to provide that presence that the West seeks for strategic importance. Take off the pink glasses.

Perhaps the author should wake up. The swat valley, NWPF is all taken over by the Taliban. These places are providing sanctuary for al qaida and afghan taliban.
There are reports of massive arms storage in safe houses in Karachi. The ISI have been formenting trouble for Neighbour India. The economy is in shatters. The AQ Khan have been goind around selling Nuclear arms in the past, who is to say his network sanctioned by ISI isn't doing so now.
The reality is Pakistan in the past never had a strong opposition force to the entire system as it does now. When people are improvished, angry and disillusioned, they turn to religion. If the religious forces are the opposition then the end of the system is close. Iran in 1978 is a classical example, of a country, with however strong army, was taken over by extreme forces.
What we are seeing is a gardual take over. When gunman shoots visiting digintaries and with impunity walks away, when the writ of the nation state shrinks, when assasination and intimidation is wide spread, and when politicians squabble for power to enrich themselves alarm bells should be ringing.
But in the end when the alarm bells stop, Pakistan removed from the front pages of news, it may just be that we have got tired of worrying and allow what is inevitable, ie Mullah Omar and Osma's new defacto sanctuary. And if we are lucky there won't be another 9/11 or worse.


Obviously Pakistan has nukes but the West is out of range and MAD ought to ensure that Pakistan never becomes quite so foolish as to deploy them aggressively.

When you are factoring in religious extremists, you cannot imagine the irrational decisions that they can come to. (Take Hamas's continually bombarding southern Israel with rockets and mortars. Where is there any logic in this).

By all means dis-engage. But Pakistan MUST be de-fanged of her nuclear devices and potential.


As a Muslim and Arab i value much the precious analysis of integrating the social and political factors for a better understanding of a major Muslim country; yet, what i am alarmed of Mr. Jason is that the next step is always an attempt to impose the "western" culture and values on the Muslim society in which foreign powers have interest in, which in fact lead to even more extremism.

The major dilemma here is for Britons to make Pakistanis avoid seeing "the world very differently from us" they have to insert some hands in the education systems, religious institutions, and cultural facilities. It happened in Egypt, and i assure you people are not pleased with it. It can be easily detected by common citizens; and if it is, you would be bumping in some fire in the commonly spread "conspiracy theory" leading to some rising violent reactions; same factors that created Al-Qaeda in 1998.

It is not "us" versus "them" Mr. Jason; it is respecting the other with his culture, religious beliefs, values, and political will. Congratulations for the sociopolitical analysis, but you need to do the same in political Islamic movements and extract the original factors that gave birth to them, which by the way are not love of hate.

@martynineurope;

I would say that the west should not impose its values and notions of democracy on countries.

And which 'values and notions of democracy' specifically do you believe are good enough for the west but are not deserved by others?

Equality for women? A right to have a say in how they are governed? A right not to be hanged for being gay? Need I go on?

The problem with your view, when one digs beyond the racial/cultural relativism, is that you are actually arguing that any western notion of 'human rights', i.e. rights which one possesses simply because one is human, is wrong. You are also arguing that it is acceptable for other countries to fail to abide by their own prior decision to sign up to those rights for their citizens.

Is that really your position? That a woman in Pakistan or gay in Iran does not have the same human rights as a woman or gay in Britain or Spain? If it is acceptable for a Pakistani woman in Pakistan to be forced into a marriage against her will, why does a Spanish or Pakistani woman in Spain have greater rights? Can you justify that view of yours?

Do you really think that an Iranian Bahai living in Iran should have a lesser right to practice their religion than a Spanish Bahai living in Spain? Why?

No one is suggesting that Western values should automatically be imposed on others, but it is suggested that others have equal rights to westerners, for example, under the UDHR because those values are exactly that, universal, and rationally they have proved superior to other values.

Your position is, IMO, a classic example of 'feel-good' politics which ignores the crucial issues of fundamental principle underlying the whole debate. It is a position which says abuses of human rights in other countries are justifiable because 'that's just the way they do things there'. That seems perilously close to a soft racism.

The article is a confused and garbled collection of out-dated concepts and inadequate analysis - along with a minimal understanding of the historical backdrop.

The problem with the author, like many British commentators, is that they assume the mantle of the Whitehall permanent establishment (yes, there is such a coterie or cabal) when it comes to discussing Pakistan.

The intellectual foundations of this balderdash go back to Olaf Caroe, one of the last British mandarins in pre-independent India's Foreign Office, who thought of the imperative of having a buffer state to contain the Soviet thrust to the Indian Ocean (the old Russian Bear syndrome). The future state of Pakistan (still on the drawing-board) was the perfect model to discharge this function.

Sir Olaf's ideas were picked up enthusiastically by the U.S. State Department (John Foster Dulles and company) and Pakistan was well on its way to 5 decades of free-loading and sponging in the American kitchens. At its birth itself, the country was a flawed concept, an illegitimate offspring of the dying British Empire.

Its internal contradictions were so glaring that it was at best a patchwork affair. The only thing that kept it going was its pathological hatred of India and all aspects of Indic culture, an area where the Pakistanis were in a constant state of denial. This basic structural deficiency was later compounded by numerous other viruses like military dictatorship, alliances between the landowning mafia and the drug-lords etc.

The current scenario, of course, is there for the entire world to see, except for hacks like Burke. The man is out to lunch. Otherwise, how can one account for his outlandish statements that fly against facts and reality ? If the description of a problem is gobbledygook, the prescriptions are bound to be preposterous.

Time , one again, to pass the port around in the Guardian's editorial watering holes.


Recent years have seen the consolidation of a new Pakistani identity.

Really? And how do the Baluchistanis, and Pakistan's other indigenous ethnic groups see this - or don't they count, anymore than the Welsh, Irish, Scots or English counted when the British STATE and its ruling elites were asserting their domination . . ?


Just to add, there seems a lot been mentioned about womens right and sharia. None of these are major issues, it is Pakistanis internal issues. What is important with SWAT valley is that the army must ask permission from the miltants or their representive for patrolling schedules and route. Two soldiers killed because they didn't have authorised permission. That's what we talking about loosing ground. Worst is the army can been seen colluding with militants. Afghan insurgency grew because they have sanctuary in Pakistan. Mumbai attacks planned and carried out by Pakistanis from punjab province.
We could go on example after example.
What is a failed state other then a state whose writ doesn't extend across a country, where there are large training camps for miltary training.
Each year Pakistan gets worse, the blame is placed on US,UK,India and Jews.
More pakistanis in UK get radicalised. In private the hatered of the west is strong, in public it is different. And the west uses kid goves which is slowly being removed with the Predator strikes. Finally the Americans are learning if you want to kill your enemy you got to do it your self and don't tell Pak Army.
Although the liberal press seems to point these actions are counter productive and show that one will loose Pakistan. There can be another simple arguement, since the they hatred is saturated you can't ask for love and peace.
One needs to broker peace by pointing to rising cost to the enemy leadership for every attrocity more of their blood will flow. If a Nuclear attack happens in New York or London and Pak finger prints are on it, then whole of Pakistan will be wiped out. China will not involve itself when the US roar. That is the only way, show some guts and forget worrying about failed states. As Roosevelt said, talk gently but carry a big stick.


I fully support the right of the majority in any country to determine the values of its own citizens, and the UK Government ought to apply to its dealing with Pakistan and its own citizens equally.


I don't want to impose anything on Pakistan, beyond requiring them to respect and as far as possible enforce my desire not to be blown up.

They spend 60% of GDP (surely a monstrous waste?) on an army which is incapable of closing down madrassahs openly teaching Britons how to make bombs to blow up other Britons.

Common respect for humanity requires them to stop, with any force necessary, the Talibanisation of their own country. Currently, one would almost think that quite a lot of senior figures in the army, ISI etc seek just such an outcome. After all, it would make the people much easier to control, and do away with the pesky inconvenience of running elections occasionally.

It may well suit them to blame India, "the West", Jews or any other brand of non-Muslims, but Pakistan's problems are home-grown.

Your eastern neighbour was making noise because your country sponsored an attack on its Parliament in Dec 2001 lest you forget. As to Pakistani involvment in 9/11 that is a well known fact : Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says it all and with ISI fingerprints all over.

Raffy:
India is helping Afghanistan to the tune of 1.25 Billion USD in rebuilding its infrastructure. As to cultural ties, they go a long way back before Islam ever took a foothold in that part of the world. Think of Bamiyan Buddhas, Kandahar (Gandahar in olden times) and read up on the history of the region to understand the cultural linkage between India and Afghanistan

Harming Pakistan is the added bonus and making sure it pays a heavy price for fomenting terrorism in India.


It is not "us" versus "them" Mr. Jason; it is respecting the other with his culture, religious beliefs, values, and political will.

I find your thinking somewhat confused.

Why should one respect the other with his culture, religious beliefs, values, and political will?

If you are arguing that one should show respect and tolerance for other cultures, religions and political beliefs then it can only be because you consider respect and tolerance superior ethically and morally to disrespect and intolerance.

But if that is the case, then you must also argue that any culture or religion which espouses disrespect and intolerance of others to be ethically and morally inferior to any religion or culture which does espouse respect and tolerance.

But that in turn would inevitably lead you to the conclusion that Muslim and Arab cultures, in the one case theologically wrt non-Muslims and in the other historically wrt Israel, are morally and ethically inferior to those same western notions of respect and tolerance which you are asserting as the basis for your claim of respect and tolerance. Islam by its inherent concept of 'struggle' against other religions and advocacy of dissimilar treatment for Muslims and non-Muslims and Arab cultures in their rejection of equal rights for Jews in Israel.

So the logical consequence of your own claim for respect and tolerance is that you run up against the oldest conundrum in the book; what respect and tolerance is due to those who are disrespectful and intolerant?

I would be fascinated to see how you can simultaneously justify both your demand for respect and tolerance from others with a professed belief in a religion inherently intolerant of other religions, without recourse to an inherently supremacist doctrine.

Unfortunately the whole life of this country is riddled with one or other crises. While the democracy in its neighbour was flourishing the country was being trampled by jackboots. They played havoc with the institutions and left the country into tatters when they left for a brief respite. The judicial murder of Pakistan's charismatic but with autocratic tendencies and defacing of 1973 constitution is responsibe for the present mess.

Ms Bhutto was a seasoned politician and was a visionary. She managed to pacify Mr Sharif , despite his role in giving tough time to her when he was PM, and signed a charter of Democracy (CoD).

Mr Asif Ali Zardari is a different character. He managed to reach the Presidential palace and then decided to keep all the executive powers which he should have returned to the PM of the country. Then his reneging on the promise he solemnly made before the nation antagonised Mr Sharif. Unforutnatey this has created a situation which is threatening the whole democratic set up and military is just waiting for a green signal from the US to step in. Mr Zardari has sidelined almost all the leaders who were very close to Ms Bhutto until her last days. He has brought a team of opportunists and sycophants. Mr Zardari's closed political ally at present is Mr Altaf Hussain who is himself a wanted terrorist and criminal in the country. That day is not far when Altaf will ditch him. Just wait a little while. Imagine this man is under full protection of the British government and it makes me sick to see high British and US official visit him in his International HQ in Edgware London. 12th May carnage in Karachi was produced and directed by this fascist man sitting from London.



May I remind you that Pakistan didn't stop at making threatening noises at its eastern neighbour in 1999, it actually invaded Kargil! Why Pakistan can't accept the actual line of control passes my understanding.

Raffy,

Further to Yddgrasil's excellent reply to you, India has deployed medical teams to Afghanistan. Don't you think a country that hasn't seen peace in over three decades has some need for this. The "Jaipur foot" is a cheap prosthetic device that is a boon to those who have lost limbs. How does helping Afghans translate as threatening Pakistan? If India has a large embassy in the US, is it implicitly threatening Canada or Mexico.

I grant you that even paranoics can have enemies, but this is crazy!

Apologies for not using question marks at appropriate points in the previous post.

A really excellent piece Jason Burke,you have demonstrated more understanding of the situation in Pakistan and of the broader view,of how the west approaches those systems and cultures,that don't fit in with their interests,or ideologies,than all the various" experts ",either in the foreign office,or their equivalents, getting it all wrong in America and the world is all the more dangerous because of it.

This insistence that any country in the world must always conduct it's internal affairs,according to western values and standards,even as these values and standards are now seen to be as bankrupt as their failed economies.

How western governments can condemn countries like Pakistan for indemic corruption,while we have situations like Madof,...where we have just about the whole of the house of commons fiddling their expenses every which way they can;...where,in Britain corruption in the police,in government,in the arms industry,is always glossed over,by having enquiries into the various wrong doings,that turn out to be complete whitewashes,under the "old boy network ",...is beyond me.

The claims of the west to possess the high moral ground in human standards of decency and fairness,lie with the ruins of Gaza,along with the broken and burnt bodies of the women,children and babies,which did not illicit one word in condemnation,from that perfect specimen of a " democratically "elected western leader, Brown.

Surely before the west tries to foist it's way of life on others living on this planet,they should put their own house in order ?,people being neither blind nor stupid.


Is it not quite strange and amusing to believe that the West does really desire to live in a peaceful and comfortable world around in the post-cold war era (?) ? Since when and why the West has arrogated to itself the prerogative of promoting democracy and human rights in the non-Western developing societies without bothering for a moment to introspect about its own record to that effect ? Did the developing non-Western countries ever volunteer to seek Western assistance for their own nation building and social reconstruction, without caring for an indigenous and native effort of their own ? Has the West got rid of its colonial hang over of having to bear the "White man's burden" to civilise the "savage societies" (?) of the non-Western world ? Did the Western analysts ever care to read the real motives of Western powers behind their involvement and interventions in countries of Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa ? Is it not the West Asia's oil, the untapped oil and natural gas deposits of the Caspian region, the mineral and natural resources of Africa or the geo-political interests in Asia and the Middle East that is in fact driving the US-led Western powers for such an involvement ? The predicament Afghanistan and Pakistan or Iraq do find themselves in today, it is the the US and its Western allies for the anti-terror war that are responsible for. Not only Pakistan but Afghanistan and Iraq too seem to be headed for civil war and political collapse, thanks to the West's irresistible desire for hegemony over the world.

JB ... did you write the silly, lazy and all too predictable strap line about the West imposing its values ?? Or was it the silly, lazy and all too predictable CiF sub-editing ?? Either way it undermines your attempt at real analysis.

I fear there is a lot of wishful thinking in the article. The pressure to introduce Sharia law (and the frequent compromises with those pressures) is not the result of an irrelevant minority but a significant minority.

We hope that Burke is right not just for geo-political reasons, but for domestic ones. If Sharia is truly popular among ordinary Pakistanis, then might it not be popular among the perfectly ordinary Pakistanis living in Britain, and those still migrating to Britain. Whether it be the attacks (successful and unsuccessful), demonstrations in Luton etc, we really have to hope that Burke is right for all our sakes - and this applies most of all to the more westernised Pakistanis and British Pakistanis.