The long, unhappy soap opera of Benazir Bhutto
and her dysfunctional family finally ended last Monday as fed-up Pakistanis
delivered a landslide electoral victory to the opposition Muslim League
and its leader, Nawaz Sharif. Bhutto's People's Party was demolished and
left with only about 11% of seats in parliament. .
Nawaz Sharif, a wealthy, 46-year old Punjabi industrialist turned politician,
is not a darling of the western media, like Benazir. For the next prime
minister of one of the world's most important and turbulent nations, Nawaz
is remarkably low-key and lacking charisma in a nation that loves fiery
leaders.
Back in 1992, when Nawaz was previously prime minister of Pakistan, I spent
an evening with him in his home in Lahore. How, I asked him how he could
look and act so calm when crises raged about him? Nawaz smiled serenely
and told me it was his nature to take things in stride. Pakistan needed
less attention to politics, he said, and more to its battered economy.
The next year, Sharif's government was dismissed on charges - - later proven
unfounded - of corruption. Bhutto's People's Party took power, unleashing
the worst corruption and political chicanery in Pakistan's 50-year history.
While Benazir's husband and in-laws extorted hundreds of millions of dollars,
the feuding Bhutto family engaged in a carnival of ludicrous public theatrics
that finally ended with the murder of Benazir's estranged brother.
Last November, Pakistan's president Farouk Leghari, a Bhutto appointee,
dismissed the floundering Bhutto government for egregious corruption, political
murders, and incompetence. Leghari was backed by the generals who command
Pakistan's 587,000-man armed forces. The military remains Pakistan's most
important, respected, successful institution, and the only one not swamped
by corruption and nepotism. As in Turkey, Pakistan's generals stay on the
sidelines until the politician's antics and malfeasance threaten national
disaster - then they act. In November, the general's patience with Bhutto,
whom they scornfully call, `that girl.' finally ran out.
The big question now is can Nawaz solve Pakistan's most pressing, dangerous
problems: civil war in and around Karachi; the uprising in Indian-occupied
Kashmir; the war in Afghanistan; threats by India to dismember Pakistan;
the collapsing economy and possible national bankruptcy. On top of all
this, urged on by Israel, the Clinton Administration continues to severely
punish Pakistan for its secret nuclear weapons program, even though the
program is entirely defensive.
Many Pakistanis are wondering if any civilian government can stop their
wobbly nation of 131 million from breaking up into pieces. For Pakistanis,
the ultimate shame is that even India's dazzlingly corrupt, gangster-ridden,
pseudo-democracy looks like a model of good government when compared to
Pakistan's civic cesspool.
Why is Pakistan, founded as the world's first Islamic state, as a beacon
of good government and morality, as a haven for persecuted Muslims of India,
such a horrible mess? .
First, because Pakistan has been run too long by generations of feudal
land barons implanted by the British - typified by the enormously rich
Bhutto clan - who cared only about their narrow parochial interests and
nothing for the greater good of Pakistan. To this day, Pakistan's great
landowners pay almost no taxes in nation where 30% live in dire poverty.
. They use their fortunes to buy politicians, or entire political parties,
that fool illiterate voters by espousing socialist-populism, while actually
protecting the wealth and privilege of the landowning class.
Second, Pakistani politics is really about tribal warfare and pillage.
There is no sense of compromise, of sharing the nation's wealth, of promoting
the national good. Greed, selfishness, corruption and malfeasance guide
the robber- lawyers, gang chiefs and bagmen who infest Pakistan's utterly
rotten parliamentary system.
Third, there is precious little sense of national unity in Pakistan, a
nation stitched together in 1947 out of disparate provinces with four principal
languages - Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto and Baluchi - and innumerable regional
dialects. Pakistan extends with bewildering geographical complexity from
the torrid Arabian Sea to the roof of the world at Tibet.
Majority Sunnis detest Shias. Punjabis scorn Sindhis. . Loyalty in Pakistan
is first to family, then clan, then tribe, then city or region, then to
your warlord or chieftain - almost never to the central government in Islamabad.
Public office is universally regarded as a means of self-enrichment and
nepotism.
Pakistan's traditional political parties, including Sharif's Muslim League,
have all failed to resolve the nation's problems. Islamic parties have
fared no better: they have become corrupted by joining into coalitions
with crooked secular politicians. Assorted religious wildmen and mad mullahs
preaching jihad find little popular support outside the primitive tribal
areas of the Northwest frontier.
The only truly effective governments in the past 50 years have been the
military regimes of generals Ayoub Khan and Zia ul-Haq. Pakistan's soldiers
seem to be the sole people in the country with a sense of duty and national
responsibility.
The best prospect for wounded Pakistan is power-sharing between the military,
presidency, and a small number of responsible politicians. Add in a layer
of moderate Islamic practice and Pakistan might resemble a workable nation.
Pakistan spends 40% of its budget on defense. An end to the military confrontation
with India would alone produce 10% annual growth.
More of the same political dithering and chicanery, however, will lead
Pakistan to disaster. The nation founded as a beacon for the world's Muslims
could become the light that failed.
copyright eric margolis 1997
Reprinted with Permission
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Eric Margolis
Syndicated Columnist/Foreign Affairs Analyst
The Toronto Sun