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| Tensions created for display at India and Pakistan's Wahga/ Attari Road border checkpoint |
Source/Credit: The News | Pakistan
By Talat Farooq | May 21, 2011
Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter, says, “I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11 and we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but also the Muslim world. The tragedy is that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.”
What Chris Hedges means is that it takes courage to accept one’s vulnerability and even greater courage to do the right thing despite the threat. He is of course talking about the United States of America; his argument however is just as applicable to Pakistan.
Pakistan has never had the courage or the wisdom to first accept ground realities before attempting to mould them to its own perceived advantage. People in the West as well as in the Islamic world had reasons to welcome the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Post-World War concepts of self-determination and freedom from colonial rule were enough to inspire both the West and the East. If Pakistan had the courage to accept its India specific vulnerability in 1947 and then counter it through non-military means it may have won global goodwill and moved in a different direction. We may have succeeded in becoming stronger and more secure than we are today.
Instead, Pakistan’s short-sighted India-centric foreign policy retarded its political culture. It empowered non-democratic forces, including the military, the feudals, the industrialists and the mullahs. The US Cold War military alliance system was perceived as the only viable option to ensure survival. Looking back, there is no doubt that Pakistan’s decision to court America in the 1950s was potentially disastrous.
Throughout the Cold War, Pakistan’s military establishment with the help of the mullah and the affluent class fed this country sheer lies. History and religion were distorted and the economy was manipulated to suit militaristic objectives at the cost of the future of the people of Pakistan. None of this made us more secure and as soon as the Cold War ended Pakistan was discarded by the US in favour of India.
Again, we lacked the courage to accept our vulnerability and move in the right direction by redefining our national interests and finding doable ways of protecting them. Fear of India and the egotistical drives of our uniformed decision-makers did not allow evaluation of domestic repercussions of the strategic choices being made. Instead of improving relations with regional actors we continued with our anti-India fixation.
ISI’s meddling in civilian governments between 1989 and 1999 is one of the greatest disservices ever done to the Pakistani nation. In the aftermath of Pakistan’s deliverance from Ziaul Haq, common men and women wanted economic uplift and basic human rights. Their Islam was in no danger; they had the courage to choose their religious beliefs while respecting those of others. By creating religious confusions sectarianism was nurtured willfully by the ‘mullah-military-selected politicians’ alliance.
By manipulating the educational system a huge section of society was deliberately turned into an illiterate and narrow-minded one. There can be no greater crime against humanity than to brainwash and indoctrinate human beings hence transforming them into foreign policy instruments. None of this made us safer or more prosperous.
No doubt the civilian leadership in the 1990s was immature and not above board in more ways than one. Their follies, petty politics and even corruption, however, should have been matters for the electorate to decide. The civilian setup, as representatives of the people, should have been in control of Pakistan’s post-Cold War foreign policy that needed overhauling.
In the post-Cold War environment ‘democracy’ and ‘liberal economy’ were the buzzwords. With just a little patience and foresight we could have become one of the ‘emerging democracies’. Winning global goodwill through responsible decision-making may have made us more secure than we are today despite our nuclear arsenal.
Throughout the 1990s we followed a course of action that led toward religious extremism and international isolation. Post-9/11 we still had the chance to rethink our policies and retrace our footsteps. With foresight, wisdom and courage we could have moved toward resocialisation. We chose instead to play double games.
Post-Abbottabad we are not only isolated but also humiliated as never before. Since 1947 we have been able to take advantage of the inherent ambiguity of given situations. Today however, we stand fully exposed. Not only the emperor but his entire court and loyal subjects are without clothes.
The only way forward is to re-enter the comity of nations as a responsible state. Post-Abbottabad, however, this is no longer possible without massive foreign policy renovation and truly incisive soul-searching by our policymakers. In international politics, the tools selected to cope with a powerful challenger ultimately decide the future of the weak.
Our decision-makers therefore must show the courage to accept our vulnerability and the astuteness to do the right thing without subverting national aspirations. This will require the audacity to remember that fortune favours the brave. It will also require the prudence to know the difference between bravery and bravado.
If past experience is anything to go by, our decision-making elite may lack the skill and the motivation to do the right thing. If past experience is anything to go by, the silence of the Pakistani people will ensure their move in the wrong direction. This time round it may prove fatal.
The writer is a PhD student at Leicester, UK. Email: talatfarooq11@gmail.com
Read original post here: The courage to be vulnerable
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