The State of Pakistan Exists Or, Not?
Syed Hussaini September 6, 2010
Pakistan is a country where the structure of the state is visibly standing but the functionality factor of this structure is in dispute. Some are calling it a failed state and some patriotic Pakistanis dispute this characterization.
Does the State of Pakistan exist or, does it not?
The State ofPakistan does appear to exist on some counts and it appears not to exist on some other counts.
The State of Pakistan does have an elected government, a legislature, a judiciary, police, a bureaucracy and a military.
But the State of Pakistan does not exist, at all, when it comes to administration of justice, the rule of law, within the country; the deeply-entrenched culture of corruption in the police, the judiciary and the government and semi-government offices, can be considered part of the phenomenon of the absence of the rule of law.
The State of Pakistan exists for the world but, not for its citizens.
Revenue is a very interesting area where the State of Pakistan appears, simultaneously, to exist and not to exist.
The State of Pakistan does exist when it comes to collecting taxes, though, a bit inefficiently.
The same State of Pakistan does not exist when it comes to having funds for development of civic infrastructure or, emergency relief management.
Inefficient and insufficient tax collection leads to a shortage of funds to meet the financial needs of the state; this shortage of funds is aggravated as the bulk of the collected taxes goes to maintain the military and the rest is spent to keep the other parts of the state structure standing or, is simply stolen by the elected or, career government officials.
What the future holds for us Pakistanis, can be arguable. But what we have at our hands, right now, at present, may be hard to deny.
1. We have a mini civil war going on in Karachi for the last several months; it involves apparently civilian combatants and victims with nobody claiming the responsibility for the murders committed and, the State failing to bring any murderers to justice.
The State of Pakistan does not exist for the victims of Karachi's mini civil war.
2. We have terrorist groups targeting religious minorities or, engaging in indiscriminate mass murder with suicide bombings all over the country. These terrorist groups are bold enough to claim responsibility as they kill and maim hundreds in one senseless attack after another. These terrorists operate with total impunity with the State failing to bring any of them to justice.
The State of Pakistan does not exist for the victims of the suicide bombings by these terrorist groups as the State protects these mass murderers.
3. Under the pressure from the U.S., the military staged an operation against the terrorist groups in Swat and the tribal areas with long-range guns and aerial bombardment causing millions of the hapless civilians to flee homes and allowing the terrorists to retreat to safety. The long-range bombardment caused thousands of civilian deaths.
Eventually, as the Swatis went back home from the refugee camps, the military withdrew and the terrorists arrived back to claim the towns and villages they had retreated from. The Swatis and the people of tribal areas are again at the mercy of the terrorist rule.
The State of Pakistan does not exist for these Swatis and the people of the tribal areas.
4. We have 18 million people affected by the floods; homeless, penniless, starving, waiting to be consumed by disease.
The peasant, the tiller of the land, eats whatever is left of what he grows after sharing it with the landlord; the crops got washed away by the flood and so was the grain the tiller may have had on him to feed himself and his family.
The State of Pakistan does not exist for these 18 million Pakistanis in distress as it does not have the funds nor, the setup to help them.
We can be patriots of one sort and say it is not happening.
We can be patriots of the other sort and say it is all there and we have to face it.
We have patriots inviting the military to usurp the power, once again, suggesting the martial law could bring back the rule of law to the country.
We have patriots saying the martial law eats up the rule of law and that the usurpation of power by the military, this time, would be the last time, ever, to happen in the present boundaries of Pakistan.
We have three civil wars going on in the country plus a calamity and no rule of law with a dysfunctional, disfigured state to top it all off.
We have no guarantee that the floods would not strike again, next year.
We have no guarantee that a drought would not follow this flood.
We have yet to know if this flood would be followed by a famine.
We have yet to know if disease would follow the famine.
We know that the world would help as much as it wants to.
We know that our State would not be able to help us.
Some think tanks are suggesting that Pakistan is overpopulated by over a hundred million souls, predicting that in a decade or, two, there might not be enough water around for the people even for drinking purposes.
Some think tanks clinically comment that the mother nature, itself, would take 'corrective measures' to reduce the population.
Do we know how many millions of us, the Pakistanis, would die?
Would it be unpatriotic to think if Pakistan had a state or, not? If our country was going to disintegrate or, not? Are we going to live as a nation or, not?
Chowk: Current Affairs: The State of Pakistan Exists Or, Not?
The State of Pakistan Exists Or, Not?
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