[Dawn] This week I attended a short seminar entitled, "The Future of Pakistain". London is home to many such events. Pakistain is high on the UK government's agenda -- a country of geopolitical strategic interest, nuclear armed, and poised to become Britannia's biggest aid recipient. Experts flock to share ideas. Consultants congregate to see if there is any money to be made. The event sometimes includes someone promoting a book they have written about Pakistain (this time it was Anatol Lieven's turn); and a panel of speakers each giving their diagnosis of "what the problem with Pakistain is..."
Conversation continues as various notable commentators -- usually with an ex-Ambassador thrown in for good measure -- pick apart the nation. They talk politics, military, relations with Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, religion, gender-issues. Sorry intakes of breath as the thoughts on the devastating floods are uttered. Heads move slowly from side to side, when someone mentions the dreaded letters "ISI". The word "revolution" is used more than once, and not in a positive way -- there is no real talk of potential for positive change. An audience of like-minded people will nod and thank the panel before making similar verbal offerings.
The event this week, surpassed all others as the panel in question tried to "out-do" each other with negativity. But it was a British peer who took this week's prize for being the most ruthlessly negative about the country of her birth. "My view of Pakistain, I'm not ashamed to say is quite bleak" quipped Baroness Kishwer Falkner. Anatol retorted -- "but my book is pretty bleak in places too!" I quietly got up and left the room.
Failed
It's not that I don't want to understand Pakistain's problems, it's just that I refuse to approach the country as if it is a hopeless, "failed state". I'm not sure even how useful it is to rank failed states. It feels uncomfortable that a "Fund for Peace" should issue such a list. Pakistain ranks at number 12, since you asked.
It's considered more failed than Yemen. But then maybe if Germany had been assessed after the Second World War it would have been pretty high up on the failed state list. Its economy was destroyed, cities were flattened by hefty bomb damage, and over six million Germans were dead including their radical and violently extreme leader found in a ditch with a bullet in his brain. But it only took a relatively short time before Germany was back on its feet; doing business with former enemies, raising its economy, and having global influence once more.
So I would challenge anyone, whether they are Pak or not, who assess Pakistain as "bleak" or "failed". In my attempts to squeeze dramatic engaging news stories from a nation of 180 million, I'm not really looking for a post-Bin Laden Marshall Plan, but simply an exploration of potential, opportunity and stories of a resilience nation that I know exists. Keep the messages coming. More of them.
|