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Jinnah's unfulfilled
vision
The Idea of
Pakistan by Stephen Cohen
Reviewed by Ahmad Faruqui
Stephen
Cohen concludes his new book The Idea of
Pakistan with an ominous sentence, to the
effect that Washington has "one last opportunity
to ensure that this troubled state will not become
America's biggest foreign-policy problem in the
last half of this decade". For those looking for
inspiration to avail themselves of  this opportunity to
set things right in Pakistan, this book has much
to offer.
In the wake of the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001, a plethora of books
has been published on Pakistan. What makes Cohen's
book noteworthy is that he is a veteran of South
Asia. Currently serving as a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, Cohen
served in the policy planning staff of the US
State Department during the administration of
president Ronald Reagan and for years taught
political science at the University of Illinois.
In some ways, this book is a companion piece to
Cohen's India: Emerging Power that appeared
three years ago. But in other ways, it extends the
work that began with The Pakistan Army, a
book that was banned in Pakistan when it came out
in 1984.
Nothing generates more
controversy among Pakistanis and Pakistan-watchers
than the idea of Pakistan. Some opine that it was
a bad idea to begin with, while others argue that
it went awry because of faulty implementation.
Virtually no one argues that it was successfully
implemented. For the first quarter-century, it
seems, Pakistan's primary problem was the failure
to integrate the eastern and western wings of the
country. But new problems arose during the second
quarter-century.
Cohen's book will not
resolve the controversy about whether Pakistan was
a good or bad idea, but it will give proponents on
both sides fresh ammunition for debate. It is
likely to get a cold reception in Pakistan, where
anyone questioning the idea of Pakistan is viewed
as unpatriotic. But it will be read with great
interest in Britain, China, India, Iran, Japan,
Saudi Arabia and, most particularly, in the United
States.
The book begins by reviewing the
ideas that led to the birth of Pakistan in 1947
and then progresses to discussing how these ideas
were implemented. Despite the title, most of the
book is focused on the implementation of the idea
rather than on the idea per se. Cohen discusses
how the state of Pakistan came to be ruled by an
oligarchy composed of the army, the civil
bureaucracy and the landowning class (called
feudal lords in Pakistan). Reflecting on
Pakistan's troubled history, he is moved to quote
from Aristotle, who in his classic work on
Politics regarded oligarchy as the evil
twin of aristocracy, one of three forms of
government along with monarchy and polity. The
book concludes with a presentation of future
scenarios and an assessment of US policy options.
From the Quaid to
al-Qaeda
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who came to
be known as the Quaid-e-Azam (great leader), was
the founder of Pakistan. He brought to fruition
the idea of Pakistan that was first put forward by
the great poet and philosopher of India, Allama
Muhammad Iqbal. As Cohen says, the Quaid had the
vision of a secular, liberal and democratic nation
state that would serve the needs of the Muslims of
British India.
Iqbal's vision had stronger
religious overtones. Over time, the delicate
tension between these two visions was exploited by
various ethnic, sectarian and religious groups to
argue their own agendas. This was partly due to
the death of the Quaid within a year of the
nation's founding and partly to the death of his
lieutenant, Liaquat Ali Khan, three years later.
But this proliferation of visions may have been
due in part to the ambiguity of the idea of
Pakistan and also to the cunning of the rulers who
inherited the mantle of power.
The most
notorious among them was a former civil servant,
Ghulam Muhammad. While serving as governor
general, he deposed a democratically elected prime
minister, Khwaja Nazimuddin, on April 17, 1953.
This unconstitutional act was carried out in
concert with the army chief, General Ayub Khan,
and the defense secretary, Iskander Mirza. The US
looked the other way, since it was interested in
enrolling Pakistan in the fight to contain
communism. Democracy in Pakistan may be said to
have died that year, even though Cohen places that
date in 1955.
In 1954, the US enrolled
Pakistan in its Military Assistance Program and
began to provide personnel training, hardware and
munitions to field five and a half army divisions
equipped with Patton tanks and heavy artillery
pieces and a dozen air force squadrons equipped
with F-86 fighter bombers, F-104 interceptors and
B-57 night bombers. This heavy infusion of
firepower strengthened the Pakistani military at
the expense of other institutions and would lead
to a military coup four years later. Three more
coups would occur in the succeeding four decades.
Citing the work of Mahnaz Ispahani, Cohen
says there are at least three potentially
conflicting visions of Pakistan: a state for the
Muslims of South Asia, an Islamic state and a
democratic state. Some would argue that this
ambiguity and conflict are captured in the
official name of the country, the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan.
Each of these visions poses
its own problems. The first vision is based on the
two-nation theory of statehood according to which
the Muslims of South Asia would reside in
Pakistan. At the time of partition, 400 million
people lived in India, of whom 100 million were
Muslims. When partition took place, a third of the
Muslims wound up in West Pakistan, a third in East
Pakistan and a third remained behind in India.
After the secession of East Pakistan a
quarter-century later, only a third of the Muslims
of South Asia resided in the "new" Pakistan,
making it difficult for Pakistani leaders to claim
that the "two nation" theory on which the state
was founded was still valid. Today's Pakistan
cannot justify its existence on this vision, since
there are almost as many Muslims in India and in
Bangladesh. The fact that Bangladesh continues to
exist as a separate state from India does not
change the reality that the majority of the
Muslims of South Asia now reside outside of
Pakistan.
Of course, this trifurcation of
the South Asian Muslim population has not deterred
the two-nation ideologues in Islamabad from
calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir, the disputed
territory with India. Cohen argues cogently that
the pursuit of Kashmir has done more damage to the
nation-state of Pakistan than any other single
issue. In his other writings, he has argued that
Pakistan's dispute with India is more than just a
quarrel involving a piece of territory: it is a
dispute about national ideology. One wishes he had
expanded upon this line of reasoning in this book.
Kashmir has caused Pakistan and India to
fight two major wars and several minor wars.
Recognizing the disparity in conventional forces
between the two countries, the Pakistani army has
adopted the strategy of waging a covert war in
Kashmir. It has armed, trained and funded
guerrillas that operate in Kashmir as "freedom
fighters". Since the Afghan-Soviet war ended in
1989, these groups have increasingly drawn
individuals into their fold who subscribe to a
militant pan-Islamic ideology. Today, Pakistan is
in the grip of a witches' brew of freedom
fighters, militants and anarchists, including
al-Qaeda fighters who regard terrorism as a
legitimate weapon in asymmetric warfare.
The Pakistani army has to shoulder the
responsibility for bringing terrorism into the
social fabric of the Pakistani nation-state, but
the blame must also rest on the shoulders of
Washington, which bought into the army's strategy
of using the mujahideen in the covert war against
the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Cohen
erroneously concludes that the al-Qaeda ideology
stems in part from the writings of Maulana
Maudoodi, one of the leading Muslim writers of the
past century and a political icon in Pakistani
history. Nowhere in Maudoodi's writings would one
find a reference to the use of terrorist attacks
on innocent civilians as a way of establishing an
Islamic state.
The second vision of
Pakistan was that it would be an Islamic state.
The problem is that there is no unique
interpretation of an Islamic state, since there
are numerous sects and sub-sects within the
Islamic faith. Invariably, a single brand of Islam
would come into power and seek to impose its
vision over the others by using the authority of
the state to declare other interpretations as
un-Islamic and subject to criminal prosecution.
Thus, and this is the big worry in the West, how
would one prevent al-Qaeda from coming into power
under the guise of creating an Islamic state in
Pakistan but intent on exporting its militant
ideology globally?
The third vision of
Pakistan was that it would be a democratic state.
In such a state, the people would be sovereign,
not the army. The elected government would control
the army's budget and set the foreign policy and
national security strategy. This vision has yet to
be realized. It was attempted unsuccessfully
during the early-to-mid-1970s by Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto and then again in the 1990s by Benazir
Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Anyone who has
traveled through Pakistan and talked to a
cross-section of the 150 million people who reside
there may be forgiven for concluding that there
are not just three interpretations of Jinnah's
vision but dozens. There is nothing unusual about
that, since many other countries have a diversity
of opinions about their national identity. What
makes the situation in Pakistan dire is not the
multiplicity of ideas but the exclusivity of these
ideas. This leads to a culture of intolerance
where the followers of different ideological
schools, blinded by the certainty of their
beliefs, are ready to impose them on every one
else. Debate and competition allow for the
co-existence of competing ideas in democratic
countries and lead to their vitality and rebirth.
Such "shock absorbers" have yet to be
institutionalized in Pakistan's polity.
Cohen contends that there was confusion
from the very beginning about the idea of Pakistan
but stops short of pronouncing judgment on whether
the idea was good or bad to begin with. Others
have been less circumspect in concluding that it
was a bad idea. Altaf Hussain, who leads a large
political party in Pakistan, gave a speech in New
Delhi recently in which he said, "The idea of
Pakistan was dead at its inception, when the
majority of Muslims chose to stay back after
partition, a truism reiterated in the creation of
Bangladesh in 1971."
A tradition of
militarism
A review of the historical
record indicates that there was no consensus about
what type of state Pakistan would was going to be.
Thus it is no surprise that it took nine years for
the Constituent Assembly to adopt the
constitution. India, by contrast, adopted its
constitution within two years of independence. The
constitution that was nine years in the making
only lasted for two years, when it was abrogated
by the first military government of General Ayub
Khan. Ayub provided his own constitution embodying
the concept of "basic democracy" in 1962 and a
presidential form of government. While reviewing
the report of the Constitution Commission of
Pakistan in 1961, Ayub noted, "politically, our
people are immature. However, there are signs that
after a couple of generations are reared in an
atmosphere of freedom and suitable education on
which we have launched, a national outlook will
emerge. Until then we have to be continually on
our guard, and may even have to do things to save
[the] people against themselves."
Ayub's
constitution was replaced by a third constitution
in 1973, which reverted to a prime-ministerial
form of government, and was made necessary by the
cataclysmic events that followed the secession of
East Pakistan in 1971. Along the way, this
constitution was amended numerous times, mostly
notably by the third military ruler, General Zia
ul-Haq, who introduced the infamous Eighth
Amendment giving the president the power to
dismiss the prime minister and dissolve
parliament. Subsequent civilian governments
softened this amendment. However, in December
2003, this provision was brought back into the
constitution in the form of the 17th Amendment.
Ironically, that amendment was crafted by Syed
Sharifudin Pirzada, a lawyer who was a personal
assistant to the Quaid. Cohen notes that Pirzada
had earlier assisted the three previous military
rulers in establishing their legal bona
fides.
A separate parliamentary bill
has recently passed both houses of parliament in
Pakistan allowing General Pervez Musharraf to
serve simultaneously as the president and army
chief. Earlier, in April, a bill was passed
creating the National Security Council to promote
political stability. This is designed to
institutionalize the involvement of the armed
forces in national decision-making and is
patterned after a similar arrangement that has
been in place in Turkey. In the words of
Musharraf, "You have to let the army in in order
to keep the army out." To most people this sounds
like letting the fox guard the henhouse. Moreover,
as Cohen points out, the Turkish example is
becoming increasingly irrelevant, since that
country has almost cured itself of the scourge of
militarism.
Musharraf continues to fight a
crisis of legitimacy five years after he seized
power in 1999. He declared himself president after
holding a referendum in the spring of 2002. This
was widely regarded as a farce that drew only 10%
of the voters to the polling booths. Musharraf
claimed that 98% of the votes were cast in his
favor, contradicting every analyst's assessment.
Similarly, when he decided a few months ago to
change his December 2003 decision to retire from
the army the following December, he claimed that
96% of the people supported the reversal of his
decision because the realities had changed.
Winning percentages in the high 90s only accrue to
military dictators and are rarely found in mature
democracies.
Musharraf does not realize
that a general in uniform is expected to lead
armies, not nations. During the five centuries of
the Roman republic, its consuls were elected on an
annual basis. During times of military emergency,
dictators were elected by the Roman senate for a
six-month term. Augustus Caesar put an end to this
practice when he declared for himself imperium
proconsulare maius (control over the provinces
and the army) and tribunicia potestas
(personal inviolability and the right to veto the
actions of other lawmakers) for life, thereby
acquiring complete control of the state, which
contributed to the end of the Roman republic.
Moved by Musharraf's consolidation of multiple
functions in his person, an advocate recently
petitioned the Lahore High Court to declare
Musharraf the king of Pakistan. The petition was
rejected on technical grounds. Perhaps he would
have fared better had he asked that Musharraf be
called "Qaiser-e-Pakistan", Pakistani Caesar.
Cohen provides an extensive critique of
militarism in Pakistan and how it has adversely
affected the nation's national security. Not one
to mince words, he says, "The army lacks the
capability to fix Pakistan's problems, but it is
unwilling to give other state institutions and the
political system the opportunity to learn and
grow; its tolerance for the mistakes of others is
very low, yet its own performance, when in power,
has usually dug the hole deeper."
The
Pakistani military is now more than 600,000-strong
and includes some 165 generals, admirals and air
marshals of two-star rank and above, of whom some
125 are in the army. There are five officers of
four-star rank, including Musharraf, the chairman
of the Joint Staff Committee, the vice chief of
army staff, the air chief and the naval chief.
Forty officers hold the three-star rank and the
balance hold the two-star rank.
The army
has divided the country into nine corps
formations, and it would be fair to assume that
Musharraf rules the country with the concurrence
of these formation commanders. During the past
five years, he has very adroitly replaced all
formation commanders who could have been a threat
to his rule, either because they helped bring him
into power or because they had fundamentalist
leanings.
The army is about 50% greater in
size than it was during the crisis of 1971, when
half the country was lost to the formation of
Bangladesh. There is no evidence that the security
of Pakistan has improved with the increased
strength of the military. In fact, since it has
diverted resources from other dimensions of
national security, such as social, political and
economic security, one can argue it has lessened.
Cohen points out how Western leaders and
academics have often ended up supporting military
dictators. For example, he mentions how the noted
Harvard professor Samuel Huntington called Ayub
Khan a Solon, after the great Athenian lawgiver.
General Zia was widely praised in the West for
being a bulwark of freedom against the Soviet
Union. Much of the same is true of the standing
that Musharraf enjoys in the West.
Cohen
argues that Musharraf's international backers "see
him as a wise and modern leader, a secular man who
is not afraid to support the West or to offer
peace to India, and a man who can hold back the
onrush of demagogues and Islamic extremists". Yet,
he notes, "no serious Pakistani analyst sees
Musharraf in these terms".
They see him as
claiming to act in an undefined and abstract
"national interest" and "taking people into
confidence" after having made the key decisions.
Cohen aptly comments that Musharraf believes that
no civilian can understand the national interest.
One wishes he had analyzed this point further.
Does it imply that no civilian can be trusted with
its protection? If so, that might suggest
something more sinister, that in Musharraf's
lexicon, the term "national interest" is a synonym
for the military's interest.
Over time,
"Pakistan has adapted to changing strategic
circumstances," Cohen observes, "by 'renting'
itself out to powerful states, notably the United
States, but also Saudi Arabia and China." He warns
that the September 11, 2001, windfall and the
al-Qaeda card will, beyond a certain point, cease
to guarantee cash and support. And although
economic growth is currently strong, Pakistan has
a fundamentally weak economy.
Seeking to
put a new face on its legitimacy, the military
government has put its macroeconomic statistics on
parade. It says that over the past two years,
gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at an
annual rate of 5.8%, per capita income at 13.9%,
and exports at 17%. National savings, as a
percentage of GDP, have grown by 8.3 percentage
points since 1998-99. Pakistan has attracted
foreign direct investment of almost $1 billion and
foreign-exchange reserves are at an all-time high
of US$12.5 billion. Moreover, defense spending is
coming down as a percentage of GDP. In other
words, Musharraf would like investors to think
that Pakistan is a rising tiger.
During a
recent visit to Washington, DC, the governor of
the State Bank of Pakistan (and not the president
of the central bank, as he is referenced in one
place in the book) argued that these positive
results could not have been achieved by a
democratically elected government. Of course,
Ishrat Husain has emerged as one of the leading
apologists of the military regime. His book
Economic Management in Pakistan, 1999-2002
reads like an apologia for military rule and a
paean to Musharraf. One can only imagine what
would be left of Alan Greenspan's reputation if he
penned a similar work about any of the presidents
of his tenure.
Husain's thinking runs
contrary to recent thinking in social science.
What matters to the common person is her or her
happiness, which depends on a number of
microeconomic factors other than the country's
macroeconomic indicators.
People's
happiness is influenced by a number of factors,
including the kind of political system they live
in. This is borne out by analysis of data across
38 mainly developed nations at the beginning of
the 1990s. Citizens in a democracy are likely to
be happier because they can vote poor leaders out
of office, while those in a dictatorship can't.
Cohen does not comment on the freedom of
the press in Pakistan under military rule.
According to a report put forward by Reporters
Without Borders, last year the press in Pakistan
was ranked in the 90th percentile from the bottom.
A year prior, it had ranked in the 85th
percentile. This group has labeled Musharraf a
"predator of press freedom", alleging that he uses
the military intelligence agencies to "watch,
intimidate, manipulate or arrest both Pakistani
and foreign journalists who annoy him". It cites
the secret detention and torture of Khawar Mehdi,
who investigated Taliban groups on the Afghan
border with two journalists from the French weekly
L'Express, who were themselves arrested and then
released. It also mentions that an investigative
journalist was fired from his newspaper in June
2003 because Musharraf accused him of tarnishing
the country's image, and another journalist was
condemned to death after criticizing the
activities of an anti-narcotics governmental
agency.
In 2002, only 10% of Pakistanis
said they were satisfied with their lives as a
whole - which was the lowest percentage in a
survey of 80 countries. Only one in five persons
described him- or herself as "very happy". These
are depressing results and are at odds with the
rosy impression created by the government's parade
of rising macroeconomic indicators.
As a
result of the largess conferred upon Pakistan by
Washington, Pakistan has been able to reschedule
$12 billion of its foreign debt and lower the
amount of debt-servicing payments. It has received
a $1 billion grant from the US and a package of $3
billion over a five-year period, subject to
congressional approval. The US has also written
off $1 billion in bilateral debt. In addition,
Pakistan has received a large one-time injection
of funds from its expatriate population in the US.
It is questionable whether economic growth
in the 6-8% range is either achievable or
sustainable for Pakistan without continued foreign
assistance. The fundamentals of the economy have
not changed. It remains dependent on the export of
raw cotton, textiles and apparel at a time when
much of the region has shifted to information
technologies. The continued political uncertainty
and the ongoing "war against terror" do not
provide a good backdrop against which to attract
foreign direct investment. Cohen discusses the
failure of Pakistan to develop much of a tourist
industry that would take advantage of its natural
beauty in the Karakorums and rich archeological
heritage.
Quo vadis?
The
book lays out six scenarios of the
near-to-mid-term future: (1) continuation of the
status quo, which involves rule by an
establishment-dominated oligarchic system, (2)
liberal, secular democracy, (3) soft
authoritarianism, (4) an Islamist state, (5)
divided Pakistan and (6) postwar Pakistan.
While the scenarios are intrinsically
interesting in themselves, alas, they represent
the author's personal opinion. The methodology for
developing them is never laid out clearly. The
driving factors and their cross-impact matrix,
well-recognized techniques for developing
scenarios and used by the texts cited by Cohen,
are not presented and may not have been used in
the development of scenarios. Implicitly,
probabilities are assigned to the scenarios
through means that are unclear. Perhaps these
scenarios can be viewed as the starting point of a
Delphi process.
The generals have come to
power on virtually the same premise every time,
ie, to save the country from imminent destruction.
They have used Kelsen's doctrine of necessity to
justify their unconstitutional takeover. Not
surprisingly, the Supreme Court has always blessed
the treasonous act, validating Sir John
Harrington's remark that "treason doth never
prosper; for if it doth prosper, none dare call it
treason".
The "khakis" have assiduously
cultivated a myth of their indispensability and
overstayed their welcome. The commotion
surrounding their entry into power blinds them to
the need to develop an exit strategy. When they
are forced to exit, the nation is no better off
than when they had arrived on the scene.
While discussing US options vis-a-vis
Pakistan, the author says US policy has always
given short-term gains priority over long-term
concerns. He says this is no longer feasible,
since ignoring the long term could have "grave
consequences". For example, the Reagan
administration was uninterested in the
consequences of supporting the mujahideen because
they were thought to be the best anti-Soviet
fighters. Currently, terrorism has zoomed to the
top of the US agenda but it needs to be given a
long-term preventive quality, not just a
short-term military quality. Democracy needs to be
emphasized, despite the Musharraf government's
contention that it would bring incompetent
politicians or radical Islamists to power.
Education should be a major priority. In
the $3 billion aid package, only $100 million has
been earmarked for this topic area. Cohen would
like the United States to help change the
technocratic focus of Pakistan's education system,
which is designed to feed workers and scientists
into a military-educational-industrial complex
that is currently in place. Cohen says "this is an
educational vision appropriate for a totalitarian
state, not for one that aspires to be a free
society". He calls upon the US to encourage the
government of Pakistan to increase the share of
its expenditures that go for education, especially
primary education, by reducing military aid if a
minimum amount is not spent on education.
Similarly, Cohen argues that the amount of
the US aid package should be made to vary with
Pakistan's progress in democratization. In his
view, the army is the biggest threat to democracy
in Pakistan. For 29 years it has ruled directly
and for the other 28 it has ruled indirectly. It
has unlimited access to the government's budgetary
and foreign-exchange resources. It sets the
nation's foreign policy and its national-security
strategy (inclusive of its nuclear-weapons policy)
even when it's not in office.
Cohen says
that Musharraf is not a truly exceptional person,
and the best service he could do for his country
would be to allow capable civilian institutions to
develop that would allow the military to exit the
political sphere and focus on its military duties.
He cautions that the army leadership will resist
US pressure to change Pakistan's policies, whether
foreign or domestic. At the same time, he reminds
US policy officials that Musharraf is not
irreplaceable and were he to be forced out of
office, his replacement would be a like-minded
general who will do the establishment's bidding.
Unanswered questions
The book
covers a lot of ground in its 400-some pages.
However, by the time one gets to the end, many
important questions remain unanswered. For
example, Cohen says the Pakistani army is long on
memory and short on foresight, but he does not
discuss either why that is the case or whether it
can ever be changed. In addition, by presenting a
scenario where the oligarchic establishment
continues to rule as the most probable scenario,
he seems to be endorsing Pakistan's recidivist
militarism rather than analyzing and challenging
it.
Cohen says it is improbable that
liberal democracy will take hold in Pakistan. Just
a couple of decades ago, the same was being said
of Latin America and Eastern Europe. He posits
that Bangladesh, which also had an episode of
military rule but now has a democratic setup, is
unlikely to revert to military rule since it does
not have a security problem. The implicit
hypothesis that security problems lead to military
rule is a non sequitur. Otherwise India would have
military rule a fortiori, since it has
security problems with Pakistan and China, in
addition to numerous security problems in the
eastern and southern states with separatist
movements. There is no evidence that any serious
coups have been attempted in India.
Cohen
alludes to Punjab's dominance in Pakistani
politics but does not explore the implications of
this for national stability. This single province
accounts for 56% of the population and about
70-80% of the military and civil service
positions. It is widely regarded as the most
prosperous province and there is no question that
its dominance has alienated the smaller provinces.
India, with a population of a billion people, has
continued to divide the states it inherited at
independence to retain a national balance and the
Indian Union now consists of 26 states. None of
the states accounts for more than 15% of the
population. Afghanistan, with a much smaller
population of 29 million, has 34 provinces. The
small nation of Switzerland, with a population of
7 million, is divided into 26 cantons, each with
its own constitution. The federal character of the
US would change irreversibly for the worse if one
of the 50 states accounted for half of the
population and three-quarters of the government
jobs.
Would it not make sense to subdivide
Punjab into three or four provinces, resulting in
a much more equal distribution of resources,
assets and positions? This is a fundamental issue
to the survival of Pakistan that may be worth
addressing in the second edition of this book.
While discussing the ebb and flow of the
tide in US-Pakistani ties, Cohen does not explore
the reasons that the tide has always been at a
flood when a Republican administration has been in
power in the White House and a military
dictatorship in Islamabad. It cannot just be a
coincidence, since it has happened at least four
times in the past half-century. During Ayub's
tenure, the ties were very strong during the
Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower and
weakened during the succeeding Democratic
administrations of John Kennedy and Lyndon
Johnson. Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan had good ties
with the administration of Richard Nixon but
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's ties with the Gerald Ford
and Jimmy Carter administrations were marginal.
During the former, Henry Kissinger threatened
Bhutto with making a horrible example of Pakistan
if it continued with its nuclear program. Carter
stopped arms shipments to Bhutto's government when
it used force on protesters that were trying to
toppled Bhutto from power. Zia's ties with Carter
were poor but they improved dramatically under
Reagan. Finally, Musharraf's ties with were very
poor during the Clinton period and picked up
dramatically under George W Bush.
Cohen
does not recognize that Pakistan's failure to
emerge as a democracy is in part due to systematic
US interference in its political development.
There is strong evidence that the people of
Pakistan want democracy. According to the World
Values Surveys carried out by the researchers
under the direction of Ronald Inglehart of the
University of Michigan, only 4% of Pakistanis
support military rule and 88% support a democratic
dispensation. The data come from a random
statistical survey of 2,000 Pakistanis in the year
2000. The surveys bear out Cohen's contention that
the country is run by an oligarchy, with 89%
saying the country is run by "a few big
interests". Only 34% support having a strong
leader who does not bother with an elected
parliament. An even smaller percentage, 19%,
support having experts (ie, technocrats) rather
than elected officials make decisions of national
importance.
The analysis of
anti-Americanism in Pakistan is weak. Cohen seems
to suggest that this problem is confined to a
segment of the population when surveys suggest the
problem is much more pervasive. According to a
survey conducted last spring by the Pew Research
Center, only 16% of Pakistanis support the war
against terror and 7 percent of have a favorable
view of President Bush. As expected, conservative
religious groups are not in favor of the US. But
even the liberal elements of Pakistani society
have now formed a negative opinion of the US
because of that country's continuing support for
military rule in Pakistan and the ongoing wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Much of Cohen's
analysis does not appear to be based on
micro-sources, such as interviews, surveys and
polls. Another shortcoming is a lack of
comparisons across regions and continents. The few
that are made pertain to India or Bangladesh.
This otherwise fine book seems to have
been rushed off to the publisher. In places, the
writing is labored and drags. In other places, the
smooth flow of the text is interrupted by a series
of dashed paragraphs that suggest they were
transcribed from notes in bullet form. The
concluding paragraphs in a couple of chapters are
not motivated by the discussion in the body of the
chapter. And the same event is given different
dates of occurrence. In one place, Musharraf's
referendum takes place in the year 2001 and in
another place in 2002 (the latter is correct). The
date of Yahya's takeover from Ayub in 1969 is
cited as March 26 in one place as March 25 in
another place (the latter is correct).
The
book comes with copious endnotes, but the source
materials listed in these notes are a very small
sample of the current literature on Pakistan. In
his book on the Pakistani army, Cohen provided a
very useful set of bibliographic notes, and one
wishes he had done the same in this one.
The sourcing of Islamic materials is quite
weak and not likely to inspire confidence in the
author's understanding of either Islam the
religion or Islam the polity. In one instance, he
uses a paper by Daniel Pipes to define an Islamist
state. This is like citing Bernard Lewis as an
authority on Islam or the Muslim world. These
authors are inimical toward the idea of an Islamic
state, since they assert that such a state would
intrinsically use violence to destabilize the
West. But the view widely held in the Muslim world
is that an Islamic state is simply one that
applies Islamic law (Sharia) to all those who live
within its boundaries.
The index is
incomplete and does not list authors whose works
are cited in the endnotes nor does it list topics
such as the "oligarchs" or "Aristotle's
Politics" that are discussed in the text.
Even with these limitations, the book is a
must read, if for no other reason than for the
discussion of the "American Options" in the last
chapter. Its most notable contribution is the
counsel to Washington to factor in the long-run
implications of its actions, especially regarding
the need to support the implementation of
democratic reforms in Pakistan.
Given the
author's standing as a veteran South Asian
analyst, the book will be widely read in the
corridors of power throughout the globe. It
presents a US view of Pakistan, an increasingly
apprehensive view, but one that can only be
ignored by the military rulers in Islamabad at
their own peril.
The Idea of
Pakistan by Stephen Cohen. Washington 2004:
Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0-8157-1502-1.
Price US$32.95; 382 pages.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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