The incompetence argument against democracy

Like drug addicts, we will endure almost any indignity for yet another hit from the bong of low-grade gossip that passes for national news. Tahirul Qadri’s travails on flight EK 612 were just the latest in this agonising stream of consciencelessness.

During the buildup of the welcoming party that the prime minister had arranged at Benazir Bhutto Islamabad Airport for Dr Qadri, many Pakistanis worried about the timing of this cheap and synthetic crisis. We’ve just launched a major military offensive against foreign and domestic enemies holed up on Pakistani territory. This fake crisis began to snowball into the real, and then surreal, territory just as Pakistani soldiers were in the middle of a vital military operation, and whilst hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis were being forced out of their homes and cities – this in the last week before the holy month of Ramazan.

What good will Dr Qadri’s convoluted yatra from Toronto to Lahore do for our soldiers fighting Zarb-e-Azb? What good will it do for the internally displaced Pakistanis from North Waziristan? These are fair questions. No one in Dr Qadri’s camp can answer them.

Now, take a step back and consider the regional and international situation in which Zarb-e-Azb is taking place, and the incredibly complex challenges Pakistan faces.

Then zoom in to how Qadri was dealt with in Lahore, where eight people were killed by a trigger-happy Punjab police last week.

Then zoom in to the manner in which Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the venerable headquarters of civilian and military power in a country of 200 million people with roughly one nuclear weapon per million Pakistanis, were shut down. Then zoom back out.

Now, go ahead and ask the question: Is this a country that seems like it can handle the future? How well will Pakistan respond to challenges more complex than Dr Tahirul Qadri? What could those challenges be? Pakistan faces three major national security challenges in the coming months and years.

The least urgent of these major national security challenges is the potential emergence of a muscular Hindu nationalism that informs Indian public policy for the foreseeable future. Indian delegates at the Chaophraya Dialogue (a Track II initiative run by the Jinnah Institute) last week explained to me that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has moved on from his Hindutva roots and that he’s now all about the economy. This is plausible. But Modi’s ascension could also be about India having finally decided to be the Hindu nation that the RSS and BJP have always wanted it to be.

There is no contradiction between people wanting to have a better life, and wanting to do it with pride in their faith and heritage. How are we preparing to engage, talk to, do business with and win over such an India? After all, a growing India could be a source of strength and vitality for Pakistan’s economy. Have we considered what security posture this new India will adopt?

Former RAW chief and Modi’s new National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has argued for covert operations against Pakistani targets in the past. How would Pakistan react? How would we protect the gains in trade and other aspects of the relationship if such breaches were to occur in the relationship?

The second and more urgent major national security challenge is the transition in Afghanistan. Even if Zarb-e-Azb was blessed with the most overwhelming success in North Waziristan (which InshaAllah it will be), and Fata becomes a haven for peace and stability, Afghanistan will still be our neighbour. The Haqqani Network will still be the network that they are, and Nuristan, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Paktika will still be the provinces that they are.

Hamid Karzai may no longer be president by the time Eidul Azha is celebrated on three different days sometime in late July, but Kabul will still be suspicious of our intentions. Are we prepared for the optimistic, or the realistic and or the pessimistic scenarios in Afghanistan? Have we considered the apocalyptic scenario there? What if Afghanistan continues to be strategic depth, by default, for the TTP and its friends? How would we manage this vital relationship with either Dr Abdullah, or Dr Ghani?

Finally, the third, and most urgent major national security challenge is the metastasizing of anti-state violent extremism in Fata, and its melting into and fusing with takfiri, sectarian violent extremism that begins with living room discussions across the country, and ends up searing into the hearts of young Pakistani Sunnis and young Pakistani Shias.

Pakistan is the grand prize for conspirators that seek to divide and destroy Muslim societies. Despite our failings, we are still a fairly syncretic, well integrated, mostly modern, democratic, and relatively free Muslim society. It has a uniquely well-distributed population that straddle all the major schools of thought in Islam, with a significant population adhering to one of the four classical Sunni schools, a growing number favouring the Salafi approach, and a large and diverse mix following the various Shiite schools.

Notwithstanding our shameful but programmed discomfort with pluralism, and our treatment of Ahmadis, Pakistan is still not a society steeped in and dripping with hatred. This isn’t Syria, or Iraq, or Lebanon, or Bahrain. The sectarian divide is significant, and growing, thanks to the efforts of groups like Lashkar-eJhangvi. But it is not insurmountable, and the divide itself is inorganic and unnatural to us as a people.

In a recent Pew poll on views about Iran, Pakistanis had the highest favourable views of Iran in the world – 63 percent. More remarkably, Pakistanis had the lowest unfavourable views of Iran in the world, at eight percent. Hardly fertile ground for an Isis-type takeover.

But that is exactly the point. Pakistan is not Iraq. Yet. But if we don’t arrest the decline in rule of law and the pompous displays of strength made by groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, what gives us the confidence that we will always be able to resist the hatred and chaos being sowed between brothers in Iraq and Syria? There are powerful forces trying to destroy brotherhood among Muslims, using the Sunni-Shia divide. Is Pakistan ready to defeat those forces?

The answer to these sets of national security challenges: India, Afghanistan, and domestic violent extremism shouldn’t solely be the domain of our soldiers. Soldiers are meant to prevent and, when necessary, fight wars. Developing a vision for national harmony, security and regional normalisation is the job of our elected leaders. The saddest part of this is that the prime minister has great big-picture clarity on these issues. Yet, he has never been a details man. Consider where the follow-up is on his India trip. Or who’s been tasked to stitch up the details on managing the Afghan transition? Or the shambolic civilian messaging in the build-up to Zarb-e-Azb?

There’s a pattern between all this and the spectacle of Tahirul Qadri’s transformation from a virtual political jester, to becoming the Pakistani Nelson Mandela – for now at least.

The Qadri drama reinforces the major limitations of competence in government. Meanwhile, the stakes are being raised every day – on either side of Pakistan’s international borders, and within, in North Waziristan.

Given how this government handled Tahirul Qadri, it shouldn’t be long before the anti-democratic fear mongering on strategic and national security affairs begins. On the evidence thus far, it would be hard to complain very much when it does.

The writer is an analyst and commentator. www.mosharrafzaidi.com