Princeton: The gap between how Pakistanis want Pakistan to be viewed and how the rest of the world views the country is widening and Pakistan’s intelligentsia must seriously consider why the country is deemed dangerous or on the brink of failure by others, according to former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani.
Haqqani, who is currently Director South and central Asia at the Washington-based think tank Hudson Institute, said it is not enough to reject others’ perceptions as unfounded and biased.
He noted that Pakistan has the world’s sixth largest population and army but lags behind in most international rankings that measure a nation’s success, including education, economic productivity, and opportunities for citizens.
He predicted that unless Pakistan drastically alters course, the country will come under greater pressure from the rest of the world while also having to deal with internal pressures from a growing population divided by sectarianism and ethnicity and without economic prospects for most people.
“It is true that Pakistan’s direction can best be changed by Pakistanis,” he told an audience at the prestigious Princeton University while introducing his new book ‘Reimagining Pakistan – Transforming a dysfunctional nuclear state. “But genuine debate inside Pakistan remains impossible as long as the nation is mired in a national narrative of hyper-nationalism, grievance and conspiracy theories.”
Pakistan has the world’s highest infant mortality rate according to a recent UNICEF report, Haqqani stated, while lamenting that this troubling news got little attention in the country’s vast media. The Pakistani media discusses politics and corruption but ignores human development, he said.
“Pakistanis are told about imaginary American, Israeli or Indian conspiracies and there is an outrage industry that keeps Pakistanis angry about perceived threats to Islam and their homeland,” Haqqani said, adding, “The real threats -of inadequate economic performance, low human capital development, poor health and education statistics, and rising extremism -are being ignored.”
Haqqani said that Pakistan had developed a national ideology to survive after being carved out of British India but now, seventy years later when more than 94 percent of Pakistan’s population has known no other citizenship except Pakistan’s, that ideology has become a huge burden.
He listed what he described as “many factual inaccuracies” in accounts of history that are taught to Pakistanis in schools and discussed on mainstream and social media. Haqqani also offered what he described as “practical, step by step remedial measures.”
“The world sees Pakistan as fragile and that hurts and annoys Pakistanis but they must analyze how the country’s embrace of jihadists has influenced the world’s view of Pakistan,” he stressed. “Pakistan needs a national purpose other than negative sentiments towards India, religious fundamentalism, or the elusive pursuit of Kashmir.”
Haqqani recalled that Henry Kissinger had once said that Iran must decide whether it is a country or a cause. “The same applies to Pakistan. After seventy years as a country, which lost half its population and territory when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, it is time to think of Pakistan as a territorial state rather than an all-embracing religious cause.”
Explaining the genesis of his new book, Haqqani said that “author Salman Rushdie had once commented that ‘if nations are imagined communities, Pakistan is poorly imagined.’ I decided that Pakistan would be best helped by trying to imagine a future that is drastically different from the past and the present. I have now published a book comprising 336 pages of research and reflection, with hundreds of footnotes and references.
“To me ‘Reimagining Pakistan’ is about conceptualizing Pakistan differently, as a democratic multi-ethnic, multi-religious federation of ethnicities pursuing prosperity of its citizens while living in harmony with its neighbours. Currently Pakistan sees itself as an Islamic ideological state that must sacrifice its citizens to support militancy and a large military to fight imaginary threats especially from India,” Haqqani concluded.
Published in Daily Times, March 31st 2018.
