Thumbing through the Washington Post website, I discovered a discussion from November 2007 about Newsweek's labelling of Pakistan as the most dangerous nation. A nice little host of panelists weighed in on the issue, and I found a lot of it to be very interesting.
The most pessimistic came from Ali Ettefagh who declares that Pakistan is not a country, but "a failed British fantasy about the fabrication of a nation-state". (Yikes!) He even goes so far as to say this:
Pakistan is a relic set up as a counterweight to India -- and its tendency to tilt towards the Eastern Block. I think it is high time to revisit the old composite structure of five provinces combined into one artificial country. A redrawing of borders might serve useful and to cut through the farce. Let each province mature and declare independence. Some will eventually join their long-time tribal allies, leaving two or three independent lands and a more transparent political agenda.
Even more yikes.
First of all, the man barely answered the question. Second, oh my gosh are you crazy? Third, this isn't etch a sketch. You can't just shake it up and erase the whole thing when the lines don't look right. A re-thinking of how to approach institutions and political systems in Pakistan is a lot more reasonable than that.
I found Lamis Andoni's piece to be a lot more pragmatic, and it actually stayed on topic.
Pakistan today is a reminder to all countries, especially to the Muslim world, of the danger of blindly choosing security and military measures over institution-building. Extremist groups that employ distorted Islamic ideologies to achieve their own ends cannot be dealt with by repression and force. Pakistan is a witness to the failure of such policies, and to the danger of blindingly following Washington's whims.
I hope we can remember this as we try to provide stability for Pakistan in 2008. Let us hope that the elections will bring in a servant to the people of Pakistan and not a gussied up American enforcement agent. Its an overly optimistic hope, but maybe if we keep that as a goal we'll find something closer to it than what we have now.
And yes, the title of this post is in homage to Mr. Izzard. Who else?
