It is an understatement to say Pakistan is going through difficult times. But it remains a fact. We do have our back to the wall: the insurgency and military action in the North, the terror activities across the country, the situation in Karachi, the strife in Balochistan and the overall poor economic, political, and social conditions in the country all mix up to make for a particularly challenging set of circumstances. And dealing with all of the above, on a daily basis is surely exhausting for the government but especially for the people living in the country.
The issues mentioned above have deeper causes in lack of institutionalisation of democratic practices and principles of good governance, poor development of institutions that should be providing avenues for participation and redress, and basic structural anomalies, such as asymmetries in income or wealth inequalities that have not been addressed for decades. We have been in tough spots before but this is probably the toughest thus far.
The real problem is not the challenges we face but the lack of response to them. We do not have institutions that can take up these challenges. The institutions available stand compromised and have little trust and support of significant stakeholders to the disputes mentioned above. We do not believe the legislature has the authority and autonomy to address issues related to the insurgency in the North or the disputes in Balochistan or the ethnic/sectarian strife going on. We do not believe the state can handle them or that the judiciary can be of much help.
But this creates a significant problem for Pakistan in trying to cope with the challenges it faces. Clearly we need to address the challenges but if we do not have the institutions or trust in institutions to be able to address them, how are we going to be able to cope? How do we imagine what will happen tomorrow and how do we get to more desirable outcomes in the future if we cannot see them and do not have the vehicles to take us there.
Consider the current problems in Karachi. People are being murdered, by the dozen, almost everyday. There does not seem to be any law and order. The law-enforcing agencies are not seen as neutral in the disputes and the provincial government too stands accused of favoritism or being ineffective. Calling murders target killings, which the federal government keeps doing, is not a way of addressing the issue. How do we move forward?
Some have argued for Rangers and other para-military forces to come in and clean up the city. This might lead to a short term solution but clearly it is not going to be a sustainable way of addressing the issue. Eventually all stakeholders will need to talk to each other, develop trust in the process, in mediators or guarantors that are proposed, and eventually in each other. Without this trust and process for addressing concerns of all parties, we are not going to move towards a sustainable peace in the city. But who are the people who can a) suggest a way forward, b) can help develop trust in the process, c) come up with parties that have relevant gravitas and that all stakeholders can trust, and/or d) create a process that can develop trust during the carrying out of the process and parties as they move along?
The same problem dogs us in other places too. How do we talk to groups in the North, how should the conversation go with groups in Balochistan, how should dialogue be structured across the various religious sects in the country, and the various ethnicities? And who takes the lead on these?
We cannot expect outside parties to play any role in bringing the stakeholders together in any of these issues. These are Pakistans problems that only Pakistanis can and should resolve. So, if there are no trustworthy institutions or parties in the country, we will have to create some. This is the exercise in imagination that is needed. And the case is not hopeless. We have had some successes in the recent past that can be built on.
In the public realm the success of the coalition that got formed around the justice movement should be educational for us. Though the lawyers spearheaded it, there were plenty of other groups involved and despite opposition to restoration of judges from outside of Pakistan and even wavering support from political parties, the coalition survived and achieved part of its objective.
Within government, the success of the process that led to both the NFC award and the 18th Amendment should be very heartening. Politicians from across the spectrum can come together, and stakeholders from across the country can also come together and get to acceptable compromises despite the presumption of low trust.
The question is how can we harness the positives from such examples to create countrywide redress processes on some of the very divisive and bloody issues that we are facing?
The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at fbari@sorosny.org