The seduction of change

And the need for stability

Is Pakistan really changing? If one were to believe Imran Khan, Pakistan is not changing but has changed. This is not entirely an irrational statement. After all who would have believed that in a country like Pakistan where politics has traditionally been a preserve of the rich, the landed, the generals and the very rich, a professional (cricketer) would due to his sheer determination become a major player? But then equally there can be number of arguments that would support the view that nothing has changed. Actually, this process where some things change while others remain the same is a welcome one in politics as it generates another often much less discussed political dynamic named “stability”. Stability is given much less importance in the world of today than it should.

If I were to ask my readers to identify a country and its neighbouring country by the following three clues: a country which was ruled by a dictator, backed by a superpower and developed a policy to gain strategic influence over a neighbouring smaller country without estimating the negative impact of such a policy and as a consequence also faced a major refugee issue, there is an even chance that people would mistakenly say Pakistan and Afghanistan rather than Syria and Lebanon.

Syria was a stable country much like ours a couple of years ago. Today people who are citizens of a country that was seeking to dominate the region are fleeing that country as refugees. Their plight is unthinkable. A relatively affluent country has lost its stability because it did not have the internal systems that could force change in its aggressive policies while balancing such policies with the need for stability. People of Pakistan who share a dangerous region with Syria would do well to remember that while seeking change they should also remain cognizant of the importance of stability. It is a difficult balancing act as instability can be caused both by change that is not well thought out or refusing to change when the situation requires change.

Change is often a desirable thought and people by nature at any given moment individually tend to give it precedence over stability in their everyday discourse. However, when it comes to normal activities in life the desire for stability often takes precedence over the desire for change. For example, most low-paid persons will not trade a regular salary for a risky bonus oriented job. Surveys tend to show that the majority of people tend to opt for regular stable salary packages rather than attractive bonus oriented jobs with downside risks. Even now if one were to look at the recent PIA strike most of the protestors who were protesting out there want their lives to go on as usual rather than be placed at the whims of a private sector that will make them insecure and thereby force more productivity out of them.

The desire for stability, however, should not and does not win over the argument for change. It should just make the architects of change look carefully at what change they intend and balance it against the need for stability. In third world countries poverty causes the most human misery but bloody revolution although a vehicle of change seldom leads to improvement of poverty indices.

Good political systems debate change and work within cultural milieus to force such change. The current bill against domestic violence is an example of the desire for change and the need for stability working hand in hand through a democratic system which enables the debate in public. These debates are the type of debates that need to slowly start forming our national agenda. Political leaders need to develop this dynamic further to become leaders guiding change while keeping things stable and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz for once should be acknowledged for having generated and taken a positive approach in a socio-political debate at Punjab’s level.

Political leaders in democracy always promise improvement and try to seduce voters with promises of change. Advocates for change around the world today also include the likes of American presidential hopeful Donald Trump who is currently riding on the crest of a desire for change amongst the conservative Republican Party in the United States. To most American Muslims and minorities that he attacks he is not bringing change but instability into their lives. One person’s change can mean another person’s instability. For some Americans he is the only hope of bringing something more to the table then the established Clinton and Bush dynasties? However, to most neutral observers what Trump is preaching is pretty much outlandish and if imposed will hurt the United States which is anyway fast losing its moral supremacy in a post-Cold War world. One can only hope that American democracy will be able to contain the more virulent public prejudices that are running through its current public discourse.

For an example of such democratic containment of public prejudice, let us take a look at Britain where trying to reduce inward migration has been one of the major electoral drivers for a good forty years or so but little could be done as democratic containment continued to defeat public prejudice. In the end the only area that the current Tory government has somewhat managed to control is the ability of British citizens to bring in their spouses into the United Kingdom unless they can show an earning threshold. Like with all change this one also has a downside: this is an immigration policy which impacts a small number of people but out of that small number a disproportionately large number of Asian Pakistanis who are already at the lowest rung of the economic ladder are most affected leading to separated families. Unfortunately, Britain’s democracy like many other democracies around the world has ended up penalising its minorities. Whether its judicial system will be able to resist as it usually does to retain stability in such matters remains to be seen.

If the attitude in Britain reminds you about the way we treat minorities in Pakistan’s democracy then perhaps you might want to argue to change our approach to minorities as it is the one change that will not impact our stability but would add a moral purpose to our nationhood. Unfortunately, if you decide to do this, you will need to argue with the public prejudice that runs across our democracy too.