Genuine American Monster
Level: 70
CS Original
| As usual, Ron Paul talks shit about a subject he doesn't know anything about.
Alternating between strong military rulers and weak civilian governments, Pakistan has failed to develop healthy political institutions, a lasting democracy, an impartial judiciary, or a thriving economy. Since its birth in August 1947, Pakistan has grappled with an acute sense of insecurity in the midst of a continuing identity crisis, writes Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistan analyst, in the 2008 book Descent into Chaos. "Pakistan's inability to forge a national identity has led to an intensification of ethnic, linguistic, and regional nationalism, which has splintered and fragmented the country," he argues. The most dramatic example of this splintering occurred in 1971 when the government's failure to address the needs of the ethnic Bengali community led to East Pakistan becoming the independent nation of Bangladesh.
In several instances, Pakistan's courts and judges have found it expedient or necessary to accommodate constitutional changes or unconstitutional maneuvers by Pakistan's leaders. Political parties, though large in number, continue to be dominated by the country's traditional elite, and have frequently been accused of massive corruption.
Pakistan's current ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, wrote in The Washington Quarterly in 2005 (while a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) that Pakistan's political factions have often found it difficult to cooperate with one another or to submit to the rule of law. As a result, he argued, "Pakistan is far from developing a consistent [form] of government, with persisting political polarization (PDF) along three major, intersecting fault lines: between civilians and the military, among different ethnic and provincial groups, and between Islamists and secularists."
Islam, the State, and Sectarian Conflicts
Created as a homeland for Indian Muslims in August 1947, Pakistan grappled with the question of its identity even before it was formed--whether to be a secular democratic country for Muslims and other religious minorities or an Islamic state. Pakistan's Muslim population is divided into Sunni (85 percent) and Shia (12 percent), and is also home to smaller sects such as the Ismailis, the followers of Aga Khan. However, Cohen, in The Idea of Pakistan, notes "most Pakistanis in rural areas remain vague about their Islam, and their religion is strongly intermixed with folk practices, Sufi beliefs, and even Hinduism and Buddhism."
Experts say rising secular conflict in Pakistan is a consequence of decades of Islamization and the marginalization of secular democratic forces. Establishing Islam as the state ideology was a device aimed at defining a Pakistani identity (PDF) during the country's formative years, wrote Haqqani. This gained momentum during military ruler Zia ul-Haq's regime in late 1970s, and successive military governments have Islamized laws, education, and culture, and coopted and patronized religious parties to counter their civilian opposition. Both civilian and military Pakistani governments have allowed religious extremist organizations to flourish. For instance, the military supported and armed Islamist militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir and backed the Taliban in its pursuit of a client regime in Afghanistan.
The focus on building an ideological state has caused Pakistan to lag behind in almost all areas that define a functional modern state, Haqqani wrote in 2005. The political use of Islam by the state "promotes an aggressive competition for official patronage between and within the many variations of Sunni and Shia Islam, with the clerical elites of major sects and subsects striving to build up their political parties, raise jihadi militias, [and] expand [madrassa] networks," said a 2005 International Crisis Group report.
The political disenfranchisement of regions like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in the northwest and the Federally Administered Northern Areas in the northeast have turned them into sanctuaries for sectarian and international terrorists, and centers of arms and drug trade, according to the 2005 ICG report. The Northern Areas, once a part of Jammu and Kashmir, is the only Shia-majority region in Sunni-majority Pakistan. It is not accorded official status in Pakistan's constitution, nor is it represented in the parliament. The military, the dominant voice on Kashmir policy, is resistant to granting autonomy to the Northern Areas, tying the region's constitutional status and the issue of political rights to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute with India.
http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/pakistans-fragile-foundations/p18749
|
