Imran of Hasu Balail

In the last three years, since Mustaqbil Pakistan was formed, I have traveled the length and breadth of the country. I am 56 years old. And during these last three years I have learned more about Pakistan and the suffering of its poor than I have in the previous 53. Nothing really shocks me anymore. Or at least I thought so, until last Friday.

As I walked out of a meeting in the impoverished village of Hasu Balail in Central Punjab, a little boy – who I'll call Imran - started to 'walk' with me. I noticed that he had a crutch and was able to use only one leg. He was 'walking' really fast. I caught up to him and asked him to stop. Here is my conversation with him:

'What happened to your leg?

...'I fell and broke it'

'When?'

...'One year ago'.

Surprised, I asked:'Why did you not go to a Doctor'.

Imran did not respond. But a village resident replied: His parents are poor and they cannot afford a Doctor.

I was astounded and ashamed. And I am still ashamed. Here is this little kid, whose leg has been broken for a whole year, walking around with a makeshift crutch because his parents cannot afford to take him to a Doctor. And here we are – affluent Pakistanis – sitting in our comfortable homes in Pakistan and further a field. We pamper our children, send them to the best schools money can buy, and get them the best healthcare possible. We socialize smugly at expensively catered dinner parties. We debate to no end the foibles of our incompetent and corrupt politicians. Yes, many of us do support NGO's and charities. And these are worthy pursuits. But they are not nearly enough.

The problem with Pakistan is that the best of our people – educated, competent, honest and decent - stay out of politics. And who can blame them? We know that politics in Pakistan is an unsavoury, dishonest, ruthless and dangerous business. It attracts the lowest of our low. And so we stay away. But there is a problem here. If the best of our people opt to stay out of politics then it is inevitable that ‘the lowest’ will occupy it. And they will run the country. Sadly, and devastatingly, for the Imran’s of Pakistan this is what has happened.

Those of us who think that setting up an NGO here, or supporting a charity there, absolves us of responsibility for the suffering of millions are wrong. No number of NGO’s or charities can do the job of a country’s government. It is tantamount to applying a bandage to a cancer patient. We must do more. We must reclaim the field of politics from the goons and thugs who now occupy it. This will not be easy. But sensible and responsible people do not do things because they are easy. They do them because they are right.

Imran is perhaps an especially egregious example of an appalling larger reality that we either do not know about or ignore. Those who have not been to Hasu Balail, or Peer Abdurahman, or Machiwal, or Keekarwala, or Rodu Sultan or Astana or thousands of other villages like these do not know the 'real' Pakistan. It is a place of hopelessness and despair. Millions of people live in unimaginable conditions at the edge of humanity. And they will stay there until we muster the courage and resolve to bring them ‘home’.

One Imran is one too many.

The real nemesis

The conviction of a Brigadier General for conspiring to set up an Islamic caliphate in Pakistan, and more recently the attack on an airbase by militants has led once again to speculation about the country’s stability and the threat it faces from extremist religious groups. Is the speculation justified? Do religious extremist groups really pose a threat to Pakistan’s stability?

Surprisingly, the real threat to Pakistan lurks not in the madrassas and the mosques but rather in chambers not usually thought of as treacherous. 

 It is indeed true that there are many extremist groups. And their violent methods make headlines around the world. But they pose no threat to Pakistan as a viable, stable, sovereign state. The fact of the matter is that these extremist groups enjoy no support at all amongst the masses. And such minimal support as they may have had is being lost as more and more innocent people fall victim to their often indiscriminate violence.

I know this because over the last two years I have campaigned across Pakistan. In remote impoverished rural areas I’ve talked to villagers and farmers. I’ve held corner meetings in sprawling urban slums and sipped tea with truck drivers at roadside cafes. I’ve addressed large rallies in the rumoured terrorist recruiting grounds of Southern Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. And nowhere have I come across anyone who has expressed support for any of these groups or their actions.

The question that needs to be asked is: Can any group or groups that have virtually no support amongst the general population pose a threat to Pakistan? Yes, they can wreak havoc and spill blood, but in the end, without popular support, they cannot succeed.

Take the case of the Brigadier General. His conviction was for links - which he denied - with ‘extremist groups’. The ‘group’ in this case is widely thought to be the UK based Hizb ut Tahrir. The Hizb approaches influential people in society such as army officers, lawyers, bureaucrats with an intellectual argument that calls for the formation of a global caliphate. Their argument, however is riddled with inconsistency and most of these people are not impressed. I recently met a retired senior army officer in the Southern Punjab city of Bahawalpur who had been approached by the Hizb. He was dismissive in saying that they were not even able to answer some of his most basic questions.

The real threat to Pakistan resides not in the mosques and the madrassas but in the Houses of Parliament: Pakistan’s politicians are its nemesis. A strange confluence of history, fate, religion and culture has put people into Pakistan’s assemblies who are, generally speaking, corrupt, inept, and insincere. They do not have the capacity, the will or the desire to rule Pakistan. They are in politics solely to plunder an already impoverished people and enjoy the pomp and grandeur that go with high office. Witness, for example, the Swiss money laundering allegations against President Zardari which have led to the dismissal of one prime minister. Or the cases that now swirl around his new prime minister related to kickbacks on power rental contracts. And these are just the tip of the iceberg.

It is this sad reality that is at the root of all, really, all of Pakistan's problems. Terrorism, economic collapse, sectarian violence, insurgencies, crime, and a host of other problems exist today because of the quality of those who run Pakistan.

Many people around the world are concerned about Pakistan. Societies and think tanks publish detailed reports prepared by smart, thoughtful and sincere people with a genuine interest in seeing change. There is a certain grim irony then in realizing that those who are the target audience for these reports - Pakistan’s politicians - do not have the ability or the desire to understand or implement them.

I am an optimist. And I know that Pakistan has a future. But those who care about it must now unite and bring a laser like focus to the central problem that it confronts: How to bring the best, the most competent and the most sincere of its people into politics?

Nadeem M Qureshi is Chairman of Mustaqbil Pakistan

This article has been published previously in Khaleej Times