Hansenian Discussion - FUTURE OF PAKISTAN

Dear Friends..

It was a moment of joy for me when I saw Dave's mail in the inbox. More than anything I really appreciate his interest in discussing contemporary events. This inspired me to start another strand in the blog "Hansenian Discussion" which will accomodate all view points on a particular subject. To start with let me take it from what Dave has pointed out.

Dave: (8 September 2007)It's getting crazy in the world this summer! So what's your thoughts about Sharif and Bhutto coming back to Pakistan? Sharif gets the anger of the entire Arab world if he goes back, and Bhutto's probably just as corrupt. Gupta was pretty pessimistic when I talked to him the other day. He was telling me he was on National Public Radio that morning citing how Bhutto's husband had chopped down ancient statues from an archaeological site to decorate his pool. All the corruption and tribal warfare makes for yet another argument as a failure to create a national ideal. I dunno if you've read Benedict Anderson's "imagined communities" hypothesis, but I reckon it fits the expected outcome.

Ram: (8 September 2007)


I tend to see the Pakistan issue not from the nationalism point of view. This also stems from the fact that I am not well-versed in Anderson's thesis of 'imagined communities'. I would love to hear more from you and the connection in the Pakistan context.

My understanding says that a post-Musharraf government, led by Sharif, Bhutto or anyone else will run into trouble and that Pakistan is entering another era of uncertainty.

Musharraf had vowed to prevent both Bhutto and Sharif from entering Pakistan again, blaming them for corruption and economic problems that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s, when each had two turns as prime minister. But with his support eroding, Musharraf has edged toward an alliance with Bhutto and her moderate Pakistan People's Party so he can be re-elected as a strong civilian president backed by a friendly parliament.

Sharif is opposed to such alliance between Bhutto and Musharaff. Surprisingly, Sharif has pleased his followers by taking a non-compromising stand against General Musharraf and the military establishment. Also, we have to understand that Sharif supporters are mostly from the lower-middle and middle classes who possess immense political energy. They are socially conservative and much closer to religious ideology. Like Sharif himself, they are opposed to modernity and new trends in Pakistani society. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that Sharif has formed an alliance with religious parties and Imran Khan (Former Cricket Player) who, according to some observers, sounded more to the right of Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jama'at-e Islami.

Enter Bhutto. She not only talks the American talk of "moderation versus extremism"; she heads the largest political party in Pakistan. That is the reason why the Americans are backing the Bhutto-Musharraf rapprochement. ( Sharif had poor relations with Washington when in office in the 1980s — he authorized Pakistan's first nuclear tests in 1998 — and is now aligned with Islamist parties who accuse Musharraf of betraying Pakistan's national interests for turning against the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks.) Also, Bhutto has truly represented the elitist approach by endlessly manoeuvring the situation to ascend to power through a deal.

If any democratic government, led by Sharif or someone else, tries to accommodate the jihadis or their agendas, the US and the West will impose an economic blockade on Pakistan. The World Bank, IMF and all other credit facilitating institutions like the Paris Club or Asian Development Bank will pull the plug on Pakistan. Consequently, the Pakistani economy, addicted to foreign aid and loans, will tumble and the serving government will become highly unpopular.

In any case Pakistan is entering another era of uncertainty. I wish I am wrong in my predictions.

Dave (9 September 2007)
Interesting on Pakistan, so my understanding is Sharif occupies the center-right and Bhutto the center-left. Centrist politics may be a thing to criticize then. What's to stop radicalization of either one of their ideologies given the contstraints in-country?

Whenever I'm analyzing a country, the first thing I ask myself is, "what's missing here?" In Pakistan's case, I'd say a simple answer would be "national unity." Anderson has a constructivist argument about state-formation - states are non-real entities, and modern states are based on nationalism channeled through the collective belief in the nation-state. The "nation" is a large-n group of believers in an "imagined community" which is not synonymous with "country," but there's significant overlap. We think of a nation as just the group of people who
live on a particular piece of territory, and are emotionally tied to the people who use it.

Post-18th century liberalism opened the intellectual space to allow a "nation-state" where these people now have a collective mythologizing of their shared identity. The country gets big enough to get organized.

Ron Suny from University of Chicago gives the example of his people, Armenia, who have thought of themselves as a nation for centuries, but weren't recognized as an independent state till the late industrial era. Their whole history is a history of suspicion of outsiders (mostly of Turks who kicked their asses in 1915), but also pride based on inclusion of multiple religions, particularly as the first early converts to Christianity. So to -be- Armenian means to -be- tied to that strip
of hills in the Sub-Caucausus region, but it also means to accept the language, customs, and history (even if it's not accurate) of those who call themselves Armenians. As time goes on, this constructive mythmaking becomes a force to demand state-hood, to acquire popular political power.

The effectiveness of building that imagined community determines how organized they can get, so if your people lack pride, empathy, or trust in fellow members, your community will be dogged by others and you'll never get it off the ground.

In (West) Pakistan's case, of course they were an invented country after the Brits left the subcontinent up to India in 1945. In this case even the name's made up - -P-unjab, N.W.F.P. (-A-fghania), -K-ashmir, -S-indh, and Baluchi-stan-. They didn't have a chance to create their imagined community based on any uniting identity other than Islam. That was the principle by which the territory was divided, and the foment of the collective mythologizing. Since that point, you're gonna have one leader after another who takes advantage of retelling the "who are we" story in order to direct the country in the direction they want it to go. Whether it's
Shaukat Aziz, G.I. Khan, Bhutto, Sharif, or whomever wants to get their hands on the national unconsciousness.

I'd even go to the extent that there's no -real- Pakistan to fight over, just the ideal of what Pakistan should look like. The hills and trees and rivers of the country aren't going anywhere, they're not really fighting over their existential character, Bhutto and Sharif are fighting Musharraff over principles of leadership and control. Is it going to be a strong Islamic republic with Sharia as it's basic law, is it going to be a moderate secular government with no Islamic law included at all, or something in between? We shall see.

As long as the different tribal groups are going to fight each other for control and domination,or give in to a single party apparatus to reflect and reorganize their preferences on the country, it's never gonna hold together. Going simply by socio-economic status is a bit irrelevant, this case doesn't present itself as a purely class-driven revolt, it's driven by unjust political control at the top. People -look- for injustice, and when they see it go on in the streets of Karachi, they get pissed. It's natural.

The one time where they're unified on something is when it threatens their collective status - their emotionally charged identity as part of the imagined community. This is something like how Israelis deny the existence of Palestine right to the Palestinians faces (and vice versa), there's nothing quicker to turn off a discussion and turn it violent than to deny the other man's very existence as a nationalized entity. Same thing is going on here, Bhutto and Sharif are simply
taking advantage of the disarray of the last few years' alliance with the hamfisted U.S. military messing up Afghanistan next door and creating a huge diaspora problem.

That's why I'm not very worried about economic sanctions, there's not a whole lot the global capitalists of the world need from Pakistan that they can't resource from elsewhere. Indeed, I would principally reject sanctions from the get-go. You recall from Professor Nesbitt's lecture on South Africa - without a just cause they don't work, they just pin the dictator in the corner like an angry dog, and he'll just go on fighting the outside and blaming the outside for all the problems in their country. Right now it would be unclear who we're punishing - the guy we sided
with, the guys with the beards who support him, or the guys who nominally support him but because they hate the bearded guys?

The U.S. and the West lack such credibility in Pakistan or the rest of the world that any attempt to "punish" the leadership for siding with the wrong guy (regardless of whether Bhutto or Sharif wind up being the golden boy/girl), is just arrogant, half-hearted, and stupid. Instead of punishing, the U.S. would have to look to reward good governance with new economic prospects, planning commissions for new power plants, infrastructure improvement, etc.. Course even this will probably wind up making just a few investors rich, and the rest of the country down and out,
but such is the world of today.

So then a big existential question to ask: what do the Pakistanis themselves want? Can they trust bilateral relations with the outside? They've gotten screwed working with other countries before, esp. in the U.S.'s "War on Terruh." Do they want their young workers to be the whipping boys of the Arab oil-sheikhs for the next 50 years? I reckon they'd rather be home doing something constructive. Do they want to be stuck with the system they've got with the crime, violence, and political corruption that's dogged them for years? One would guess that they'd prefer stability and swept streets if it meant giving up a bit of their own ideals about Shari'a law. What's gonna deliver them out of this, merely a good job, or a good sense of who they are as a group? Does Islam offer this, or are they going to have to transcend petty religious sentiments and find higher purposes yet?

Big questions, little time for Pakistan to answer the challenges.

Adam (1o September 2007)

So, the critical question becomes, why does Pakistan lack national unity and what can they do to obtain it? Nationalist sentiments breed a feeling of similarity amongst the populace. Although you can see what dangerous paths these sentiments can take you from Europe in the 1920-40's, it is a necessary bond when in moderation as it dissipates inward pressure. Essentially it is the cement of the building.

Contrary to Anderson's prototype of the Imagined community, A.D. Smith wrote of nations as eternal entities. He believed that men are divided into nations from early times by ethnicity. However this theory fails to account for two things. One, how are new nations created? The United States of America is a separate nation from England. Two, if nations are primordial, what accounts for the discrepancies in their cohesion? This is the question of particular importance in the case of Pakistan.

Benedict Anderson believed that the invention of the printing press was the primary catalyst in the creation of nationalist sentiments. A printed press allows for the easy transmission of thoughts as all those within this same "community" are reading from the same pool of thoughts and thus developing a shared sense of community, or nation. The problem with Pakistan is the largest linguistic group is Punjabi and is spoken by only 48% of the population, so which language are these shared transmission to be written in? Language is a natural barrier to a community as it distinguishes and thus divides. A common religion is not enough to develop nationalistic sentiments as one can see from studying the Arab revolt from the Ottoman Empire.

There is also the issue of immigrants and refugees. Pakistan holds a substantial proportion of persons living within its territories whose primary allegiance lies with another country, notably those who have fled from Afghanistan. Also there are many tribes which have yet to be brought into the political system. The N.W.F.P. is only under the de-jure rule of Pakistan, while de-facto it is in tribal autonomy and actually shares closer allegiances to Afghanistan.

The best way to search for the "missing piece" as Dave put it, is to compare it to the case of India, an obvious choice for its shared descent and multitude of languages. Perhaps Ram could elaborate on why India was successful in building its nationalistic sentiments and how it overcame the divisive nature of having 16 national languages and over 600 in total.

RAM: (17 September 2007)
The discussion on nationalism inspired me very much that I had actually evolved myself reading few important literatures. Two of the most influential recent works on nationalism, by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson identify national consciousness conventionally as the co-extensiveness of politics and culture: an over-riding identification of the individual with a culture that is protected by the state. Both also provide a sociological account of how it was only in the modem era that such a type of consciousness-where people from diverse locales could "imagine" themselves as part of a single community-was made possible.

Gellner presents the following account of this discontinuity. Pre-industrial society is formed of segmentary communities, each isolated from the other, with an inaccessible high culture jealously guarded by a literate ruling elites. With the growth of industrialism, Society requires a skilled literate and mobile work force. The segmentary form of communities is no longer adequate to create a homogenously educated work force in which the individual members are interchangeable. The state comes to be in charge of the nation, and through control of education creates the requisite interchangeability of individuals, The primary identification with segmentary communities is thus transferred to the nation state as the producer of culture. Thus a new type of consciousness, born of an homogenous culture and tied to the state, emerges in a industrial society.

In Anderson's view, nationalist consciousness was made possible with the breakdown of three defining characteristics of pre-modern society: sacred scripts, divine kingship and the conflation of history with cosmology. Together these had made for an unself-conscious coherence in society which broke down with the spread of print media through the engine of the Capitalist market. Print capitalism permitted an unprecedented mode of apprehending time that was "empty" and "homogenous"- expressed in an ability to imagine the simultaneous existence of one's co-nationals. To be sure, many of the characteristics of nationalism evolve historically through a succession of modular types of nationalist movements - one of Anderson's most interesting concepts. But he believes, nonetheless, that nationalisms have a defining systemic unity embodied in the unique type of self-consciousness of the people imagining themselves as one.

Now the question arises as to how do historical groups try to transform a society with multiple representations of political community into a single social totality? This process involves the hardening of social and cultural boundaries around a particular configuration of self in relation to an “Other”. Sociologically, we may think of communities not as well-bounded entities but as possessing various different and mobile boundaries that demarcate different dimensions of life. These boundaries may be either soft or hard. One or more of the cultural practices of a group, such as rituals, language, dialect, music, kinship rules or culinary habits, may be considered soft boundaries if they identify a group but do not prevent the group from sharing and even adopting, self-consciously or not, the practices of another. Groups with soft boundaries between each other are sometimes so unselfconscious about their differences that they do not view mutual boundary breach as a threat and could eventually even amalgamate into one community. An incipient nationality is formed when the perception of the boundaries of community are transformed: when soft boundaries are transformed into hard ones. This happens when a group succeeds in imposing a historical narrative of descent and/or dissent upon both heterogeneous and related cultural practices.

We need to understand that what is novel about modern nationalism is not political self-consciousness, but the world system of nation-states. Over the last century, this system, which sanctions the nation-state as the only legitimate form of polity, has expanded to cover the globe. Externally, the nation-state claims sovereignty within distinct, but not undisputed, territorial boundaries. Internally, the state claims to represent the people of the nation and through this claim, has steadily expanded its role in society, often at the expense of local authority structures. It is important to grasp that the form of the nation-state is sanctioned by a battery of discourses generated from the system as a whole. We have seen how Social Darwinism joined race and History to the nation-state. Later, anti-imperialism and even socialism and Marxism would come to sanction the nation-state. At the same time, these nation-states also have to confront other alternative or historical representations from within the societies they govern.

In India, several models of political community furnished the framework within which the modern nation was contested. We can find these historical conceptions within the motley body of the Indian National Congress itself which emerged in the late 19th century as the representative of Indian nationalism. Thus for instance, the secularist model of Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore drew upon the idealized conception of the sub-continental empire. Each of the empires in South Asia was built upon the symbols of the classical idea of a universal ruler: Akbar restoring the Hindu idea of a chakravartin in the Persian idea of shahanshah; the British using Mughal ceremonies and language to re-vitalize the imperial state. Thus colonisers and conquerors reinforced a process of political formation whereby communities and regional kingdoms were incorporated (and not subsumed or obliterated) into an ordered heterogeneity.

Nehru may have been the first to narratives a history of the sub-continental empire into what comes to be known as the secular History of India. In his view, what he considered India was the secular unity of different communities and religions, each of which had made distinctive historical contributions. The achievements of Hinduism, for him was merely one of the sources of India's greatness, together with those of Buddhism, the Turkic emperors, traditional science among other sources. For Nehru, the History of India was the most authentic testimony to the capacity of Indians to maintain a "unity among diversity". The high points of Indian history were the reigns of Asoka, the Guptas, Akbar and the great Moghuls all of whom attempted to develop a political framework to unite the cultural diversity of the sub-continent. While in contemporary India this idealized version is countered by a forceful process of state-building, nonetheless, the memory of ordered heterogeneity is perhaps visible in the notion of Indian secularism, which is not so much a strict separation of state and society, as it is the equal support of the state for all religions.

The memory of Brahmanic universalism as the foundation of the new political community, filtered through Orientalist discourses of the 19th century, was appropriated in its split form as universalism and its supplement of closure. Its universal form was articulated by Sri Aurobindo and others and influenced Mohandas Gandhi. Aurobindo emphasized Advaita Hinduism, a radically monistic faith which believes in the unity of all being and denies the reality of the many particular entities in the universe. In this highly abstract system, a communal framework was created to absorb or tolerate heteregenous elements domestically within an essentially Brahmanic universalism. Thinkers like Aurobindo and Gandhi had of course to develop strategies to square the circle: to contain their universalism within their terminal political community of the nation. One such strategy was to devise the Spiritual East/Material West duality whereby India remained the privileged locus as the origin and repository of true (Hindu?) Spirituality.

The supplement to Brahmanic universalism, which in recent times has threatened to overcome this universalism, is the historical memory of the nation-space as Aryavarta whose charter is traced to the medieval political readings of the Ramayana. Hindu nationalism has drawn much attention by its violent mobilization campaigns to recover the site of the alleged birthplace of Rama in Ayodhya from a Muslim shrine which existed there until Hindu nationalists destroyed it in December 1992. The Ayodhya destruction is only the most recent expression of a series of campaigns launched by Hindu nationalists since the end of the 19th century, such as the protection of the cow, the promotion of religious ceremonies to capture public spaces and the take over of other Muslim shrines. These nationalists, like the anti-Manchu revolutionaries in China, foreground atavistic revenge in their narrative of discent. Through this narrative of vengeance, they seek to re-invest local gods, local issues and local conflicts with national meaning. Hindu nationalism has no use for universalism and declares a homogenized Hinduness (Hindutva) to be the sole or privileged criterion for inclusion in the political community of the nation. They thus seek to transform the relative porous boundaries of local communities into an over-arching hard boundary between a national community and its Muslim Other. It is a project that recalls the radical “other”ing.