WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND: The Khan’s Achilles’ heel is that he has no subtlety of mind; he cannot see the greys. Many people in Fata are antagonised when drones kill their loved ones. Khan sees this and concludes that all terrorism in Pakistan is a reaction to drone attacks and other foreign intervention. He does not probe beyond the facile explanation which is only part of the story. A cynic could argue that as a politician he doesn’t need to, since he shares this naive understanding with a majority of Pakistanis. From his inchoate analysis follows the pronouncement that terrorism can end in a few days. As he understands it, all that is required is to end the alliance with America in the ‘War on Terror’, and that can be done in a few days by a government determined enough.
His analysis of corruption is similarly immature; he sees it as a simple matter of making an example out of a few prominent bigwigs. Again, the analysis is rudimentary with a kernel of truth. There is a strong top-down effect in matters of transparency and integrity. A leader’s example will have a powerful impact on an entire organisation, but when it comes to a problem as broad and multifaceted as ‘corruption in Pakistan’, there is no easy answer.
Khan’s previous achievements in sports and philanthropy are enormous, but both aren’t areas that require intellectual vigour. In his previous successes, he never needed to understand complexity and he doesn’t now. What was needed was iron self-belief and that he has aplenty. So we have a leader in the mould of a Bush or an Ahmedinejad, absolutely convinced of his own righteousness and untroubled by any ideas that may complicate his neat, black and white understanding of the world. This is not deliberate deception, though it may in the end prove to be far more dangerous.
Shehzad Shah
Published in The Express Tribune, March 13th, 2012.
