Our troubled past and uncertain present – I

Piety cannot be premised on extremism, and religious fervour must never be confused with nationalism. In our security-driven state, our managers of national security have succeeded in making the citizenry of the sixth largest nation in the world by way of population, arguably the least secure citizenry in the contemporary world. Yet, for our somewhat bloated list of scoundrels, patriotic/religious fervour has been a comfortable refuge, for about three decades.

It all began en course of our collusion with the Saudis and Americans in a covert war against the "Red Army" at the start of the eighties. The price tag for this collusion exceeded three billion dollars, along with some military hardware, some fighter aircraft and three vessels leased to our navy. With the $3 billion in hand,  we were touted by some members of  our salivating salariat to be achieving an economic growth rate of six per cent, because assistance money could be stashed away more easily since there was no one to render account to. However, our population was growing at the rate of about three per cent, with no effort being made to curb it, and we were hosting up to five million refugees who stole bread from our own people with impunity, as they wandered out of refugee camps, making enclaves in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and in any other town they pleased.

When an occasional diligent member of the civil administration tried to apply the law to restrain them, our security bosses ordered "hands off" – in the name of "national security". When an elected representative spoke on the issue, their patriotism was questioned by an endless queue of self-seeking spin doctors.

Meanwhile, our Indian neighbours were milking the Soviets for free hardware, so that when the Soviets left Afghanistan about a decade later, we were landed with the burden of millions of refugees. And we had jihadis with no jihad to fight, a major heroin problem and a grossly-enlarged pay and pension cadre that was a drain on our limited resources. The Indians were spared all this and used it to their advantage to bleed us on a continuing basis. The Soviets in retreat and their empire disintegrating, and our ally America emerging as the sole superpower, we were busy celebrating our wisdom in having backed the right horse. However, out of the blue, we were zapped with sanctions by our erstwhile allies, the Americans.

Although we were nuclearising, we kept whining and pleading to the Americans that we had remained their loyal friends through the long passage of the Cold War while India had been a Soviet ally. But our whining fell on deaf ears because India pulled a smart one, dumping her erstwhile Palestinian friends, and establishing sturdy diplomatic relations with Israel.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2010.