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Return of the Undertakers

Former Caretaker PM Moeen Qureshi is on his annual “yatra” to Pakistan. On Friday last he spoke on “Pakistan and its economy in the global context” to a gathering in Karachi organized by “The Reformers”, the brainchild of one of the Caretaker Ministers of 1993, Mr Nisar Memon, former long-term Chief of IBM in Pakistan. This elite audience consisting of businessmen, technocrats, intellectuals, bureaucrats etc was carefully selected to get the maximum mileage from Moeen Qureshi’s thoughts to the Pakistan populace. His message of “doom and gloom” was well articulated, he spoke about the eminent collapse of Pakistan’s economy. Our man who lives in Washington (but will agree to live here either as President or PM) has been saying the same thing for some years now, and the inference is that it was only because of his three months Caretaking in 1993 that Pakistan’s economy has managed to survive this long. Moeen Qureshi pontificated a few “priorities” for the military administration, viz (1) long-term loans from world financial institutions at low interest rates (2) restoring investors confidence (3) law and order situation to be improved (4) administration to be strengthened and (5) a long-term poverty alleviation programme to be structured with help of IMF and World Bank. Well, I have news for Mr Moeen Qureshi, with some adjustment to substance and priority, and with all due respects, isn’t that what the military regime has been trying to do for the past year? And Shaukat Aziz as Finance Minister has done a reasonable job in stabilizing the economy, we may default on our debts but not for any fault of Shaukat. Moreover, the heavens will not fall in case of Pakistan default even though there may be wailing in the corridors of the IMF and the World Bank because of the deviation from their prepared script. As much as I have read history and about economies, one cannot come across a single instance where a nation that can feed itself has collapsed economically. Moreover, any child in Pakistan knows that we spend too much on defence, that same child also knows that even that is not enough (by far) to retain parity with the enormous increases in defence spending that India is presently engaged in. What Moeen Qureshi is asking us to do in sophisticated language is to roll over and play dead. He may be a super-salesman for “signing of the CTBT crowd”, disarming and playing second fiddle to India will take some selling to Pakistanis, especially those who live in Pakistan.

Coincidentally, Senator Sartaj Aziz took on Robert Kaplan in an article “Gloomy Predictions about Pakistan; Reality or wishful thinking?” on Saturday Oct 28, which without meaning to, answered Moeen Qureshi quite effectively. Obviously the views of those Pakistanis who live in Washington is very different to the views of those who live in Pakistan. I quote the Senator with great pride, “But Pakistan remains a liberal society with a strong belief in democratic values. Unlike many other developing countries, the modernization of society and the advent of the internet generation has not led to the erosion of moral values in Pakistan. The youth of Pakistan are serious, hardworking and retain strong family ties. The proportion of young people who not only strongly believe in religion but are functioning Muslims is very large. Such a dynamic and forward looking society cannot be overwhelmed by political power through militancy. It is both sad and ironic that the world powers that initiated and nurtured the entire operation in Afghanistan suddenly turned their back as soon as the Russians departed from Afghanistan and left Pakistan alone to handle all the economic, social and political consequences of this painful but historic saga. As if to add insult to injury, we now have these gloomy predictions about the future of Pakistan. In conclusion I would point out that similar predictions have appeared regularly in the past, almost ever ten years but Pakistan has not only survived but prospered. I am sure it will continue to do so in the future, under a strong and stable democratic set up and will realize in full economic potential in the years to come.” Unquote

Here is a man who went through his entire civil service career serving Pakistan, only after retirement he entered politics in service of the Party he had joined as student before Pakistan was born. From 1988 he served the leader of Pakistan Muslim League (PML) loyally in and out of government, even though the leader was not loyal to him (or to Pakistan in shoving the likes of Tarar down our throats as President). Without pretext or fanfare, acknowledged universally as a man of great honesty and integrity, he continues to hold out unswerving hope for this country. Above all, he lives in it and as a man who has never thought of living anywhere else, is familiar with what is right and what is wrong with it. To paraphrase Mark Twain, he believes that “the rumours of Pakistan’s demise are greatly exaggerated” unquote

When we criticize the military regime we are unfair to a degree. In comparison to the political governments their performance in stabilizing the ship of Pakistan has been outstanding. Our problem is that we compare their performance with our expectations and our expectations cannot be met by the routine but only those capable of taking calculated risks. Falling short of what we know they are capable of, we revert to unabated criticism, in relative terms we sometimes get carried away with it. We do not even give them credit for being the only military regime in world history to allow a free Press. If Pervez Musharraf and his military triumvirate were incompetent, corrupt and insincere, we could not place such hope in them. Fortunately for Pakistan this is an outstanding military team unfortunately unable to find the right civilian players needed to turn Pakistan around completely. That can only be achieved by reinforcing the team with an urgent infusion of politicians and entrepreneurs, i.e. those who only rely on their wits and are willing to risk their livelihoods for what they believe in. Executives of multi-national companies and bureaucrats may be excellent managers, their ability to risk is directly proportional to the continuation of their monthly pay cheque.

Pakistan is not ready for the Undertakers as yet and in fact, will never be. Both Moeen Qureshi and Robert Kaplan are indulging not only in wishful thinking but are letting their imagination run away with them in deliberately propagating this fiction. We have problems but we can sort them out, in real terms all our neighbours have far greater ones. We need homegrown solutions and we will find them, advice is welcome but only from those who love Pakistan enough to live in it, as Senator Sartaj Aziz does and as most of us poor 130 million Pakistanis (doomed to economic apocalypse as per Moeen Qureshi) do.

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