9-01-2007
Why I'm Returning To PakistanI was looking forward to a quiet family holiday in New York this summer with my three children, our dog Maxmillian and my husband, who is being treated for a heart condition that developed while he was a political prisoner in Pakistan from 1996 to 2004. I thought we would go to the theatre and spend time walking in Central Park, as well meeting up with friends for nice, long chatty dinners. But in this surprisingly momentous summer of 2007, our quiet family vacation disappeared as we found ourselves caught up in the media attention on my country Pakistan, and its fast changing political situation.
It is clear to those following events in South Asia that Pakistan is truly at a turning point. Almost a decade of military dictatorship has devastated the basic infrastructure of democracy. Political parties have been assaulted, political leaders arrested, and the judicial system manipulated to force party leaders into exile. NGOs have been under constant attack, especially those that deal with human rights, democratic values and women's rights. The press has been intimidated, with some reporters -- even those that work for papers like the New York Times -- arrested, beaten or made to disappear. Student and labor unions have not been allowed to function. The electoral institutions of the nation have been manipulated by an Election Commission that could not stop rigging and fraud. And in the battle against terrorism, we look on with dismay as the government of Pakistan ceded sections of our nation that previously had been governed by the rule of law to Taliban sympathizers and to Al Qaeda, making Pakistan the Petri dish of the international terrorist movement.
But the most dangerous manifestation of this retreat from democracy has been a growing sense of hopelessness of the people of Pakistan, and a total disillusionment with the political system's ability to address their daily problems. The social sector has festered -- underfinanced and relegated to the back burner of national policy. All the indicators of quality of life have spiraled down, from employment to education to housing to health care. And as people's sense of disillusionment has grown, there has been a corresponding growth in the spread of religious and political extremism. The failure of the regime has made our citizens open to extra-governmental experimentation with fanaticism. This has clearly been manifest in the spread of politicized madrassas, schools in which the curriculum incorporates xenophobia, bigotry and often para-military terrorist training. But poor parents who cannot feed or clothe their children entrust them to these kinds of schools, so their children may be fed and housed.
The growth of the madrassas is but one important signal that extremism has been making inroads against moderation amongst the Pakistani polity. I have always believed that the battle between extremism and moderation is the underlying battle for the very soul of Pakistan. Yet moderation can prevail against the extremists only if democracy flourishes and the social sector improves the quality of life of the people. In 2007, I sensed that the decade of dictatorship was threatening to undermine the moderate majority of Pakistan, those people committed to pluralism, to education, to technology -- in other words, those committed to Pakistan taking its place among the community of civilized nations as a leader in the 21st century. Under democracy, the extremists had been marginalized in the past, never receiving more than 11% of the vote in an election. But under dictatorship, Pakistan was edging toward extremism, chaos, and sliding towards a failed state.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benazir-bhutto/why-im-returning-to-paki_b_62792.html
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