Pakistan’s army is to blame for the poverty of the
country’s 208m citizens.
It has fostered the
paranoia and extremism that hold the country back.
It has for so long been a country of such unmet potential
that the scale of Pakistan’s dereliction towards its people is easily forgotten.
Yet on every measure of progress, Pakistanis fare atrociously. More than 20m children are deprived of school.
Less than 30% of women are employed. Exports have grown at a fifth of the rate
in Bangladesh and India over the past 20 years. And now the ambitions of the new government under Imran Khan,
who at least acknowledges his country’s problems (see Briefing), are thwarted by a
balance-of-payments crisis. If Mr Khan gets an imf bail-out, it will
be Pakistan’s 22nd. The persistence of poverty and maladministration, and the
instability they foster, is a disaster for the world’s sixth-most-populous
country. Thanks to its nuclear weapons and plentiful religious zealots, it
poses a danger for the world, too.
Many, including Mr Khan, blame venal politicians for Pakistan’s
problems. Others argue that Pakistan sits in a uniquely hostile part of the
world, between war-torn Afghanistan and implacable India. Both these woes are
used to justify the power of the armed forces. Yet the army’s pre-eminence is
precisely what lies at the heart of Pakistan’s troubles. The army lords it over
civilian politicians. Last year it helped cast out the previous prime minister,
Nawaz Sharif, and engineer Mr Khan’s rise (as it once did Mr Sharif’s).
No comments:
Post a Comment