Opinion

Is Pakistan Ready for Democracy?
By Dervaish Lashkari, MD
US

Despite all of the assertions to the contrary of late, as a frequent visitor to Pakistan, my sense is that by and large the minuscule bourgeoisie of Pakistan are relatively happy with what's been achieved under Musharraf's rule, and not nearly as unhappy with the recently imposed emergency as the media would have us believe. And across the spectrum of economic achievement one does not see anything of the sort of disillusionment today that one saw towards the fag ends of Zulfiqar Bhutto's, Zia's, Nawaz's and Benazir's terms.
Could it then be that Musharraf is the least of all the evils that Pakistanis have to pick from at present? Consider the options: Benazir? A corrupt to the core, self-serving, undemocratic (Chairperson for life of PPP!) tyrant, who runs a 'peoples' party staffed almost exclusively by feudal lords. Nawaz? An unintelligent Islamist buffoon, who had brought the country to its economic knees both times he was Prime Minister. Imran? A born-again, reactionary hypocritical fundo who's ideal government would mimic a Pathan jirga. The Mullahs? The entire class is now in the hands of the Pushto-speaking tribal types who, funded by Saudi Petro-dollars, want to suicide-bomb the country back to the Stone Age. MQM? The less said the better. The Chief Justice? A third rate opportunist who has taken every short-cut available to him to rise up the ranks and who saw it fit to re-instate the Peshimam of Lal Masjid just to settle scores.
Pakistan's crisis stems from such monstrosities as the feudal/tribal system, illiteracy, Saudi-funded religious fanaticism, the quota system and the very small size of the middle class. The politicians have steadfastly refused to tackle these matters. I do rather believe that it would eventually take a benevolent dictatorship to stem the tide of this madness. A strongman to bring about the type of land reforms that India so successfully implemented in the 1950s, to bring agricultural income under the tax umbrella and empower the poor, to enforce family planning ala the communist Chinese model (could a democratic government have instituted the one child per family law in China which has effectively halted China's population explosion?), to do away with the hideous quota system, to ban the teaching of religion in schools, etc. Many etceteras here.
Contrary to the assertions one usually witnesses on many fora, democracy cannot be made to materialize out of thin air. It just cannot exist without a large taxpayer base that only exists when capitalism is flourishing. By and large Musharraf's rule has seen the country inch in that general direction, arguably much more so than during the times of any of his predecessors. Are there lessons to be learnt then, say from the autocracies in Chile and China, where dictatorial rule of the benevolent kind has resulted in tangible benefits that now have both countries stand on the threshold of achieving durable democracy?
Once the customary beating of breasts over emergency rule is done and over with, it might be in Pakistan's interest for us to reassess the gains made during Musharraf's relatively benevolent dictatorship in terms of such social parameters as per capita income, outlay for education, press freedom, etc. Or more specifically, given that economically challenged nations seem to not have a snowball's chance in hell of achieving meaningful democracy (consider today's Bangladesh), is it really in Pakistan's interest, at this stage, to weed Musharraf out?
Would it be in our interest to focus our attention on the eradication of the feudal system, the influence of religion on government, run away population explosion, petro-dollar funded religious vigilantism and general social chaos before we go baying for Musharraf's blood? Or would we be serving the nation somewhat better by collaborating with its existing government, warts and all, to achieve social change? My vote is for the latter.
The fact that every attempt at democracy in Pakistan has failed miserably can be explained through observation of what happens in the larger world. And poverty stands out as the main culprit. There are two distinct reasons for there to be a relationship between per capita income and the durability of a democracy. One is that countries with higher incomes are more likely to become democratic. And the second reason is that if democracy emerges — for whatever reason — in a wealthy country, it is more likely to survive than if it appears in a poor country. Which is also to say that if by chance democracies do occasionally spring up in poor countries, they are extremely fragile, while in wealthy countries they are impregnable.
Hence, poor people are much more likely to be ruled by dictators. And Pakistan is still a very poor nation.
In fact there appears to be a 'magical' economic threshold for the existence of a durable democracy. Seminal work on this subject, done by Fernando Limongi and Adam Przeworski, places this threshold at approximately $6000 per capita in today's figures. And with India's exception, no country has managed to escape this seemingly insurmountable reality. So whence the optimism for democracy in Pakistan? Blissful ignorance, foolhardiness, or both?
A relevant question here is whether democracies emerge as a consequence of economic development only. Or is there more to the dynamic of political regimes? In this regard we cannot ignore factors such as religion, colonial legacy, position in the world system/globalization, income distribution, or diffusion all factors that have been found to significantly influence the incidence of democracy.
It would then appear that Pakistan's democratization prospects are further doomed by its feudal/tribal system and its "official" religion, neither of which allow for the basic human rights that are so absolutely necessary for democracy. There should be no doubt in any one's mind that non-secular countries are incapable of achieving modernity. In fact, the very basis of the European renaissance that led to the flowering of human intellectualism and attainment over the last 200 years, and then led to the democratization of wealthier communities was on the back of the concept of separating religion from state. Unfortunately, Muslims in general -- Pakistan's bigots included -- have completely failed to learn the benefits of this wonderful notion. Could it then be that Pakistan's protestors are barking up the wrong tree? Besides, for all you know, the so-called lawyers protesting on the streets may simply be Nawaz Sharif's hoodlums wearing balck jackets obtained from the lunda market, where it turns there are none left to be bought.
Yet the future is not completely bleak for democracy in Pakistan. Whereas it appears that dictatorships are needed to generate development, they self-destruct as a result of their own success. According to the dominant intellectual canon of our time, democracy would naturally emerge after a society has undergone the necessary economic and social transformations. This is the basic tenet of the modernization theory: societies undergo a universal process of development, of which democratization is but the final facet. Industrialization leads to urbanization, differentiation of the social structure, education, emergence of the middle class, attenuation of class cleavages, and eventually political participation. As a country develops, social structure becomes complex, new groups emerge and organize, labor processes begin to require an active cooperation of employees, and, as a result, society can no longer be run effectively by authoritarianism alone.
I daresay, in this regard, that Chilean General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship is the paradigm of successful economic reforms.
It is also worth mentioning here that democracy in many instances is not quite the panacea it is made out to be. Hitler after all was democratically elected. As was Bush, who over the last seven years has presided over the stripping away of our civil liberties like no one else in US history, through, as it turns out, the enactment of -- you guessed it -- emergency laws. And yet he deems it appropriate to lecture Musharraf on the restoration of democracy. But that's a lament for another day.
(The author, originally from Karachi, is currently in academic medicine in Philadelphia, PA. He can be reached at dervaishbaba@hotmail.com)

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