“Before a Nation Dreams, It Must Be Able to Sleep First Safely” - 2
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“When Warren Bennis interviewed great leaders, “They all agreed leaders are made, not born, and made more by themselves than by any external means…I believe… that everyone, of whatever age and circumstances, is capable of self-transformation.” - Carol S. Dweck in “Mindset”
Corruption is a social cocoon in developing countries. Alexander Lebedev and Vladislav Inozemtsev state that corruption “wreaks havoc on the societies of developing countries, fuels social unrest and violence, and increasingly undermines the stability of the West.” This last part of the statement is very meaningful. Developing countries like Pakistan and India confuse corruption with bribery. While the former is like a huge corporation, the latter is a mere corner grocery shop in comparison. Bribery is a local phenomenon, a low-level problem, neither systemic nor organized.
Those petty local officials who indulge in it “do not act within organized networks and wield little influence over broader societal institutions,” say Lebedev and Vladislav; corruption, on the other hand, is labeled as “high-level systematic phenomenon and is vastly more destructive.” Those who indulge in it are often the rulers, who “not only abuse rules but set them.” Pakistan could not bridle bribery, a local disease, how could it handle corruption which became a second nature of its rulers. It is corruption and its compulsions, (not the spirit of service), that keeps the former and present rulers in the saddle of power. Power and corruption supplement each other; the one keeps the other alive.
According to the two authors, and as we have seen in Pakistan, corruption inflicts double damage on societies. “It continuously erodes already weak governance as corrupt officials manipulate the legal system in favor of themselves and other elites. On the other hand, it drains away critical resources needed for economic development.” The only way to overcome this endemic curse is to hit it hard. The good thing is that the West also begun feeling its pinch. A global action is being contemplated against these corrupt rulers; a universal anticorruption convention is being envisaged. Soon, it is hoped, it is the looted money of these rulers which shall become a Midas touch for them. They will get petrified by their own avarice.
In the 19 th century corruption flourished in the West in all the major countries, including the United States of America. It took them a century to curb it. Now its epicenter has shifted to the developing economies, where high social inequality and weak governance fuel the ruling elites’ desire to enrich themselves at any cost. So say the authors, and we know it by evidence and for being its victims.
Why is the West now getting so sensitive to an issue that had been a rallying cry of the victim people of the developing economies? After all, it was the West that let these high-robbers deposit their loot in their coffers; it let them open off-shore firms, and resolve any business disputes in London and New York courts, say both the writers. In the past forty years, a whole new brand and crop of asset managers, bankers, lawyers and realtors has emerged in the West “dedicated to laundering dirty foreign money and lobbying for laws that make its activities harder to prosecute”. If the developing countries remained victims of bad governance, and stayed vulnerable to sundry crisis, it happened so because the West let that happen.
Now it appears, the matter of corruption of foreign rulers, and of their family members, is beginning to over-spill. It is creating social conflicts; it is becoming instrumental in directing hatred towards the West. The corruption of Hosni Mubarak, Suharto, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire amounted to some $5 billion alone. A former senior official of China, Zhou Yongkang, had amassed money to the tune of $14.5 billion. In Russia, the proceeds of corruption touched the $300 billion mark; India emerged as number one in black money, garnered and deposited abroad, and so is Pakistan. The G20 countries in their Summit endorsed India’s stance espoused by Modi on black money. The need for disclosure and transparency by sharing tax information, according to the global standards, has been agreed upon. This would make it easy for the victim countries to getting information about the un-accounted for money boarded abroad, and enabling the developing countries to get it expatriated, says Modi. This money accounts for 85 percent of the world GDP.
India has taken some bold steps, unlike Pakistan. Its slogan has shifted from “Look East” to “Act East”; and its leader’s faith in the poor people is a positive step. Already some 7.1 crore accounts have been opened by the poor, that brought in 5,000 crore to the banks who had always remained skeptical about the poor people's honesty. The Indian PM openly declares that India is dirty and needs cleaning. He starts the job of cleaning India by sweeping a street. Pakistan is inhabited by Muslims for whom cleanliness is 50% of Imaan. Muslims once introduced the concept of cleanliness. Now they are the dirtiest, and they hardly notice that they are so.
A Special Investigative Team (SIT), headed by a Supreme Court Judge has already been set up to unearth the black money in India. “We did not have the fortune to fight for the country’s independence; we could not die for India; we will live and struggle for India. Today 125 crore Indians share that dream.”
What has Mian Nawaz Sharif done in concrete terms so far? Not even 10% of what the Mexican President had done. One foreign tour after another, often undertaken by both the brothers. The country’s leadership could not agree on a person who could lead the Election Commission, though all cry foul in elections, including Mr Imran Khan. Why? They want their undue share in the cookies that elections bring. There is an element of dishonesty and insincerity lurking behind this delay. Same is true of the local body elections. The country sacrificed over 60 thousand innocent lives in terrorism, and yet it could not establish a robust, bold, a no-nonsense anti-terrorist court. Neither its leadership, nor its courts can dare to condemn the terrorists openly. They can subject the people to torture. Jamaat Islami leader tells the people to choose between Makkah or America? Who allows them to hold such comparisons? Which way are we heading? What do we plan to achieve? The three big ones: the Army Chief, the Supreme Court Chief and the Prime Minister, need to meet, and need to talk and need to agree to be on the same page in relation to the well-being of the country. What inspired the country’s acting foreign minister to issue a silly statement when over 7 million displaced persons are still living in tents, and its soldiers are fighting a decisive war against terrorism? Why has he not been distanced so far? Who has put such a long and irresponsible tongue in the mouth of the media that keeps generating division among people; keeps injecting poison in the minds of the people with all immunity? It is not permissible even in the most liberal Western countries. A wrong statement made in Singapore can bankrupt a person, and can land him in jail for years.
The country’s leadership needs to find better and prevalent ways of holding its political meetings and dharnas. Gathering of crowds and then using them as a public statement of one’s popularity is adversely impacting the people, and their lives, pushing them further into the deep recesses of poverty and ignorance. Effective use of TV, town-hall meetings, indoor gatherings, and the effective use of media, in place of pre-partition day style of gathering crowds, can be made instead of spending over 200-400 crore rupees on one Dharna, through this physical assemblage of people. Crowds are sending a wrong message to these leaders. No country can survive without strong institutions and no country has fared well without its political institution. Pakistan has not taken even the first step in that direction.
According to Mr Imran Khan, the Geo anchor, some 126 billion rupees, approximately one-fourth (22.1%) of the country’s annual budget are being spent on holding Muharram rituals of Sufi, Barelvi and Shia Muslims. Some 70 billion rupees annually are being spent on taking out processions, and making arrangement on Taraweeh during Ramadan. Just for the management of the Muharram processions for ten days, the police often have to ask for 200 million rupees. If the leaders get invoiced for the blockage of business; of streets, and for the employment of police, of the loss of life and property, etc., the meetings would stop overnight. The sickening cliché is that it is the democratic right of a person to hold public meeting, to protest on the streets; it is also the demand of democracy that such a loony has no right to cause any loss to business, to peoples safety, nor has he any right to disturb civic life. Making people and leaders responsible for their actions is a part of good governance in any democratic system.
The Political Dharnas, brought in vogue by this new leader, Mr. Imran Khan, have alone cost some 800 billion rupees, excluding the billions of rupees’ damage because the Central Government Secretariat, the Supreme Court and other departments could not function for over 70 days. It is a country where only 5.1 percent of the youth above the age of 25 can make their way to the college; where people stay deprived from fresh water; where they stay doomed to eat contaminated food; where draught and floods come in full velocity to shake up the conscience of these living-dead leaders. The new leadership of Mr. Imran Khan has been the biggest shocker. His style, language and lack of foresight all speak that he is the most pernicious of the lot, to say the least.
“Why Nations Fail” is an eye-opening book. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson highlight the causes that guarantee the failure of a nation if it fails to address them immediately. Most countries fall apart, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Often they meet a slow process of death, and they die inch by inch, moment by moment. Wars, no doubt, weaken them; violence gnaws at them slowly; draughts starve them; corruption makes them hollow and chaotic; loans make them servile and dependent; floods worsen their living conditions, but they still keep on floating. They sink only and get destroyed only when they “fail to take advantage of their society’s huge potential for growth, condemning their citizens to a lifetime of poverty”. As one unknown author says, “God’s biggest gift to us is our potential; and our gift to God is its growth”. This type of slow and grinding failure has left many sub-Saharan African, Asian and Latin American countries as failed states. Pakistan unfortunately is undergoing this kind of slow, grinding and gradual failure.
Where people remain subjected to exploitative and “Extractive” economic institutions and to a political leadership that discourages and destroys incentives, and innovation, and that fails to adjust and change itself as per the new demands of the age; and compromises on justice and equal opportunity to all; such people get marked for total destruction. Dictatorial democracies; family/dynasty rule; elitism and cronyism constitute such governments. Countries fail when institutions become dysfunctional. Good effective government has no substitute; economic reforms without good politics are meaningless.
Both writers cite dozens of examples of such failed states. North Korea remained poor while South Korea prospered just because of people’s deprivation of property rights, and lack of participation in the government. Uzbekistan remained poor due to forced labor. Slavery and serfdom got replaced by forced labor. From Ancient Rome to the US South, one cause that has kept these areas and places technologically less developed was the practice of forced labor. Millions in Pakistan and India are bonded laborers, and are victims of forced labor even in the 21 st century. The Uzbek society has been the biggest loser due to its 2.7 million children and teachers during the cotton season who, instead of gaining knowledge, are sent to cotton fields to pick cotton. Main beneficiaries of cotton remain the President Islam Karimov and his cronies. South Africa remained a titled playing field even after its independence, because its rulers introduced a “caste system for jobs”. Native people remained marked good for mining and digging and ploughing only; the rulers stayed good for managing, and for the skilled jobs. Egypt and Pakistan remained in the grip of greedy and selfish elites. All sugar mills, cement factories and chemical and fertilizer plants belong to the current or former ruling class of politicians. Banks and foreign loans work for this elite class. They being rulers protect the system and watch over their interest. Sometimes, even good intentions produce unintended consequences. Military created its own foundations, and joined the rat-race of exploitation.
Somalia and Columbia became stateless states just due to lack of law and order. Pakistan is following in the foot-steps of Somalia. An effective centralized State whose power is felt by those who violate its laws is utterly essential. Basic public good, effective system of laws, mechanisms for resolving disputes and dispensing justice, all become meaningless if the Central government loses its teeth.
The biggest tragedy in Pakistan like that of the above mentioned countries is that they begin to take failure as a work of their fate. Experiments show that even animals after repeated failures just give up making any efforts. Such failures, like the one Pakistan is facing, is by design; it is an engineered one. There is a method in it. It is well-calculated, and well-calibrated. It can neither be uprooted by the hollow, meaningless and rather harmful harangue of Imran Khan; nor by the incumbent and former politicians. New leadership is not in sight; the old one is well-entrenched; the army and the Supreme Court are the only two institutions that can play an effective role. They do not have to step in; they just need to be honest and bold. Which means, some leaders need to be shown the exit door leading to the prison on charges that cannot be disputed. The country is not short of good people. If India can import its State Bank governor from abroad, if Bangladesh could reverse its downfall through technocrats, so can Pakistan. There is a whole lot of exceedingly good, honest and efficient retired bureaucrats, army-generals, engineers, economists of world fame, young and enlightened lawyers and judges, waiting for a call. But who can help the country get rid of these self-righteous politicians? That is an issue. By the way, when was it the last time that the poor people of Pakistan slept well, dreaming of stars and skies, and not of lizards and reptiles crawling over their bodies!
