Pakistan's dirty laundry

They saw him dancing and listening to pop music in the mosque. On telling their parents they were quickly scolded and called liars, but as time passed and the so called mulvi began asking for food enough for 20-plus men each night, the villagers became suspicious.

When asked who the food was for he would reply “guests” but no one was seen entering or leaving the mosque, until one morning the villagers found a group of Taliban fighters’ asleep inside. So again, it begs the question: who are the indigenous Taliban if some of them are not even Pakistani? These faux Taliban fighters’ are an excuse; they are the perfect playing field for the political motives of external agencies bent on further destabilising an already unstable country.

(Cultural note to self: When posing as a religious leader in a village in Pakistan do not be so stupid as to have a Bollywood dance-off in the mosque!)

So why destabilise this third world country? What does it have that the rest of the world so desperately craves? It sure isn’t its open sewers and copious piles of garbage. You don’t think it has something to do with Pakistan being the geographic doorway to Asia and the Middle East do you? Unlike Iraq, Pakistan has nukes. Unlike Afghanistan it has Osama bin Laden. And of course, it has an oil and gas route that the US wants for its Trans-Afghan pipeline. Did I mention the nukes? Lucky Pakistan.

If left to its own devices Pakistan has the potential to become a very powerful and prosperous country. Agriculture would blossom in its extremely fertile soil; it has its own oil reserves, nuclear capabilities, strategic trade routes, and natural resources galore. But who are we kidding? The first world lives on the back of the third world. They carry us. Perish the thought of living in a world without sweatshops and soccer balls, fake Reeboks, child labour and bootleg DVDs. Without the third world we would have no first world.

To make matters worse, there are also whispers for the need to break Pakistan up into smaller nation states. If you take away the sovereignty of a country and it makes it a lot easier to control.

A good friend of mine recently had a gun held to his head and was robbed of all his personal possessions in Lahore, one of Pakistan’s major cities. A senior government official later told me that “when the crime rate dramatically increases in certain areas, it is usually a sign that the Taliban are on the move … They send out gangs of thieves to steal what they can as a means of funding their operations.”

Just like my friend in Lahore, Pakistan also regularly falls victim to the rule of the gun. But you have to ask yourself; what is the difference between a military dictatorship which oppresses its citizens and rapes the country via greed, power and fear, to that of another militant force that comes under the guise of religion? Both regimes share fundamentally flawed objectives. Pakistan cannot afford either if it wants to survive.

The sad reality now is that democracy has become a beggar in Pakistan: it lives, starving, in the minds of many while greed and corruption remain fat and opulent. The fanatical religious factions and corrupt politicians, who routinely bend to the will of external influence, are dividing the country and tearing shreds off any hope of Pakistan moving forwards.

Keep an entire country occupied with an internal threat and you’re well on your way to imposing pseudo democracy. Or maybe with President Zardari’s track record he has better credentials as a dictator. Either way, fear is a great medium for control.