THE relentless march of Islamist and tribal zealots in Pakistan is deeply worrisome.
Pakistan is losing the wider battle; to show competent government, respect the rights of minorities, give the chance of education to all its people and manage a successful economy. Most critically, Pakistan's government is losing ground to the preachers of extremist Islam, who hold out the illusion of easy answers to life's problems cloaked in the language of hate, segregation and violence. President Asif Ali Zardari appears hapless when promising to fight ''militants to the finish'' and having ''no other option except to win''. The more terrifying prospect is that his government will lose.
Pakistan - or more accurately, its nefarious intelligence agencies - finds it convenient to foster a rabid breed of Islamist ideology to unleash. This was also the spur for the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Yet vast numbers of those same fighters have now turned against the Pakistani state and it remains amply clear that they enjoy widespread support from within Pakistan's security and intelligence agencies.
The danger is less that an organised extremist force will seize power, but rather that the incipient rise of fanaticism within Pakistan will take creeping control of the state. The country has only ever managed a tenuous commitment to democracy, with the military willing to take control under the pretence of acting in the nation's best interest. When not driven by the naked self-interest of a particular general, the military often appears to suffer a hangover of colonial distrust of local politicians. But with the ideology of extremism on the march, the fear is Pakistan's rulers will seek to accommodate the fanatics and, as a consequence, fundamentally change the character of the state.
The stakes in Pakistan are far higher than in any other country threatened by violent Islamist forces, such as Yemen or Somalia. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. With increasing radicalization amongst the rank and files of the pakistan Army, a fact confessed by the all-powerful Army Chief of pakistan Army, which he cited as the reason for his inability to condemn the killers of pakistani politician Salman Tasseer who was assassinated for speaking up against the discriminatory treatment meted out to Christians in pakistan, it is only a matter of time when terrorist outfits life the Al-Qaeda lay their hands on pakistan's Nuclear weapons, unless this growing tide of radicalization is stemmed.
For this to happen, it is imperative that pakistan's benefactors, its International donors, by whose aid it manages to sustain itself, take the pakistan Army to task for its continued support to the terrorists & radicals even while it accepts from them billions of dollars each year to fight and defeat these very radical elements.
International antipathy of this sort only contributes to a sense of frustration and anger inside Pakistan. The country is too important to be left to founder.
Pakistan is losing the wider battle; to show competent government, respect the rights of minorities, give the chance of education to all its people and manage a successful economy. Most critically, Pakistan's government is losing ground to the preachers of extremist Islam, who hold out the illusion of easy answers to life's problems cloaked in the language of hate, segregation and violence. President Asif Ali Zardari appears hapless when promising to fight ''militants to the finish'' and having ''no other option except to win''. The more terrifying prospect is that his government will lose.
Pakistan - or more accurately, its nefarious intelligence agencies - finds it convenient to foster a rabid breed of Islamist ideology to unleash. This was also the spur for the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Yet vast numbers of those same fighters have now turned against the Pakistani state and it remains amply clear that they enjoy widespread support from within Pakistan's security and intelligence agencies.
The danger is less that an organised extremist force will seize power, but rather that the incipient rise of fanaticism within Pakistan will take creeping control of the state. The country has only ever managed a tenuous commitment to democracy, with the military willing to take control under the pretence of acting in the nation's best interest. When not driven by the naked self-interest of a particular general, the military often appears to suffer a hangover of colonial distrust of local politicians. But with the ideology of extremism on the march, the fear is Pakistan's rulers will seek to accommodate the fanatics and, as a consequence, fundamentally change the character of the state.
The stakes in Pakistan are far higher than in any other country threatened by violent Islamist forces, such as Yemen or Somalia. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. With increasing radicalization amongst the rank and files of the pakistan Army, a fact confessed by the all-powerful Army Chief of pakistan Army, which he cited as the reason for his inability to condemn the killers of pakistani politician Salman Tasseer who was assassinated for speaking up against the discriminatory treatment meted out to Christians in pakistan, it is only a matter of time when terrorist outfits life the Al-Qaeda lay their hands on pakistan's Nuclear weapons, unless this growing tide of radicalization is stemmed.
For this to happen, it is imperative that pakistan's benefactors, its International donors, by whose aid it manages to sustain itself, take the pakistan Army to task for its continued support to the terrorists & radicals even while it accepts from them billions of dollars each year to fight and defeat these very radical elements.
International antipathy of this sort only contributes to a sense of frustration and anger inside Pakistan. The country is too important to be left to founder.
