Pakistan, Failed Democracy? (Part I)

I have been thinking alot lately about the problems of democratically elected governments that don't turn out to be particularly "good" governments. Today, as the media is profiling Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan after a decade-long exile, I find myself quite torn about this situation. There are undeniable facts: Musharraf has improved Pakistan overall during his regime- the economy has grown, the stockmarket has skyrocketed, and it seems like even ordinary Pakistanis are doing somewhat better than previously (not that that is saying much given the extraordinary poverty in the country). Indeed, even freedom of speech has flourished during his years in power, which is in part why he has found himself on the defensive in the past year or so, with media outlets getting quite aggressive and holding his feet to the fire on issues such as judicial independence and his own seemingly endless hold on power. The opposition parties have capitalized on this, becoming increasingly vocal and wrapping themselves in the mantle of democracy.

And yet, if anyone can remember back to the 1990's, when Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif more or less took turns ruling Pakistan, it was an absolute disaster.

• Human rights were a disaster. People were arrested on the whim of the government, frequently under the guise of “corruption” charges. Religious minorities’ rights were trampled on to appease the clerics. Rape was rampant, and seldom prosecuted.
• The economy was an absolute mess, public services deteriorated to the point where people simply gave up on having basic things like power.
• Above all, the so-called “democracy” was in fact nothing more than a façade; in reality, landlords, clerics and other powerbrokers effectively controlled the votes of the largely illiterate masses through a variety of means, some of them quite underhanded, even outright illegal.

It is this last point that deserves a great deal of emphasis. Pakistan is a feudal, yes, feudal society. I don’t mean that in some metaphorical, “oh they are so backward” kind of way, I mean it literally. The majority of the country’s land is owned by a small number of families, who then treat the people who farm their land as serfs. This system has both benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, it means that the serfs are able to count on the landlord helping them out in times of need, e.g. helping with a daughter’s dowry or settling a dispute with a neighbor. The flipside, however, is that the serf has to vow complete loyalty to his landlord, and must do as he says on a number of fronts, including voting in elections. For a lot of poor people, this is not a bad deal: they get a modicum of security in an otherwise very uncertain existence, and in exchange they give up something that is hardly worth anything to someone who does not already enjoy the basic comforts of life.

This, then, is one important aspect of Pakistan’s political life. It is worth mentioning that Benazir Bhutto belongs to the landowning class, and while Nawaz Sharif was an industrialist, he did not do anything to alter this feudal system either.

With all this background, I want to move on to asking a basic question. In this sort of society, one that I would call a failed democracy, what should be done?

Next, I will try to explore this question in more detail.