21. Pakistan's current state of affairs

Since writing this post, it has been brought to my attention that the issue is apparently more complicated than I initially thought. Apparently, Musharraf had his own set of unresolved issues... so I guess the choice was just between the lesser of many evils. I still attest that the key to success in Pakistan is education, which we haven't seen yet.

A lot of people have asked me about recent events in Pakistan. There is a major flaw with the Western viewpoint of the situation, which is basically that "elected leaders are always better than non-elected leaders." Although I am far from an expert in political science, I do know what it's like to live in Pakistan... so here's my synopsis of recent Pakistani political history for those of you who want to know the real facts instead of just believing the skewed truth that comes from the popular media corporations.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I don't live in Pakistan at the moment, so my views may be outdated... but the purpose of this post is to show the other viewpoint to the average American whose only source of news is CNN.

First off: Islamic extremists won't ever take over the country... politicians just say that because they want the support of the Western population in their election campaign. There aren't many people in the country that are sympathetic with the plight of the extremists, but the extremists are outspoken enough to make the world think that they're everywhere.

Politicians say whatever they need to say to get elected. Here is a true story:

People voted for politician A, who then stole a lot of money from the public and got fired. Then politician B was elected, stole lots of money, and got fired a few years later. By that time, people had forgotten about the past and they voted for politician A again. Then politician A stole money again and got fired again, so they voted for politician B again. Then politician B stole money again and lost power in a military coup, at which point an honest leader took power. Unfortunately, the honest leader wasn't elected, so everybody in the world thinks that he was a bad ruler. Politician B came back and tried to run for office again. The military ruler placed her on house arrest to prevent the country from descending into ruins again and the US started to yell at him because he's interfering with democracy. The problem is that the democracy there is so corrupt that it's basically pointless.

Politician A is named Nawaz Sharif
Politician B is named Benazir Bhutto
Military leader is Pervez Musharraf

Benazir and Nawaz have both been elected twice and fired twice. They were both living in exile until recently... they both came back and now Musharraf is concerned that the stupid public will vote them in again and destroy the country. When they were in power, inflation was rampant, international relations were terrible, and the country was in shambles. So Musharraf places Benazir (a known criminal... here is a good summary with citations to neutral primary sources that you can feel free to examine) on house arrest and the world gets pissed at him because she's an eloquent speaker. He managed to successfully kick Nawaz out of the country (since Nawaz promised in 1999 to stay out of Pakistan for 10 years as part of an agreement with Saudi Arabia to help him... then, of course, he broke his promise and went back to Pakistan), but Benazir is still there and she's still trying to take power. The West likes her because (a) she's a woman who is unbelievably good at playing the gender card, and (b) she's promised to let the US invade the northwestern tribal areas (which will undoubtedly not only lead to thousands of American casualties, but will also undoubtedly cause a civil war in Pakistan... those tribal areas are full of rough terrain and millions of tribal citizens who carry AK-47's and believe that they are independent from Pakistan).

Democracy in Pakistan sucks. There are 2-3 people with power and you can only get into powerful positions if you use unethical means to get there. Because of that, all of the powerful politicians are corrupt. If a reasonable person tries to run for office without first brainwashing an entire political party, they will be shot. That's why the military leaders are usually the only honest leaders of the country... they are the only people who were systematically promoted based on good leadership and great loyalty to their nation. Although past military leaders have occasionally made bad decisions, the decisions were always what they believed was in the best interest of the country.

I think the moral of the story is that democracy doesn't work when the population is uneducated. Many people just vote for the candidate of the same ethnic group, while others just try to choose the least of several evils. Personally, I prefer an honest military leader (who has stabilized what is left of the economy during his tenure) over a dishonest elected leader (who destroyed the economy).

Elections are great when your population actually has options and law enforcement is a reality. Unfortunately, that is not the case in Pakistan... if a person who doesn't have enough bodyguards tries to run for office, they shouldn't expect to live to see the election. The people who have a reason to have a lot of bodyguards, on the other hand, are usually people who need a lot of protection because they exchange favors with the kinds of people who you need protection from.

Now consider the notable exception of the one man who has an army (literally) of armed, professionally-trained "guards"... and it's for an honest, patriotic reason. That man is the chief of army staff, also known as the current leader of Pakistan.