“While some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal democracy, and others might lapse back into other, more primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy could not be improved upon.”
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
“…Indians and Malaysians and Pakistanis can now choose from two ‘indigenous’ MTV channels that offer the same bland pop American musical fare — or local imitations thereof.”
Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld
Responses to last week’s assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto were both swift and predictable. U.S. President George W. Bush called it a “cowardly act by extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown concurred, arguing that “The terrorists must not be allowed to kill democracy in Pakistan… [or] win there, here or anywhere else in the world.” And German Chancellor Angela Merkel continued this theme, saying the “cowardly terrorist attack… also targets the stability of and democratic process of Pakistan.”
In such manner, western leaders continued their post-9/11 habit of dividing the world into a simplistic choice of “democracy” versus “terrorism”, the kind of “either us or them” ultimatum that has dominated the utterances of Bush, Blair and others for the past six years. Prime Minister Stephen Harper reinforced this notion in his own comments on Bhutto’s slaying. “This cannot be allowed to permit any delay in the return of Pakistan to full democracy,” he said, rejecting calls to postpone this month’s planned elections.
Yet such responses hinge on two basic assumptions, neither of which stands up to much scrutiny. The first is that the return and possible election of Bhutto would, in and of themselves, have restored democracy to Pakistan in any meaningful way. After all, her previous two terms as prime minister in the 1990s did not significantly extend democratic practices or curtail political corruption in Pakistan. Her triumphant return from exile may well have raised the hopes of democrats everywhere, but only as a byproduct of a deal between Washington and President Pervez Musharraf in which Bhutto would lend her support for the latter’s ailing military dictatorship.
The second assumption is that Bhutto’s assassination should automatically be classified as part of the so-called “war on terror.” In other words, while its immediate motive may have to do with Pakistani politics, its real significance is in the greater global struggle.
On the face of it, this seems fair. After all, in an interview with CNN last September Bhutto herself identified the Taliban and al-Qaida as greater threats to her safety than Pakistan’s military leaders, traditional opponents of civilian political rule. “We fought them in the past because we want a stable Pakistan,” she told reporter Wolf Blitzer, “and we can’t get any stability with militancy and extremists.” Bhutto’s assassins have yet to be identified, but the Taliban and al-Qaida are obvious suspects given Bhutto’s past opposition and Musharraf’s support for the U.S.
Yet to slot this latest atrocity neatly into the two-dimensional framework of the “war on terror,” to offer public assurances that “the terorists” must not be allowed to win, is to miss the deeper historical forces at work. After all, Bhutto was not stupid and neither is Musharraf, and while each may have been treated as pawns by the U.S. as part of some wider strategy, at the same time both have been playing the U.S. as they pursue their own agendas.
Let’s leave the “war on terror” aside and consider the deeper roots of Pakistan’s struggle to form a viable liberal democracy. Created as a homeland for Muslims when Britain granted independence to India in 1947, Pakistan was born into bloodshed. War between the two nations in 1948 left as many as one million dead, with 13 million more fleeing across the border as refugees
Over the past 60 years, Pakistan has rarely if ever enjoyed stability. “The country makes no geographic or demographic sense,” argues Robert Kaplan in The Coming Anarchy. “Like Yugoslavia, Pakistan is a patchwork of ethnic groups, increasingly in conflict with one another.” In consequence, military dictatorship has been almost a default position, replacing civilian rule for all but 16 of the past 50 years.
Even the generals have had little idea what to do, “uncertain whether to watch Pakistan slip into chaos, or seize power and then be stuck with running a fractious nation that has more often than not defied most past efforts to govern it,” says Eric Margolis in War at the Top of the World.
As a result, the world’s sixth largest country (165 million) has one of the highest infant mortality rates (77 per 1,000) outside of Africa, an illiteracy rate of almost 60 per cent, and one of the world’s lowest GDP per capita averages (under $2,000 US)
Yet even as it was wracked by political instability and economic dysfunction, Pakistan has — like the rest of the world — been exposed to a new “globalized” culture over the past 25 years, one in which local tastes, values, assumptions and expectations have been steadily homogenized in the wake of MTV, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Nike et al. The spread of this new global culture — and the free-market, libertarian ideologies it enshrines — has met with resentment and resistance as well as joy and anticipation. “The strength of the Islamic revival,” Francis Fukuyama argued in 1992, “can only be understood if one understands how deeply the dignity of Islamic society had been wounded in its double failure to maintain the coherence of its traditional society and to successfully assimilate the techniques and values of the West.”
The assassination of Benizar Bhutto may well be seen as linked to the West’s “war on terror,” but that same war is in itself a measure of globalization’s failure to define, let alone manifest, a truly global perspective. Instead, it continues to embody ideas, values and structures that are born of and favourable to western interests.
“If confronted by individuals who differ from this perception and who behave accordingly,” concludes Meic Pearse in Why the Rest Hates the West, “we will probably consider them to be stupid, crazy or perhaps fanatical.” All those words no doubt apply to the assassin who took Bhutto’s life last week. However, why he took that action, and what it really means, requires deeper thought than was shown last week by the leaders of the West.
