PAKISTAN’S CONFLICTED CLASSES…..Part 8

Here is Imran Khan’s third statement in his interview with Darren Beattie on July 21, 2023:

3. “This is not the problem just with Pakistan. It is the problem with the entire developing world. The poor countries are poor because they cannot bring the powerful elites under the Rule of Law. So the elites of the poor countries, siphon off (funds and) plunder the poor country (and) take the wealth to off-shore accounts and western capitals. So basically, the poor countries are being plundered by their ruling elites because they are above Law. That’s what I am facing right now.”..Imran Khan

Ambassadors of the Global North

Pakistan’s tiny fraction of the wealthy and educated ruling elite are experienced practitioners of “silent withdrawal”. The giddy ones among them are western elite secular-liberals who lean heavily on the might of the “establishment” to maintain their stability. The rest feel safe seated behind their guns, their backs resting agnostically against the pillars of militarised ghetto-nationalism. They inhabit a super-secure eco-system that feels far greater and more powerful than the entire population of the Awam struggling and bickering below them. The educated ruling elite live many cloud-miles away from what feels alien to them. They simply can’t relate to the sweaty, teeming Pakistanis below who are part of the Global South’s poorest and least educated nations.

Instead, the educated elite are self-groomed and self-appointed ambassadors of the rich and powerful Global North. They have the power and the wealth, the control and influence and most importantly, the english language, to establish their credibility. They are part of the cabal of international elite who manage the poor dis-empowered populations of the global south…and Pakistan, which by accident or divine design, just happens to be their country. With the Establishment’s assistance and support, they have trained themselves to think of their role exclusively from the Global North’s ideological perspectives:

“The Global North’s survival depends upon our ability to assist them in controlling and accessing the global South’s natural resources, and manipulate our regimes through persuasion or coercion via our educated ruling elite which is us. We are interested in global partnerships that maintain the Global North’s dominance of the Global South. Their survival (and by association, ours and our children’s, too) depends on it.”

The role prescribed for Pakistan’s ruling national elite by the Global North, requires them to fulfill the following 10 duties. To get them started, and keep them going, wealthy western nations pour aid-funds, grants, loans, and most importantly their own gravitas i.e. their titanic “western” stamp of approval of the local ruling elite. But first, the following have to be ticked off as jobs to be done:

1. Train the the average labour-classes (basic literacy and computational skills) just enough to keep their wages low and competitive so that drudge-work (unskilled labor) can be outsourced to them (or imported) by the Global North and their allies at competitive costs
2. Educate them enough (basic literacy and computational skills) so that they can be outsourced to do drudge-techie work at competitive costs, for the Global North.
3. Educate them enough (basic literacy and computational skills) to manufacture consumer goods at cheap, competitive prices, for the Global North
4. Educate them enough (higher literacy and computational skills and extended knowledge-base) so as to make them techie-savvy and innovative for problem-solving for the Global North
5. Develop their advanced literacy and computation skills and a wider, deeper knowledge-base to be successful professionals and entrepreneurs for hiring by the Global North
6. Offer military bases to help fend off competitors and potential predators who threaten the interests of the Global North
7. Adhere to Global North’s standards of practicing human rights
8. Follow the Global North’s prescriptions to adopt new alternative energy resources and offer subsidies wherever needed.
9. Grow local markets to sell green-washed products and services from the Global North and its allies
10. Achieve parity between the sexes by offering equal opportunities to women.

The Level Playing Field

Understandably, all the above tasks have been appropriated by a microscopic percentage of the privileged ruling classes whose families & friends belong to specific social and ethnic circles. They are linked through kith and kin, via their communal comrades, as well as through religious and sectarian ones, etc. They own the means, and have the education and capacity to generate financial power and socio-political influence to channel hefty segments of foreign aid, donor-funds, contract commissions etc. to distribute among themselves. Govt-to-Govt aid funds, once in the bank, also serve as state-backed guarantees to obtain private bank-loans.

Even financial subsidies, originally intended to benefit the Awam (farmers and workers) are appropriated for use by elite business magnates to expand their private empires and holdings overseas. Between them and the establishment and the industrial-military conglomerate, they have ratcheted up an entire national constituency of voters who vote for low-cadre, semi-educated thugs and their captive recruits from among the Awam. These political candidates have been groomed for decades, to serve this class like paid “civilian” mercenaries. Their loyalty is reciprocated by support from non-civilian mercenaries of a similar kind. Although their collaboration halved the country’s size and population in 1970, they remained politically unflappabe…just to keep up appearances.

In many ways, the Global South’s national elite has copy-pasted the inequitable Master-Slave relationship between the Global North and the Global South. This template has been baked into the national (indigenous) “Elite/Establishment — vs — Awam” relationship since August 14, 1948, (Pakistan’s Independence Day). Indeed it is the main reason why Pakistan, despite its vast natural resources, and rich reserves of gas, oil and other minerals remains a chronically failing state. The tiny ruling elite exploits resources (mineral and human) mindlessly, sporadically to generate enough wealth to help the Global North dominate the South. A large portion of the remaining wealth is creamed off to support the ruling elite’s lifestyles (mostly via imported items) and make them comparable with those of their Northern masters. That is their idea of a level playing field.

Indeed, the benefits and advantages they derive from their “armored, iron-clad” eco-system offer exemplary proofs of how stability, security and safety of citizens can generate enormous benefits for those living in such a state. They and their children are educated; they monopolise their learn-n-earn capacity because of their professional qualifications and skills which earn them high salaries; many are successful entrepreneurs, managers, directors running successful businesses and NGO’s and offering livelihoods to a minuscule mid- and low- income urban class.

One can imagine what the country could be like if these same privileges, presently claimed by 0.1% of the population, could be incorporated as rightful entitlements owed to the majority of the population. One can imagine a national eco-system, so enormous, so strong and coherent that its economy would encompass the needs and aspirations of all who benefit from it financially, socially and culturally. With mass education at its base, and political stability its main pillars, the country can lift itself up from poverty to prosperity. This is how economically successful Global South nation-states in the Far-East (once called the Asian Tigers) began their journey towards economic emancipation. Their long-term vision did not feel so distant because (a) they educated almost 100% of their population to achieve their goal and (b) they could therefore implement their meticulously laid plans decades in advance.

Managing Injustice

When justice and the rule of law is imagined with foresight, future planning pre-empts the creation of unequal playing fields. The first tier of mass leveling begins with compulsory education for all. Subsequently, some from among the educated end up occupying higher ground legitimately, by virtue of their hard work and talent. However, they cannot use their tactical, educational or cognitive advantage to move into even higher positions of power by pushing those below into lower ones. Or dragging down those above them. Such “tactics” are for the corrupt and foolish.

Establishing level playing fields prevents extreme inequities from grafting erroneous lessons about human nature because they are always derived from savage competition, insatiable greed and deep fear. They are defined by behaviours incubated during savage wars, disease, famine and under-managed natural calamities. Inequitable societies bring out the worst aspects of human nature while equitable ones bring out the best. Granted there are exceptions at both ends of the spectrum. But, History has proven over and over again that when powerful ruling elites take to managing injustice, they generate rules and laws that proliferate more injustice and spread corruption. Unequal power-sharing relationships become the norm. Such precariously co-dependent relationships breed corruption because they push the subjugated against the wall and force them to make moral compromises. These are used against them to perpetuate their stranglehold. Such tentacles of corruption spread wide and deep and reach into the very entrails of the socio-political system. This is what has happened in Pakistan.

Therefore, if justice and the rule of law has to be established with hindsight (with the rest to follow), then, can a level playing field be created under the Rule of Law? What happens when the engines of Law (institutions, judicial mechanisms and delivery systems) have metastasized like cancerous cells of corruption? What happens if they reproduce themselves and multiply exponentially, to colonise the land like a virulent political virus?

In Pakistan, the Law has been made dumb, blind and mute. It limps down the corridors of power, knocking on doors, asking for protection by the Establishment against the “unruly masses clamoring for justice outside the courts”. The Law is paid by “elected” thug-politicians to forge steel into shackles to imprison the persecuted and the destitute. How can such Law serve the vast majority of the Awam who are made its principal victims? Of course, there are exceptions. But they only prove the the presence of Laws that punish, not protect, the weak.

The problem began when the vast segment of educated ruling elite distanced themselves from national politics. They and their parents witnessed how, over the years, entering politics meant grabbing state power and converting it into an engine to manufacture unlimited private wealth for a limited tenure of 4 elected years. The elite don’t do it because it makes them cringe with fear: politics in its current state will dirty their hands, soil their reputation and even niggle their conscience.

So they outsource politics to the lower cadre of semi-educated Awami “leaders” who have been touting, since the Bhutto days, for their right to rule the nation. It has proved to be a workable trade-off. The “dirty work of running the country” has been delegated to low-rank domestic political servants who have the power to flex their political muscles back at them. Regardless, it still feels easy to control and manage as long as the murky business of national self-governance from behind the curtains continues to be a profitable enterprise for the ruling elite.

It always was and still is…… until Imran Khan came and demanded putting the truth to vote. He taught the Awam …and the educated elite…..to recognize the truth for what it was: Very unsavory and certainly not digestible.

A better-informed Awam and a sharp-minded middle-class, and even growing numbers from among the educated elite appear keen to share each others’ perception of the bewildering national plight.

[Cont’d ….Part 9]

[ Video address: https://twitter.com/i/status/1680132623761326086 ]

Copyright © August, 2023 Shad Moarif ALL RIGHTS RESERVED