Lessons from China?

[Indus Pakistan]

Great post. What if I told you that USA and China have agreed to work together to stabilize Pakistan, together?

No problem. More the merrier. As long as it is not India I am cool with it.

 

[scorpionx]

Pakistan does not need to disassociate religion from the state in order to replicate a China model. Keeping their indigenous constitutional structure, Pakistan (India as well) can learn a lot from International experience and China, apart from only Sri Lanka perhaps is the best country to take a plenty of lessons. Being a democratic republic, in some cases Pakistan have, on the other hand the opportunity to exploit the fruits of public discussion and free print and electronic media for development compatible with sustainable growth oriented policy making which China certainly lacks and needs to work on more vigorously.

There is no reason to deny the fact that, with the depleting NATO forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan's geo-political importance has arisen sharply. The recent refusal of Russia and China to held Pakistan accountable for terror funding suggests that Pakistan is going to enjoy a certain privileged place to maintain regional stability ever than before. This perhaps will be enough in the next 20/30 odd years to drive the civilian and the military leadership as well to focus more and more on the far neglected areas of social development; basic health care, education and public infrastructure, without which the radicalization of the democratic institution of the 70's can not be mitigated. Fortunately, Pakistan's economy is on the right track and it must learn from the Chinese experience how to integrate economic growth with human development with a much faster pace (Usually, we south Asians are pathetically slow and lethargic when it comes to improving the quality of life).

Pakistan's economy better than India's: Bloomberg

Pakistan improving sanitation way faster than India: Study

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Pakistan does not need to disassociate religion from the state in order to replicate a China model. Keeping their indigenous constitutional structure, Pakistan (India as well) can learn a lot from International experience and China, apart from only Sri Lanka perhaps is the best country to take a plenty of lessons. Being a democratic republic, in some cases Pakistan have, on the other hand the opportunity to exploit the fruits of public discussion and free print and electronic media for development compatible with sustainable growth oriented policy making which China certainly lacks and needs to work on more vigorously.

There is no reason to deny the fact that, with the depleting NATO forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan's geo-political importance has arisen sharply. The recent refusal of Russia and China to held Pakistan accountable for terror funding suggests that Pakistan is going to enjoy a certain privileged place to maintain regional stability ever than before. This perhaps will be enough in the next 20/30 odd years to drive the civilian and the military leadership as well to focus more and more on the far neglected areas of social development; basic health care, education and public infrastructure, without which the radicalization of the democratic institution of the 70's can not be mitigated. Fortunately, Pakistan's economy is on the right track and it must learn from the Chinese experience how to integrate economic growth with human development with a much faster pace (Usually, we south Asians are pathetically slow and lethargic when it comes to improving the quality of life).

Pakistan's economy better than India's: Bloomberg

Pakistan improving sanitation way faster than India: Study

We have to disassociate religion from the state. Either de jure or de facto. The reason is we have dozen brands of Islam. Differant interpretation exists in all walks of life. However what makes holding divergent views in religion so dangerous is that each brand invokes the almighty. Each brand feels they have the franchize from Allah. It is quite easy to see where this leads to.

As each brand collides each feels they carry the infallible word of god and that means they will kill each other before accepting or recognizing the other sides view. In fact they will feel certain amount of satisfaction and feel they did it for Allah. A extreme example of this is Qadri the guy who murdered Salman Taseer. He is unrepentant. He answers to a higher authority and feels vindicated.

This fundamental problem has to be addressed or it will gnaw away at Pakistan innards and prevent progress or even endanger it. At this point in time 99% of Pakistan don't know much about China other than the "love higher then mountains and deeper then oceans" rubbish but fast forward 25 years into the future. Assume the CPEC has taken off and there is mass trade along the CPEC. That means millions of Chinese visiting Pakistan and Pakistani visiting China.

That is when there will be problems as I frankly do not know two people that are are more differant from each other then Chinese/Pak. Chinese are ( mostly ) athiest and ultra secularist. They are driven by today. Money and matarialism drives them. Pak wear and flaunt religion on their sleave ( face ) and push it down other people's faces. When these two worlds mix it is going to throw all sort of problems. That is when the pressure is going to mount for change.

The West was always more pliable. Not so the Chinese. So we shall see what change is going to come from this.

Ps. The government knows this. As a sign of how much we love Chinese we are even raising an entire army division to protect them from "too much love".

 

[VCheng]

That means millions of Chinese visiting Pakistan and Pakistani visiting China.

I even suggested holding a Dog Eating Festival to @levina elsewhere on PDF to promote bilateral understanding of Chinese culinary traditions in Pakistan.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

I even suggested holding a Dog Eating Festival to @levina elsewhere on PDF to promote bilateral understanding of Chinese culinary traditions in Pakistan.

And they could hold a "beer festival" for visting Pakistani's in Sinkiang. At least the stuff would be safe to drink.

Chinese academic defends beer festival in Muslim region

Ps. About a decade back Iived for few weeks in a house full of mostly Chinese post grad students. So I got a chance to observe the Chinese. These were almost all from mainland. The women were were "easy" with their clothes. I don't mean it in a bad way. Having been brought up in the West it did not bother me one bit but it did occur to me our lot would be up in arms if they saw that.

 

[Levina]

I even suggested holding a Dog Eating Festival to @levina elsewhere on PDF to promote bilateral understanding of Chinese culinary traditions in Pakistan.

That's really not necessary.
If all these years Pakistan and China could remain friends sans such festivals then why do you think you need it now??
Not as if it concerns me...

 

[Indus Pakistan]

That's really not necessary.
If all these years Pakistan and China could remain friends sans such festivals then why do you think you need it now??
Not as if it concerns me...

Because we are moving from "long distance lovin" to getting "up real close and personal" ...

 

[scorpionx]

We have to disassociate religion from the state. Either de jure or de facto. The reason is we have dozen brands of Islam. Differant interpretation exists in all walks of life. However what makes holding divergent views in religion so dangerous is that each brand invokes the almighty. Each brand feels they have the franchize from Allah. It is quite easy to see where this leads to.

As each brand collides each feels they carry the infallible word of god and that means they will kill each other before accepting or recognizing the other sides view. In fact they will feel certain amount of satisfaction and feel they did it for Allah. A extreme example of this is Qari the guy who murdered Salman Taseer. He is unrepentant. He answers to a higher authority and feels vindicated.

This fundamental problem has to be addressed or it will gnaw away at Pakistan innards and prevent progress or even endanger it. At this point in time 99% of Pakistan don't know much about China other than the "love higher then mountains and deeper then oceans" rubbish but fast forward 25 years into the future. Assume the CPEC has taken off and there is mass trade along the CPEC. That means millions of Chinese visiting Pakistan and Pakistani visiting China.

That is when there will be problems as I frankly do not know two people that are are more differant from each other then Chinese/Pak. Chinese are ( mostly ) athiest and ultra secularist. They are driven by today. Money and matarialism drives them. Pak wear and flaunt religion on their sleave ( face ) and push it down other people's faces. When these two worlds mix it is going to throw all sort of problems. That is when the pressure is going to mount for change.

The West was always more pliable. Not so the Chinese. So we shall see what change is going to come from this.

Ps. The government knows this. As a sign of how much we love Chinese we are even raising an entire army division to protect them from "too much love".

Sir, I humbly differ with the notion that religion and state are not qualified for mutual sustained compatibility. There has been long standing debate whether the two terms, Islam and a republic are congenial concepts or not and from my understanding, I see no reasons for them not to be. Pakistan was an Islamic republic from 1956 to the 70's too, but yet its secular fabric was unscathed, liberalism was encouraged, economy prospered. Egalitarianism and Islamic principles, as a combined philosophical doctrine have met more or less equal success in a number of Islamic countries like Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia and there is no reason to believe Pakistan can not remain an Islamic state without introducing a Zia model in its governing system.

Pakistan's problem, as we can right today see is overstretching itself in order to please the clerics, whose interpretations of Islam are never going to converge on a single point. In stead, as a theocracy, it may adhere to a single, most convincing doctrine, the Misaq-i-Madina or Medina charter, which was a simple secular doctrine that ensured free practice of religion in a pluralistic society. Pakistan (and India) is an extraordinary and unprecedented example in the world history where heterogeneous societies with variety of ethnicity, language and religion has to survive and it is wrong to assume they can not without challenging the basic guiding principles of religion.

In short, the problem, as a whole is ineptitude in governance, overstretching Islam (which may be called one of the fundamental problems) as a state religion (Musharraf, with limited success tried honestly and Nawaz Shariff unenviably ruining it again today) and lack of accountability in social-human development. This is where, I believe we may take few lessons from the Chinese and modify it as per our own socio-religious norms.

 

[Levina]

Because we are moving from "long distance lovin" to getting "up real close and personal" ...

Err
Okay
But should that mean Pakistanis will have to espouse alien eating habits??
I'm sure your politicians know where to draw the line, me and VC can merely speculate.
So back to the topic.... Can Pakistan do a "Xinjiang" on its soil???
I don't think so.

 

[VCheng]

Err
Okay
But should that mean Pakistanis will have to espouse alien eating habits??
I'm sure your politicians know where to draw the line, me and VC can merely speculate.
So back to the topic.... Can Pakistan do a "Xinjiang" on its soil???
I don't think so.

Not espouse, but at least tolerate. For Pakistanis to be able to tolerate will rekindle one of the crucial social abilities that seems to have been lost along the way. Tolerate.

 

[FaujHistorian]

.......
Pakistan's problem, as we can right today see is overstretching itself in order to please the clerics, ...

Scorp bhai

you know I admire your analysis.

on this one, let me present an alternative pic.

Very few analysts have "appreciated" Pakistan that in fact it has survived a huge onslaught of destructive ideologies from inside and outside, that many other countries would not have survived.

If you are a country like Pakistan right next to a region. A region that is center of global contest (global fight), like Afghanistan, there is no way in heck, Pakistan can come out unscathed.

For example, Vietnam war where Laos and Cambodia were unfortunately got sucked into Vietnam war in the neighborhood. Look what happened to it.

Sameway Afghan wars have been going on since 1800s. Thus the region now called Pakistan has been sort of Laos and Cambodia only much longer.

And when we compare the death and destruction in Laos and Cambodia due to Vietnam war, believe me we came out much much better.

We could have done even better.

But then that's a separate discussion.

peace

And they could hold a "beer festival" for visting Pakistani's in Sinkiang. [/I]

Murree brewery beats Chinese hands down.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Sir, I humbly differ with the notion that religion and state are not qualified for mutual sustained compatibility. There has been long standing debate whether the two terms, Islam and a republic are congenial concepts or not and from my understanding, I see no reasons for them not to be. Pakistan was an Islamic republic from 1956 to the 70's too, but yet its secular fabric was unscathed, liberalism was encouraged, economy prospered.

It is not that simple. From 1947 onwards until late 1970s despite the tag "Islamic Republic" Pakistan remained largely secular as you rightly point out. However the reason was that the men at the helm of the state ( including most of the state apparatus ) were mostly products of British era and thus behaved and acted like "Little Englanders".

Thus the secularism you mention hinged on discretion as opposed to the Turkish secularism which was institutional. As long as these men exercised their discretion everything was fine but by late 1970s the last of the British recruited cohort were retiring.

This period also happened to coincide with the geopolitics of the region and Cold War. The Saudia oil show was taking off by late 1970s as well and we know what the 1980s jihad did to Pakistan. The fact is Pakistan leadership in 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s failed to institutionalize secularism. That way it could have stood a chance to outlast their discretionery secularism.

I cannot see any other alternative but secularism. The simple reality is ( Pakistan being a classic example of this ) there are lots of Islams. I call them brands. The moment you declare a state "Islamic" you invite religion into the bloodstream of governance. The domain of Islam is the Mullah. So in effect by declaring the state "Islamic" you are inviting the Mullah into the business of the state.

As if that is not bad enough it might not be too bad if one chief Mullah came along representing the mullahdom. In our case instead we get dozens fighting to get inside and in doing so killing each other. Your left in a position where if you choose one you alienate the rest. Anybody left out will of course decide to declare jihad and you have what resembles present day Pakistan.

Therefore given that the sectarian gulf in Islam has not been bridged for thousand years of conflict and schism. Therefore the best the state can do is pull out of this hornets nest and act as a impartial observer while it pays it's attention on simpler things like providing justice, economic stability, health services, education and housing.