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analysis: The Hydra has a fourth head William B Milam
If President Zardari is relatively successful in meeting the three immediate challenges economic, political, security a really transformational task awaits him: changing the deeply invested political culture which, at least in part, lies at the root of Pakistans many crises
A couple of months ago, in a metaphorical mood, I wrote about the three-headed Hydra that confronts the recently-elected PPP government of Asif Ali Zardari. A Hydra, of course, is the many-headed monster from Greek mythology that Heracles killed with help from his nephew.
I gave the monster facing Zardari three heads (though the ancient Greek writers thought it was more like nine), one head representing the economic crisis that seemed unanswered at that time, the second head representing the existential challenge posed to the state itself by the Pakistani Taliban, and the third head the danger to Pakistan in the region and in its relations with its closest (and most generous) Western allies if the government couldnt muster the strength and will to inhibit the mounting incursions of Afghan Taliban into Afghanistan.
The Hydra of the ancient Greeks grew new heads to replace the ones that Heracles cut off. That is why he had to call on his nephew for help. As Heracles learned the hard way, not only do immediate crises have to be dealt with (i.e. the heads all cut off), but their underlying causes have to be eradicated (i.e. the necks cauterised to prevent more heads growing) before the monster is slain.
True to the legend, this Hydra will grow a new head if President Zardari does not make sure that the IMF programme Pakistan will begin soon is only the beginning of his programme to eradicate the underlying structural causes of this (and many previous) economic crises.
They all were made in Pakistan, not in global financial or commodity markets, or in sanctions regimes, although those problems certainly made things worse as well as more difficult to rectify.
The current context of melted down global financial markets and rapidly falling world demand pushing most developed and emerging economies toward recession makes root and branch structural reform even more important this time around. Fund conditionality will be decried by many Pakistani commentators, but the purpose of conditionality is to try to treat the underlying structural causes of these crises, the existence of which no knowledgeable observer would deny.
Under General Musharraf, it was often said that Pakistan had finally thrown off the label of a one tranche country. But the General was in charge when his government free at last from IMF conditionality began in 2003 to sow the seeds of the present crisis by pumping up growth unsustainably through a credit bubble that spurred consumption artificially. This was a gamble, taken as far as I can see for political reasons, based on the assumption that the global economy would remain benign. Pakistans longstanding problem was exacerbated (perhaps too mild a verb): it consumed much more than it earned, and imported much more than it exported, for several years in a time when energy and commodity prices soared.
Musharraf, however, was no longer around when the bubble burst; nor was the benignly growing global economy of 2003-6. Zardari and his PPP government were, and it is they on whom the chickens of that wild gamble came home to roost: a seriously overheated economy to which the boom in commodity price rises and the energy shortages only lent steam. It is Zardari, not Musharraf, who has had to go hat in hand back to the IMF.
The two political crises continue almost unabated. The Zardari government seems determined to fight back against the extremist encroachment on the states writ in the Tribal Areas and the Frontier. But the campaign is just beginning, and the strength of the governments political will as well as the breadth and depth of its strategy are yet to be completely revealed. The fact that public support is weak and ambiguous despite the widespread revulsion to the rash of suicide bombing attacks is an inhibition to a firm and determined policy of push back, and also to levelling with the public about such a policy.
The grip that the extremists seem to have on the media, their control of public discourse, also works against an effective anti-terrorism policy and the willingness of the government to be open about it. It is interesting that the Musharraf regime gets the credit for opening up the media to all comers (though it also bears the onus of the clampdown in November 2007), and as with the economic crisis, the Zardari government ends up with the fallout in the case of the media, how to get the governments case for a firm push back listened to by the public, and also how to prevent the intimidation and apostatisation of moderate voices without clamping down on press freedom.
Last week, at the Wilson Centre, the Hydra of Pakistans crises reared a fourth ugly head, one that, I think, not enough of us are thinking about. It is Pakistans water crisis, the forgotten crisis that, in the long run, could prove as fatal to the state as the three we think about all the time. This was laid out in 8 excellent presentations during a one-day conference that kept the audience there and listening intently until the end.
The organisers asked, for example, if we knew that Pakistan spends, on average, 47 times more on its military budgets than on water and sanitation; that more residents of Karachi die each month from contaminated water than all the soldiers killed in wars with India since 1947; that water availability declined from 5000 cubic meters per capita in 1951 to 1200 now (and 1000 is the threshold below which no country can sink without severe consequences)? The water crisis affects, of course, all Pakistans other crises economic, energy, health, political, even security.
What struck me, as I listened through the day to the obviously well-informed and intelligent speakers, is that, like the countrys other problems, the water crisis has inspired a number of articulate, talented, and motivated Pakistanis to get involved and to work through civil society organisations of one sort or another to get Pakistan on the right track. The question is, then, in this as in all the other crises (Pakistan seems to have quite a few), why, with such bright, well informed, articulate, motivated people working hard for better policies, do those policies remain unchanged and counterproductive.
Why isnt civil society able to coalesce around issues that mean so much to the long-run viability of the country; why arent able and vocal groups of Pakistanis with deep understanding of and insight into these corrosive crises listened to by the governments of the day? It may be an oversimplification, but surely part of the answer has to do with a political culture that, whether the civilian politicians or the military are in charge, is based on patron-client relationships and almost total inattention to issues that are at the centre of governing.
I began this piece with the intention of focusing it on the question of political transformation in Pakistan, having commented briefly two weeks ago on whether Barack Obama might be a transformational figure in US history not in what he is, but in what he does. That will have to wait until next time; I got carried off, as often happens, in a more interesting direction. But if President Zardari is relatively successful in meeting the three immediate challenges economic, political, security and I sincerely hope he is, a really transformational task awaits him: changing the deeply invested political culture which, at least in part, lies at the root of Pakistans many crises.
William B Milam is a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington and a former US Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh
http://www.thedailytimes.com.pk
If President Zardari is relatively successful in meeting the three immediate challenges economic, political, security a really transformational task awaits him: changing the deeply invested political culture which, at least in part, lies at the root of Pakistans many crises
A couple of months ago, in a metaphorical mood, I wrote about the three-headed Hydra that confronts the recently-elected PPP government of Asif Ali Zardari. A Hydra, of course, is the many-headed monster from Greek mythology that Heracles killed with help from his nephew.
I gave the monster facing Zardari three heads (though the ancient Greek writers thought it was more like nine), one head representing the economic crisis that seemed unanswered at that time, the second head representing the existential challenge posed to the state itself by the Pakistani Taliban, and the third head the danger to Pakistan in the region and in its relations with its closest (and most generous) Western allies if the government couldnt muster the strength and will to inhibit the mounting incursions of Afghan Taliban into Afghanistan.
The Hydra of the ancient Greeks grew new heads to replace the ones that Heracles cut off. That is why he had to call on his nephew for help. As Heracles learned the hard way, not only do immediate crises have to be dealt with (i.e. the heads all cut off), but their underlying causes have to be eradicated (i.e. the necks cauterised to prevent more heads growing) before the monster is slain.
True to the legend, this Hydra will grow a new head if President Zardari does not make sure that the IMF programme Pakistan will begin soon is only the beginning of his programme to eradicate the underlying structural causes of this (and many previous) economic crises.
They all were made in Pakistan, not in global financial or commodity markets, or in sanctions regimes, although those problems certainly made things worse as well as more difficult to rectify.
The current context of melted down global financial markets and rapidly falling world demand pushing most developed and emerging economies toward recession makes root and branch structural reform even more important this time around. Fund conditionality will be decried by many Pakistani commentators, but the purpose of conditionality is to try to treat the underlying structural causes of these crises, the existence of which no knowledgeable observer would deny.
Under General Musharraf, it was often said that Pakistan had finally thrown off the label of a one tranche country. But the General was in charge when his government free at last from IMF conditionality began in 2003 to sow the seeds of the present crisis by pumping up growth unsustainably through a credit bubble that spurred consumption artificially. This was a gamble, taken as far as I can see for political reasons, based on the assumption that the global economy would remain benign. Pakistans longstanding problem was exacerbated (perhaps too mild a verb): it consumed much more than it earned, and imported much more than it exported, for several years in a time when energy and commodity prices soared.
Musharraf, however, was no longer around when the bubble burst; nor was the benignly growing global economy of 2003-6. Zardari and his PPP government were, and it is they on whom the chickens of that wild gamble came home to roost: a seriously overheated economy to which the boom in commodity price rises and the energy shortages only lent steam. It is Zardari, not Musharraf, who has had to go hat in hand back to the IMF.
The two political crises continue almost unabated. The Zardari government seems determined to fight back against the extremist encroachment on the states writ in the Tribal Areas and the Frontier. But the campaign is just beginning, and the strength of the governments political will as well as the breadth and depth of its strategy are yet to be completely revealed. The fact that public support is weak and ambiguous despite the widespread revulsion to the rash of suicide bombing attacks is an inhibition to a firm and determined policy of push back, and also to levelling with the public about such a policy.
The grip that the extremists seem to have on the media, their control of public discourse, also works against an effective anti-terrorism policy and the willingness of the government to be open about it. It is interesting that the Musharraf regime gets the credit for opening up the media to all comers (though it also bears the onus of the clampdown in November 2007), and as with the economic crisis, the Zardari government ends up with the fallout in the case of the media, how to get the governments case for a firm push back listened to by the public, and also how to prevent the intimidation and apostatisation of moderate voices without clamping down on press freedom.
Last week, at the Wilson Centre, the Hydra of Pakistans crises reared a fourth ugly head, one that, I think, not enough of us are thinking about. It is Pakistans water crisis, the forgotten crisis that, in the long run, could prove as fatal to the state as the three we think about all the time. This was laid out in 8 excellent presentations during a one-day conference that kept the audience there and listening intently until the end.
The organisers asked, for example, if we knew that Pakistan spends, on average, 47 times more on its military budgets than on water and sanitation; that more residents of Karachi die each month from contaminated water than all the soldiers killed in wars with India since 1947; that water availability declined from 5000 cubic meters per capita in 1951 to 1200 now (and 1000 is the threshold below which no country can sink without severe consequences)? The water crisis affects, of course, all Pakistans other crises economic, energy, health, political, even security.
What struck me, as I listened through the day to the obviously well-informed and intelligent speakers, is that, like the countrys other problems, the water crisis has inspired a number of articulate, talented, and motivated Pakistanis to get involved and to work through civil society organisations of one sort or another to get Pakistan on the right track. The question is, then, in this as in all the other crises (Pakistan seems to have quite a few), why, with such bright, well informed, articulate, motivated people working hard for better policies, do those policies remain unchanged and counterproductive.
Why isnt civil society able to coalesce around issues that mean so much to the long-run viability of the country; why arent able and vocal groups of Pakistanis with deep understanding of and insight into these corrosive crises listened to by the governments of the day? It may be an oversimplification, but surely part of the answer has to do with a political culture that, whether the civilian politicians or the military are in charge, is based on patron-client relationships and almost total inattention to issues that are at the centre of governing.
I began this piece with the intention of focusing it on the question of political transformation in Pakistan, having commented briefly two weeks ago on whether Barack Obama might be a transformational figure in US history not in what he is, but in what he does. That will have to wait until next time; I got carried off, as often happens, in a more interesting direction. But if President Zardari is relatively successful in meeting the three immediate challenges economic, political, security and I sincerely hope he is, a really transformational task awaits him: changing the deeply invested political culture which, at least in part, lies at the root of Pakistans many crises.
William B Milam is a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington and a former US Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh
http://www.thedailytimes.com.pk
