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Oh That Pakistan!

By Mir Adnan Aziz

14 July, 2009
Countercurrents.org

A Rubik’s cube, invented by reclusive Hungarian inventor Prof.Erno Rubik, has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible combinations on its six faces. It has only one solution. Governing a state is, if anything, a Rubik's Cube. An equal number of tried combinations will result in failure, only one combination solves the complex puzzle – honest and transparent governance.

In the fifth century, Emperor Honorius appointed whoever purchased the office of Procurator. The appointee was usually the son of a wealthy aristocrat or a Senator with no experience at all; most important was that he did not challenge the Emperor.

Honorius was so engrossed in his prize roosters, one of whom he named Rome, that when in 410 a messenger dashed into his throne room in Ravenna shouting, "Rome has fallen!" the alarmed Emperor started to run for his chicken coop. When the messenger explained he meant the city not the rooster, a relieved Honorius is supposed to have said "Oh, that Rome". Centuries later the pall bearers of our democracy deign not even to utter, Oh that Pakistan.

The tension-filled interaction between citizens and their rulers and the various means by which a government can either help or hinder its constituents' ability to achieve societal satisfaction and material prosperity is termed as Governance. It also means ensuring public participation, honesty, transparency, accountability, political legitimacy, fair legal framework, predictability, efficiency and effectiveness. Democracy thrives on transparency.

Governance covers three broad areas: the political structure; the capability of those in power to plan and implement policy and; to improve administration and the processes through which to administer and manage the social and economic resources of the country.

The Social Contract of Rousseau has evolved beyond the concept of the State being the protector of life and property, to being a guardian of the most deprived through various forms of social security, into being the provider of good governance with a view to creating enabling conditions for citizens to realize their full potential.

Democratization is not a matter of transferring power from one entrenched self selected group to another which ends up being the same. Henry David Thoreau said: Every one recognizes the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist a government when its tyranny or inefficiency are great and unendurable'. A people are the real source of legitimacy in any civil order.

In developed countries, citizens take it for granted that their leaders, acting as facilitators, will help them meet their fundamental needs. They also possess the tools to improve governance when dissatisfied by mobilizing interest groups, employing legal means or through the ballot box.

On the other hand, throughout our nascent history, we have been unable to hold our rulers accountable even when, rarely, having a representative one. Tragically, numerical supremacy has always legitimized itself for its own good as accountability is transformed into an expedient currency of rhetorical convenience. This has resulted in a glut of phoenix-like ‘saviours’ rising up, time and again, from the very ashes they created.

"If history teaches anything about the causes of revolution, it is that disintegration of a political system precedes a revolution. The telling symptom of disintegration is a progressive erosion of governmental authority. This erosion is caused by the government's inability to function properly, from which spring the citizens' doubts about its legitimacy".

Selfish classes, aplenty here, prefer an autocratic government. Tocqueville had it right when he said that we should be aware of the tyranny of the majority. The autocrat (in plain khakis or designer suits) is a tiny head on a bloated body.

Put an administrative machine, that is this bloated body, in place and answerable to none but the autocrat, it soon becomes answerable to no one at all. It is though responsive to its ‘own’, that is, the people who fill its top offices and their social equals and family connections. This chosen elite does not cease to function; it just works for its own personal interests and those of its relatives and cronies.

Poor governance, stark insecurity, bloody conflicts, rampant corruption, abject poverty, outrageous power outages and obscene economic disparities are a telling sign of the total erosion of state authority. High-level disagreements impede progress, leading to ministerial additions and re-shuffles of an already grotesquely bloated body. A non existent policy of fiscal austerity adds fuel to fire.

A weak, troubled state that we have made sure we are, rhetoric notwithstanding, we will always prove to be happy hunting grounds for our self created demons and besotted plagues. The demonstrated link in our poor governance, poverty, and nation-state failure makes strengthening the quality of governance, leadership and enabling public participation, an extremely urgent task.

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