At no other time in its 62 years has the survival of Pakistan looked so fragile. Events of the last few months have generated media headlines of „failed state‟ and „Pakistan on the brink‟ with the more alarmist observers pointing to a possible scenario of the „Balkanisation‟ of the country. International perception has been badly (some say irretrievably) damaged with the consequent impact on foreign direct and institutional investment. 
But are things as bad as they appear?

 

On the ground, the answer appears not. Take Karachi, for example, where the business and social life continues apace in the commercial centre and port of 20 million people. Here there is little outward display of the fight against the threat of Talibanization apart from increased security at hotels and frequent police check points. In Islamabad the atmosphere is different; highly visible security counter measures make the country‟s political and diplomatic enclave look as though they are facing a civil war. Which in the sense they are.

 

A multitude of internal and external threats face the country. Upon closer examination there is broad similarity with those threats that faced the country in the volatile 1990s: then the Army over-threw two successive democratic governments; war with India was imminent on more than one occasion; Pakistan tested its nuclear capability in response to India‟s own tests; factions of the MQM in-fighting in Karachi left an average of 23 dead daily; and US cruise missiles violated sovereign air-space as they flew towards the caves in Afghanistan; then to add to its woes the Asia Financial Crisis ripped into the fragile economy in 1997 and Pakistan was again back in the arms of the IMF. 

 

The country is challenged and many say that Pakistan is the crossroads. More informed observers though will ask „When has it not been?‟ The biggest threat to Pakistan is from within: it is politically fractured; the economy is fragile and its internal security is threatened. Pakistan is not a country that can be ruled homogonously and last month‟s decision over the administration of the SWAT Valley is an example of this.

 

Yet there is a prevailing sense of nationhood amongst it people and its institutions. There is a point below which the country never manages to descend and its fragile unity remains in tact. Perhaps it is more apt to describe Pakistan as a flailing state rather than a failing state.

In Part II, the next article will examine the factors that keep Pakistan together and why there is more cause for optimism. The author, Charles Blackmore, advises foreign companies on Pakistan and is available for selective assignments.