Syndromes of dependence and escapism

Over the past half a century Pakistani elite has unceasingly practiced a policy of dependence on external powers and escapism from its own responsibilities for the security and economic well-being of the country. Faced with a serious national problem or a crisis, nothing comes more naturally to our decadent leaders than to take the next flight to Washington to prostrate themselves in front of their American masters for security support or economic assistance. If the issue is purely financial in character, their next destination invariably is Saudi Arabia not only with a begging bowl in their hand but also with a plane-load of hangers-on to perform umra as if it is the duty of this impoverished nation to pay for the enormous cost of these umra junkets. How these leaders and the sycophants around them justify to their conscience the performance of a sacred duty at the state expense is simply inexplicable.

The main reason for this policy of heavy dependence on foreign doles is the unfortunate habit that we have acquired as a nation of living far beyond our means. It is interesting though not surprising that throughout most of our history the current expenditure of the federal government far exceeded its net revenues making it dependent on internal and external loans not only for economic development activities but also for its expenditure on running the day-to-day affairs of the government. By now we have got so used to living on foreign assistance that it does not bother our leaders that by their frequent pilgrimages to Washington and Saudi Arabia with their ubiquitous begging bowl, they demean themselves in front of their foreign interlocutors and in the process lower the prestige of the nation whom they represent.

Loans and grants from foreign governments rarely come without strings or costs in terms of our internal and external policies. It is the height of unrealism on the part of our public and leaders to expect that while providing economic and security assistance to us, Washington would not ensure that we tailor our internal and external policies to conform to the US foreign policy objectives. We ourselves will be to blame if in the process our country is destabilised internally or if our external security is compromised. In short, we can't have our cake and eat it too. The predicament that we are facing now internally and externally in the context of the so-called war on terrorism is at least partly the consequence of our heavy dependence on the US besides being the legacy of our flawed pro-Taliban policy of the period from 1995 to 2001.