A Glass Half full

Editorial

As recently as three years ago, Pakistan was being talked of in some quarters as ‘a failed state’. It isn’t and in reality has never come close to state failure in the way that some countries post-Arab Spring have. The Taliban, although they posed an extremely serious threat, were never knocking on the doors of parliament, the currency never collapsed and the economy manages to keep the national head above water mainly because of the buoyancy provided by the informal sector. Not ideal, but neither wholly dysfunctional either. The population at large has not been terrorised into a gibbering heap. Violent crimes by terrorists have reduced significantly in the last year. Karachi is a safer place to live and work. Some of the methodologies used to achieve that result may be questionable, but safer is safer, however achieved. In purely geographic terms, most of the country can be termed peaceful, with an improving and expanding arterial infrastructure that bodes well for future economic development — and the Chinese do not bet on lame horses to win.

At 68 years, as a nation, Pakistan is barely out of its infancy and despite having a considerable image problem globally, is in better shape than the naysayers would have us believe. Looking around the horizon, there are surprises. The information technology (IT) sector is small compared to India’s $100 billion worth of software exports every year. Our share of global IT sales is about $2.8 billion a year, but as referenced in an article in The New York Times, Pakistan is making its mark as a place to go for freelance IT programmers, software coders and app designers. This news makes no headlines here, but there are now 1,500 registered IT companies and 10,000 graduates with an IT degree every year.

Even the conservative-leaning Forbes bi-weekly business magazine andThe Economist are suggesting that with the improving security situation, Pakistan has the potential to be a turnaround success story — and that despite the terrorism that still stalks us, an energy sector that struggles to put volts down the wires on a daily basis, a string of natural disasters in the last five years and the political uncertainty generated by the dharna crisis in 2014. Admittedly, one would not want to put too much store on what a few Western publications state, given the enormous problems the economy still faces and the government’s weak efforts in the very vital area of taxation reforms that indicates its lack of political will to do the right thing. However, these assertions still remind us that the country does have the potential to enjoy a huge economic windfall if the right policies are instituted and implemented.

The prognostications of economic wizards aside, the lives of millions remain a grim daily struggle to make ends meet. We have yet to eradicate polio. Health services for those who cannot afford private healthcare remain abysmally poor. Poverty is countrywide and endemic, but just how many of us are poor is something neither this nor any other government is keen to put a number to. Corruption is as commonplace as poverty. Out of a population of around 190 million, a paltry 0.9 million are tax assessees. Extremism and militancy are still major problems and could still undo all the good that has been achieved if there is any leeway allowed to those who thrive on these.

It is all too easy to point out Pakistan’s failures. But perceptions both within and outside the country need to change, because there are fundamental shifts going on deep inside. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has, even before much of it is in tangible form, incentivised the government to tackle the beast of terrorism and to look wider than the Arab world for economic partnerships. Our foreign policy is evolving on fast-forward and there needs to be a rethink among our policymakers regarding how we view our neighbours. What we need to remember is that the Taliban are not at the door, the state is not failing and Pakistan today is a glass half-full — and looking set to fill the other half.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 14^th,  2015.