The Two Pakistans

Though I have never disagreed with the argument that the Taliban must be driven back, and their advance must be dealt with swiftly and decisively, I have disagreed—for several years now—with much of the scaremongering over the issue in the West. There were many reasons for this, both geographical, cultural, and even religious, but the fundamental point is: while the Pakistani Taliban certainly matter a great deal—especially to the U.S. troops in Eastern Afghanistan—the problem is neither as dire as most have predicted nor as simple as “drive them out.” It’s much worse.

The Islamabad skyline, a Pakistan few American media will ever show.

Pakistan is, at its heart, a country of striking contrasts. Islamabad is a modern, planned city barely five decades old; Lahore is prosperous and fairly liberal; Karachi is a teeming buzz of activity. There are the incredibly wealthy, who live in absolute luxury, and a smaller but burgeoning middle class. There are also tremendous hordes of the desperately poor. While Islamabad is a very prosperous city, the tribal areas where the Taliban came from are not. While poverty is not at all a constant indicator of militancy, it does make militancy more likely in many areas—the vast majority of the militants in the area are poor, desperate, and have few if any other options.

Even then, it would be silly to write off the Pashtuns as entirely up in arms against the government. For years, many of the communities in the FATA, and now many of the communities in the NWFP, have been trying to raise their own local militias to resist the advances of the Taliban, even when the government denies them protection.

This stark contrast came home in an excellent piece in the CS Monitor:

The elite area [of Islamabad] features a commercial center with a movie theater showing, at the moment, “Fast & Furious IV,” as well as a big-box store and a McDonald’s. Sitting on a bench, a young Pakistani businessman dressed in jeans laughs at the question of a Taliban takeover. “No,” says Omar Ali with incredulity. “Do you think the Taliban are going to take over Washington?”

If it sounds as if Mr. Ali lives in a world far removed from the Taliban, it’s because he does, literally and figuratively. The drive from McDonald’s to the mountain hamlets of Buner, where the Taliban are trying to gain a sandal hold, takes about four hours. It may be 60 miles as the drone flies, but it’s double that by pickup truck.

The M1 Motorway heading out of the capital starts like an American Interstate highway – three divided lanes in each direction, manicured on and off ramps. Take an exit toward Buner and soon the pavement grows intermittent, as does the sight of any women in public view.

There is more there, and it is definitely worth reading in its entirety. For many Pakistanis, the worry about the Taliban did not begin until they got close to their city—until there was a slight danger of some of the fighting happening nearby. The Army mobilized. At the time, I speculated that there was a bit of an ethnic component to this, that most Pakistanis—Punjabis and Sindhis—felt the Pashtuns were kind of rednecks and didn’t care about them until their own areas were threatened. While that seems to have happened, it’s just a correlation… but a troubling one nevertheless.

The contrasts of Pakistan came out, too, in this curious report about a British tourist motorcyling his way from Nepal all the way back to the UK:

Adding that he finds it incomprehensible that in a relatively intellectually advanced nation like Pakistan, half the population is denied social freedom that the other half so richly enjoys, he said, “I am sensibly cautious though about broadcasting any such sweeping or incendiary judgments, as three weeks in a country hardly qualifies me. I don’t see it as an Asian issue for women are to be seen everywhere in neighbouring countries, I therefore attribute it to religious tradition.” “My other main observation was how everybody I met, from businessmen in cities to shepherds in remote areas, was completely united in their utter contempt for the Taliban. They just want to get on with their lives and live in peace. They did not see the Taliban as Muslims, but rather as mercenaries… The genuine warmth and kindness, I have received from the people of Pakistan has dispelled any lingering myths promulgated by the Western media.”

That’s not to say his trip is not incredibly dangerous. It is—he was speaking to a reporter in Rawalpindi, and the most dangerous leg of his trip by far is just ahead, as he has to navigate either the Khyber or the Karakoram Highway to leave Pakistan to the west (or go south through the Registan Desert and Balochi territory, but even the 19th century British rarely did that save a few very brave souls). Even so, the contrast between the eastern half of Pakistan, which is by all descriptions fabulous, and the western half, which is wracked by conflict, is surely indicative of something: Pakistan is not a simple place, nor is it easily lent to broad, sweeping discussions of what it, or we, should do to help.