Despite appearances, an Islamic revolution is not on the agenda, says jason burke |
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On a Karachi street corner last week, surrounded by swarms of sputtering motorcycles, hawkers and a donkey cart, I read Pakistan's biggest English-language paper's reporting of British commentary on the recent riots in the city.
Analysis in the UK of the running battles between ethnic groups and political parties which killed 40 touched on familiar themes: Pakistan is a) where the 'mad mullahs' are out of control, their fingers inches from the nation's nuclear trigger; b) al-Qaeda's main base; c) the Taliban's main base; d) under the heel of a military dictator.
All of these are in part true – Pakistan's various religious lobbies are powerful, President Musharraf (right) remains a soldier, there are those who do back the Taliban etc etc – but all are wrong too.
For behind them all lies a faulty analysis |
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| Bolstered by rapid economic growth, General Musharraf is likely to manage the coming October elections |
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that the country is about to implode - if not tomorrow, then soon. It isn't
Eighteen years of visiting Pakistan has taught me that the country's perpetual instability should not be mistaken for imminent collapse. The 'Talibanisation' of the country is worrying, but a day in the Karachi slums showed me that it has its limits. Few of the four million inhabitants of Orangi, south Asia's single biggest shanty town, are touched by radical Islam. They are too busy trying to survive.
Musharraf, bolstered by rapid economic growth which has benefited the middle class if not the poor, is likely to manage the coming October elections too. He may switch tactics to form some kind of grand alliance of secular parties against 'the beards', but his regime is not immediately threatened.
Benazir Bhutto, the exiled former prime minister, told me last week that her country was heading for 'chaos and anarchy'. But Pakistan has been chaotic and anarchic since it was founded and has, like the inhabitants of Orangi, survived so far. 
FIRST POSTED MAY 22, 2007
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