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outward forms persist, they have always been corrupted and manipulated,
usually of course in the interests of the rich. No wonder that both, various
kinds of informal justice and the savage but comparatively swift and
transparent processes of shariah, have so strong an appeal. Pakistans
police forces and local courts emerge from Lievens account as absolutely
unfit for purpose on every imaginable level.
Lieven has attempted to paint a textured, complex portrait of the
military and ISI. The army is the one Pakistani institution that works. It is
organised, disciplined and defined by its post-Partition insecurity towards
India. This is certainly not a new line of thought, but one that is fully
investigated. Pakistan's anti-Indian agenda is still confused for a radical
Islamist agenda in the West and Lieven surgically unravels the details.
Pakistan's apprehension over being swallowed up, or surrounded, if India
begins to involve itself in Afghanistan's affairs has led to the army's union
with the Afghan Taliban. Yet off the home front, the ISI has helped to defeat
the threat of terror in the Western world, its assistance "absolutely vital" to
preventing more attacks on Britain, US and Europe. There exist a point to
argue here i.e. for instance, there is no denial to the fact that Pakistans
military Inter-Services Intelligence is the countrys most important body, the
power behind every throne, Lieven says rather little about it, and where he
does he is notably non-committal about its true role. A fuller discussion of
why he rejects ideas of the ISI as all-powerful would have given better
clarity.
Lieven presents argument about the insurgency in the west of
Pakistan and does not expect the collapse of the state as it is only the
latest in a series of such uprisings that have marked that region over many
centuries. In his perspective it is embedded in the rapid social changes that
have occurred along the porous border with Afghanistan. The war against
the Taliban into which they have been conscripted by the Allies, who might
have been Pakistan's protectors but who now show a clear "tilt towards
India". Another complicating factor is the army's campaign against the
Pakistani Taliban, who are a direct threat to the nation, though officers are
reluctant to wage violence on fellow-Muslims on the orders of the West.
Lieven is perhaps too quick to dismiss the impact that the rapid
urbanisation and growth of the last decades have had on the strength of
organised political Islamism and, perhaps more important, the consolidation
of what could usefully be described as an Islamic-nationalist worldview
across huge sections of Pakistani society. The dismissal does not have
enough arguments on its side as it is the urban middle class that is the
classic constituency of such ideologies.
In the end Anatol Lieven sounds too committed a journalist to let any
story bound fears overpower his comprehensive and perceptive narrative
although he has been almost silent on Pakistans foreign policy and
economy.
Finally subject book is recommended for reading but with few
suggestions, so that authors bias (if any) is identified & analysed enabling
reader to draw his own conclusions. The proposed suggestions are as
follows:
Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars
Within (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008).
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