Security, democracy and exit doors Zaigham Khan   Pakistan has become a great country —- a nuclear power, an economic miracle and everything else our president and his chorus tell us day in and day out. But just when we thought we were in the Teletubbies Land, ready to sing la la la, the scene has shifted to the Elm Street. I squarely blame it on the poor who have chosen such auspicious times to die in groups and that too from such insignificant diseases like diarrhoea and gastroenteritis. As many in Islamabad would ask, why are they not taking bottled mineral water, now also being marketed by our masters for our safety? Even before these people started dying in groups, grabbing unnecessary media attention and creating difficulties for our friends at the Information Ministry, some 200,000 children were dying of diarrhoea every year, in silence and in peace, without troubling anyone. That means every few years as many children die of diarrhoea in the Islamic welfare state of Pakistan as would be killed in a nuclear catastrophe, and the country’s security, you know, remains impregnable—-la la la. According to the UN, 44 percent of our population is without access to safe drinking water. These naïve fellows think that the 56 percent who have supply of piped water in their homes have access to safe drinking water. You and I know that very often pure death drips out of the taps in our homes. Still, some of my friends think that I should be tried for treason when I say that Pakistan’s number one security problem is not India but diarrhoea. I am thankful to one friend, however, who happens to be a medical doctor and supports me vociferously. He thinks that if, by some miracle, my argument gets accepted, doctors will become entitled to rule the country, to make all policies, to hold all important posts, to get lands allotted in their names and much more. I am sure the people of Pakistan will have no problem in changing their masters, but I fear that in such a case, doctors will never resolve the problem of diarrhoea. To make it clear that I love my country as much as a pilot of the newly bought F-16s, I will elaborate a little the relationship between diarrhoea and national security. As the Soviet Union, one of the world’s two mightiest military powers, got shattered to pieces because its citizens lost faith in it and more and more countries keep imploding because of internal contradictions, the world has started looking for a new definition of security. One concept that has gained popularity in recent times is termed human security. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), human security consists of two basic pillars: freedom from want and freedom from fear. This means the absence of hunger and illness as well as of violence and war. Considered further, possible threats to human security were categorised into seven main categories: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security. This concept says that the security of a nation is not located at the borders, though borders remain important. Away from the barbed fences, it is located in the life and well being of its people, in their hearts and minds, to use the more contemporary term. To make things even simpler, it says that people dying from diarrhoea don’t make great patriots and at any rate can’t be great fighters. Sociologists have noted an interesting trend in history. They say that the worst social and political turmoils, once called revolutions, don’t occur during the days of economic hardships, but engulf a country during the times of prosperity, when the gap between the haves and have-nots gets too ugly i.e. when car manufacturers can’t cope with the demand but people die because they don’t have a clean glass of water to drink. Let me give two quick examples here to support this observation. Pakistan’s worst social and political upheaval came after Ayub’s marvellous economic achievements that our current masters cannot claim to have matched. In the neighbouring Iran, people rose in rebellion after newly found oil wealth ushered in an era of prosperity after centuries of poverty and marginal existence. The Shah of Iran proudly named it the “white revolution”. I almost fell from chair during the budget speech of the minister of state for finance, Ayub Khan’s handsome grandson, when he used the term “white revolution” to describe the great economic achievements of the present government. I wondered whether he was being mischievous and leaving a hint for history or whether his terminology was based on ignorance of history. Our young minister’s grandfather, certainly more handsome and charismatic, built a huge castle for himself over the period of a decade when he was the master of everything he surveyed. The imposing building that appeared destined to stay forever had one cardinal flaw in its architecture: there was no door leading back to Haripur. When people thought that they had had enough of him, the castle crumbled and with it went down the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, never to be the same again. During a seminar last week, Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, the lion of Mianwali and minister for parliamentary affairs (yes there is such a ministry though the parliamentary system is gone), mockingly asked a foreign expert on democracy: “What is real democracy?” The expert promptly ducked the question. Let me try my hand here: “Democracy is a system with exit doors”. Let me remind the honourable minister that when there are exit doors in the houses of the mightiest, sociologists and soothsayers of doom can be made to eat their words. India might have collapsed under the weight of its economic achievements a couple of years ago when the majority in that country felt that India may be shining, but not on their huts. But this did not happen because in the home of the hated neighbour exit doors are wide open and their leaders, in their funny dresses and equally funny cars, know how to walk gracefully out of them. This is what our smartly dressed and even more smartly driven masters need to learn. I feel afraid, very, very afraid, because I don’t see any exit doors in Islamabad’s grand mansion. The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist and development consultant. Email: [email protected]