Adil Najam
The results to our most recent ATP Poll – on the biggest threats facing Pakistan’s future – may be the most surprising results to have come out of any ATP Poll ever.
As in any poll one can quibble about which categories should or should not have been chosen. If, as some have suggested, we combine the category on “corruption and bad governance” (150 votes, 21%) with the category on “incompetent political leaders” (143 votes, 20%) then our own politicians, bureaucracy and establishment becomes the biggest threat (combined 293 votes, 41%). But even with that so, nearly as many people voted for what is now the top answer – religious extremism and violence is the biggest threat to Pakistan (286 votes, 40%). There is, indeed, a strong recognition of the internal wars being fought in and against Pakistan today!
Although 711 is a decent sized sample, this is a blog poll and should not be taken any more seriously than that because the sample is self-selected and non-scientific.
However, the real surprise here is not what people voted for, but what they did not vote for. For example, despite all the rhetoric and chest-beating one hears, only 40 votes (5%) felt that “USA and the West” are Pakistan’s biggest threat. Even more surprisingly, only 21 votes (3%) felt that India – the supposed arch-nemesis of Pakistan – is the main threat facing Pakistan today. With 19 and 18 votes (3% each) the categories of “Economic and resource challenges” including poverty and “Ethnic and Provincial fault-lines” make up the bottom.
So, what is happening here. Why did “India” or “The West” not get more votes even though the discourse most often talks about them? What does it say that the largest threats identified – more than 80 percent of the total vote – is in three categories that are all internally driven? Have new threats increased in size, or have old ones receded in impact? Thoughts, dear readers?
Ignorance.
Ignorant mullah.
Ignorant educated.
Surely nobody believes that this was ever intended to be a simulated election, or referendum, or even a statistically valid sample survey. It was a poll among participants in a blog with a difference, and should be read as that in the first place, no more and no less. But that in itself is a powerful discriminant, of which more below.
Secondly, the participants neither belong to a nest of liberals nor are they perfectly representative of Pakistan as a nation.
‘Liberal’ is nowadays in America, unlike in Europe or even South Asia, used as a pejorative term, and perhaps the clash of two different varieties of English is causing some misunderstanding. Would civic-minded, cosmopolitan and broad-minded, democratic do instead?
As far as the transactions indicate, ATP has a very different list of participants compared to other Pakistani blogs. I wrote a long passage about those and rubbed it out as it would have injected an unnecessary element of controversy. To cut things short, you readers and participants only have to browse around a little to understand that this blog is unique in cosmopolitan, democratic temper, and its views also have to be taken as different.
I had a scary moment when thinking about the results of such a poll in other countries in South Asia. It is difficult to imagine such a calm, dispassionate and lucid analysis emerging from other locations.
The lesson from this I will purloin from the calm and even-tempered Gorki. It is important that this is recognised, honestly and without cant and hypocrisy, as the opinion of thought-leaders; you need to stand up and accept this situation without coy demurrals. And it is therefore important that the sense of this poll be used to inform public opinion: there is a very important distinction between inform and form, as no doubt will be remarked upon readily by yourselves.
The last point is that the phrasing and presentation of the poll made a difference. I have had a lifelong professional interest in ‘instruments’ of research, and I have to say that this was a fine example of a very simple, but very clear-headed design, which brought out what needed bringing out, with minimal obscuring and fuss. Enviable.
The results? Oh, that.
Well, this is where the calm I have enforced on myself breaks down and the indisciplined exuberance of my race wells over. Do I have permission to shout and scream, and to rush madly about the streets and shove this in the fact of the sceptics of all descriptions and wallow in it? This is the kind of hard evidence of the existence of civilised and refined thought in South Asia which brings an idiot smile to my face; I haven’t been able to stop grinning broadly and being cheerful to all around, which incidentally has caused a great deal of discomfort and suspicion in my immediate surroundings.
haha, This shows that this blog is read by those who lacks pakistaniat.
So, basically, thank God we have learnt to look within to identify our problems. Maybe now we can actually do something to resolve the issues and not just scream and shout at everyone else, specially India and the Jews and the West.
Wonderfull Adil Bhahi! Very good work, we appreciate your and your Team Work for bringing such issues in front of the Nation. Here as everyone and your research data says the biggest threat is terrorist and so on.
But why we forget that who made them, what all were the incidents etc., etc…. that they become terrorist. To kill human beings and while killing himself is not a joke, need a big big HEART to do so.
There must be some causes, root causes, we have to find the ROOT Causes. When we find and resolve the root causes after that you won’t see such terrorist activities.
So kindly aware and create Dear Adil Bhahi such environment that we, our government and media should emphasis and try to finish the root causes which make them Terrorist or Taliban.
I say here this terrorist activity is also a POWER, a big big POWER, don’t forget when our soldiers in war of 1965 lie down under the enemy’s Tanks while fixing bomb at their Chests at Lahore and we stop the aggression of the enemy.
Now if we mold them and this ACTIVITY should be used in Positive Manners, can anyone imagine how our Nation will progress then? This is just like Atomic Power either drop to destroy any nation or produce Electricity or any other positive way for the benefit of the Country.
This is not going to stop here, through Media everything spread like lightening speed all over the World. So any Country or any part of the World, when demands and local rights are being not paid and obeyed then such activities will come into realities.
So better as soon as possible we should try to finish, eliminate the root causes.