What's holding Pakistan back

For starters, its citizens shouldn't live in fear of their own government.

from the December 27, 2007 edition

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Any society that wants to move toward democracy in any meaningful sense must meet minimum requirements, including:

•An educated citizenry.

•A credible legal culture.

•Reasonable transparency in government.

•Real religious tolerance.

Citizens in a democracy must be able to read and write. The CIA World Factbook reports the literacy rate in Pakistan at 50 percent. But Pakistanis will tell you that many of those counted as literate may only be able to sign their name. The actual rate may be 10 or 20 percent. It would be enormously useful if a new government diverted some of the military budget to better fund secular education.

A government of law in which people have reasonable confidence in the administration of justice is the glue that holds a democratic society together. When asked if police pressured anyone in their household for bribes, 57 percent of Pakistanis said "yes." Not the stuff of which there is even a perception of justice or public confidence.

Every democracy wrestles with transparency in government. But everyone I've met in Pakistan knows someone who has disappeared into the night, arrested by state intelligence services and held in secret prisons under the vague pretense of having "terrorist connections." Democracies require a citizenry that does not live in fear of its government.

Lastly, genuine democracies practice religious tolerance. That requires more than Christmas trees in the lobbies of Islamabad's tourist hotels. It means an end to Sunni discrimination against other Muslim sects. An easy first step would be the removal of discriminatory religious identification stamps in Pakistani national passports.

That's why the hope that "free and fair elections" in coming days will produce greater democracy is dubious and naïve.

Ironically, this country's best hope may now lie in the increasing desperateness of the situation. With a quarter of the country – the North-West Frontier Province – now involved in a violent war with the Taliban, and another quarter – Baluchistan – flirting with secession, a new prime minister is going to have to move quickly and boldly in concert with the Army to save Pakistan from a downward spiral toward Balkanization and disintegration. The alternative is not pretty.

• Walter Rodgers is a former senior international correspondent for CNN.

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