It's politics month at These Long Wars!

Since the election I've been meaning to dedicate a month talking about politics - just getting my views and opinions on current issues that aren't related to conflict out there and I think after a government's been installed after a frankly, badly rigged election, I think this might be a decent enough time to write these things down. We didn't get much of an option in February 2024 but the election and its results were worse than a person who wanted democracy to grow in Pakistan, could expect. I had started this blog with the expectation that arguments about democracy and dictatorship in Pakistan were behind us but after the February 2024 elections were rigged by the Pakistan Army against Imran Khan, the whole situation post 8 February reeks of the Musharraf era, when the military pushed out an authoritarian minded right-winger (Nawaz Sharif then, Imran Khan now) to take control of the whole country then, and effectively we are confronted with the same situation now, just through a few more civilian layers.

 

My modus operandi since 2010 has been covering terrorist attacks in Pakistan via my blog. Frankly, the Pakistan government would prefer that attention not be drawn to them, but that’s because their incompetence and collusion in cases has caused these attacks to break out. The reality is, I would prefer to cover the peaceful end of the conflicts Pakistan is involved with internally and externally. But since the Pakistan Army has a chokehold on Pakistani politics and much of Pakistan’s political elite cannot imagine, or would prefer not to take responsibility for Pakistan’s security, the violence is not going to completely go away because that would be unfavorable to the Pakistan Army’s position as a perpetual nuisance in Pakistani politics.

However, that’s just my personal views on Pakistani political violence and terrorism. Pakistani politics has degenerated further this year, making the Pakistan Army’s position stronger, 16 years after the Musharraf dictatorship was ousted. The Army’s position has been strengthened but this has also made politics more volatile. This has come to the point where political violence can (and has) broken out because of the destabilisations caused by the Pakistan Army blocking democratic consolidation in the country.

You may have noticed I don't discuss politics that much. I think that talking about Pakistani politics on a regular basis, day in and day out, taxes the sanity of a person. For one thing, nothing materially changes, and the absurdity and enforced austerity, both material and spiritual of Pakistani politics, just taxes you if you discuss it regularly. This is why I haven’t started some stupid podcast or Youtube channel that tracks Pakistani politics. This stuff is insane and more like professional wrestling, with the real deals being done behind backdoors. However, surprise, surprise, elections have come to have significance in Pakistan. But the rightwing, which is 80% of the state and the politics, hates this.

People who discuss Pakistani politics are not normal. It is distorted by the military and intelligence, it acquires a weird sheen and behaviour, and I have realised that weirdness works in favour of the military and the spies (and in other spy or police derived politics) because it alienates regular people and that would hurt the people they are against. At least when you cover a terrorist attack, the casualties make a material difference from before and after the attack.

Pakistani politics is in such a bad place that any reactionary should love it. And they do, by regularly engaging with it to make it more deadly and reactionary. That is not what I am here for.

I also need to discuss society and demographics as well. Don't worry - I mean demographics in the purely census terms. Things like infant mortality, maternal mortality and education rates, etc. One of the reasons Pakistan’s population has continued to shoot up is because this country continues to have a maternal and infant mortality rate that is among the highest in Asia (CHECK) And this necessitates poor people in Pakistan to have a large number of children so that they survive infancy. Of course so many are surviving but the disastrous part of my country’s politics and vicious non-priorities is that it never tackled its third world rate of infant and maternal mortality effectively. The result is that if you are below a certain income level the chances of the survival of your baby and the mother declines catastrophically. This is a consequence of Pakistan’s politicians never, ever tackling population growth issues and especially their lack of tackling maternal and infant mortality – consequently, too many dead mothers and babies.