Maleeha Lodhi’s book launched in UK

LONDON: A large number of distinguished members of the Pakistani community and journalists from Britain’s mainstream media gathered at the High Commission of Pakistan here for the book launch of “Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State”, edited by respected author and former Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK, Dr Maleeha Lodhi.
The book launch was hosted by Wajid Shamsul Hasan, former journalist and now Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK.
Dr Lodhi told the audience that her book deals with the daunting challenges that Pakistan faces but also offers solutions and ways to come out of a state of crisis.
She spoke passionately about a new form of Pakistani nationalism as well as dilated on the central theme of her talk, which is that Pakistan is a fragile state but a resilient society. She said despite being in the eye of the storm for much of its existence, Pakistan has defied all the doomsday scenarios to survive as a nation.
She said the book was an attempt to challenge the common and prejudiced narrative that portrays Pakistan in terms of such doom and gloom. Whereas the country faces imposing problems it has always been more than a country that lurches from crisis to crisis.
She informed the audience that there are many signs that Pakistan was a living not a decaying nation. Take the example of a thriving arts, literature and music scene, all of which attested to this phenomenon, she said in her speech. She also cited the example of the country’s business community, organized in the Pakistan Business Council, that has evolved an agenda for reform it is discussing with the political parties. The growth of a fiercely independent media was held out as another illustration of positive developments in the country.
Answering a question, she said that the Pakistani authorities needed to satisfy the people on questions, surrounding the Abbottabad operation in which the world’s most wanted man was killed in a stealth US operation.
Wajid Shamsul Hasan said that despite what the doomsayers have been forecasting about the future of Pakistan, the message of hope in the book dispels the apprehensions about Pakistan being a failed or failing state. He said the country is on way to reverting to Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s vision of an egalitarian, progressive, secular and tolerant Pakistan.
Hasan said Dr Lodhi, in her own analysis in the book, spelt out five factors that she thought are pivotal to understanding Pakistan and its challenges.
These, he noted, were asymmetry in power between the political and non-political institutions in the country; Pakistan’s politics since its birth when a feudal dominated order and culture ran the country; Pakistan’s reliance on borrowed growth; dysfunctional geo-strategic strategies; the role of outside powers, and the persistence of centrifugal forces in the country.
The high commissioner praised the sacrifices rendered by former Prime Ministers ZA Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto for the cause of democracy by challenging dictatorships.
The high commissioner attacked the critical media of Pakistan and accused it of “abusing” the hard-earned freedoms. “Some of the media groups, instead of respecting hard-earned freedom, are abusing it to superimpose on themselves the role of being the sole arbiter of power rather than let it be the domain of an elected Parliament,” he said in reference to the media critical of the government corruption and mismanagement of the country.
But Dr Lodhi countered that the independent media was acting as a watchdog, and it was helping to make Pakistani politicians and other stakeholders accountable to the people. She said it was thanks to media independence that searching questions were being asked.