Fight Fundamentalism, Rebuild Pakistan

The pathetic response from the global community to the flooding in Pakistan has left a vacuum that the Taliban will fill.

Pakistan has been devastated. A quarter of the country has been flooded by torrential rains. A staggering 22 million people have been affected by this disaster. Two million people will need to be fed over the next month, and more flooding is expected in the days to come. Waterborne diseases such as cholera are now appearing. They spread quickly and with a high degree of lethality, especially in the midst of the chaos that has engulfed the nation.

This disaster strikes against a backdrop of widespread poverty, incompetent governments, endemic corruption, and a brutal insurgency being carried out by a number of Islamic fundamentalist groups that have terrorized the population for years. Pakistan is also a nation with nuclear weapons and is a front-line state in the war against terrorism. This is a situation that should be of utmost concern to all of us, as these exceedingly unstable circumstances could easily spin out of control with terrible consequences if political upheaval occurs and hard-line leaders sympathetic to the Taliban ascend to power.

Despite this instability in what has been often referred to as “the most dangerous country on the planet,” the response from the international community has been pathetic. The tsunami that devastated South East Asia in 2004 generated $7 billion US in donations; the recent earthquake in Haiti nearly $4 billion US. In contrast, Pakistan’s flooding has produced a paltry $440 million US. This to pay for people’s acute needs and the estimated $10-$15 billion US needed to repair the nation’s devastated infrastructure.

We are all to blame for this.

The Arab League has been invisible in this crisis. Where is the helping hand from oil-rich, predominantly Muslim countries who could play a crucial leadership role in the response to this calamity? Why doesn’t India, which has been in perpetual conflict with Pakistan, use the opportunity to further peaceful ties by extending its hand out with a massive relief effort? Why has the West’s response been so small compared to disasters in other countries?

The relatively meagre response from the global community has left a vacuum that the Taliban has been eager to fill. The danger is that this will pull ordinary Pakistanis who have been victimized by their own corrupt governments for decades into the orbit of Islamic fundamentalists, which is something we have been working very hard to prevent.

The disaster in Pakistan can go one of two ways. Political instability and social unrest will increase, or the international community can seize this moment to break down walls between the people of Pakistan and those in other countries; strengthen the ability of local government leaders and NGOs to provide basic services to the people (food, water, power, jobs, education etc); and save lives. By doing this we would also be weakening the relationships between the people and Islamic fundamentalist groups who seek to return nuclear-armed Pakistan to the Dark Ages. By providing humanitarian aid and being seen to do so, a new, respectful, and proactive relationships could be forged between ordinary Pakistanis, Indians, other Muslim states, and the West.

Western nations along with other Muslim states, India, and multinational groups like the Arab League could work together to help Pakistanis rebuild their lives and strengthen their own ability to control their futures, free of the repressive clutches of the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist groups.