 "Photo: Anne-Marie Huff/The Daily Texan")
UT associate professor Kamran Ali spoke about the influence of the Pakistani military in the country’s government Monday evening, the first event in the Alhambra Speaker Series.
The monthly series is hosted by the Alhambra-U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit group that provides a range of services to American government, business and education institutions that operate in Muslim-majority countries.
Ali, who teaches in the departments of anthropology, Middle Eastern Studies and Asian Studies, said the role of the military in Pakistani politics cannot be separated from United States’ intervention over the last few decades.
“For one pragmatic reason or another,” Ali said, “the United States has supported all three military coups in Pakistan and all three military dictators.”
Jonathan Black, spokesman for the nonprofit group, said Ali’s work provides insight on Pakistan-U.S. relations.
“He’s an expert on Pakistani politics and popular culture [whose] work frequently appears in the media,” Black said.
“His work here at UT focuses on ethnic, class and gender issues in Pakistan and Egypt.”
Pakistan has been a focus of U.S. foreign policy since the late 1950s. The southern Asian country, which boasts the second-largest Muslim population in the world, was strategically important for the United States when funding anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan in the 1980s and remains critical today in capturing anti-U.S. militant officials on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Ali said the United States’ strengthening of the Pakistani military has allowed the military to take precedence over civilian, democratically elected governments. He said that in the long run, military rule has brought Pakistan far more chaos than stability.
“Time and again, the military rule in Pakistan brings the country to a brink of disaster and then is forced to give up power because of a people’s movement,” Ali said. “And every time it does that, [the military] then moves toward rehabilitating its image.”
Ali said military rule undermines the ability of civilian governments to negotiate and deal with issues peaceably, but he said civilian governments have been charged with corruption. He said the ultimate victims in the political turmoil are the people of Pakistan.
“We should look from the Pakistani people’s perspective and not only look at what is good for those of us here,” Ali said.
Ali said he didn’t believe the absence of United States from Pakistani politics would guarantee a less chaotic political and social situation, but Pakistan would need to take its own strides.
“The mere restoration of democratic governments isn’t enough,” Ali said. “The struggle in the 21st century should not only be against tyranny, but against misery and injustice.”
4 comments
When you go back to Pakistan please deliver a message to Pakistan from a Texan:
We hate you from the bottom of our soul.
Sound familiar?
Thank you.