By Dr Mubashir Hasan
A state is nothing but an instrument of coercion, an organisation of armed men of police and military along with magistrates, prisons, tax collectors and secret service. In order to be strong and durable, the state has to have full support of its citizens and that is exactly what the state of Pakistan has increasingly lacked
Reconstruct or perish, the choice before the ruling elites of Pakistan is clear. They have worked the country into a state of turmoil; call it an incipient civil war or a general uprising. The forces against what is left of the governing capacity are lawless, destructive, cruel and unorganised, yet they are powerful and aggressive, much too strong to be resisted by the present set up of the state which is decayed and predatory, with links abroad, and not truly national. Read more »