The Colonial State

This is a pretty insightful article by Irfan Hussain in Dawn. Its sad and disturbing, but I suppose, not very surprising, that despite the fact that since 9/11 it has been in the best interests of the country to take on Islamist groups, the military government has only done so half-heartedly, and at the same time has simply not tried to incorporate other sections of civil society into the state. Its telling that protests against the dismissal of the Chief Justice were met with brute police force, and there was an attempt to suppress media coverage, while at the same time the state was cowed by a gang of stick-wielding extremists who have illegally occupied land in the nation's capital.

As long as the military props up its rule with the support of a minority of extremists and alienates itself from the majority of civil society, it remains a colonial entity - a clique that is apart from the rest of society and rules through dominance of the security apparatus and is reliant on the collaboration of a small portion of the society it dominates.

IZ