General Pervez Musharraf may not be everyone's golden boy now, but it would be foolish and arrogant to deny the man's contribution to Pakistan and his maintenance of world peace.
While media organizations all across the world call for Musharraf's resignation as president, we are all forgetting that this is the man without whom the war on terror would not have progressed, and without whom Pakistan would have plunged deeper into economic and social instability. Simply put, Musharraf's rule was good for Pakistan and the rest of the world.
Under Musharraf, the Pakistani economy has expanded at a pace unseen in the years under Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Under Sharif and Bhutto, Pakistan's economic infrastructure crumbled due to massive corruption by the ruling parties and severe inter-party squabbles. The economic growth rate was a measly 3.5 percent.
During Musharraf's reign, Pakistan rebounded dramatically, recording a consistent real GDP growth rate of over seven percent. The IT industry, which was almost nonexistent during the previous regimes, is now worth $2 billion, of which half is export revenue. The sector employs nearly 90,000 professionals, and industrial manufacturing activities are at an all-time high.
In 2005, the World Bank reported that "Pakistan was the top reformer in the region and the 10th reformer globally" - a statement that prompted a flurry of foreign investment into the country. In 2007, FDI jumped to a record $6.5 billion. Musharraf and his government also managed to increase tax collection by nearly 100 percent which, along with investment revenue, has been used to pay off Pakistan's massive debt of $65.6 billion piled on by the previous two presidents. Pakistan's poverty decreased by 10 percent, pushing almost 12 million Pakistanis above the poverty line.
Musharraf's government was also heavily involved in improving Pakistan's crumbling social sector. Money was poured into government projects, particularly infrastructure and education. Sweeping changes were made in the secondary education system of the country, such as having English as a compulsory language. The activities in Pakistan fueled investor confidence and its stock market became one of the best in Asia.
It is only recently that the West's opinion of Musharraf took a turn for the worst. When the U.S. decided to take down the Taliban in 2001, Musharraf's support was a critical component in ensuring that the U.S. led a successful onslaught. The man who is in charge of one of the world's most hard-line Islamic states made a decision that was arguably contrary to the wishes of his people, and perhaps the wishes of his own loyalists and army.
He realized that Pakistan could benefit greatly if it befriended the U.S. in a time of crisis, and it did - sanctions were lifted and the economy surged. However, it came at great cost; he was viewed as a traitor in his own country. Likewise, Musharraf's strong denunciation of terrorism and extremism won him many enemies, but also much admiration for doing what is right.
Military dictatorships tend to curb the freedom of the press. Musharraf's did the opposite. Under his regime, the number of private TV channels and newspapers surged in Pakistan. This gave a voice back to the people, something missing under both Sharif and Bhutto.
His government also worked hard to empower women in Pakistan from grass-root levels. He passed the Women's Protection Bill to provide women with relief from domestic violence and announced nearly 100 million rupees for women's welfare. The male-dominated Pakistani army opened itself up to female recruits.
Yet Musharraf will be remembered as a military dictator doing everything he could to keep his power, not as a harbinger of all these changes. What the Western world fails to understand and see is that for some countries, a Musharraf-styled government is not only necessary, but also inevitable. In Pakistan, the army is the largest landowner, one of the biggest employers and the controller of almost $20 billion worth of assets.
Furthermore, the country is deeply divided. Different tribes control different segments of the frontier region. Those areas are often lawless, as tribal leaders openly wield guns and control their constituencies independently. Then you have the liberal bourgeois class of Islamabad and Karachi along with the deeply religious rural class. A civilian government has an incredibly difficult task of balancing out these opposing forces, maintaining order while fueling Pakistan on. That is why many civilian governments fell before. The fact that the two biggest parties, under Bhutto and Sharif, were vestiges of corruption and greed did not help.
It took a very strong man with considerable wisdom and power to turn around a country so fractured, and Musharraf was up to the task. He worked hard to ensure that Pakistan recovered, at least economically. He claimed that he was trying to pave the road towards Pakistan's re-democratization, and I sincerely believe he was.
It was only in the end that his vision was lost - perhaps not within himself, but within the army and his supporters. Having controlled Pakistan for so long, he likely believed that he was the only one who could control the country without it destabilizing. The people of Pakistan thought otherwise, but we should not forget the fact that for seven years, he guided the country marvelously through arguably its most difficult period.
Golam Rezwan Khan is a sophomore majoring in electrical engineering.
