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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Artist's rendition of tile mosaic of man with jezail
(musket) from the Pictured Wall, Lahore Fort, Punjab. Artwork
represents seventeenth-century tile work art of the Mughal period.
NATION BUILDING REMAINS a difficult process in
Pakistan. But
although the country has undergone a succession of
traumatic
sociopolitical experiences since achieving independence in
1947,
it continues to demonstrate its resilience and its
capacity to
survive and adapt to changing circumstances. Joining the
community of nations as a bifurcated state, with its two
wings
separated by 1,600 kilometers of foreign soil, Pakistan
was faced
with the immediate task of absorbing large numbers of
refugees
from India in the months immediately following partition.
The new
nation struggled with severe economic disadvantages made
acutely
painful by a shortage of both administrative personnel and
the
material assets necessary to establish and sustain its
fledgling
government. With the death of Mohammad Ali Jinnah--the
revered
Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader)--only thirteen months after
independence, the nation was dealt another severe blow.
Created to provide a homeland for the Muslims of the
Indian
subcontinent, Pakistan was heir to a government structure
and a
political tradition that were essentially Western and
secular.
From its inception, Pakistan has worked to synthesize
Islamic
principles with the needs of a modern state. The young
nation was
immediately challenged by a host of other factors
affecting
national development, including ethnic and provincial
tensions,
political rivalries, and security considerations. The
country
subsequently survived civil war and the resultant loss of
its
East Wing, or East Pakistan, which became the independent
nation
of Bangladesh in December 1971, and has accommodated an
influx of
refugees resulting from the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan
(December 1979-February 1989), which over the course of
the
conflict exceeded 3.2 million people.
Pakistan has had difficulty in establishing stable,
effective
political institutions. The country has experimented with
a
variety of political systems, has endured periods of
martial law,
and has had five constitutions, one inherited from the
British
and four indigenous creations since independence. Its
political
parties have suffered from regionalism, factionalism, and
lack of
vision. Power has shifted between the politicians and the
civilmilitary establishment, and regional and ethnic forces
have
threatened national unity. However, the impulse toward
cohesion
has been stronger than the impetus toward division, and
the
process of nation building has continued. The return to
democracy
in 1988, and the peaceful, constitutional transfer of
power to
new governments in 1990 and 1993 testify to Pakistan's
progress
in the quest for political stability.
Data as of April 1994
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