Before going to social, economic, military and educational under-performance, let’s first define the term under-performance itself so to have a better understanding of these issues and to be able to develop more comprehensive thoughts regarding them. Different dictionaries have different meanings for it; Oxford says to perform less well than expected while another dictionary says to function less effectively or be less successful than expected or required. So to sum it up, under-performance means to perform less well, function less effectively and be less successful than expected. While dictionaries have merely relied on the term “expectation” in defining under-performance, I would like to point out another important term “relativity” or in other words “proportionality” to it. Relativity, as in many other things, plays a role in judging performance as well; a good performing system is categorized as under-performing when compared to a better one and an under-performing system is called excelling when compared to a worse one. Also different systems and entities have different values for under-performance according to the purposes, tasks and functions they are built for. Under-performance, as other phenomena, is not always bad and sometimes it is deliberately employed in some cases. As a good example, whilst testing newly designed and manufactured systems and objects, they are purposely run in worst ways and modes to find out the lowest performance possible by them as well as their failing point in order to set a safe region for their usage. Coming back to the under-performance experienced by various states in social, educational, military and economic fields, it is obvious that institutions play an important role in it.
Ideally, institutions serve several important roles as of following:
- Establish rule of law.
- Improve state’s economy and nation’s ideology according to the demands of the people.
- Unify a nation embodying populations belonging to different cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds.
Firstly, rule of law is necessary to be established in any state to ensure stability and well performance of public and private sectors in all aspects and to have a sustainable alternative to volatile situations such as coups being staged or martial law being applied. Without complete and firm rule of law, citizens of a country would always be subject to injustice, tyranny and whimsical rules made by non-state actors sometimes even resulting in civil wars and wash out of government. Secondly, institutions play a vigorous role not only in economic growth and expansion but also in ideological advancement of a nation. Al-Azhar university in Egypt, International Islamic University of Malaysia in Malaysia, Dar-ul-ulum Dewband in India are few examples of good educational institutions which have helped establish consistent Sharia law and reliable interpretation of religion, not only for the local citizens but also has exported it through hosted foreign students. These institutions have also triggered and supported technological development as well as cohesive ideology throughout the states subsequently instigating nationalism whereby bringing unity and maintaining peace.
Weak institutions fail to achieve the above mentioned goals and always cause instability and vitally affects the performance and efforts of states whereby reducing their efficiency and consequently causing a massive decline in their progress and development. To be more comprehensive, let us consider Islamic regions and examine the role of weak institutions as well as the role of political Islam or Islamisation campaigns in producing under-performance. If we look at North African states, Gulf monarchies and partly Arabian Peninsula, Middle East and South and East Asia, we will find one thing in common in all these regions and that is experience of colonialism. Colonial powers mainly Great Britain and France had mostly failed to establish institutional legacy and by the end of colonialism era and the rise of nationalism, they left the region drawing borders without taking ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic differences in to account which caused massive problems for the newly born states. A good example is dividing India and establishing Pakistan that too in two separate pieces of east and west which further resulted in aggressive disputes on land (Kashmir) between India and Pakistan in the region continuing till today. The first war on Kashmir in 1947, then the war in 1965 which ended by Tashkent declaration and then the war of independence in 1971, an aggressive almost genocidal attempt by Pakistani military to reestablish order in east Pakistan which finally failed and resulted in establishment of a free Bangladesh are all nothing but the later consequences of border settings by colonial powers. To be more specific, Pakistan lost half of its navy force, a quarter of its army (around 90,000 soldiers) and one third of its air force in the war of 1971.
Another great example could be Afghanistan whose borders were shaped in a way to separate the spheres of influence of the then colonial powers Russia and England. The Saint Petersburg agreement of 1907 ended the British and Russian competition and Afghanistan merely became a buffer state between the empires. The Gandumak treaty in 1879, the Durand line drawn in 1893 and the creation of Wakhan Corridor in 1897 are clear evidences of colonialist efforts and struggles in drawing borders and further resetting them which proves today’s Afghanistan is nothing but merely a product of colonialist ambitions. Even today the conflict of the Durand line remains unsolved and has turned to be a non-healing sore on the face of relations between the two states. Civil wars are another cause of the negative trends resulting in under-performance and even fall of newly established post-colonial states. Collapse of several governments such as Lebanon in 1970, Iraq in 1990, Libya, Syria and Egypt recently are nothing but the aftermaths of the same negative trends. Political Islam has generally been used by various rulers and monarchs in Islamic regions as a tool against modernization and Westphalian institutions and has somewhat been made a participant in the negative trends.
On the other hand, if we take a look at Pakistan, the Islamisation campaign led by General Zia ul Haq was very effective in establishing and solidifying the regime. In fact political Islam has also been of great help to Malaysia in surviving the negative trends and making it to a better performance. Other nations who have successfully managed to survive the negative trends and relatively perform well are Turkey and to an extent Iran. Turkey’s secret lies in its emulation pattern of modernization and western principles. The secularism and reformism tools of Kemalism and the strong legal structure inherited from Ottoman Empire have been extremely helpful to Turkey in its survival and further development efforts. Whereas Iran has managed to keep hold on political Islam and despite of importing modernity has somewhat managed not to let go the traditional and religious assets. To sum it up, under-performance has been harshly threatening the development struggles in most of the Islamic states especially the Middle East and still remains as one of the major challenges to be dealt with.
Abdul Basit Radmanesh
Sunday, 16-February-2014
Bhopal-India
