Islamabad, Pakistan – Some 15 years in the past, well-known Pakistani pop singer Shehzad Roy launched a music, titled Laga Reh (Maintain at it), which began with the singer recalling what he noticed on TV in his childhood.
“Once I was 10 years previous, I heard on 9 o’clock information that Pakistan is passing by means of a crucial juncture in its historical past,” Roy intones. A brief, sharp guitar riff and a drum solo observe, after which Roy provides: “Once I turned 20, I once more heard on the 9 o’clock information that Pakistan is passing by means of a crucial juncture in its historical past.”
The music was launched in 2008, the 12 months Pakistan noticed its first election after the top of the nine-year army rule of Common Pervez Musharraf. Many observers on the time felt it was arguably probably the most essential ballot within the nation’s six many years of existence, because it confronted existential challenges on political, financial, and safety fronts.
As I started to write down this piece reflecting on how Pakistan fared in 2024, which started with analysts dubbing it probably the most crucial 12 months for the nation of 250 million folks, I couldn’t assist however recall Roy’s music.
I started my journalism profession two years after its launch, and I typically surprise: whereas a lot has modified within the nation since 2008, has something actually, really modified?
Violence; a risky political panorama; censorship; army ingress; a precariously positioned economic system; politicians benefitting from the largesse of the safety institution solely to show towards it later – it’s a sample that repeats itself with out fail.
The nation held its basic elections in February this 12 months, initially scheduled for late final 12 months.
World our bodies, unbiased observers and critics panned the vote, many accusing authorities of manipulating the counting — a cost that the federal government rejected. The election led to the formation of a coalition authorities that stored out of energy former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) occasion, though its candidates — pressured to contest as independents after the occasion was disqualified — received probably the most seats.
A violent 12 months
Pakistan additionally noticed a vicious escalation in violence, significantly in its northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan, concentrating on a whole bunch of regulation enforcement personnel and civilians. With a minimum of 685 members of safety forces dropping their lives amid a complete of 444 terror assaults, 2024 turned out to be the deadliest 12 months for Pakistan’s civil and army forces in a decade. Practically 1,000 civilians have been additionally killed.
General, the deaths in violent assaults recorded this 12 months have been at a nine-year excessive, 66 % greater than in 2023, in line with information compiled by the Heart for Analysis and Safety Research (CRSS), an Islamabad-based assume tank.
The nation managed to suppress assaults by outlawed armed teams just like the Pakistan Taliban, recognized by the acronym TTP, and Baloch separatist teams between 2015 and 2021.
However the frequency of assaults surged after the Taliban in Afghanistan took over Kabul in August 2021.
In December, a minimum of 16 troopers have been killed in an assault by the TTP. Pakistan countered by launching air raids contained in the territory of Afghanistan, its western neighbour. The nation’s hawkish stance towards Afghanistan, accusing it of harbouring TTP fighters, has solely difficult diplomatic affairs.
In the meantime, activists from the impoverished Balochistan province rallied in late July to demand the discharge of lacking folks, solely to face full state apathy. Cellular and web companies have been switched off for greater than a month.
Equally, within the risky Kurram area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the place sectarian battle erupted between Sunni and Shia tribes over land disputes, the federal government’s incapacity to intervene allowed the battle to escalate, say many analysts, killing greater than 150 folks.
Financial respite
Whereas the nation managed to stave off an financial disaster by averting default, its stability remained on a fragile footing, with financial managers struggling to develop sustainable means for development.
Below Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan managed to safe a 37-month, $7bn tranche programme from the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF), offering a lifeline to the nation’s ailing economic system.
Tight fiscal insurance policies additionally noticed overseas foreign money reserves rise from simply greater than $3bn in Might 2023 to above $12bn. Inflation, which peaked at 38 % final 12 months, plummeted to five % this month.
But, the federal government seems to have struggled to win over the general public’s financial belief. Greater than 700,000 Pakistanis legally emigrated this 12 months for higher alternatives, whereas 3,000 others risked the damaging “Dunki” route, ignoring the tragedy of the Adriana sinking that left greater than 260 Pakistanis useless in 2023. One other related incident in December killed greater than 40 folks.
Specialists – seasoned politicians, political economists, social scientists, and veteran journalists – all agree on one core concern: Pakistan’s quagmire stems from a scarcity of political stability. Particularly, the instability that started on the night time of April 9, 2022, when Khan, the charismatic founding father of the PTI, was ousted as prime minister by means of a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
The Khan conundrum
Since then, Khan’s supporters have launched a number of lengthy marches in direction of the capital, Islamabad; hurled accusations at the USA for orchestrating his removing; and challenged the authority of the army, beforehand seen as his major patron.
He survived an assassination try and confronted a whole bunch of authorized instances, together with prices of sedition, terrorism, and incitement towards the army. Khan’s supporters went on to wreak havoc throughout the nation, concentrating on public buildings, army headquarters, and different installations after his temporary detention in Might 2023, and greater than 100 have been subsequently punished by means of draconian army courts.
He evaded arrests, till he couldn’t, in August 2023. He was convicted earlier this 12 months in instances associated to allegedly leaking state secrets and techniques, promoting state items, and an unlawful marriage which violated Islamic legal guidelines.
But, regardless of all this – his imprisonment, PTI’s iconic cricket bat image being outlawed, senior occasion leaders being jailed, and candidates pressured to marketing campaign independently utilizing guerrilla techniques and social media – Khan regained public help in an unprecedented method, culminating within the PTI’s gorgeous wins within the February elections.
Pakistan’s ‘nice firewall’
In the meantime, Pakistan wrote the newest chapter in its lengthy historical past of tried censorship.
Whereas the PTI authorities beneath Khan had procured a web-based surveillance system in 2018, defence sources revealed to Al Jazeera this 12 months that the nation has now acquired Chinese language expertise to put in a China-like firewall to supervise web utilization.
Early indicators emerged after the February elections when the social media platform X was blocked as a “safety threat”.
Unannounced web shutdowns adopted, proscribing entry to digital personal networks (VPNs), and severely impeding the nation’s web panorama, a sector that earned Pakistan $3.5bn in 2023.
The coalition authorities, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, issued contradictory statements, typically blaming undersea cable harm, world web outages, or outright denying any issues.
The golden boy
In a 12 months of grim realities, one spark of positivity lit up the nation on the night time of August 8 on the Stade de France in Paris.
Arshad Nadeem, a 27-year-old javelin thrower, broke the Olympic document with a 92.97-metre throw to win Pakistan’s first particular person gold medal on the video games.
Once I met Nadeem at a Lahore gymnasium six weeks earlier than that night time, he advised me humbly, “I compete towards myself.”
For athletes, it could be a great way to evoke themselves and put together for the competitors. However pondering again to that dialog with Nadeem, I attempted to place that within the context of Pakistan, its political and army elite, and the perpetual state of instability that afflicts the nation.
The well-known proverb, “could you reside in fascinating occasions”, which is usually erroneously known as a Chinese language proverb, is seen as a curse. Pakistan, in some way, has chosen to be the residing, respiration illustration of this.
I, for one, wouldn’t thoughts a barely totally different 2025, as a reporter in Pakistan. Might we see much less “fascinating” occasions within the subsequent 12 months.
