The era of presenting a ‘soft image’ of a country is coming to an end. In the last two decades more or less, many developing countries, especially those beaten by terrorism and violence, began to shape the roads and defense platforms, through which they tried to establish that the inherent culture of their countries was soft, pluralistic and friendly.
They lamented that their countries were misunderstood due to the pranks of a handful of violent groups. These countries mainly consisted of national Muslim majority as Pakistan, Egypt and Algeria who had faced persistent incidents of Islamist terrorism and religious violence since the 1980s.
Last week, the head of the Pakistan army, Gen also Munir, told parliamentarians that if Pakistan successfully approached the challenges raised by the growing political, Islamist and ethnic militancy, the country would have to become a “hard state.”
In 1999, when a military coup in Pakistan put General Parvez Musharraf in power, he took energetic measures against the two largest parties in the country. But in parallel to this, the Musharraf dictatorship also began to start programs designed to transmit a “soft image” of Pakistan. Attempts were made to mitigate the violent results of the tensions that had increased in politics. These results included sectarian violence, ethnic confrontations and the erosion of the last parts of the ‘moderate/liberal Islam’ that remain in the country.
For decades, nations plagued by terrorism and political instability, such as Pakistan, have tried to project a ‘soft image’ for the world. But in the face of the growing militancy and governance crisis, is it a change towards a more authoritarian and centralized inevitable state?
Insured from his power and ‘popularity’, Musharraf not only left aside the political parties that opposed him, but also persecuted sectarian and Islamist groups that were once supported by the State as “strategic assets” to be used in Afghanistan and in the cashmere controlled by India. However, his regime was very selective in this because he “protected” some of these assets for possible future missions. But the elimination of others was exhibited as an example of Pakistan that yearns to become a “moderate country.”
Tourism was promoted and a lot of modern and traditional cultural activities was encouraged. They were then transmitted to the world to proliferate a soft image of what, in 2011, the British policy analyst Anatol Lieven would describe as “a hard country.”
Emboldened by the success (or perceived success) of these maneuvers, Musharraf allowed the creation of private electronic media. He also encouraged the promotion of ethics and ‘suffering’ doctrines as a way to neutralize the morbundas variants of Islamism that had leaked in several public institutions.
However, in 2007, when he faced the rejection of the two main political parties he had set aside, and for the resurgence of Islamist and sectarian violence, Musharraf suddenly found himself trapped in the policies that were formed to strengthen the soft image of his regime.
He realized that he did not have enough constitutional leverage, or any control over the noisy electronic media that had allowed to honor. Some of the most outstanding beneficiaries of the regime policies that were promulgated to portray a soft image of Pakistan included private electronic media and civil society groups, which then conveniently opposed to oppose Musharraf.
On the other hand, the cultural actors that had also benefited were largely useless in the battles that Musharraf found was fighting from 2007 onwards. Pakistan had become a “soft state” woven by a dictator who had invested enough resources to carve a soft image of a “misunderstood” country.
The idea of the soft state is quite ambiguous. Although it can be a state regulated by constitutionalism, the Judiciary and civil society, its softness is often unable to deal with serious crisis. According to Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, laws and rules are treated quite casual by people in a soft state.
The two democratic governments that came to power after the expulsion of Musharraf touched similar policies to the Pro-Suave image and agreed with a soft state. This convinced them in front of their problematic relationship with the military.
However, this changed a little when, in 2015, Parliament agreed to give the military some extraordinary powers to effectively address unbridled terrorism unleashed by Islamist militants. Therefore, one can assume that between 2015 and 2017, or until the terrorist groups were largely neutralized, Pakistan became a hard state.
However, after 2018, it became a soft state again, although there was nothing soft in the way a charismatic moral (Imran Khan) was facilitated by the military establishment (ME) to get to power. Maverick and his clients in the then I launched their own soft image campaigns in promoting “Sufism”, the “correct interpretation of Islam” and the promises of a “tolerant islamic welfare state”.
They invited White (paid) men and women to film a trip in ‘Pakistan friendly’. The strangest of everything was an attempt to ‘rehabilitate’ many hardened antistatal militants.
In general terms, it is generally authoritarian configurations described as hard states, such as China, North Korea, Russia, etc. In this sense, a hard state is denoted by a strong and centralized power and a high capacity to enforce the laws and maintain order, often depending on military force and a robust bureaucracy.
However, for Myrdal, a hard state is characterized by strong governance, a strong rule of law and a more disciplined society. Gave the example of European countries.
In his 2021 book, Hard State, Soft City, Simone Chung and Mike Douglass studied the example of Singapore, a city-state that had remained in the control of political agitation for decades before it became a hard state and began to become a highly efficient society and a vibrant economic power.
But Chung and Douglass also understood the idea of a hard state as an authoritarian or quasi authoritarian state that constantly regulates political, economic and social matters from above.
You can’t say exactly what Gen also really wanted to say for the term, ‘hard state’. However, as the current government backed by me, it continues to face serious challenges of Islamist and ethnic militants, the Judiciary, the media, a problematic population party and hostile neighbors, it is likely that GEN also demands that the current regime invest more powers in the matter and, in itself, so that those who succeed in the vulnerabilities in a more soft way can be more soft in the state.
Posted in Dawn, EOS, March 30, 2025
