A State of Hollowness

The current situation in Pakistan is something of a mixed blessing, I suppose, to the Indian sub-continent. The fact that the army is finally confronting the red mosque residents, after several months of provocation is a good thing – albeit something that should have been done some time ago. 

 

If I have a criticism of the Pakistani government it is their lack of stamping down on earlier infringements like (say) the illegal squatting that the students have performed & the harassment of cinema goers.

 

In fact, I heard a description of Pakistan the other day as being a ‘Hollow State’. Now, if a failed state is one where there is a government, but one that is so weak that it is deemed irrelevant by the bulk of the population, then a Hollow State is one that the government has superficial control, but there is wide-spread contempt for the rule of law.

 

Proclamations are made, but are widely ignored by the public, whilst actual control of large sections of society is maintained under the surface by other organisations - be these ethnic, religious, criminal or ideologically motivated (tribal elders/clan chiefs, imams/bishops, the mob/cartel, fascist/communists). As such, its control is a nominal & fragile thing. Crucially the government has to know that there are areas of life that it cannot enter, for if it did then what remaining public support it has would collapse & the entire edifice come crashing down. Ironically, it is at the very time that the government tries to reassert its authority that revolutions tend to happen.

 

Basically, Hollow States are precursors to failed states; the people don’t respect (let alone support) ‘the government’ and seem to be biding their time before the ‘real’ authority emerges. According to this theory, other Hollow States from history have included such leading lights as pre-revolutionary Iran, Weimer Germany, South Vietnam & China in the warlord era.

 

There is even some debate as to whether the US could have been called a hollow state during prohibition / pre- New-Deal; personally I doubt that it ever got that bad in the US – but if it had, then I take hope; it means that Hollow States can be rehabilitated without imploding - a sentiment that is surely shared by about a billion people in India right about now.

 

Stanthorpe