Omer Aziz is the author of Brown Boy: A Memoir, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, and a former policy adviser to then-minister of foreign affairs Chrystia Freeland.
For weeks now, Pakistan – a nuclear-armed country of more than 220 million – has been on the brink of chaos. In May, paramilitary rangers arrested Imran Khan, the ex-cricket champion who became prime minister in 2018 in just the second democratic transfer of power in Pakistan’s history, on corruption charges. (Two days later, the Supreme Court ruled his courthouse arrest to be illegal, and he is now out on bail.) Mr. Khan lost a no-confidence vote a year ago; a few months later, he was the target of an assassination attempt, and he accused a military official of plotting it.
Protesters have since taken to the streets, with some even attacking military installations. The army has responded in kind, arresting peaceful demonstrators. A media blackout reigns. People are living in terror.
It is a volatile situation: Pakistan’s most popular politician squaring off against its most powerful institution, which wields more than 100 nuclear warheads. It is a battle between dictatorship and democracy in a country where two-thirds of the population is under the age of 30, and where countless young Pakistanis have told me that Mr. Khan represents integrity in a corrupt system. A nuclear-armed nation threatens to descend into civil war.
So why has the West largely been quiet?
Through his lawyer, I reached Mr. Khan by teleconference from his home in Zaman Park, in the city of Lahore, where he has effectively been confined. Mr. Khan appeared on screen in a black kurta, wiping sweat from his brow. He looked tired but stoic.
I asked him why he was in this position, and whether he might negotiate with the military.
“Well, negotiate about what?” Mr. Khan said. “The route the military has taken is a disaster. They are rolling back Pakistan’s democracy. There’s been a consensus, developed gradually after years of military rule, that whatever happens, even a bad democracy is better than martial law.”
Mr. Khan went on to list off scores of alleged human rights violations committed by the Pakistani military against his party, especially women.
But hadn’t Mr. Khan himself been supported by the military? Wasn’t this just a case of him now deciding not to play the game expected of him?
Mr. Khan emphasized that the military did not oppose his party’s election, but that they did not “make him” prime minister, either. He had been voted in by Pakistanis of all stripes, including millions frustrated by a system in which elites pay little in the way of taxes and do not even pretend to put the country above their private interests.
“I’m convinced [the army] will put me in jail soon,” he told me. “In Pakistan, we have the law of the jungle now. Anything goes. Anyone can be picked up. People are at a crossroads. We are headed for the abyss.”
Mr. Khan is known as one of the greatest cricket players to have ever lived. But politics – especially in a country like Pakistan – is a real blood-sport. When lines are crossed in such places, one might never see one’s family again. He says he will never leave his country, and it seemed to me that Mr. Khan was sincere in his hope for Pakistan’s democracy.
Yet the West’s relative silence around the protests effectively supports the failed status quo over the rule of law. Moreover, the consequences could be catastrophic. An implosion of Pakistani democracy would unleash instability and violence in the region. No matter how tight of a grip the Pakistani military maintains on its society, history has shown that mass unrest against military rule unleashes forces beyond anyone’s control. Then there will be nothing the West could do.
In other countries, such as Brazil and Russia, Canada has taken a firm stance when politicians have been jailed. The West should demand that Mr. Khan be truly freed and elections, due this year, be held on schedule. If Mr. Khan is not allowed to compete, world leaders need to understand that there is a genuine possibility of mass revolt and nuclear crisis.
Abandoning Mr. Khan means giving up on Pakistan’s democracy for good. It means telling Pakistan’s 150 million young people that they will never live in a country with free elections. Our silence tacitly gives cover to the Pakistani military to continue violating human rights.
Pakistan is a vital nation with enormous potential. Another generation of Pakistanis cannot afford to live under a kleptocracy run by the military. As Mr. Khan awaits his fate, Pakistanis await their future – and it remains to be seen whether it will be a democratic or totalitarian one.