Islamabad, Pakistan – About 15 years ago, the famous Pakistani pop singer Shehzad Roy released a song called Laga Reh (Keep at it), which began with the singer reminiscing about what he saw on television in his childhood.
“When I was 10 years old, I heard on the 9 o’clock news that Pakistan was going through a critical point in its history,” Roy says. A short, sharp guitar riff and a drum solo follow, after which Roy adds, “When I turned 20, I heard again on the 9 o’clock news that Pakistan was going through a critical point in its history.”
The song was released in 2008, the year Pakistan held its first elections after the end of the nine-year military rule of General Pervez Musharraf. Many observers at the time considered it to be undoubtedly the most important poll in the six decades of the country’s existence, as it faced existential challenges on the political, economic and security fronts.
As I started writing this article thinking about how Pakistan fared in 2024, which started with analysts declaring it the most critical year for the country of 250 million people, I couldn’t help but remember Roy’s poem.
I started my journalistic career two years after its release, and I often wonder: while so much has changed in the country since 2008, has anything really, really changed?
Violence; unstable political landscape; censorship; military entry; an uncertain economy; politicians who benefit from the generosity of the security establishment only to turn against it later – this is a pattern that repeats itself without fail.
General elections were held in the country February this yearoriginally planned for the end of last year.
Global bodies, independent observers and critics breaded vote, many have accused the authorities of manipulating the count – a charge the government has denied. The election led to the formation of a coalition government that ousted former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, although its candidates — forced to contest as independents after the party was disqualified — won the most seats.
A violent year
Pakistan has also seen evil escalation of violenceparticularly in its northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan, targeting hundreds of security forces and civilians. With at least 685 members of the security forces losing their lives in a total of 444 terrorist attacks, 2024 emerged as the deadliest year for Pakistan’s civilian and military forces in the last decade. Nearly 1,000 civilians were killed.
Overall, deaths in violent attacks this year were at a nine-year high, 66 percent higher than in 2023, according to data compiled by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank.
The country managed to suppress attacks by banned armed groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, and Baloch separatist groups between 2015 and 2021.
But the frequency of attacks increased after the Taliban in Afghanistan captured Kabul in August 2021.
In December, at least 16 soldiers were killed in a TTP attack. Pakistan fought back launching airstrikes within the territory of Afghanistan, its western neighbor. The country’s hawkish attitude towards Afghanistan, accusing it of harboring TTP fighters, only complicated diplomatic affairs.
Meanwhile, activists from impoverished Balochistan the province rallied in late July to demand the release of the missing people, only to be met with complete state apathy. Mobile and internet services were down for over a month.
Similarly, in volatile Kurram region In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where sectarian conflict has erupted between Sunni and Shia tribes over land disputes, the government’s inability to intervene has allowed the conflict to escalate, many analysts say, killing more than 150 people.
Economic respite
Although the country managed to avert economic disaster by avoiding bankruptcy, its stability remained on a fragile footing, and economic managers struggled to develop sustainable means of growth.
Under Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan managed to secure a 37-month, tranche of 7 billion dollars program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), providing a lifeline to the country’s struggling economy.
Tight fiscal policies have also led to an increase in foreign exchange reserves from just over $3 billion in May 2023 to over $12 billion. Inflation, which peaked at 38 percent last year, fell to 5 percent this month.
However, the government seems to have struggled to win the public’s economic confidence. More than 700,000 Pakistanis have emigrated legally this year in search of better opportunities, while 3,000 others risked the dangerous route “Dunki”.ignoring the tragedy of the sinking of the ship Adriana in 2023 in which more than 260 Pakistanis died. similar incident December killed more than 40 people.
Experts – seasoned politicians, political economists, social scientists and veteran journalists – all agree on one key problem: Pakistan’s quagmire stems from a lack of political stability. Specifically, the instability that began on the night of April 9, 2022, when Khan, the PTI’s charismatic founder, was ousted as prime minister by a vote of no confidence in parliament.
The Conundrum of Khan
Since then, Khan’s supporters have launched several long marches towards the capital, Islamabad; he accused the United States of orchestrating his removal; and challenged the authority of the military, which had previously been considered his primary patron.
He survived an assassination attempt and faced hundreds of legal cases, including charges of sedition, terrorism and incitement against the military. Khan’s supporters continued to wreak havoc across the country, targeting public buildings, military headquarters and other facilities after his brief detention in May 2023, and more than 100 were later sentenced in draconian military courts.
He avoided arrest, until he could, in August 2023. Earlier this year, he was convicted in cases related to the alleged disclosure of state secrets, the sale of state gifts and an illegal marriage that violated Islamic law.
Yet despite all this – his imprisonment, the PTI’s iconic cricket bat symbol being banned, senior party leaders in jail, and candidates forced to campaign independently using guerilla tactics and social media – Khan has regained public support. in an unprecedented manner, culminating in the PTI’s stunning victory in the February elections.
Pakistan’s ‘Great Firewall’
Meanwhile, Pakistan has written the latest chapter in its long history of attempted censorship.
While the PTI government under Khan acquired the online surveillance system in 2018, defense sources revealed to Al Jazeera this year that the country has now acquired Chinese technology to install A Chinese-like firewall to monitor internet usage.
The first signs appeared after the election in February when the social media platform X was blocked as a “security risk”.
Unannounced internet shutdowns followed, limiting access to virtual private networks (VPNs) and severely disrupting the country’s internet landscape, a sector that earned Pakistan $3.5 billion in 2023.
coalition government, headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifthey issued contradictory statements, often blaming undersea cable damage, global internet outages or outright denying any problems.
Golden boy
In a year of bleak realities, one spark of positivity lit up the nation on the night of August 8 at the Stade de France in Paris.
Arshad NadeemThe 27-year-old javelin thrower broke it Olympic record with a throw of 92.97 meters won the first individual gold medal for Pakistan at the games.
When I met Nadeem at a grammar school in Lahore six weeks before that evening, he told me humbly, “I’m competing with myself.”
For athletes, it could be a good way to wake up and prepare for competition. But recalling that conversation with Nadeem, I tried to put it in the context of Pakistan, its political and military elite, and the ongoing instability that afflicts the country.
The famous proverb, “He lived in interesting times”, which is often mistakenly called a Chinese proverb, is perceived as a curse. Pakistan, somehow, has chosen to be a living illustration of this.
I, for one, wouldn’t mind a slightly different 2025, as a reporter in Pakistan. Could we see less “interesting” times in the next 12 months.
