Labour Party Pakistan leader visits Scotland
by Bill Bonnar, SSP International Committee, 2nd July 2010
With Pakistan in a state of almost perpetual crisis and rarely off the news the visit to Glasgow of Farooq Tariq could not have been more timely.
Farooq is the General Secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan and was in Britain for a range of meetings and speaking engagements. Invited to Scotland by the Scottish Socialist Party he addressed a large and enthusiastic meeting in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow; home to Scotland’s largest Pakistani community.
Despite its name, the LPP has nothing in common with the British Labour Party and is in fact an overtly socialist party.
In describing the situation in Pakistan, Farooq painted a picture of a country in dire straights.
The vast majority of people live in poverty something made much worse by the global capitalist crisis.
Life expectancy at a mere 42 years is one of the lowest in the world.
Literacy rates stand at just 30 per cent, not surprising in a country which spends just 1 per cent of its GDP on education yet 30 per cent on military expenditure and another 30 per cent paying foreign debts.
Pakistan remains an underdeveloped capitalist economy with many features closer to feudalism; in fact there has been little economic progress since independence in 1949.
Corruption remains endemic and the gap between rich and poor is immense.
Politically the country has been ruled by various forms of dictatorship ever since independence.
Sometimes that dictatorship has been in the form of open military rule; sometimes it has been masked by civilian government, whatever the form the dictatorship has taken it has always been characterised by the same things; corruption, defence of a rich elite, strategic support for western interests and violent oppression against anyone opposing the first three.
Farooq described the parliament as like a large business club dominated by rich and powerful vested interests.
One of the most powerful of these interest groups is the army itself which controls a large economic empire.
Despite the dictatorship opposition has been growing and was successful in the recent removing General Mushariff from power.
That opposition takes two contradictory forms; one reactionary, the other progressive.
The reactionary opposition come in the form of Islamic fundamentalism.
Islamic fundamentalist groups are now involved in all out war against the central government in the north of the country and have growing influence elsewhere.
Farooq warned that although some of their demands such as an end to the foreign occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan and an end to corruption can be supported they represent a dangerous blind alley for the people of Pakistan. This being particularly true for women.
The progressive opposition is broad based and united around the aim of creating a democratic and secular Pakistan and the need to tackle the country’s chronic levels of poverty and inequality.
Most notably this has taken the form of large scale civic movements around specific demands.
An example of this was the recent Lawyers Movement which sought to uphold the integrity of the legal system against interference from the dictatorship.
Farooq spoke at length about the rise in the Labour Party Pakistan.
Despite years of repression; Farooq himself has been arrested more than 30 times; the party continues to grow both in terms of membership and organisation and on its impact on wider society.
Whether it be among the rural poor where the LPP has helped to develop a major peasant movement, among young people, in the growing trade union movement or among women’s groups the party constantly struggles to break through the constraints imposed by the regime to build a movement for progressive change and socialism.
With around 10,000 members in a country where such membership carries many risks and a growing army of supporters it has emerged as a very significant force.
The LPP is also building on its international contacts particularly across the Indian sub-continent and in Britain; hence this visit.
He praised the work of the Scottish Socialist Party and described them as a key ally in the struggle for socialism.