Coming from a humble background and being a woman, it was a dream come true when I received my first appointment order as Assistant Commissioner of Abbottabad (it didn’t materialise though). The appointment letter safely tucked in my black purse and driving alone at high speed on the Grand Trunk Road, I was nearly flying to reach my destination.

This was tremendous progress for a woman from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), and it became possible in Pakistan. It wasn’t an isolated instance as many people like me were able to make their destiny in this country.

The pace of development has been slow, but even the remote places in the country are now connected with a road network. Not long ago, horse drawn carriage used to be the only means of transport on the dirt road leading to my village. We had to get down from that royal tonga on approaching the flood channel. Men would virtually lift women and children on their back to help them cross the rain torrent carrying boulders from the mountains. A famous film star crossed the khwar (stream) the same way (yes, film shooting was possible then in the ‘lawless Tribal Areas’). It made news as  men carried the beautiful actress across the stream forgetting her mother behind.

Today, the village has a carpeted road, a high school for boys and one also for girls. Although the overall management of the government sector’s neglect is proverbial, the whole country has some network of educational institutions. Not a small achievement in an under-developed country!

Hard work paid and a considerable number of people made it to the middle class, and to a better future. Endowed with the necessary resources -- land, sea port, hard working people, functioning government machinery and institutions -- Pakistan was on its way to find a respectable place in the comity of nations. Its people believed in the struggle for an honourable life.

The country could have become a land of opportunity, but then it became Af-Pak. Pakistan instead stood alongside Somalia and Yemen, droned and drowned into chaos and anarchy. Pakistan’s unfortunate citizens were left to live in a hell of fear and hunger, or flee the country. The green passport holder of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan stood in the ‘civilised world’ as an assumed suspect, or simply put, a terrorist. No sports team from any country was willing to come to Pakistan despite all the safety assurances of the government.

What went wrong and where?

It was 1993. As the proud owner of a blue Suzuki car, I left my office and picked my son from the Beaconhouse School located on the Jamrud Road in Peshawar. On the way back, tempted by the nicely arranged Kabuli melons, I pulled up by the Afghan refugees’ fruits and vegetables market near the canal to buy some fruits. The middle-aged Afghan shopkeeper had a pencil tucked between his ear and head. I asked him about his hometown in Afghanistan. His tone was sad when he began discussing what happened to his country. He then predicted something for which I wasn’t prepared. "Sister, I see clear signs of your country following in the footsteps of Afghanistan," he said in Pashto.

Startled, I asked him what made him think so. He put the fruits in my car trunk, stood hands akimbo, and said thoughtfully. "That’s exactly how it started in Afghanistan. It all began with groups sprouting up under different names and agendas. The government didn’t take notice in the beginning until the situation went out of control. The system collapsed. Anarchy and lawlessness replaced our organised society. Foreign interference made our government impotent, and we are now ‘mohajirs’ in your country. Sister, I see a repeat of the same drama here. I see groups emerging in similar patterns in your country and it may make it another Afghanistan."

The man shook his head and left to attend to other customers and I got busy with my routine.

It was years later that I was reminded of what the Afghan shopkeeper had said. It happened when death, abductions, kidnappings, murders and bomb blasts began appearing in newspapers. By then the law enforcement machinery and the security forces had become helpless and the country had plunged into near chaos. Pakistan had predictably become Af-Pak.

Pluralism with the sinister objective to incapacitate the government machinery of the targeted country is the latest formula at work. Using chaos as a weapon against an enemy country is a new phenomenon. Deep penetration in the blood veins of a society and its institutions is another technique employed against the enemy. Shadow wars are the least risky affairs for the empires. Divide and rule -- the tried and tested old colonial principle -- doesn’t change as new procedures are evolved to achieve the same results.

Have the movers and shakers of the world targeted Pakistan, or is it our own doing, or both?

It did not happen in a day, or a year or decade. History tells us that only a people with knowledge survive and thrive. The rest are condemned to live a life of servitude, or perish. Look at the sovereignty claims of the majority of the developing Islamic countries. For everything, ranging from the items of daily comfort, to disease control, to defence, they have to look up either to the West, or the East.

When the first revealed order was forgotten, "the Muslim world degenerated and lost the capacity to order its life effectively." The more knowledgeable and skilled European nations subjugated the Muslim lands, controlled their illiterate, disorganised people, and exploited their natural resources. The European naval power made vast areas on the globe accessible to their fleet. They were able to penetrate and weaken vulnerable communities. For the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, or St. John Bridger Philby, it was an easy task to further weaken the feeble control of the Ottomans on their people as they were ill-equipped and ill-prepared to survive the onslaught of the better educated and equipped Westerners.

Pakistan had yet to acquire internal strength and stability while it aspired for a leadership role in the Muslim world. It hosted an Islamic Summit in which the world heard the threat to impose embargo on oil. The fate of leaders and nations who spearheaded this move is before us like a book. Not only that, Pakistan acquired its ‘Islamic’ bomb too and provoked many around the world.

The country faced an adversary four times its size. Then it got caught in superpowers’ wars, received millions of refugees and billions of dollars (the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat fire burnt the record and the Ojhri camp incident resulted in losing track of so many things). Heroin and Kalashinkov culture came and swept the country. The decision-makers at the top and the middle level got rich in the process, but the society in general degenerated into ignorance, illiteracy and poverty that continue to prevail.

Things started becoming messy, confused and chaotic. Many among the weak, the helpless and the desperate who had nothing to lose, were easily led into pursuit of various ideological and monetary interests. Sponsored, supported and funded by friendly as well as enemy countries, group after group sprang up weakening the society from within. Pakistan became an open field for all.

Ideological affiliations and monetary interests of many personnel in the powerful institutions further intensified ethnic and religious differences, which made the government machinery ineffective. When it comes to the government’s power, it is a perception. The people understand and abide by the rule of law and peace is maintained. Resorting to test this power differentially and frequently becomes a sign of weakness. Institutions fail, the frustrated people take the law in their hands, and the society falls into disarray. This has happened in Pakistan.

General Ayub, General Zia and General Musharraf ruled for long periods with American support, arms and dollars. President Ayub’s book "Friends not Masters" decries the ruler’s woes, but rulers however strong, have nothing to fall back upon if their people are weak. Having said this, Pakistan Army is today the only strong institution that can keep the country from breaking down and guarantee secure custody of ‘the Bomb’.

The politicians face challenge to prove their worth. They need to come down from the colonial style of governance. Austerity and economy will enhance their respect, not reduce it. Our politicians and elected governments are running in different directions. Pakistan centric vision is lacking. The local governments of "Basic Democracies Order 1959", "Local Government Order 1979" and "Local Government Ordinance 2001" all mock the politicians’ dislike for local level governance.

The real problem is illiteracy and poverty. The first step at the local government level should be improvement of school education. Presence of teachers must be ensured by all means. A box library at every primary school should make reading interesting for students. A good student is a good reader. The absence of libraries in our towns and cities shows where the society is headed. No wonder we are in the current mess.

Economy in the 21st century is knowledge economy and "Education is the real currency of success" in the world today. It can pull people out of poverty, give them hope, and perhaps enable them to elect representatives who are aware of the world striding forward in development. Pakistan needs to declare ‘education emergency.’

The principle of natural justice and a nation committed to ‘education, information and innovation’ will rule the world.