Illusive and Regressive Globalization: Issues and Challenges for Pakistan's Economy

In a mesmerizing scenario of the aura of glamorous globalization, Pakistan has entered the 21 st century with ambivalent presentiment of hope and gloom in the context of realizing globalization-based economic development. Globalization is indeed the most fashionable current issue in the whole world. It is also an irrefutable fact that the movement of globalization has been universally condemned by the global masses. In this background, globalization stands out both as the burning global and national current economic issue from the point of view of development of Pakistan. Pakistan’s ever-continuing status as a low income country, along with her serious problems of unsustainable economic growth performance and perpetual debt crises which have culminated into growing stagflation and increasing incidence of poverty even in the contemporary regime of globalization, has become a prime cause of the widespread disillusionment and skepticism of Pakistani masses about globalization. In this scenario, globalization’s illusive agenda and regressive outcomes in Pakistan merit serious attention, objective analysis and befitting policy response. Therefore, while aiming at the portrayal of the nature and dynamics of globalization, this proposed paper envisages a focus on the analysis of multidimensional impact of globalization on Pakistan in order to identify the modern ideological, socioeconomic, political and strategic challenges confronted by her due to the contemporary onslaught of globalization. In this context, it also explores the prospects of the inevitable Islamic way out. 1. Prologue Overwhelmed by an exciting scenario of the aura of glamorous globalization, Pakistan has entered the new millennium with an ambivalent presentiment of hope and gloom in the context of realizing globalizationbased economic development. In this milieu, globalization has become the most fascinating latest stylized fact which has been globally criticized by the global masses because of its overwhelming negative outcomes. One significant manifestation of the dynamics of the world-level popular anti-globalization movement is the institution of World Social Forum (WSF), an intellectual platform of anti-globalists, which has been holding the annual meetings of its members (e.g., in Venezuela, Mali etc) for promoting discourses and networking among them for launching and perpetuating effective campaigns for defeating the movement of globalization. From the point of view of Pakistan, it is important to note that WSF recently held its meeting at Karachi in March 2006. In Pakistan, the aforementioned WSF meeting was attended by over 40,000 anti-globalization activists belonging to 46 countries. In this background, globalization is indeed a burning global and national current economic issue especially from the point of view of the real socio-economic development of both Pakistan and her inhabitants. Pakistan’s ever-continuing status as a low income country 1 , along with her serious problems of unsustainable economic growth performance and perpetual debt crises which have culminated into growing stagflation and increasing incidence of poverty even in the contemporary regime of globalization, has become a prime cause of the widespread disillusionment and skepticism of Pakistani masses about globalization. In this scenario, the globalization’s illusive agenda and regressive outcomes in Pakistan merit serious attention, objective analysis and a befitting policy rejoinder. Therefore, this paper envisages a focus on the analysis of multidimensional nature and impact of globalization on Pakistan, identifies the modern ideological, socioeconomic, political and strategic challenges confronted by her due to the contemporary onslaught of globalization, and highlights a prospective constructive Islamic reply embodying the inevitable Islamic way out of crises caused by the globalization. 2. Origin, Evolution, Nature, Forces, Vehicles and Instruments of Globalization The movement of globalization, premised in the progress of commerce, was conceived in the literature contributed by the writers of Scottish Enlightenment in the 18 th century [(Khan, 2000, p.21), (Anjum, 2006b);