Published as part of the Diplomats and Diplomacy Series, jointly sponsored by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training and Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired, former ambassador William B. Milam's monograph surveys and analyzes the struggle for democracy in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Drawing on his own foreign service experience in both nations, Milam's account is accessible to a general readership but substantive enough for undergraduate courses that examine political developments on the Indian Subcontinent after the Bangladesh War of Independence.
Ambassador Milam begins by discussing two “turning points” (pp. 1–11): the resignation of Bangladeshi General Hussein Muhammad Ershad in 1990 and the coup that brought Pakistani General Pervaiz Musharraf to power in 1999. Making a distinction between violent “jihadism” and activist “Islamism,” Milam observes that while Bangladesh and Pakistan are countries “separated by a common history,” they appear to be converging “in their shift from the secular values of their founders, and vulnerability to Islamism” (p. 11).
Chapter 1 focuses on what Milam characterizes as the identity confusion of both countries: for Bangladesh, it is the tension between Bengali and Bangladeshi nationalism; for Pakistan, it is the tension between visions of Pakistan as either a homeland for South Asian Muslims or an Islamic state. Chapter 2 examines the flaws of the two leaders who ascended to power in the aftermath of the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan: Mujibur Rahman and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Milam diagrams how the euphoria accompanying Mujib dissipated as schisms in the Bangladeshi army deepened. When Mujib declared martial law to cement his power, members of the army responded by murdering him and his family. Similarly, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto squandered Pakistan's democratic moment not only by tolerating and encouraging corruption on a variety of levels, but also by exploiting religion for political ends. Bhutto's overthrow by the Pakistani army and subsequent execution was perhaps the inevitable result of such shortsightedness.
The one figure who comes off rather well in Milam's analysis is the Bangladeshi strongman Ziaur Rahman. Portraying Zia as a “benign despot” (p. 70), chapter 3 discusses the key points of his rule, from the rise of the Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (BNP) to his assassination in Chittagong in 1981. Another Zia, Pakistan's Zia ul-Haq, had a much less salutary impact on his country. As detailed in chapter 4, it was under Zia that Islamism was promoted and jihadists were recruited to fight proxy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan, with the army becoming even more intertwined in the economic life of Pakistan. In chapters 5 and 6, Milam turns again to Bangladesh and surveys the rise of General Ershad, the “relentless and inexorable street strategy” of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League (pp. 121–22), and the civilian-military hybrid government that emerged from the political chaos of 2006. In his analysis, Milam focuses on the strife between the Awami League and the BNP and the resultant inability of Bangladeshi politicians to address crucial national issues. Chapters 7 and 8 consider the course of electoral democracy in Pakistan, with special attention to how Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif unwittingly provided the opportunity for the military to again assert its role in Pakistani politics. Milam's monograph concludes by comparing economic development in Pakistan and Bangladesh and considering the far more effective and extensive role of nongovernmental organizations in Bangladeshi national life.
Throughout Flirting with Failure, Milam emphasizes that simple electoral democracy cannot overcome a lack of strong civil institutions. In analyzing the rise of Islamism and jihadism in Pakistan, Milam correctly points to the conflicted role of the military and Pakistani politicians. Milam wisely resists the temptation to consider Islamism in Bangladesh in the same terms, acknowledging instead that Islamism has weaker roots in Bangladeshi society and thus primarily represents a response to poor governance. Overall, Milam's pessimism about the future of democracy in both nations seems well substantiated.
Flirting with Failure succeeds in giving a broad overview of key developments in Pakistan and Bangladesh that does not ignore the complexities of both countries and their politics. But it is curious that Ambassador Milam fails to document what he presumably knows best: the extent of U.S. involvement in internal politics in both Bangladesh and Pakistan. While there are brief mentions of U.S. opposition to martial law in both countries, the only extensive discussion relates to U.S. concerns about the Kargil War in 1999. While Flirting with Failure could effectively be used in an undergraduate classroom, it would need to be supplemented by other academic and journalistic sources that consider more fully the U.S. role in relation to the pressing political and social issues now confronting Pakistan and Bangladesh.
