Pakistan comes of age at 50

It all began with a dream of an egalitarian state, when urbane Karachi native Muhammad Ali Jinnah led India's Muslims out of colonialism to independence from both Britain and cultural sibling India.

Watch the CNN Special on Pakistan's 50 Years of Independence

Jinnah had a vision of a Pakistan built on "character, courage, integrity and perseverance." But with his death in 1948 — barely 13 months after the creation of Pakistan — the cobbled-together confederation of competing Muslim interests was left rudderless.

The result has been 24 years of off-and-on military rule, much of it under martial law, with the intervening years filled by a series of weak or hamstrung governments.

Listen to Pakistan's national anthem:
	372K/31 sec. AIFF or WAV sound
	749K/1 min. AIFF or WAV sound

Economic failure is now seen by most as the only real threat to Pakistan's future. Unfortunately corruption, the Achilles' heel of economic progress, is as pervasive as ever. A Berlin-based research group, Transparency International, last year called Pakistan the second most corrupt country in the world, surpassed only by Nigeria.

General lawlessness and violent sectarian conflict are also a frightening everyday reality. Fighting between government forces and the Mohajir, immigrants who left India in 1947, has amounted to an undeclared civil war in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, during the 1990s.

Right-wing Islamic religious parties, routed in general elections, are threatening to wage an "Islamic revolution." Jinnah himself saw Islam as the inspiration that would create an egalitarian state, but never called for Pakistan to be ruled by religious law.

Pakistan is still far from realizing Jinnah's dream. But as it celebrates 50 years of independence, it seems fitting that Pakistan's democratic identity appears to be finally coming of age.