This question has never been satisfactorily answered, and continues to raise its head with disturbing regularity. There have been general elections, both fair and unfair, there have been referendums based on flawed premises and producing disputed results, and there have been interregnums of representative government that have been characterized by misrule and wrongdoing and made it a simple matter for the army to again get back into power.

With constitutional processes paralyzed for long periods, democratic institutions have been stunted, giving rise to an aberrant political culture. We have insisted on experimenting with various systems of our own making, sometimes taking the country close to becoming a theocracy and at other times seeking to capture something that we call the essence of democracy.

Today's Independence Day again catches us in the middle of trying to find a compromise between what the military believes Pakistan needs and the principles laid down in the 1973 Constitution. We have an elected government in power, but it does not have the authority to take decisions on fundamental issues.

It is engaged in halting negotiations with some political parties whose credentials the military does not fully question, but even these parties are unable to completely agree to the constitutional changes brought about by the Legal Framework Order. A consistent effort is being made to marginalize the country's two largest parties. In such circumstances, the entire exercise has assumed the shape of a political charade, with newspaper columns full of contradictory statements.

In this protracted struggle between politicians and the army, both have suffered a loss of popular trust. The people have seen the two wrangle as economic and social problems have piled up. It is not as if there has been no progress and development: it would have been impossible to stand still for five decades. But the benefits of development have been unevenly spread, and mostly have accrued to the privileged classes.

The state of deprivation in which the poor live was starkly underlined during the recent spell of heavy rains in Sindh and Punjab. Most of all, there is a sense of general disorientation: we do not know where we are headed and what we want to make of our country. There has to be a future for Pakistan beyond all the skulduggery of the past and the present.

This will be possible only if the basic right of the people to govern themselves is unreservedly and unequivocally recognized. Democracy is often confusing business, but it appears even more so in our circumstances because the structures that support it - the constitution, parliament, the judiciary - have been systematically weakened.

The generals have been guilty of repeatedly blocking the political process; the politicians have been guilty of treating their own electorates with contempt and of flagrant abuse of office. But in 56 years, if we had let the stream of democracy flow unchecked, we might by now have learnt to cope with its swirls and eddies, and matured as a nation.

The biggest crisis is the domestic crisis. It remains to be seen if we have learnt any lessons from our experience so far or we will be writing along much the same lines next August 14.