The enemy within

In a world of fluid reality, the only factor that can help translate the dream of durable certainty in human society is the ability to engage with diversity. This is not too philosophical to understand in the context of Pakistan where we live in an era of diverse political pessimism. We are governed by the fear stemming from our self-imposed inhibitions which keep us at bay from imagining a better pluralistic society. Perhaps we have been politically conditioned to find uncertainty and chaos in diversity. We have grown up with a disbelief in institutional capacity to transform our cultural, political and religious heterogeneity into socio-political cohesion.

During the last seven decades we have consistently been told the story of our bravery and the pusillanimity of our enemy. We have been reduced to objects that are to be consumed in the service of defending our physical and ideological boundaries. Our thought, creativity and political ideals have been put to the service of protecting ourselves from external threats, without much success though. We have developed a loser’s mentality and we are stagnant to the extent that we have lost the lustre of being victorious.

The collective enslavement of our national psyche has made us subservient to the powerful and affluent. This is the long story cut short; we are incapable to think that a better world is possible. A nuclear power with herds of unthinking, downtrodden, illiterate, ailing and ensnared souls is the most lethal combination one would not like to have.

In our obsession to neutralise our real and imagined enemies, we have produced even more obnoxious enemies in our backyard. Our strategic assets have turned against us with a vengeance because we were unable to keep our promises to defend our ideological boundaries. These new vigilantes of ideology tend to strangulate sanity with public proclamations to destroy the infidel and the profane. We are embroiled in an internal war which consumes our energy, enthusiasm, intellectual resource and potential to progress. We are groping in the dark in a tunnel of our own choosing in search of light, but this takes us further into the depth of darkness.

Look at our development indicators. We are ranked at 147th on the Human Development Index, the 10th most vulnerable country for climate-induced disasters, one of the most illiterate nations on earth with 24 million children out of school, 40 percent population undernourished, 42 percent stunted children, second last on the gender equity index and one of the most dangerous places for journalists and human right activists. We have literally produced nothing significant to celebrate except the false grandeur of our ability to maim our imagined foes.

December should be a month of critical reflection; 46 years ago Pakistan lost 56 percent of its population and eastern part in a war that was fought internally. Today Pakistan is surrounded by challenges on its eastern and western borders alike. Our physical borders are porous while our ideological borders controlled by the forces of obscurity. These forces of darkness that we pampered for decades are up against our civil liberties, freedom of expression and democratic transition.

Living in nostalgia, they want to establish an Islamic monarchy quite contrary to the ideals of the founding fathers of Pakistan. The Islamisation of our society on medieval ideals is the most pernicious act that adds fuel to our sociopolitical decay. For a functioning democracy, religion and politics must be separated being private and public affairs respectively. In an ethnically diverse society like Pakistan, religious homogenisation will not work towards nation-building as we have already experienced in 1971 with the debacle of the then East Pakistan.

We are told by others that we live in the ugliest possible world, a decaying morality if not a moralising culture dominated by religious thugs. This religiosity allows self-righteous and politically pampered men to dictate the ethical norms that are packaged in a ruffian idiom of vulgarity. The recent dharna at Faizabad is an example of how vulgar language was made kosher by a self-proclaimed leader of the faithful.

There are no doubt men of principles committed to a pious way of life. But these pious men are marginalised in a society influenced by bigotry and the shenanigans of those mesmerising public orators whose pulpits are set up for public sit-ins. The domain of piety and profanity are defined by these politically motivated men of the religion right, personified by Khadim Hussain Rizvi and his coterie who would not mind bashing anyone who dare preach peace and pluralism in Islam.

This is not to say that all is well other than the social indignation caused by the hate speeches spewed by this bashing band of trendy religious leaders. They are propelled for a reason, being the best political instrument to tame the demon of critical thinking and political accountability of those who exercise unrestrained power in this land of the pure.

There is a general perception that the pulpits of politico-religious sermons are propelled by powerful players. However, the story is much more complex. The ‘powerful’ are not immune to the disruptive force of technology and simulated reality of an all-pervading media.

The disruptive power to transform banality into an instrument of instigation of human instinct to overpower reason is what has become the new political normal in Pakistan. We are doomed to become a nation of instincts which is far removed from intellect and wisdom. For our own comfort, we have chosen a specific aspect of religion to kill reason and the reasoner. In apologetic commentaries, isolated scholars of peace tell us that there is peace in religion – but there is no one to pay heed to this dull discourse.

Why preach peace when the world is governed by fear, greed and extermination of the ‘inferior’ by the self-proclaimed civilised and modern man? Millions of people were maimed during the last hundred years of the most advanced society of human history. Peace is for the weak. The real means to power is fear – or what Machiavelli would advise in his famous political thesis ‘The Prince’, the secret of rule. There is no uniform powerful enough to create or destroy the Machiavellian instinct in a decaying human society. Modern capitalist democracy would even go far to produce a Hitler than to protect dissent during a crisis of political legitimacy. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen one of the most destructive wars in human history, despite all civilisational advancement and democracy. But these societies were able to bounce back because of their institutional strength.

All post-colonial societies have inherited the conflicts, wars and legal instruments of political divisions. But there are examples of political and democratic transition within postcolonial societies that were able to set a better political trajectory than us. We can learn from their experiences and start building strong democratic institutions.

Moral and political decay lies at the very foundations of the institutions that we have allowed to evolve at the cost of a vibrant society. We find it daunting to express the virtues of democracy in this country. If we are hell bent on misreading history and persisting with this jingoism we are doing the biggest disservice to our country, our religion and our people.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com