Sources of the self

Part - III
Untimely meditations
The contours of the discourse on self, state and society started to change under the influence of different ideologies vying for domination over self and society in the newly established state of Pakistan.
Ironically, religious forces took charge of nation-building, and tried to cast self and society in their theological mould by altering the ideological foundations of state. In the formative period of Pakistan people like Allama Shabir Ahmed Usmani were allowed to define the ideology of the state by approving the Objectives Resolution, which incorporated Maulana Maudoodi’s theory of sovereignty.
At the same time progressive voices like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and his comrades were incarcerated. That was the moment when the state approved a crucible made by exclusionary forces of religion to create a new identity and mentality in the future. Their biggest intellectual treason was appropriation of the work of Iqbal to serve their ideological ends.
The apotheosis of Iqbal’s Mard Momin came in the shape of General Ziaul Haq who was declared by his votaries as ‘Mard-e-Momin, Mard-e-Haq. Surely this has a strong connection with what went before in the making of the self. Today the polysemy of Iqbal’s work has been reduced to a single message by religious ideologues. Such is the level of appropriation that progressive sections avoid quoting Iqbal for fear lest they are branded religious or conservatives by their own comrades.
The onslaught of religious forces was not confined to politics alone, rather it was a full-blown attack to capture every dimension of culture, including literature. Fiction became a useful tool for the proponents of theocratic state and society. Hence, we witness proliferation of stories related to historical figures in fiction. Stories of historical figures in popular digests and novels provided highly romanticised, yet digestible stock characters to the readers. It enabled religious forces to capture the imagination of the reading public. It is easy to convince the body of an imaginatively enchanted mind to serve the sacred commandments of the clergy.
Gradually, the imaginative internalisation of romanticised characters have started to influence self and society. What we are witnessing today is the mentality of the monomaniac religious self that has been groomed by religion and state over the last six decades. It is this mentality that is a major cause of sectarian violence, bomb blasts, suicide attacks and murder of innocent citizens and children in Pakistan.
To open the closed self to multiple sources of self and history, academia and intelligentsia have to avoid shunning narratives of religion and liberalism. Engagement with modern systems of thought in concomitant with exploring progressive voices in intellectual tradition will prove conducive in providing a stable foundation for the creation of open self and society in Pakistan.
In addition, this will enable us overcome the impasse that stems from viewing realities of today in terms of binary opposition. Dr Aziz Esmail in his paper ‘Self, Society, Civility and Islam’ refers to the recourse of philosophers in the west to ancient traditions: “Hannah Arendt appeals to the Ancient Greek experience, Alasdair MacIntyre to Aristotelian and Thomist conceptions, and Charles Taylor to Judaeo-Christian Theism” to propose an intellectual project of Muslim critique of liberal self and society.
“If fundamental critiques of modernity, of intellectual rather than rhetorical substance, were to appear in the Muslim context”, says Aziz Esmail, “they will have assimilated the resources of the Islamic traditions into them, rather than attempting to assimilate intellectual modernity into the terms of Islamic traditions.”
So far no critique, except rejectionist criticism of obscurantist forces and violent confrontation of Islamism, has emerged in the Muslim context because intellectual tradition being treated as a closed corpus. Today the self in Pakistan as well as in Muslim society is torn between tradition and modernity. A creative dialogue between the Muslim rational tradition and modernity will expose self and society to broader intellectual horizons, open possibilities and eclectic sources.
According to Plato’s idea of an ideal personality, state and society is that in which different parts function in harmonious order under the rule of reason. Given the poverty of reason in a highly passionate Muslim body in Pakistan, it is time to rejuvenate and reengage with the Mu’atizili school of thought to rationalise self, society and state.
The clerics who took upon themselves to define Islam in these modern times view things through rejectionist lenses. Therefore, Muslims have not been able to breach or dislodge the theoretical unity of the universalising derive of euro-centric epistemic structures. A more rational way is to make intrusion via rationalist resources within to develop a critique of modernity. That can enable Muslims to contribute to rational discourse formation and develop a critique of instrumental reason, which was in collusion with the project of colonialism.
Such a critique of the liberal narrative in the Muslim context may pose a serious threat to the privileged status of managers of the sacred and provide Muslim critique of secularism on the one hand, and allowing the secular section of society to initiate a dialogue with the west by developing a philosophical critique of modernity on the basis of rational voices within Islam on the other.
In order to counter the menace of a monomaniac self, a bigoted society and religious state, the progressive sections of society ought to launch a counter attack. Instead of sitting idle in trenches during the war, they have to move forward to reclaim the territories of religion, culture, literature and society captured by forces of exclusion and prophets of doom and gloom. Entrenching their position in their own side will prevent their minds to venture into the territories that lie beyond.
This situation may beget a disease of the trench mind, which rots by wallowing in the mud in secure trenches. To get rid of this rotten state of mind we need intellectuals who can tell us the concord of the discord between different ideas about self, society and state.
Concluded
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad. Email: azizalidad@gmail.com