A Kafkaesque scenario

This week, I have felt prodded a number of times to invoke Franz Kafka, the German novelist and short-story writer who died nearly one hundred years ago. This means that I am not much inclined to attempt a serious journalistic expose of a series of important events and developments. An easy way out is to find refuge in parables.

And the general mood is akin to what they describe as Kafkaesque. We seem to be trapped in unreal times. There is bound to be some mental and emotional cost of living in relative isolation that is dictated by Covid-19 for four long months. Many of us have suffered bereavement and deprivations of different kinds during this period.

Thankfully, our rates of infection and fatalities have declined, though there are genuine apprehensions about a possible surge after next week’s Eid festival and the Muharram congregations that will follow. In any case, we are on the threshold of a new world that we cannot yet comprehend. It is an intriguing fact that many countries have to contend with volatile public unrest and social tensions during this pandemic. The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is unprecedented.

We, to be sure, have our share of troubles. For whatever reasons, this has also been a season of revelations and of new realisations. It is in this context that I have referred to a few developments of this week, without intending to dig deep into their genesis or implications.

For instance, we had some shocking observations about the working of the accountability process and a leading journalist was kidnapped and released on a busy day marked by civil society concern about the incident. We also had an occasion to have a glimpse of the self-assessed assets of the special assistants and advisers of the prime minister, with four of them possessing dual nationalities.

But let us have our Kafka interjection at this point. I realise that most of our rulers and decision-makers who have steered the country into its present state of an almost anarchic disorder would not be familiar with the dark and surreal world that Kafka had created in his fiction. But if they do read Kafka – and other relevant classics – their understanding of what is happening would certainly improve.

As an aside, is it possible that Shibli Faraz, who manages the affairs of the media and is thus directly responsible for resolving the riddle of Matiullah Jan’s abduction and release, has read Kafka? For that matter, one cannot be sure that he is truly well versed in the poetry and the ideological commitment of Ahmed Faraz.

I will very briefly mention two Kafka novels. Take ‘The Castle’, published in 1926. It is the story of a character who arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle.

It is instructive that Kafka died before he could finish the work but had suggested that it would end with the protagonist dying in the village. The ‘castle’ would notify on his deathbed that his legal claim to live in the village was not valid. Yet, taking some auxiliary circumstances into account, he was permitted to live and work there.

‘The Castle’ is also classified as an ‘absurdist’ novel and an allegory for Kafka’s nightmare of the unconscious world. Its protagonist is controlled by hidden powers.

The other novel is ‘The Trial’, written in 1914. For many literary critics, it is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. ‘The Trial’ is the terrifying tale of a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information.

Let me quote from one introduction: “Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka’s nightmare has resonated for chilling truth for generations of readers”.

Now, let us move from Kafka’s ambiguous and diabolical world to the present reality. As a disclaimer, I would say that any similarity is incidental. As I said, Kafka is my diversion since I do not seem to have the emotional strength and intellectual competence to interpret and explore some events of this week. However, I will make do with some brief excerpts from reports published in the newspapers.

The first two sentences of the editorial in an English newspaper: “Journalist Matiullah Jan has survived another scare. Though back with his family now, his abduction on Tuesday in broad daylight in the heart of the capital underscores the terrible insecurities of life in this country”.

On the same issue, “the Islamabad High Court has held that it is a duty of the federal government and state functionaries to demonstrate that there is no threat to freedom of expression in Pakistan and remove a perception that the state and its functionaries, instead of protecting the fundamental rights, are involved or complacent in the impunity for crimes against its citizens, particularly journalists”.

The headline of the lead story in Tuesday’s newspaper: “SC spots bias in NAB handling of political case”. In its detailed verdict in the Paragon City (Pvt) Ltd case, the Supreme Court described the conduct of the National Accountability Bureau as a manifestation of utter disregard to the law, fair play, equity and propriety. An editorial comment on this observation said: “Those who run the National Accountability should hang their heads in shame – if they have any capacity for it”.

To conclude, this is the intro of the article written by Michael Kugelman for Foreign Policy: “One year ago this week, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan sat next to the US President Donald Trump in the White House and declared to reporters that Pakistan has ‘one of the freest presses in the world’. He added: ‘So to say that there are curbs on [Pakistan’s] press is a joke’”.

The heading of the article is: “No, Mr Prime Minister, Pakistan does not have a free press”.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com