Beyond sound and fury

Part - II
It is worth asking what distinguishes west-based Pakistani academic-activists from the native liberal-activists that they berate. Products of the same class, privilege and educational opportunities, the only obvious distinction seems to be (apart from current location) that these diasporic critics judge religious militants to be more radical than the liberal activists that they target. They also disagree which of these groups deserves a more sympathetic voice and representation and subsume religious agency as a non-issue. Other than such ‘revelations’, the difference and relevance of these academic-activists lies only in their access to describing this reinvention to western audiences by way of conferences and journals.
Unfortunately, some self-appointed referees have tried to interrupt the possibility of debate at some recent international conferences (always held in North America but not Pakistan) by suggesting that this is a ‘personal’ debate. But indeed, if an increasing number of texts and theses are developing into a body of scholarship, why is there a fear of engaging with these in a political discussion?
If texts are being produced, surely isn’t the purpose to engage critically with their contents? Certainly seems preferable to the approach of accusing Pakistani activists (in print and on record) of being native informants simply by way of their associations or belief in universal human rights. The fear of debate is what has stranded us in these political limbos where we are still arguing the place of the military, what to do with a dictator that violated the constitution, whether we can reform discriminatory religious laws and whether Islamism and Islamists are anything but?
Some who are familiar with this scholarship and the connected debate are careful not to intervene as they claim friendships across the divisions. They are privately critical of the diasporic lot yet advise that it’s best to ignore such extraneous politics. Do political reinventions via texts, scholarship and idiom in western academia have an impact and relevance?
Are Muslims the New Jews?: As seen in the recent Taliban peace talks, Islamists have successfully been merged into the mainstream narrative by the Pakistani state despite their dubious democratic value. Their agendas have also been absorbed into international development agencies and human rights organisations. Effective lobbying by Islamists at international levels has meant that Muslim women’s rights or human rights have been severed from the ‘oppression’ of the universal. Instead, these may now be measured according to alternative, culturally specific benchmarks and standards.
This means that in many cases, polygamy is not to be viewed as an aberration but as a beneficial socio-cultural refuge for Muslim women; Shariah courts guarantee Muslim male privilege in western secular polities and; meanwhile, freedom of expression is recognised as a violation of the possible injury it may inflict on sensitive Muslims. All fruits of a liberal-secular flexibility and inclusivity.
A strategic silence has been officially recommended by sensitive westerners who feel the guilt of occupation, the War on Terror and Guantanamo Bay. This time, white people’s guilt has led to international caution and silence over cases of stoning of women, blasphemy cases and persecution of minorities in Muslim contexts. Only when the case is very obviously offensive, such as shooting a girl in the head for going to school, will the international community have the courage to speak out. For that too, there is outrage and a backlash at the ‘liberal interventionism by imperialists’.
That’s fine. Except, meanwhile, Pakistani ‘liberal’ human rights defenders who remain entrenched in native contexts and defend those targeted by faith-based conservatism, continue to be murdered ruthlessly and regularly – by an agent of liberal-secularisation of course, only, disguised as an Islamist. As long as they weren’t rescued by imperialists, that’s good even if a little sad. But this is all lowly prosaic practical detail, not to be used to distract from lofty ideals and theories.
One such concept endorsed by the new liberal-radicals is their observation of how rule of law only benefits the elite upper classes. Most of the very same liberal intelligentsia disparaged by these critics would agree.
However, how does one respond to those who reside at the bottom of local hierarchies as they seek out the refuge of lay state law in order to circumvent local customary codes? Many sometimes appeal not just to ‘rule of law’ but directly to the chief justice of Pakistan to contract free-will or prevent underage marriage, assist in divorce cases, protect from dowry violence, forced conversions and marriages or, provide security from persecution in the name of patriarchy and religion and even, to ensure that they are awarded ILO-sanctioned minimum wage.
It’s one thing to challenge the different layers of elite capture in society but quite another to do so by spinning an apologist stance which depends on glorifying Islamists as the commendable radicals and delegitimises liberal progressives in the process.
What, me worry?: For some years now, one is trying to convince the anti-liberal brigade to conserve their energies because Pakistan has not just haemorrhaged but practically bled out all its liberal secular possibilities by now. Where is the need to Islamise laws when the entire system is practically loaded with a religious bias and justice is dispensed in that framework? Pious judges are kissing murderers and punishment is executed right outside its gates.
Further, in Karachi, several studies and observations have shown how militant groups and Islamists dispense justice at their will and in their land-grabbed communities. All this is possible precisely because there is an absence of any liberal democratic resistance by way of local bodies or liberal groups/collectives who are perhaps, the only unarmed ones in the city today. The difference between the non-theocratic extortionists and the faith-based ones is that the latter are not interested in liberal rubbish such as seeking votes or legitimacy in a democratic dispensation and are therefore, not restrained by any code other than their own divine one.
Further, on the one hand, there is moral outrage amongst academic-activists over how, in 1971, East Pakistan was denied its liberal democratic right but now, apparently, it is a human rights violation to frame liberal-democratic agendas and expectations against the gatekeepers of Fata.
Unfortunately, by borrowing from limited frameworks of analyses and relying on select mentors, these scholars are missing the changing desires of those working class people across the country who do in fact, aspire to a liberal imaginary and freedoms. It may be disappointing to know that the subaltern often harbour the same dreams and aspirations as we urban, middle class democrats do. If these academics ventured outside of their political comfort zones and toned down their own rhetoric, they may just hear the muffled voices of those who are currently being silenced by the sound and fury of their grandiloquence.
Concluded
The writer is a sociologist based in Karachi. Email: afiyazia@yahoo.com