Celebrating spending and consumption

Side-effect

The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.

I don’t remember – thinking back to my childhood – most people in Pakistan even knowing about the significance of Valentine’s Day, leave alone commemorating it. I am speaking about the 1970s and the 1980s. Even during my youth in the 1980s and the 1990s, there was little mention of February 14 as the day of celebrating love and lovers. Some people did know about the celebrations elsewhere and exchanged greetings or gifts but it remained really limited.

In order to prove that the I am not wrong, I should mention that I grew up in the most cosmopolitan and plural city of Pakistan at the time – Karachi – with a sizeable number of Christian friends and classmates, even a couple of cousins. Saint Valentine is one of their saints after all but it was a never such a big deal for them either.

Sometime in the mid-1990s or even later, I noticed celebrations on a relatively large scale taking place in the major urban centres of Pakistan – greeting cards being exchanged, gifts, flowers and chocolates presented to partners, friends and loved ones, and, young students presenting red roses to their teachers. Heart-shaped red balloons were being bought and sold for children on pavements. Hotels and restaurants offered special deals and shops and bazaars announcing either new products or reduction sales. Some years ago, I got an invitation or two for indoor parties thrown by newly married couples or corporate executives.

‘Corporate’ is the key term here. It means commerce, trade, business, company, etc. Pakistan saw these celebrations becoming public after companies selling consumer goods found another event to promote their sales. This includes private television channels and FM radio stations whose growth coincides with the concept of Valentine’s Day being celebrated publicly. Advertising related to the occasion made people aware of the day. Besides, the middle class expanded at the same time with more disposable incomes, irrespective of the fact whether the affluence was borrowed or real.

By choice, Pakistan is a part of the economic system led by Western capitalism. It is more important to spend than to save. Saving makes you rich, spending makes you look rich. The ability to do both is limited to only a small percentage of people anywhere in the world in the current economic order. One of the going things with the planners of the world economy is that austerity slows down growth. Growth is important to expand the middle class and make the rich even richer. The invisible remain invisible – whether they comprise more than half of the world’s population or not.

Let us look at how these days are celebrated in what are called advanced economies – advanced for those who are already advanced in their incomes. But these economies are certainly successful in creating an illusion of affluence or gaining affluence at some point in time for a majority of their populations, if not the entire populace.

The year begins with promotion and sales for Valentine’s Day in the middle of January for February 14. Shops and malls, restaurants and hotels, holiday resorts and cinema halls all offer packages and sales.

As soon as the event is over, promotion and sales for Easter begin. Seasons change in the northern hemisphere from winter to spring and in the southern hemisphere from summer to autumn. Since Easter is both a celebratory and a sombre occasion, the focus is more on clothing for the spring and upcoming summer seasons or the coming cold in Australia and South Africa. However, airlines and tourist attractions continue to offer cheaper air tickets and short holiday packages for Easter holidays.

March-April is Easter season. As soon as Easter is over, a new celebration for May has been invented – Mother’s Day. Now mothers expect their children to love them if the children are small and love and care for them if they have grown older. In crass capitalism, people do not get much time to spend with their parents. Therefore, one day in the year is dedicated to the old woman by both workers and executives in addition to Christmas, Hanukkah or Eid. And the daughter or son will buy her a gift or take her out for a meal too – or maybe do both if time allows.

Come June. What have you been celebrating for some years now? Jog your memory. Yes, Father’s Day. The old man also deserves some love and respect, and also a gift. So there are reduction sales and meal offers at all malls and eateries to celebrate the special occasion. It also gives one an opportunity to skip Christmas lunch or Eid dinner with dad and spend that day with a friend who is about to make it big in the stock market. Interestingly, on both Father’s Day and Mother’s Day cards and gifts for grandparents are also widely promoted. Besides, grandparents are more likeable and close to grandchildren who make it a point to celebrate days dedicated to their parents with their grandparents instead.

In the US, July brings Independence Day celebrations. Flags, pins, related books, T-shirts, skirts, etc. are sold in big numbers. There are national days or religious celebrations of different kinds following Gregorian, Lunar or other calendars in different parts of the world. Also, summer sales coinciding with holidays in most countries keep consumers occupied. There are sports events during the summer season and many local sales revolve around them.

But as soon as the grand summer reduction sales are over, preparations for Halloween or similar events in other countries begin in late September, early October. Malls and markets, hotels and halls, all are decorated with scary skeletons and large pumpkins. Costumes with shoes and socks, goodies and gauntlets, cookies and candies, all are sold in bulk. As soon as Halloween is over, November in many countries brings Thanksgiving to the US and Canada. So some of you have to throw parties, eat meals together and celebrate the good crop – whether you did or not, someone somewhere did make a fortune this year. Many of you invite friends and family and eat and consume to your heart’s fill.

Finally, Christmas arrives, followed by the New Year in December-January and a befitting promotion and sale of homemaking goods, regular consumables, clothing, cars, holidays, gifts of all kinds, all has to be organised. This brings us all to the close of one year and opening of another year. A new year of shopping and consumption is waiting for us.

But in predominantly non-Christian countries as well, while there is an influence of Western tradition, our own festivals and events are equally commercialised. The whole month of Ramazan in the Muslim world is a shopping festival. Inhabitants of rich Arab countries are consumers to the hilt. In fact, there is a difference as well. The West has both consumers and producers. Those who consume also produce something in some other capacity. Here, in rich Arab countries, people only consume as they produce nothing, add no value to anything and simply devour on money coming through royalty of natural resources.

Therefore, Mr President, regarding your statement discouraging people from marking Valentine’s Day, the issue in Pakistan is not whether or not to celebrate this day. It is, in fact, a complete non-issue. The issues you should worry about when presiding over an elite-captured, trader-dominated state are consumption and greed. The issue for you must be those 140 million invisible citizens who are crushed under the current economic order, not a teenage boy sending flowers to the girl next door.

Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com