Of all the political species in the world, the apologist is perhaps the most compromised one. It is for this reason that I admire the young and determined Minister of Information Technology, Anusha Rahman. She has been undeterred in her pursuit of gagging the internet even as she has been at the receiving end of considerable political flak, particularly from a segment of Pakistan’s urban and internet-dependent youth.

On the other hand, the assassination of Sabeen Mehmood, the low-key owner of an alternative T2F café-cum-talk-shop is being mourned by those who uphold freedoms of expression and for the brutal silencing of her commitment towards expanding a public and virtual space for creative and critical thinking. However, much of this sentiment, as it competes by way of eulogies in foreign newspapers, has distorted the role of T2F and exaggerated Sabeen’s role as an activist and "intellectual".

Certainly, it is shattering to see a woman younger and more undeserving of such brutality than many of us, meet such an unjust end and to see her family and friends have to suffer this. However, in contrast to the clarity with which bigots, conservatives and nationalists operate, the liberals’ sentimental default mode to amplify their victimhood rather than respond in politically effective and analytically sound ways continues to hound us in Pakistan.

In her dogged pursuit of a cybercrime bill that promotes some of the most absurd, paranoid and hawkish censorship policies over millennial technology, Rahman’s lack of apology is worthy of respect -- mine in any case. While Sabeen was devoted to enabling alternative media and expressions in her seemingly unobtrusive way, Rahman is committed to preventing Pakistanis from access to information and potential critical thinking.

This crime -- to be able to think critically -- is something that my generation was deprived of the old-fashioned way. Our teachers, text-books and nationalist media didn’t just kill and bury our spirit of inquiry -- worse, they duped and depoliticised us for decades. Rahman doesn’t understand that her career as a politician is as indebted to the information age (and gender mainstreaming) as it is to her elite political class background.

Also read: An open letter to Sabeen Mahmud

However, compared to the ineffectual, confused and scattered reaction and response by those who support Sabeen’s project, I admire Anusha Rahman’s divine self-righteousness. Despite her hawkish instinct, fake nationalism and irrational policy reasoning, Rahman is neither apologetic nor reflecting on her given task. Meanwhile, the injured free-thinking progressives direct their slings and arrows at the bumbling albeit, dangerous conservatives -- but do so by hyperbole and exaggeration of their own image and importance.

They have no analytical clarity or consensus on how to recover from the political fall-out of Sabeen’s murder.

Just one organisation, the Women’s Action Forum (an organisation the writer is associated with), issued a reflective statement which called upon activists to rethink their relationship with state agencies; recalled the responsibility of the Baloch government to consider its role in the federation through dialogue; and questioned the State in specific ways -- but the statement was diluted by other liberal organisations and censored by the newspapers. Civil society has learned no lessons nor rethought its modes of activism nor recalibrated its methods beyond knee-jerk responses.

Regarding the Cybercrime bill, the virtual progressives are up in… not arms… but fingers that are speedily firing across their keyboards, protesting the proposed legislation. Aptly, much of the protest is taking place on-line and some discussions in private universities and NGO forums. Some dedicated NGOs that the protectionist Anusha Rahman disparages as the ungrateful children of the ‘mother state’ (interesting gender change), have ably taken up the legal fight against the state. But they too have limited their politics to a static, ethical one of individualistic freedom of expression.

Related article: The dreaded Section 31 etc.

The state cannot be shamed into conceding rights and certainly not virtually but needs to be pressurised through collective movement politics. For that, we have to step out of cyber world. Can all students in Punjab organise a campaign to refuse, return and reject the PML-N’s laptop politics?

We know that the conservatives are easy targets for their anathema to democratic debate and rational consensus. But let’s turn to the liberal-progressive apologists for a second. Historically, this lot has consistently defended the supposedly liberal propensity of the PPP as a progressive legislative force that always opposes draconian policies, in contrast to the PML-N’s permanent penchant for regressive law and policy-making. This is interesting -- not inaccurate in its core sentiment -- but in terms of the expectations of what ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ means as defined by political supporters.

Historically, governance under the PPP has been defended ad nauseum by apologists with the excuse that despite their deep commitment, the party never commanded a majority to pass meaningful progressive legislation. On the other hand, they are now being solely credited for ‘radical’ legislation in their last government. This despite the fact that the PPP unanimously approved and passed the Nizam e Adl; backtracked on the domestic violence bill; reneged their stand on the blasphemy law; defended the Dogar court and their own openly misogynistic cabinet ministers and; systematically isolated and threw under the political bus the Aitezaz Ahsans, Sherry Rehmans and Salmaan Taseers during the course of their term.

These apologists also suffer convenient amnesia over the historical ‘progressive’ amendments brought by Zulfikar Bhutto in our Constitution for which Ahmadis will pay a life-long price.

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The justification for the Nizam e Adl is that it was just for one section of the country but the Political Parties Act for the same ‘one section’ is touted as a noble achievement of the PPP. The censorship of the Shinakht art exhibition where Benazir Bhutto’s portrait was violently torn down for what was called ‘political blasphemy’ was defended for being libelous and rightfully suppressed. The apologia is that for the record and on the legal books, this liberal party does not move regressive laws.

Amazingly, many such justifications are sandwiched between despairing discussions on how MNAs of the PPP have shielded rapists and violators of the poor. Such apologia also rationalises how we must accept corruption as normative rather than, challenging ourselves to scrutinise what new governance in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa is doing to circumvent such ‘traditional’ politics.

More importantly, the fact that the regressive, conservative-led Punjab Assembly passed 11 ‘progressive’ bills (nearly all, pro-women) just two months ago, is unworthy of any analysis -- let alone, being accredited for a broadening of the canvas of women’s rights. Apologists cannot afford to allow more on to their perch lest it begins to shake under the pressure.

Zardari is paid glowing tribute for his genius harnessing of the Kayani factor and for holding off on laws such as the Pakistan Protection Act etc. But, at the same time, the apologists still claim the party was a permanent victim of the same establishment and its machinations all through its term. The current government is not credited for its Sharif-to-Shareef relationship, nor its role in the repositioned civil-military turn that dates from the Zarb-e-Azb operation and which kept parliament afloat through the dharna-coup attempt.

See also: Realpolitik for now

The mature counselling by Aitezaz Ahsan and Asif Zardari last summer notwithstanding, the PPP is not held liable as ‘unprogressive’ for its vote on the establishment of the military courts -- whatever the pressures. Despite the narrow-minded politics of the Saudi-loving conservatives, the fact that this parliament took an unprecedented stand against the Yemen intervention apparently does not qualify as ‘progress’.

In other words, the damage that the apologists inflict is due to their dilution of the very definition of progressive -- which has come down to a reductive and safe resistance in the role played by liberals only when they are in Opposition. This defeatism is the mark of reduced expectations. It lowers the benchmark and allows feel-good, self-congratulatory propaganda.

Whether in parliament or in civil society, the apologists simply act as buffers and spin-doctors. They do injustice to the cause of public pressure and retard and compromise the very role of an already supplicant and confused civil society.

Should we be opposing the conservative’s myopic and illiberal policies? Undoubtedly. Should we celebrate the progressive laws passed by the liberal or any party? Certainly. But it is only when the rest of us stop hiding behind the symbolism of candle-light vigils, exaggerated accounts of liberal importance, cathartic tributes and get the liberals in the media to stop self-censoring, that we can get a grip of how to strategise and resist wisely and effectively against the political attacks and constitutional and legal obstacles to our freedoms of thought and expression.