Welcome the self-hating liberal extremist

Equating nationalism with regressive tribalism, return to orgiastic abandon with modernity doesn’t make you a liberal

What happens when you step on a long cylindrical balloon right in the middle? The opposite ends bulge out and finally the balloon bursts. This is what is happening to Pakistan. The middle has been under pressure for too long and two extremes have emerged: the religious hardliners and the liberal Nazis. Anytime there is a certain development, international or domestic, both these extremes wiggle out from the underground in alarming numbers and what later follows is a demented serpent dance between two upright, hissing cobras so venomous they would send the deadliest Inland Taipan slither in retreat.

The latest issue to have stirred the hornet’s nest is the media war that followed Saif Ali Khan’s comments regarding a ban on the movie Phantom in Pakistan. There it was again, the usual back and forth between Pakistani and Indian celebrities, the hurt feelings; an angry remark here, a video there, before the levees of restraint finally came loose between the liberals and conservatives.

In and of themselves, the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are not binaries, but rather broad concepts representing a spectrum of beliefs and inclinations. Indeed, all cultures have the liberal and conservative divide. But in Pakistan these terms have acquired an altogether different meaning. A liberal, in the Pakistani context, is increasingly defined as someone in whose calculus Pakistan is to blame for all the problems in the world. Like the conservative hardliner or fanatic, the Pakistani liberal has little room for self-doubt or nuance. Forever wading through the familiar stream of cliches, this curious breed of liberals operates on hair-trigger sensitivity, happy to deluge you in platitudinous splashes of their self-assured wisdom in the awful — awful — event he/she be confronted. Looking to connect dots on a particular issue? You must be a ‘conspiracy theorist’ with a ‘below room temperature IQ level’.

It is, though, easy to see why this happens to be the case. For too long, hardline orthodox types have defined Pakistan. Be it free speech, religious freedom or just the simple demand to escape constant judgment, none has come easily to the average Pakistani. And to protest this menacing status quo is to waltz with death. If you’re small and irrelevant, the establishment might let you go, but not the stick-wielding mobs quick to organise around instances of perceived infractions like armies of ants forming clusters around discarded food scraps. And even if you do enjoy a degree of clout or prominence, you’re still not safe. Families of Salmaan Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti or more recently Sabeen Mehmud — to name a few — understand this better than anyone else.

In the face of this Stalinist nightmare, where free will is routinely denied any meaningful expression, a radical and bellicose opposition is somewhat to be expected. This is, after all, how most ‘isms’ are born. Feminism is largely the reaction to many centuries of patriarchy. Religious extremism in the Muslim world, likewise, is the reaction to centuries of colonial rule and the ensuing identity crisis in these areas. Fascism was seen as a reaction to liberalism and anarchism, which in turn were reactions to religious orthodoxy and monarchy. The thing about all ‘isms’ is this: over time they morph into the same creature in whose opposition they were conceived in the first place. You see this with all the afore-stated ‘isms’. And so it is with this recent emergence of a rabid ‘liberalism’ in Pakistan, which has stretched the envelope from constructive self-criticism to some form of perverse masochistic self-loathing. What was supposed to be a progressive mindset of honest introspection and openness to counter the culture of bigotry and intolerance — typically the province of right-wing radicals — has mutated into hatred of one’s own identity and a blind alignment with all things foreign.

And the same is in evidence in the ongoing hoopla over the movie Phantom’s ban in Pakistan, to which we now return. We can admit that banning any art form is almost never a good idea. Whether one agrees or not with what’s being depicted is discretionary. The same applies to a movie like Phantom, which depicts an Indian incursion in Pakistan to take out the masterminds of the Mumbai attack. One can see how this can set off a thermal nuclear explosion in the emotional nerve centre of some patriotic folks. Nonetheless, freedom of art is sacrosanct. Or is it? Here, context matters. Was Pakistani movie Waar banned in India? Yes. Was Bin Roye’s screening stopped in India? Yes (in Maharashtra). But beyond India’s own insular reaction to Pakistani movies depicting the latter in less favourable light, it is the hyper-nationalist Indian media which merits concern. Take Indian political talk shows as an example. If ever a Pakistani guest is invited for comment, the audience is swiftly introduced to a show of crude bravado and bluster with the show anchor struggling to stay in their seat, taking great liberties to talk over the guest while being proudly jingoistic, condescending and just plain rude. Or take Indian politicians, especially the affiliates of the Taliban-styled RSS rolling in their Hindutva 2.0 muck, who just love making apocalyptic remarks about Pakistan. Some of their Goebbels-esque aspirations make the Third Reich look like a disgruntled Sunday men’s club. This is after all a country where Jaswant Singh was fired by the firebrand BJP party for writing a pro-Quaid-e-Azam book.

And no, none of this should be mistaken for a siren call to some crass eye-for-an-eye with the Indian media or their politicos. Nor is this a feel-good denial of radical thuggish elements in our own society, of which much has been published on these pages — as it should. But it is important to recognise that blind liberalism of the self-flagellating sort is not healthy either, especially in a society already struggling with low self-esteem and an acute identity crisis. Equating nationalism with regressive tribalism, conventions with dogma and a return to orgiastic abandon with modernity doesn’t make you a liberal in any real sense. It just makes you the latest stripe on a mouldy old emblem.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 2^nd,  2015.

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