Critique of liberalism ignore structural features of society that restrict constituency of liberalism in Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD: Dr Asad Q Ahmad’s article “Lunch with Asma Jahangir: A critique of Pakistani liberalism” is interesting, though a tad patronising towards Pakistanis.
I find that critiques of liberalism as a political force and as an examination of conduct of people who claim to believe in liberalism as a political creed ignore structural features of society that severely restrict the constituency of liberalism in Pakistan in all of its dimensions. These are mass poverty and illiteracy. Given the prevalence of these, liberals will have a severely restricted constituency in society, as it is unable to sustain mass readership of books, magazines and newspapers, and its trade unions do not have enough of a financial base to become an effective countervailing force to the economic, political and military elite.
Unfortunately, the restricted and elitist English medium education of the elite and the middle class further restricts and subverts the healthy development of popular liberal forces in Pakistan.
Tariq Ahsan
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2013.
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