Shabnam liberals and real ones

A liberal here is believed to stand for personal hedonism, not complex freedoms and principles of law and equity.

In Lollywood films of the 1970s and 80s, there was an interesting but overused plot device. A pampered, only child, in the throes of the liberation of adulthood, comes home from a ‘club’ drunk and in some distress because of her lack of sobriety.

Usually played by the venerable Shabnam, the character meets an upright Nadeem, who expresses his concern for her by taking care of her while making evident his moral consternation. In her tanked state, she warns the man who will eventually be her suitor: “Main aik liberal aur roshan khayal soch waali larki hoon.”

This definition of liberal is the most commonly understood one as it relates to the connotations of the English word as used when conversing in Urdu. 'Liberal', therefore, is not really a reflection of a political philosophy, but of personal choices of morality.

Referring to oneself as a liberal is likely to be misunderstood very narrowly and to one’s detriment. As the space for discourse in Pakistan has narrowed, with rising levels of sympathy for extremist thought in this country, the tragedy is that nuances of many positions and variants of the political left have become superfluous, leaving liberalism as a straightjacket defining everyone.

This leaves everyone who comes under the liberal category at a distinct disadvantage for one is comparatively better off seen as a nationalist, a member of the religious right or even as a military fetishist. Why? Because as a liberal, one is seen as standing for personal hedonism, not more complex freedoms and principles of law and equity.

Going through the pages of GT and other society rags, I am pretty sure that the layman would classify the people enjoying themselves in the glossy pics as liberals. But why do people make this connection?

Well, it’s not so much the personal behaviour of those who are classified as liberals, as much as their belief that many personal choices are exactly that - personal choices without larger significance.

That Dr Abdus Salaam was a great scientist who did love Pakistan is entirely ignored because the state declared him a non-Muslim for being an Ahmadi. Many incorrectly discredit him as a scientist because of his religious choices. A soldier who imbibes, though he may be a great patriot, would be considered less of a patriot, even though he shouldn’t be. The Quaid-i-Azam is yet another example; liberals will resist the entirely unnecessary effort to paint him as a Muslim saint because his contributions stand out despite his not measuring up to contemporary moral standards in Pakistan.

This is also why there is such a gulf between ‘liberals’ and the rest. The former pushes back at the mythologising of the latter and, in doing so, tries to establish a far more complex picture of history and our current situation.

A far more eloquent explanation appears in Khaled Ahmed’s article (“Desperately seeking liberal-fascists”, February 6) about the oxymoron of  ‘liberal fascism’, where, in deconstructing the term, he explains liberalism and its inherent lack of absolutes beautifully. This, in turn, explains liberalism as widely encompassing, even with regard to Islam, unlike what many Pakistanis think.

Increasingly, the divide between ‘liberals’ and the rest is defined by the willingness of the left to ask questions, whereas the religious right does not ask questions but articulates resentments simplistically. Both the left and right are relatively on the same page on an issue like Raymond Davis; yet liberals articulate more realistic concerns that encompass not just what is right and wrong, but also questions of law and the client-agent relationship between the US and Pakistan. Emotional jingoism, almost always wrapped up in concerns of ghairat, is useless because it will not engender a real strategy for dispensing justice. Many express disagreement, but liberals articulate it with relatively stable value sets and the religious right and nationalists do so with huge variance. In Malaysia, there is a trend of stern critique against Lee Kwan Yew for describing Muslims as separate and not open to integration. Yet here in Pakistan, it is the basis of the country under the two-nation theory.

At the crux of the backlash against liberals also lies the security establishment. People who don’t share their fantasy world are ‘dangerous’. Ironic, since most liberals are pacifists.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2011.