The meaning of being free

Even after 75 years of independence, why does a common Pakistani have to struggle and make an effort to prove that he is a patriot? That proof is demanded by the state as the charges of being unpatriotic are brought against an individual by the government that runs the affairs of the state. Any law under which such charges are brought against the citizens of Pakistan is a draconian law, the sole purpose of which is to blackmail an individual. What is happening in Pakistan today is what the developed world experienced two hundred years ago in the exploitation conditions of 18^th and 19^th centuries. Industrial revolution brought huge socio-economic changes and the exploited stood up to challenge the exploiters. The birth of new ideas and ideologies like communism and Marxism can be attributed to the presence of such exploitative conditions.

People that believed in the ideas and ideologies of that time were making a very rational choice of not allowing themselves to be exploited. What they did and why they did it was to seek justice and when many parts of the world ended up being colonised and Western colonisation and imperialism peaked — the patriotism of people in the colonised world became a political concept which not only had a clear aim and purpose but also huge motivation and which was to get rid of the foreign invaders and reclaim their land and lost sovereignty. The foreign rulers, the colonisers saw this new born nationalism with anti-state connotation as extremely intimidating and revolutionary but those people were not just revolutionists but were also great patriots. Some of our forefathers must be amongst them who stood up against the British Raj and claimed and managed the independent nations in which both the Indians and Pakistanis live. Therefore, the question that I ask is how can we forget this past? How can a state that has earlier been colonised forget the atrocities committed by the colonisers? Years later, how can it resort to similar methods of using coercive intimidation and violence in the service and achievement of its political aim? Are we free and sovereign or are we still a colony?

The Italian socialist thinker Carlo Pisacan famously said that, ‘People will not be free when they are educated but will be educated when they are free’. We talk about the tyrant Mussolini and Hitler and their fascist and Nazi regimes but we hardly ever talk about the people that followed and supported these tyrants in huge numbers. Were these people ignorant, illiterate and uneducated? Didn’t they realise what was happening to their countries? What was the dominant factor that forced these people to bow before these tyrannical regimes? The intrinsic component of these fascist and Nazi governments was not to engage in public service and create modern welfare industrialist states but to seek the obedience of the people through intimidation, fear and coercion. People were scared and fearful and despite being educated were not free to make their choices as they feared the long arm of these states. No wonder, any government that employs strong arm tactics is termed fascist.

What is really disturbing in Pakistan is that the atrocities committed and the purges made by the tyrants like Mussolini’s and Hitler’s were during the time of war. Why is the government of Pakistan resorting to coercive methods during the moderate time? Is it a conspiracy to achieve total power through coercive actions? Has such a power ever been retained and sustained over a prolonged period of time? Do we have to go through the fate of Argentina, Greece or Chile of the 70’s. Or El Salvador, Peru and Columbia of the 80’s? All these countries were ruled by violence and intimidation which was termed state terror.

That brings me to question why the act of terrorism is declared and accepted as an irrational choice when committed by a terrorist but a rational one when committed by any state? Why do we have double standards while dealing with and identifying and calling whatever is terrorism whether it is committed by a state or non-state actors or even sub nationalists. Ironically, in today’s world the violence is less used against the leaders or the governments and more mass oppression committed by the governments of the totalitarian states against their own people.

History tells us that movements in third world countries fought against colonial oppression and Western domination because people wanted to be free. The reason for which people stood up and fought against western occupiers of their land is the same reason for which they will continue to stand up and fight and the reason is very simple — freedom.

This is not a medieval world in which we live and people want to be free to write, speak and do what they want. If those that stood up for a just cause and fought for the freedom and liberation of our lands from invaders, settlers and colonists were patriots and are our heroes than how can those who rise up to safeguard and defend the same freedom that our forefathers gained by giving sacrifices can be termed unpatriotic?

It is not the business of the state to decide who is patriotic or unpatriotic in this country. Especially, when the business of the state is run by governments that are unpopular. No amount of education can reconstruct the lost intellectual capital in Pakistan. The only way the lost intellectual capital in the country will be reconstructed is when the people will start feeling free. Modern welfare states have unshackled the people but have shackled themselves. The implementation of constitution, the rule of law, justice and equal rights enjoyed by the people sets the modern world free. There the state is shackled because even a poor, illiterate and uneducated man enjoys the protection of law and the state is equally answerable to him as he is to the state.

Like the bomb in the dustbin is circumstantially imposed ‘poor man’s air force’, so are the street protests and demonstrations the circumstantially imposed chained men’s response against an unfair, oppressive, exploitative and abusive government to seek freedom and justice. Patriotism is love for country not the love for any government.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2023.

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