What tipping point?

Pakistani pundits have found a new pastime. Hardly a day passes without one of them announcing that the country is fast approaching a point of no return or a tipping point. In the absence of any scientific data or public survey, they invariably point to the same circumstantial evidence being shown on your television screens or in your newspapers. I recently accosted one such gentleman and sought some evidence. He pointed to the “spontaneous” and “organic” widespread protests against the electricity bills. Luckily, a newspaper carrying a picture of such a protest was within reach. The photo showed a bunch of protesters holding a printed banner by “Anjuman-i-Tajiran” (organisation of traders). I showed it to him and asked if he knew of any similar instance where a “spontaneous” and “organic” crowd came so prepared and with the sponsor’s name all over the place. Without uttering a word, our gentleman threw a wounded look and walked away.

Let’s be clear. If our intellectuals, some of whom I genuinely respect, want to believe in the fairytales about the inevitability of revolutions, there is no skin off my nose. They are welcome to it. But these unsubstantiated generalisations and oversimplifications come at a cost and can have far more sinister ramifications than you would think. My purpose here is to expose those tragic possibilities.

The first point in this regard, revealing the hypocrisy of the situation, is easy and was aptly made by my good friend and current affairs commentator Zaigham Khan in a video clip available on social media. In this clip, he points out how counterintuitive, if not downright hypocritical, it is for the shopkeepers to protest the electricity price hike when they are partly responsible. It is common knowledge that Miftah Ismail, as finance minister, wanted to bring the trader community into the tax net, and his party’s senior vice president instructed him to reverse that decision publicly on social media. Later, his successor, Ishaq Dar, decided to balance books through more atrocious methods.

But wait. There is more. When there are many disgruntled political forces in the country jockeying for power and public sympathy, is it fair to assume that these protests are organic? What gets my goat is that none of these pundits even bother to pick up the telephone and call local reporters to scrutinise what is presented to them as evidence.

In the absence of verifiable scientific data and knowing that our colleagues in the reporting business, including OSRs (out-of-station reporters), seldom travel away from highways or metalled roads, one has to turn to history for answers. And the five thousand years of South Asian history reveal that this region isn’t quite known for revolutions. The 1857 rebellion does not count as it was a dying order’s feeble attempt to preserve itself against the onslaught of a new one. And it, too, failed. Likewise, folks make a mountain out of two particular cases. The protests against Ayub Khan and the lawyers’ movement against General Musharraf. It is noteworthy that both movements materialised when the permanent institutions had grown wary of two of their own who had overstayed their welcome. Not really the kind of revolution you are looking for.

Make no mistakes. The common man on the street is in distress. Price shocks have a compounding effect on the cost of living crisis. He deserves to get whatever relief the state can muster. But in South Asia, public anger is usually of implosive and not explosive nature. Forget about the tipping point. Worry about the melting point. When metal melts, it becomes liquid. When the poor man melts, he becomes dust. When the going gets tough, he doesn’t have time or energy to protest. He goes out and tries to earn more to fulfil his obligations, even to beg, borrow and steal. When he fails, he literally dies of shame. There are a few cruel exceptions, but they are usually magnified beyond merit.

Now, in the face of such distress, imagine a pundit appearing on television and telling a poor man that an Arab spring is in the offing and he can be the next Bouazizi. Do you know what that may actually accomplish? That another poor man kills himself in public in the false hope of becoming the first martyr of the elusive revolution.

Let us now pay some heed to the psychological cost. If you haven’t already, I invite you to read Viktor Frankl’s magnificent book, Man’s Search for Meaning. A holocaust survivor and trained psychiatrist who founded logotherapy, Frankl inspires readers with his personal story. A substantial part of his book is dedicated to narrating the harrowing ordeals he encountered and survived at Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. He then uses his lived experience to study man’s quest for meaning. Why was it that some inmates gave up and died, and others struggled hard to survive? Unlike Freud’s method (will to pleasure) and Adler’s (will to power), logotherapy champions the cause of will to meaning. Those who had something to live for tried to survive those nasty camps. Based on this, he writes: “What man needs is not homeostasis but what I call ‘noö- dynamics’, i.e., the existential dynamics in a polar field of tension where one pole is represented by a meaning that is to be fulfilled and the other pole by the man who has to fulfil it.” Despite the suffering, the quest to fulfil one’s purpose can be a source of joy, gratification and satisfaction in the end. In ordinary households, successfully raising a family is such a purpose.

When our intellectual elite tries to make a spectacle of an ordinary man’s suffering to perpetuate its meta-narratives, it robs society of this true meaning. This can lead to what Frankl calls “existential frustration”, which may result in neuroses or total human failure.

If you know there is suffering around you, do what you privately can to alleviate it. But to use it as a talking point just to score some political points is unforgivable.

But to ask our elite to show compassion for the poor is a tall order. Remember, the poor underbelly of this country has always existed. Today’s realities have only distressed this lot further. But it has existed because of the widespread apathy of the elite.

Want an example? Recently, an heir apparent of a major party was caught on tape stating that since the health card was about the only good thing the previous government did, it needed to be abolished. And then some of these pundits would go on air and justify it. If you can do that, buddy, you never cared about the little man.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2023.

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