When hatred turns into rebellion
The writer is a senior analyst based in Hyderabad. He can be reached at aftabahmedkhanzada@gmail.com
Author Carolyn has said, “No one knows the end of the story that is the story of your life. But what is the end of it depends on what you are doing and how you are spending your day and night.”
Frantz Fanon was a 20th century psychotherapist and philosopher. Many political leaders and revolutionary movements have taken advantage of his caste, and sow the seeds of revolutions in their respective regions and countries. His book, The Wretched of the Earth, holds the status of a scripture for revolutionaries all over the world.
Fanon was born on Martinique, an island in the West Indies, during the neo-colonial era. The island was a French colony then. Fanon writes in his book that local population in every city is divided into two parts: one, an area where the rich and successful people and those in authority live and where foreign rules apply; two, miserable settlements where the poor and subjugated people live. This class division naturally gives rise to racial problems. Fanon believes that the oppressor often uses religion to try and legitimise his oppression, besides giving legal colour to his self-imposed supremacy by calling racial discrimination a law of nature. He succeeds in persuading poor people that God does not like worldly comforts and wants the poor to embrace hardships in this world, so that they may have a permanent abode in the paradise. On the contrary, a revolutionary wants to enjoy paradise while living in the world. He wants to face reality rather than an imaginary paradise. He prefers the sorrows and happiness of the earth to the paradise of fools.
Fanon says that the neo-colonial powers use a language in which the native people are identified as animal, beasts and uncivilised beings. They make fun of local people’s dress, traditions and religious beliefs. Their only aim is to ridicule the local population and prove to them that they are inferior, uncivilised and inhumane. This behaviour causes resentment, rage and tingling for the local people, and this resentment gradually turns into hatred. And when common people also join the struggle for freedom, this hatred take the shape of revenge, and the anger accumulated over decades and centuries boils over in the form of a terrible violence which consumes the culture, religion, language and tradition imposed in the name of power. This is how people avenge all the abuses inflicted on them over decades and centuries.
Fanon believes that this revolt of the indigenous people takes the form of a revolution. They put their lives at stake for a bright future because they want to establish a society based on justice for their future generations.
Today, Pakistan has been suffering from the same situation that Fanon has mentioned in his book. The only difference is that it is our elite that are responsible for our plight, and not some foreign neo-colonial power. If we look at our society, anger is brewing in the bones of every citizen, and every ordinary man is burning with hatred because of the injustice and cruelty done to him. Is it not true that the lava of anger accumulated over decades has turned into violence being witnessed in parts of the country? It seems that the 250 million people are thinking of avenging the cruel injustice done to them all these decades. They appear desperate to destroy every rotten tradition imposed on them by force. Those who have exploited innocent people, inflicted cruelty on them, poisoned their lives, and divided them on the basis of religion, language and race — their time of reckoning is coming soon. The usurpers and tyrants beware! When the oppressed will be free from their shackles, they will not continue singing in praise of their exploiters. When their heads, which were forced down to the ground by the elite, will rise, the candles of acclamation will be burning in their eyes for the elite to see. When the common people will stand firmly on their legs, their eyes will seek out those who burdened them with the sins they did not do. No one will be forgiven and forgotten then.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2023.
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