An antiphrasis republic?

We are the democrats and defend democracy to death. We are the saviours of the country. We'll change the fate of the country - once again - should we be given more power. We don't play politics; politics forcibly plays us. We liberate politics. Don't we? For we are politically apolitical and apolitically political. We guaranteed civil supremacy and democratic tenets. All at the cost of our politics. We, the public servants, serve the masses that no others could. We are the guardians of the Constitution. We are the fountainheads and speakers of truth. We, the intellectuals, guard the people's interests. We are the champions of the divine tenets. We are personifications of Prometheus, Moses, Theseus, Heracles, Mandela, King Arthur and the reincarnations of Houyi, Beowulf and Cú Chulainn.

These catchphrases have been preached by all the centres of power for decades in the country. What these aphorisms truly mean - and whether they align with reality - demands honest appraisal. Though different disciplines might interpret it differently, the truth in our social contexts suggests what ground realities objectively reflect. For people, truth is what they live; for power, it is what serves it - the brute truth. Today, much like the eternal duel of virtue and vice, truth in Pakistan has remained contested not for no reason. As has been most of its history, it's not the truth of logic, sanity or ground realities that dictates most policies and practices in Pakistan but the truth of power. The brute truth is one that serves power regardless of reality - truth that replaces truth. All veneered with democracy, national interest, patriotism, nationalism and justice.

The truth of power has historically remained openly contested unless the power becomes overly intolerant of people's truth. In the face of its oppressiveness, a few dared to challenge it through metaphoric dark humour. Aesopian indirect, fable-like, coded dark jokes and Swiftian rational and morally sharp absurdities challenged tyranny without being blunt or inviting ire. The expression of truth, even in Aesopian and Swiftian ways, stands outlawed in our part of the world today. Rarely do a few metaphoric, paradoxical pictures of truth make it to the mainstream.

This is largely because, unlike otherwise, the oppressive power in the country is more frightened of the truth of the people. The centres of power, for their perpetuation, tend to use Swiftian dark humour to express truth in a rather antithetical manner. They invert even the Kantian device - not to expose power, but to entrench it - speaking lies dressed as truth, absurdity as reason. Also, they take conspicuous refuge in mythic personifications - perhaps because there is nothing (good) in their actual record worth claiming.

Isn't it interesting that, unlike otherwise, the power has to justify itself in Swiftian dark humour? Yet, this dark humour of all the catchphrases, statements and expressions, like ground realities, exposes more than it conceals. Pakistan's media holds most relevance and veracity in the truth they speak - in catchphrases, in coded language and in antiphrasis.

Therefore, if you're curious enough to know the truth, switch the buzzwords of the powerful to their opposites. You will know that power inverts truth and that antiphrasis becomes the only viable epistemology for reading Pakistani politics today. You will find a Pakistani version of Orwell meets Swift, with a touch of Baudrillardian hyperreality.

Today, we largely live in the world of paradiastole. What is presented as truth by power is lies and vice versa. And the lies are banned - the ones that expose the truth of the power. The truth that embodies fallacies.

Therefore, the truth is largely the only thing being expressed freely. And rewarded. He who is said to be dead lives. He who is venerated as prominent is a kleptocrat. He who is an intellectual of integrity is a courtier. He who is pious is wicked. The same holds for patriotism, empathy, intellect and public interests.