Pakistan’s changing liberal landscape

The liberals only lament and criticise, without so much as attempting to evolve a parallel progressive narrative.

I have said this elsewhere, but will repeat: “the natural rhythm of a society is Right of centre”. And this is unpalatable to a liberalist mind, especially of the kind that now remains in Pakistan. Especially, when talk of the talks with the Taliban adorns the front pages of our mainstream media. I will explain.

At a recent sojourn of the pick of this creed (big names) — that at best can be numbered in tens only, nationwide — I was literally mauled when I made an opening statement on exactly those lines. I said more, but members were on a short fuse. There could be other reasons, too, of such explosive disorder, like stereotyping individuals and shooting the messenger, but those now are pervasive attributes in a people that have fallen to finding refuge in primordial security through tribal affiliation.

Primordiality? Tribalism? Those are alien concepts to liberalist philosophies; yet, these very sentiments become the resort when societies begin to fray. What used to be a classic expression of the Right — narrow-minded, exclusivist, obdurate and intolerant — is now the unfortunate haunt of many a liberal who, in a strange twist, also appears as dispossessed and dislocated as the poor fringe despite his elitist social bearing.

The liberal landscape in Pakistan has changed and is tending to merge in its attitudinal disposition to the far conservative and exclusivist Right. It sets into motion unnecessary tugs in confines of closed circles where Liberalism is still celebrated but is extinct and unrecognisable in the public domain. The liberals emulate their cousins on the Right with claims to finality by talking as loud and foul, with the exception that the cousins also wield their swords to establish finality. A liberalist in Pakistan reflects a new reality today — socially alive, politically dead. And that is what ails the balance of this society of ours.

Here is why. A society is a conglomeration of individual streaks, which of instinct are possessive, hence exclusivist, in nature. From an individual’s natural desire to survive, and save both his life and property from the prying eyes of others engenders a selfish mindset, which is loath to share even in the name of moral equality. This expands from him to his brood to his community, each adding a layer of safety to his inherent motive of securing what is his. This is patent Right; the basis of market-based economies in a capitalist system; and, thoroughly anti-socialist. This is selfish, greed-based and non-egalitarian; and hence, prone to social destabilisations with unequal distribution of power and pelf.

What sets this natural proclivity in balance are two attributes in a modern sociopolitical formulation: a natural antithesis in the shape of a socialist Left in the political domain — of which sadly now there exists no sign; the Soviet Union having perestroik-ered and China an interesting mish-mash of a composite success story. And second, democracy, the surviving political order in a world that has provided a common platform to ensure inclusivity, if not equivalence in wealth. Democracy’s essence, however, enables a system of communal sharing of the burden to run the state and the society through taxation. Corollary: in the absence of a vibrant Left, or any Left, the best bet for a society to wean away from its Rightist moorings is the democratic culture that will encourage sharing and joint responsibility, as well as enjoin rights and duties.

Where there is neither Left nor a credible democratic process, the society will fall back to its default — its natural rhythm to the Right. View events in Pakistan over the last couple of decades, and perhaps a bit longer, to notice how society has indeed fallen back to its more conservative moorings. Military rules, yes, but then equally poor civilian, democratic in name only, outings too. A weak democracy leads to primordial resort. Across the border, the Communist Party of India, once a force that ruled West Bengal and Kerala, is now only a shadow of its former self. As a consequence, the void is filled by the regional Right forces and the BJP in the centre. The natural rhythm of the society is to the right. In the upcoming elections in India, Congress will only have a chance if it too can move from its traditionally Left of the centre position to the Right as bonafide centrists, or for even greater dividends, a little right of the centre. To many in India, Congress has already moved much farther Right from its philosophical base. That is what appeals to the electorate, which of its natural rhythm is placed on the right of the spectrum.

The demise of the Left is either a comprehensive failure of those who espouse such linkages, or simply a phenomenon where the concept is now more or less irrelevant. Pakistan’s typical social formulations though, as in India, still lend themselves to obtaining conditions where such sociopolitical leanings could still resonate. But the Leftists in Pakistan have lost the plot. Politically, the PPP, known as the party to retain some leftist leanings, has rather abjectly lost its philosophical direction, while some self-styled liberalists have tended to translate any such notion to social liberalism alone without any political underpinning.

The consequences are horrendous. The only narrative today in Pakistan is that of the Right. May that be from the PML-N, the PTI, or any of the religious parties. The liberals only lament and criticise, without as much as attempting to evolve and institute a parallel progressive narrative. They want the military to take the fight to the Taliban, but are oblivious to the deeper entrenchment of the ideological base of the Right in society. They live in the past and are therefore irrelevant. Because they have no narrative, hence the only narrative that succeeds is the narrative of the right.

And finally, without anyone realising, a theocratic system of governance has now emerged as the second alternative to the cyclical military and civilian structures in Pakistan. Consider the state’s attempt at finding accommodation with the Taliban. To keep the two alternatives out, democracy must deliver. There cannot be a stronger argument to urge the political parties at the helm to please deliver in the interest of Pakistan. Else, Egypt is too recent to forget. And then, the Liberals will have even more to lament.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2013.

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