Social narcissism

Our social narcissism not only allow us not to see ‘Sunnisation’ of Pakistan but also forces us to tell more lies.

Anyone confused and worried by the Pakistani state’s inability to deal with terrorism must instantly refer to the Greek mythology of narcissism. It’s the story of a Greek character who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. In Pakistan, we seem to have improvised through falling in love with the reflection of our self-created lies. This includes all — the state, the government and the society.

Perhaps, our narcissism is an essential self-survival tool because if we do not continue to hope to change things, then we might as well surrender completely as we seem to be doing gradually against the forces of terror that have gained strength systematically. But hope is positive. What we do instead, is create lies for our entrapment. A few months ago, for instance, I heard an old retired general trying to impress others in a track-II group about how certain key militant leaders, who normally go around marketing themselves as agents of welfare, were not a threat because they would normally not win elections. The fact that different religious-political groups do not score well in elections is something we tell ourselves and others to lie about the changing reality of our society. Religious parties do not perform well mainly because they are not programmed to perform in post-colonial patronage politics and many do not even have faith in electoral politics or democracy. But a bigger fact is that they have consistently expanded social space for themselves on the basis of legitimacy gained due to their monopoly over religious discourse in a state that was created in the name of religious identity.

Many of us get upset when a particular state sponsored civil-servant-turned-columnist argues that Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s August 11 speech never happened. That is clearly his lie. However, our lie is when we talk about clarity in the minds of the makers of this country regarding the place that religion would have in the political and social psychology of Pakistan’s state and society. The examples of how the lifestyle of the founding father and other leaders was Western-liberal is used to construct an imagined reality about the inherent nature of the Pakistani state being secular from its birth. Faisal Devji argues in his seminal work titled Muslim Zion that “the distinction between personal and public life is bound to be endlessly circular because these realms are incommensurable”. However, I’d argue that the distinction between the personal and the public does becomes fuzzy because it is difficult to constantly park an ideology in a corner and pretend that it does not have an impact. The growth of political thought is not just about how ideas flow from the top but it also pertains to how those views are perceived, interpreted and adopted at the bottom of the social ladder. In any case, going through numerous citations in Devji’s book about the personal life of Jinnah, we do become conscious of how the personal and the public do indeed become commensurable. At least, it becomes difficult for the masses to draw a distinction when they see how the public and personal were connected even for the founding father. Thus, when Ruttie Jinnah converted to Shia Islam even for the purpose of registration of marriage or the Supreme Court of Pakistan hid facts about Jinnah’s sectarian identity, it is a signal to ordinary folk about how the idea of Muslim political identity would manifest itself.

An idea that was meant to provide political emancipation for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, thus, could not be stopped into later converting into an idea for a ‘Sunnisation’ of the Pakistani state. The interpretation of an idea cannot be confined to a single dimension or controlled. Sadly, not only does our social narcissism not allow us to see this but also forces us to tell more lies. We even tend to stop debate or argument to support certain lies or half-truths. For example, it is very common to hear some people get upset any time you try to point issues with certain festivals and events. The other day, I tried to convince an editor to let me write a critique of a recently held literary fest. The response was in the negative because, as others have argued as well, “aren’t these festivals better than bombs going off and suicide attacks”, as if unconditional eulogising of an event and condemnation of terrorist attacks are incommensurable. The idea that events, which have no or little link with the land and local culture, will bring a fundamental change in our attitudes is part of the set of lies we tell ourselves. Or the fact that decisions are tactical with no implication on our strategic reality. Surely, when former president Asif Zardari appointed Maulana Shairani and other of his ilk to the Council of Islamic Ideology, it was nothing but a move to please Maulana Fazlur Rehman and build linkage with his JUI-F. However, the change in the leadership of a critical institution will leave us with numerous decisions like the recent one on polygamy and acceptance of early-age marriage, which will have long-term implications on changing the attitude of society. Our tactics have created hurdles that may have even disempowered us from starting counter-movements that we once saw in the past. Today, the Women Action Forum may find it more difficult to protect the interests of women like it did during the 1980s. Now, we are a more Islamised society than we were back then.

In the decade of the 1980s, the public and the private were still a bit separated tracks. Now, they have increasingly become inseparable. And so, decisions by a judge to provide some space to female students kept in habeas corpus or give a cold shoulder to a militant outfit may actually instigate trouble leading to the death of a dozen people. However, we will continue not to see how our own lies have caught on to us. Maybe it’s time we gave up hope for a liberal Pakistan. Perhaps, the shock might force us to rethink our strategic dimension.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2014.

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