Daily Times

I recently read with shame and embarrassment that Arjumand Azhar, the man who exposed Rehman Malik of the PPP and PML-N lawmaker Dr Ramesh Kumar for VIP culture on social media, has been fired from his job. His former employers have denied the suspicion that their decision was influenced by any political pressure. My article ‘Savage sense of entitlement’ (Daily Times, September 26, 2014) described the ugly, bullying VIP culture embraced by the elites in our society. I am seriously concerned about the aggressors’ ability to work with the former employers of Arjumand Azhar and for the victims of abuses of power. As Jacob Sahetapy once noted, “like water which never streams up” such abuses of power affect generally the less privileged in our society and are intricately linked with social, political and cultural structures of corrupt political domination.

In my first article in this regard, a strong condemnation of the current state of dirty political power was provided. Despite the insult to intellectual discipline and the growth of fervent anger amongst the public, Rehman Malik and his political fellows maintain levels of victimisation around the country, at least as far as is measured by the evidence at hand. Indeed, it can be argued that political bullying itself has been co-opted by a particular political agenda in Pakistan, of law and order that certainly does not work in the best interests of most victims and survivors. This form of co-option is not the only threat. Other critics have concerns that political bullying and victim harassment are sometimes hijacked by state media and media writers in Pakistan, turning victimisation into pedestals for political rhetoric. I write to ask if there can be any use for common sense that shows such little imagination in escaping the clutches of a reactionary right realist political paradigm that Rehman Malik characterises as dominant in the politics of victimisation?

Public claims notwithstanding, power politics is so strong that the politicisation of ‘victimology’ is both inevitable and unhealthy. Rather than defending the act and accepting it with grace, Rehman Malik responded with denials and with perilous political neutrality that will urge the public to struggle for a particular form of political change that offers possible solutions and might allow them to challenge right-realism.

As part of the ‘new’ Pakistan, Imran Khan calls for a radical shift in attention away from the VIP culture of entitlement to modesty in general, from the construction of symbolic policies to the implementation of tangible ones and from manipulation of law to the implementation of punishment and visible justice. He is asking us to foster a healthier social environment that, in turn, might generate fewer incidents of victimisation. One wonders, however, whether the role of this lighthouse is enough to ignite the fire of social revolution that will, in turn, save the public from the curse of political victimisation. We can change and whether these politicians like it or not many members of the public in this situation do seem to advocate a much rougher political activism, one that makes explicit the way victimisation is bound up in the exercise and abuse of power. The primary focus should be on the control and prevention of this political power behaviour: elites have to be prevented from taking undue advantage of and breaking the law, and must be punished if they do. There is little interest in exploring the concepts of power and structures in society. Indeed, the political view of right wing politics is that there is no such thing as society and some forms of social hierarchy or social inequality are inevitable, natural, normal or desirable. This has to be distinguished from political systems that provide order for their public and direct problems to be governed in terms of their relationship to society, whether as functional or dysfunctional, integrated or isolated, organised or disorganised.

The area of power politics and victimisation raises interesting questions about whether political bullying itself is criminogenic: how long will it remain the prerogative of the elite and corrupt politicians, leading to violations of the common man’s right to equality, justice and security, and how long will it take before the public comes out onto the streets and protests corrupt politicians who continue with the savage looting of communities? Why are politicians so well protected, yet arguably so poorly regulated by legal codes? This victimology pushes us to examine white-collar crimes and rogue politicians rather than salute and be afraid of their dirty antics. Voices against their audacity may give us a deeper insight into the relationship between political bullying and victimisation.

‘New’ Pakistan is therefore becoming an attractive slogan since it asks to adopt the language of realism to describe the law making process, instead of addressing the causes of the deviant social behaviour being created. Given the current feeble moral discipline of the people in Pakistan between learned helplessness and years of oppression, desire to support the new Pakistan turns out to be quite rational. People see a decline in moral values and, in particular, a lack of discipline both inside and outside the home. The only practical outcome said to be achievable is the minimisation of the impact that injustice might have on ordinary people. Right-realism advocates the principle that nothing deters more than the certainty of detection. Thus, more proactive policing through policies of zero tolerance to make it safe for people to be on the streets and in their homes and the greater allocation of resources to detection will have more success than the current reactive stance in relation to atrocities committed. One Benthamite concept is accepted, namely that man is a calculating animal who will weigh the rewards likely to be earned from crime against the chances of being caught. Indeed, to build greater conformity where deviancy is socially unacceptable, new Pakistan advocates the allocation of resources into the education system to underpin adherence to moral values.

The writer is a professor of Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the UK. He can be contacted at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com