Daily Times

The evening breeze off the Creek began to turn chilly. But the guests in the lawns behind the Carlton Hotel were still in a state of exhilaration after two days of the just concluded Karachi Literature Festival. Their excitement was now brought to a crescendo by Taimur Rahman and the Laal Band, whose crashing chords and pounding rhythms thundered out over the sea. They sang anthems of liberation, inspired by Faiz. They raised defiant slogans of “Dehshatgardi Murdabad” (down with terrorism) and “Inteha-pasandi Murdabad” (down with extremism) to the delight of the guests, many of whom — both young and old — joined Laal in a spirited bhangra that brought the weekend to an extraordinary climax.

Brave sounds — doubly brave, in the face of the surrounding environment of a collapsing economy, failing political order and dysfunctional society! This was at least a moment of reprieve for those intellectuals who regard themselves as being on the political left. It has been a mind-numbing shock to discover how out of synch with the popular psyche the liberal-left has become. The astonishing show of public support for Salmaan Taseer’s assassin, the hatred for those who even mention the blasphemy laws, the instinctive anti-Americanism that prevents rational examination of the bizarre Raymond Davis incident: all these point to a rising tide of opinion on the right. In fact, people on the left of the political centre are now characterised with the oxymoron ‘liberal fascists’.

A distinctive conceptual framework, whom some regard as intellectual Talibanisation, is no longer a marginal viewpoint but seems to have become the norm. Now, we may argue about silent majorities and vocal minorities until we are blue in the face. The fact is that the compass of public perceptions has swung well over to the right. So strong is public anger with the perceived incompetence, corruption and US-puppet characteristics of the present dispensation, that there is widespread talk of ‘revolution’. Let us begin by disabusing ourselves of any such notion. There is no revolution coming, not yet, whether along Islamic or socialist or democratic lines. There are neither the intellectual underpinnings nor the vanguard leaderships that characterise revolutionary movements — no Marx, no Shariati, no Lenin, Mao, Guevara or Khomeini.

Nor is there any Czar or Shah or dictatorship against whom to unfurl the banners of a democratic revolt. We already have a democratic system, popular sovereignty and a constitution. It is these we need to cherish and nurture.

But we observe a growing surge, a sense of forces on the right being mobilised. We see campaigns demonstrating a high level of political support. But, if no revolutionary storms are rising, then what is the source of this vigour and flexing of political muscle?

Writing in these pages, Yasser Latif Hamdani presented another view (‘No need to despair’, Daily Times, February7, 2011): “Contrary to the national suicide being committed every day in the newspapers, the truth is that the mullahs’ reaction…is simply the last flicker of that flame.”

“The march of history,” wrote Hamdani, “is irreversible…Therefore, the religious right is making one last ditch attempt to seize control of the state. It has chosen to use the issue of the blasphemy law and then the narrative of a trigger-happy American cowboy killing poor hapless Pakistanis.”

This thesis has a ring of truth. The present campaign, coming in response to military pressures on the Taliban in Afghanistan, could well be a last gasp, the atavistic nativism of those becoming political and cultural ghosts, evaporated by the heat of a history they can distort but cannot change. The question is whether our so-called liberals, and particularly those belonging to the ruling coalition of today, have the spittle to see this struggle through. Are they even in touch with the gritty grassroots realities of this country? The social historian Barrington Moore Jr wrote: “The wellsprings of human freedom lie not only where Marx saw them, in the aspirations of classes about to take power, but perhaps even more in the dying wail of a group over whom the wave of history is about to roll.”

There is also a third hypothesis, the conspiracy theory that forces within the establishment are conspiring with the extreme right and certain members of the media to mount a concerted campaign against this government in particular, and parliamentary and constitutional rule in general, generating a climate of opinion favouring another coup d’état. This, like all conspiracy theories, is wishful thinking, implying that, if the key conspirator (the establishment, in this case) could be won over, say with a heavier inflow of US dollars and military toys, the problem would be resolved and a right-wing putsch averted.

The problem is that things simply do not work that easily. The so-called liberals are, as I said earlier, out of synch with reality. Completely out of touch with the ordinary people, they have failed to grasp the many disconnects at work here. The most important of these is the one between the cities and the rural areas where the majority lives. Additionally, the many linguistic, ethnic and class divisions effectively isolate our intellectual elite from the masses. However, where the right is concerned, a pseudo-Islamist national narrative was contrived by the establishment, most comprehensively during the Zia regime, and this continues to provide ideological underpinnings for the fulminations heard from pulpits across the land.

The articulation and promotion of a counter-narrative that can reach down to the rural areas, is the kind of task that devolves onto political parties, particularly the parties avowing a left-liberal programme. But other than a brief period in the late 1960s and early 70s, no real effort has been expended on developing and proclaiming such a counter-narrative. Even the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a political leader who was famously able to reach right across class, ethnic and regional divisions, succumbed to the temptation of appeasing the religious right. And, of course, the present incarnation in which Bhutto’s party finds itself is characterised by visionless incompetence and assailed by allegations of corruption. Worse, it has proven weak, feckless and hypocritical, bending with every wind for the chance to hold onto increasingly pointless office.

It has succeeded in bringing even democracy and parliamentary rule into disrepute with the people. In so doing, it has opened up the path to the next political adventurer.

The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet