Daily Times

The movie “Seven-year itch” provided a delectable expression to Eros, which culminated with a gush of breeze exposing the beautiful architecture of Marilyn. By her innocent, guiltless, and irrationalized gesture of amazement at the exposure of her crafty structure she actually freed the sensuality from the soul proving MokokomaMokhonoanasuccinct that “it’s the invention of clothes and not nature, that made ‘private parts’ private”. “Once we are aware our nudity makes us objects of desire, we become naked” Chloe Thurlow completes the argument.

In the past seventy years, people of Pakistan have gone ‘naked’ to the bare bones. Instead of an “object of desire”, it is the horror of abject poverty and mutilation of thought, which have overwhelmed them. In the process while dispensing with the human values, they have covered their moving cadavers with loads of clothes. Under the dreadful conditions of stifling totalitarianism disguised as ‘democracy’, a large majority has nothing but its penury and misery to hide. Every attempt to conceal ricochets to reveal the realty in a form that is more distinct. In the absence of even a sham justice, the rulers find no reason to conceal their theft, a lot continues to clatter in the open rather than their cupboards.

In utter dismay, people obsequiously, seek an immediate refuge in religion, “a tissue of mysteries” which” according to Spinoza “attracts men who despise reason”. A perfect state of utopia, which offers everything in another world while denying the same in this. Nietzsche correctly advised, “To hold one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too”. When the means of production become the sole monopoly of a select few the only mean to control one’s head is to lose it altogether. For this, religion provides the necessary narcotics, which are cheap. It panders to panacea, which promises to solve all ills without altering the abysmal conditions of living.

No war, minor or major can be won without mustering the support of auxiliary forces. The war for resources, whatever name it has is always a war of terror

The state created in the name of religion is now afflicted with a syndrome conveniently labelled as “seventy year itch”. It pretends to have a modern superstructure but its base is ancient having characteristics of a feudal anachronistic tradition, which refuses to eclipse. Behind the façade of democracy, a totalitarian kleptocracy is running amok. Highly centralized bureaucracy belonging to a certain province is dominating the state affairs. The real power rests with the Pretorian guards and they make no secret of this. The unity of the state rests entirely on domination through coercion.

The Two-nation theory, an enigma in a riddle promised the Muslims of India prosperity through freedom. In the end, people had none. During the first quarter of its existence state ruled through coercion and colonization, hence reducing the country into a half. It was the only time in the history when the majority sought and succeeded from the minority. The two-nation theory committed hara-kiri.

The Napoleons and the Caesars refused to learn a lesson. Baluchistan became the immediate next victim. There is no point in repeating the history yet when the folly of the ruling class forces history to repeat itself nothing remains to cherish. Freedom has never been a utopian idea. It remains a basic aspiration for humanity. The whole history of humankind is witness to the fact that even in most oppressive conditions it has vigorously toiled to create social institutions, to ensure a maximum of freedom. How can it stop now?

Why are few lives preferred over the others? Why is it the destiny of some to be born to disappear? Those who raise these concerns are picked up at the wee hours of night never to pose such meta-questions or their mutilated bodies are found floundering in deep waters. Was Pinochet regime any different from this?

Milton presented the image of “wicked races of deceivers, who…took the virgin truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds”. The ‘wicked- race’ ruling the state is carrying out the same by processing the reality and encouraging a double standard morality. [The ruthless] oppression of the people of Kashmir is highlighted yet the plight of those living in its own backyard does not find a bare minimum mention in the media. With such brazen hypocrisy where lies the moral high ground?

This brings the very old question into fore. Why are some people deemed more privileged than the rest? Both French and Soviet revolutions have categorically invalidated the idea of social inequality as something natural. The class- differences are the product of the society hence are unnatural and immoral. Classes as defined by Gramsci are “merely special cases of social relations of production at a particular time period of society”. “Wealth” says Fanon “is not a fruit of labour but the result of organized protected robbery”. Through this brazen robbery, the classes of haves and have-nots are created.

The colonization is an act of ravening and pillaging the resources of the colonized. This does not mean that the colonial masters spare their own people, though the latter can be comparatively less dispossessed. In the past, it was the destiny of ‘White- man’ to carry the ‘colonial’ burden, later it became a privilege of religion, and now nationalism has partially substituted or assimilated the rest. Courtesy capitalism it has become a mélange of evil of every hue.

No war, minor or major can be won without mustering the support of auxiliary forces. The war for resources, whatever name it has is always a war of terror. It cannot be fought alone. In this war of expropriation people at large, with the difference of degrees are the victims. Hence, a united front alone has the potential to provide some guarantees of liberation to all. That means freedom from want, suffering and objectified alienated labour. Any political freedom without economic liberation remains a mirage—— an existentialist’s freedom “which chooses” its victims while one “cannot choose to be free but is doomed to freedom” (Sartre).

The writer has authored books on socialism and history. He blogs at saulatnagi.wordpress.com and can be reached atsaulatnagi@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, August 15^th 2017.