Daily Times

“The crisis”, Gramsci says,”consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” It is time for the monsters. This stands true for not only Pakistan but for the entire world, which has been converted into an Auschwitz or Gazaon one hand and an Orwell’s human farm on the other by the latecapitalism.

“Life has changed into a timeless succession of shocks, interspaced with empty, paralyzed intervals” and people suffering fromthe chronic malady of Alzheimer’swhile struggling to find refuge from the wrath of a decayed system are electing charismatic leaders with fascist impulses to power.Electing leaders, probably the only option they have restricts them to replace one master for another, andthe “cultural consumers, as passive dopes” can do no better.

“When social reality models itself after a paranoid system, paranoid thinkingis an eminently rational response” (Adorno). This irrationality has permeated in the major part of the European, American and,South Asiandemocracy devoid of democratic content.The world is heading towards fascism.

The consumer-based commodity culture, unrelenting propaganda, a keen desire to find the other, the mass culture and the media that continue to describe and determine human needs and desires create a pseudo-individual who yearns to reproduce his slavery with ecstasy. Psychological dependence and conformism have become the norm. Adorno observedthe dominant element of conformity and dependence in Europe and US,hence found themeager to embrace fascism.

Society, the negation of the individual has overtaken the Freudian concept of primal father, which dominates through consent and coercion, a modern version of the castration complex. The latter divides the human into a biphasic animal. The reality principle demands to work in the morning, postponing his pleasure to the evenings or weekends, heralding that there is no pleasure without work, hence no freedom. Human being has no existence of his own -conform and integrate or wait to be fired by the system, ‘which permanently puts a pistol to men’s heads’ (Adorno).

Every sacrifice is a substitution with something of a lesser value to save one’s life

To masquerade its domination, the distorted systemcreates a father figure in the shape ofa fascist leader. He is not exactly a father, andmodels himself as an elder brother. This Orwellian big brotheraccording to Adorno,takes all the privileges of a father without identifying with him while developing simultaneously a libidinal attachment with his followers. Through charisma, the leader projects the narcissism of his own ego-ideal into the followers, which becomes his perennial recognition. While aligning with them, he is careful not to create a gulf between him and his followers neither in terms of class nor in terms of intellect since that is the only way his appeal can remain effective. Adorno defined Hitler as a composite of King Kong and suburban barber, a ‘great-little man’ embodying all the qualities of those little human beings whom he represented.

The great little personality is an oxymoron, a contradiction in itself. Despite this contradiction, the charismatic leader becomes popular and indispensable since he fulfills the material and psychological needs of his followers. “Hitler”, Adorno says, “was liked not inspite of his cheap antics but because of them, because of his false tones and his clowning. Fascist agitators are taken seriously because they risk making fools of themselves”. Taking pride in ‘U-turns’ in Pakistan is one such example.

Masochism and sacrifice are the integral parts of a fascist movement. The world is against us, people are anti-Semites, a conspiracy is hatched against Islam, the Aryan race is under threat;hence, people must make a sacrifice even if it means shedding one’s blood or that of their opponents.

Sacrifice has the element of deception, of cunning evident to both, the one who is sacrificing and the other who demands it, yet it is celebrated with fanfare since ritual behavior is closely related to compulsion neurosis, which is a substitute for sexual gratification.

Every sacrifice is a substitution with something of a lesser value to save one’s life. It is the restoration of trauma the injustice has caused, which the victim repeats as a ritual to make the act and its memory bearable.It is masochism restored. Since fascism isconstant suffering, a glorified anxiety to save the nation, race or religion, the ritual of sacrifice has to be revived if it is already not there, the deception is sanctioned.

Fascist propaganda is vague and senseless. It does not provide concrete answers to the real problems since anything concrete can limit its jurisdiction. It resembles an advertisement, which according to Jhally is “a discourse where all normal physical and social arrangements are held in abeyance. We regard the claim as a joke, but we buy the product not inspite of but because of the joke”.

Despite the slogans of redemption, fascism does not treat its followers as rational subjects. On the contrary, they are taken as objects, mere tools to attain certain goals. Despite maintaining blind faith in the leader, they need to be commanded and controlled from above – obedience is the catchphrase. The leaders play with the repressed urges of the followers, which the latter dare not bring forth. They are the apostles of all those sins that the followers have little courage to commit but given anopportunity they would love to do so.

Akin to America and Europe, the subcontinent too has its own Trump and Bolsonaro. Both Modi and Imran made their way to the corridor of power as charismatic men of destiny, who supposedly are ‘gifted’ economic leaders.However, economy is determined by the mode of production and not by a gifted leader; it is unobliging. Incidentally, both these men of destiny are good at using religion and nation to their endssuccessfully and both abhor their respective opponents deeply. They believe that they have masteredhistory through divine intervention. In reality, history has outsmarted them, and both find themselves standing on the wrong side of it.

“The capitalist political parties are nothing but a swarm of coachmen flies, which do not make the slightest impact on the framework of the state, but buzz words and suck the honey of favoritism” (Gramsci).The so-called leaders too are the products and manifestation of certain political, military and organizational forces, which they do not and cannot create or dent in anyway unless there is room in the system, which is hardly there.

Since capitalism is a system of cyclic anarchy, the crisis is both national and international. Internally, it cannot be solved without massive structural changes that would include land reforms, nationalization of material resources, cutting down the waste of military expenses and following the dictates ofa command economy. While externally, the idea of strategic interest and the hysterical notion of attaining the status of the front-line state have to be discarded. A poor state cannot dream of becoming a hegemon especially when the ship itself is sinking. Or else, time for monsters and the night of the generals will continue to hold sway making the proverbial moth-eaten state of Jinnah into an Orwellian nightmare of 1984, if it has not become onealready.

The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history