Daily Times

“Searching for democracy in Turkey is like searching for a virgin in whorehouse.” The quote is attributed to the great Marxist poet and one can palpably feel the anguish and despair of Nazim Hikmet hidden in these words. For he, with his comrades and countrymen, fought valiantly against imperialism with the financial backing of the USSR. The liberation struggle was directed to overthrow the yoke of economic and political slavery but liberation was a stillbirth. The country fettered by the market economy was overtaken by a charismatic authoritarian man of destiny. Political freedom could not translate into economic freedom. The native bourgeoisie took over the reins of power, and the master-slave relations remained intact.

The checkered history of the partition of the subcontinent was both tragedy and farce. British colonialism transferred the power to a mélange of feudal and comprador bourgeoisie in Pakistan subservient to the civil-military bureaucracy. Despite the uneven growth of capitalism in the newly carved out state, the feudal relations of production continued to dominate. The dominant classes comfortable with old, hackneyed and largely broken hegemonic relations have neither the will nor power to change the status quo. The mass culture, as it exists in Pakistan, contradicts freedom, and the oppressive behaviour pattern is not the monopoly of the ruling classes alone but has become integral to the ordinary citizens attaining the form of a dominant culture.

When fascistic tendencies get hold of the state institutions, the vulgarity of the mass culture disseminates in society, kneeling shamelessly before the ones controlling the means of production- praetorian guards in this case- becomes the condition of success. During these apocalyptical times shallowness and mediocrity become the norms of the sick society, the human values stifle. Milton has already reminded us about the moments when ”the wicked race of deceivers took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds”. Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, one of the few sane voices in the religious cacophony, is the latest to be seized upon by ”these wicked races”. The bite of conscience that teaches man to bite, has touched the raw nerve of a narcissistic predator who while spewing the gall of hate against the distinguished scholar, declared him an atheist as if an atheist is to be an assassin albeit no one dares to question the Jacks-the -Rippers of the republic who gratify their thirst with the blood of mutilated cadavers found in the wilderness of Baluchistan. O! judgement” Shakespeare lamented ”thou fled to the brutish beast and men have lost their reason” which lately they had none.

Modern psychology does not subscribe to Freudian terminologies, but it believes in the core principle of parents’ responsibility of maiming their children.

In the psyche of the individual, Freud revealed the crimes of the collective. A society whose womb is barren can conceive and deliver the individuals, who even while casting ”their devils” Nietzsche describes ”themselves turn into swine [and their] doggish lust looketh enviously out of all that they do”. Ironically there is no dearth of mental dwarfs in the land of pure, drenched in dumbness, their objective spirit is an overt fact yet their insistence to be recognized as unparalleled scholarly elite is enough to earn a smirk from Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

Homer’s Sphinx posed a riddle to Oedipus concerning the man, on hearing the truth from Oedipus, historical Sphinx killed herself. The modern Sphinx suffering from the castration fear is least concerned about the man. Instead, it is inquisitive about his highest essence, which is the man himself. Grown up under the horror of parental violence, called love and the father figure, the modern Sphinx refuses to accept the correct answer and condemns the heretic to the guillotine. How in the presence of divinity could the man be his highest essence, the answer is bewildering for the thoughtless creature? For Freud, the pathology that transforms an omnipotent father into an omnipresent God is called infantile neurosis. The enslaved child holding the hand of a mortal father ends up holding the dangling cord of an invisible God and barters one servitude with the other. Nothing changes, not even the fear. God is feared and a fearing God cannot be loved. It is the absence of love that makes the followers sadists.

Hate is a defence mechanism, but atrophy too. ”If you do not like a person” Freud says, ”it’s because he reminds you of something that you do not like about yourself”. If one’s belief in his faith is irrevocable and rational, he needs no defence, hence no hate. One does not begin to distribute certificates of atheism or infidelity among people unless one’s belief in his faith is not in flux. For Freud, such people failing to transcend their anal stage, remain anal-expulsive. In their adulthood, such people are prone to cruelty, emotional outbursts, and disorganization. But if they are partly anal-retentive, they can be rigid, obsessive, and offensive.

Modern psychology does not subscribe to these Freudian terminologies, but it believes in the core principle of parents’ responsibility of maiming their children mentally, which culminates in personality disorders. With the mushrooming of private TV channels, many disorderly personalities, who would be unworthy or unqualified for the job of journalism, have found a fortune. The vulgar phenomenon of the market inherently worked in an Orwellian way, those who created jobs created minds first, not only of the consumers but also of the anchors, the demand created supply; the reverse became true. Hence, Adorno’s crippled spirits, in self-hate, demonstrate their spiritual essence, an untruth through physical violence. A handful among the anchor’s lot may boast about having an authentic foreign qualification or experience in journalism under critical supervision. A few with allegedly bogus degrees have found lucrative jobs in media, prostituting the entire field that market economy as the industry has vulgarised already.

For those in the service of hypocrisy, the only reason is the exclusion of the reason. All that is sold is real, history has come full circle when Marx inquired about ” the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering” he replied. ”What is the worldly God? Money. Money degrades all the gods of man-and turn them into commodities”. Jews of the feudal era were hated for accumulation and expropriation of wealth hence were a symbol of hate, Shakespeare’s Shylock demanding a pound of debtor’s flesh is one classical example. The exchange society of the modern age has made everyone a Jew while Marx, a Godless Jew, is left to confront the ugly, nauseating system that accumulates wealth at one pole and misery on the other. Today, every child knows that his relation with Santa is inextricably tied to the market. He cannot think of God in any other form but a gift-sender- a commodity dealer. This is the modern-day man, smart and stupid, a perfect salesman and a perfect dunce who denies death by refusing to live but distributing death at the same time. For the human of this alienated world, ”true is which is serviceable, even sentences no longer have meaning, they only have a purpose”.

Those in power are negotiating with the proscribed parties, the bunch of terrorists the guards keep creating and dismantling for their designs. Immoral are the people who show the world their shame if the world has any. Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy is the rebel who unmasks the mutilated face of our society possessed with the demons of religious fascism, the inept and corrupt politicians and the lusty godfathers, the so-called defenders of our ideological and geographical borders, with little or no success. He is being punished not because he is an atheist, Jinnah for many belonged to the same tribe, but like Giordano Bruno, he ventures to think autonomously.

The great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet once said, “If I do not burn, if you do not burn, if we do not burn, how will darkness come to light,” but in the land of Pure, searching for light has become what Nazim earlier said, “searching for a virgin in a whorehouse”

The writer is an Australian-based academic and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com