In Germany, the irrational ideas of blood, folk, race, soil and Reich were instituted, replacing those based on class and capital-labour relationships, the latter an actual rationality that negates all other fictitious relationships and forms the basis of class struggle against the expropriator having the same blood and identical race, sharing the same soil. Nature was given a vulgar twist. The birth of a person at a certain place, in a certain family was not considered chance but exalted as a fact that could not be altered. Born into poverty, in a particular group of people — as Aryan or otherwise — became one’s destiny from which one could not escape. Nature conquered by human beings became the only reality, a tool against civilisation meant to create fanatical nationalism, the basis of fascism.The natural right to one’s own body also fell into the same category. Freedom of sexuality once enforced through the state became a tool for oppression. The most delicate of human acts fell hostage to the designs of those who wanted to dominate both the body and mind. The only space of freedom from alienated labour, a strictly private zone of human liberation, became a prisoner to the ‘rationalisation’ of the state. Contrary to its logical meanings the rationalisation of capitalist civilisation has a different syntax. It resonates with everything counterproductive to people’s interests. Its introduction in the economic sphere or application in the instinctual domain proves lethal for the majority. In the first case it leads to a massive loss of employment, social cuts and deprivation of the necessities of life while in the latter, through containing aggression and inducing conformism, it serves a political end. Socialisation of the human body as an instrument of sex deprives it of its eroticism, of its very pleasure. The most gratifying act becomes an official necessity, work, an imposed duty that always remains alienated labour. The fear of losing this objectified labour that fulfilled the base necessities, otherwise a right of humankind, served the political ends of Nazism. A body going through compulsory, instinctual satisfaction became a perfect tool for further toil. It consequently led to the high childbirth rate that helped the capital have more access to cheap labour. This violated the culture based on freedom where “it is possible to have real enjoyment without any rationalisation and without any puritanical guilt feeling” (Herbert Marcuse). It stymied the second condition of liberation too, which was incommensurable with its purpose: the release of sensuality under the watchful eyes of the state brought the control of primal father back, infusing the sense of guilt leading to shame that could only be compensated through absolute conformity. A soulless, regulated freedom was infused with an abstract soul of race, blood and duty. Its violation not only created guilt and shame but brought perdition upon the ‘rebel’ himself.In Pakistan, caste, custom and creed are curses that have always plagued the people. The iron fisted control of feudal-cum-mercantile/trader capitalism led by the army found its legitimacy in a religion based on indifference, bigotry and hatred. The cards of race, blood and soil are favourite hunting grounds for an established capitalist class but if it is already emaciated, fear of a foreign or internal enemy and/or threat to the faith remain viable snares to trap and numb the already dizzy minds of the middle class. Besides Pakistan, Israel too has used it quite effectively. In either state various kinds of sects can be found in abundance. Akin to the ‘chosen people’, the concept of superiority, of being born in a religion having a seal of finality and eternity, has assumed dominance in the urban middle class. This established principle turned out to be equally delusional, if not more than the concept of race since according to Heidegger, “The dreadful had already happened.” As against the Nazis’ blood and soil, it left more blood on the soil than one had imagined. For Eric Fromm, when any faith/creed casts itself in this niggardly light, in his lexicon it turns into an ‘idolatry’, which is not unlike paganism.In apparent contrast to national socialism the religious concept prevailing in Pakistan has abolished the little available freedom of sexuality. But is it really the case? For Freud, every exhibitionist is simultaneously voyeuristic too. Eros follows Thanatos. Hence, by this logic, which beyond doubt is authentic, every society that represses/oppresses sexuality is in fact striving to masquerade its shame of committing it covertly on an uninterruptable frequency. This hypocrisy is well managed by this kind of fascism that on the one hand is fanatically attached to it while on the other besmirches it by turning into a taboo. It is the fantasy of one’s mind to state that the youth of Pakistan is not fully equipped with the knowledge of free sexuality and engages in its pleasures, though they may pretend otherwise. It is difficult to state the real number of those who have denied themselves the temptation to savour its honey-combed taste. National socialism promised to provide guns before butter but what they did was exactly the opposite. The religious fascists never promised more than guns and, in case of success, virgins as concubines or later in the hereafter. They fulfilled at least their first promise in letter and spirit; for the second one has to wait. The expression of inhibited and repressed sexuality finds its catharsis in verbal expression, in a middle class taboo. This is true for the people of the subcontinent, though the tradition was initiated by the grand instrument of indoctrination, Hollywood, which is fully equipped to insinuate conformism in human psychology. Where obscene language expresses the frustration of lack of libidinal satisfaction, it simultaneously depicts the helplessness of the individual to find an escape from the system that debases him, but then it debases the very refined act of sexuality too. When language loses its political impact, people tend to punish themselves with recourse to the verbalisation of sexuality. For Herbert such obscenity of language portrays “repressive desublimation: facile (though vicarious) gratification of aggressiveness”.The most common similarity that leaves not even a wafer-thin difference between the mentalities of these two nations is expressed by Herbert Marcuse in the following words: “The change in the German mentality has been so fundamental that the German people is almost impregnable to the traditional logic and language of presentation and argumentation. It has frequently been stated that the new German language and logic are essentially irrational and illogical and that for this reason they defy all rational discussion.” In the case of Pakistan, do we need to add further? As the country celebrates its 68 anniversary of independence, which has yet to be translated into freedom, we can say that we are still living the fate of 20th century Germany with one difference: the latter was highly industrialised while we are yet to take a step in that direction. It is a mammoth difference, perhaps one that determines the future survival of a ‘nation’ as a liberal, modern, viable state or one like Saudi Arabia, living in the dark ages, waiting to be withered at the nod of their imperial masters. (Concluded) The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com