Over the past couple of months, I have read a few books in which the main theme is very relevant to all that is going on in Pakistan, particularly the Pakhtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) and the state’s response to it. These include The Bigot by Stephen Bronner, The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, Anti-Semite and the Jew by Jean-Paul Sartre, Man or Monster by Alexander Hinton, Considering Hate by Whitlock and Bronski and Terror in the Mind of God by Mark Juergensmeyer.
Although their subject matter differs somewhat, they share a common theme: bigotry and prejudice and their origins among human beings. Prejudice comes from the Latin word praejudicium, which means judgment in advance of a trial. With similar connotation and background in the French intellectual tradition, bigotry has many dimensions. While reading these books, I had Pakistan’s current situation in mind and used this experience to try and understand it.
Since January 2018, the PTM has been protesting countrywide against the military’s policies and its disastrous implications for the people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Pakistanis in general. The demands of the movement are constitutional and straightforward, but the state has responded by first ignoring and then discrediting the movement through conspiracy-mongering, harassment and arrests. But why?
The answer is, bigotry. It is this bigotry which shapes the political, cultural and economic attitudes of the ruling elites and even the common folk. In the United States; African Americans, Muslims and Latinos have suffered similarly at the hands of the Caucasian majority. Historically; Jews, Armenians, Bosnian Muslims and others suffered bigotry and unimaginable violence at the hands of their powerful oppressors.
The bigot does not have the courage or capacity to recognise the truth, because his or her ‘superiority’ rests upon the very oppression of the marginalised other
My professor and expert on genocide studies at Rutgers University Alexander Hinton writes in his book Man or Monster, that most humans tend to be banal in their everyday thought. Their thought process follows rigid frames, and this creates a monolithic worldview. This is the origin of bigotry. Alternative conceptions of justice, truth and morality do not appeal to rigid people and their belief systems because new ideas disrupt their mental conventions.
In Anti-Semite and the Jew, the French philosopher Sartre argues that anti-Semitism is not only hatred against Jews, but it is an attitude people choose for men, history and society in general. Such a view, he claims, is based on passion rather than reason and experience. The average anti-Semite’s prejudice was (or rather, is) based on sentiment rather than knowledge of the Jewish community. Sartre says only a substantial emotional bias can lead to the certitude that can hold reason in leash and impervious to life’s experiences.
Bigotry also springs from a lust for power and privilege by the ruling elites. When in a position of power, the bigot does not like to be challenged because it threatens his or her comfort zone. The bigot can pretend to be kind if the subaltern does not threaten his or her authority. But, if the subaltern threatens his sense of self-worth and lifestyle, the bigot directs his or her anger and hatred against the subaltern.
The bigot is afraid of changing the status quo because reforming means letting go of privileges. Giving up old and undemocratic ways of thinking and acting means acknowledging the equal worth of the oppressed ‘other’. The bigot does not have in him the courage or capacity to recognise the truth, because his ‘superiority’ rests upon the very oppression of the marginalised other. Thus, the logical consequence of asking for equal rights is more bigotry and apathy in the mind of the bigot.
Stephen Bronner says the bigot is the prisoner of his prejudices. He is too stubborn to change his views even if he sees evidence on the contrary. He feeds on what Bronner calls ‘conspiracy fetishism’. Pakistan’s army chief has already termed the PTM a movement engineered by the ‘enemy’ to weaken our national integrity. The country’s intelligence agencies have left no stone unturned in tarnishing the legitimacy of PTM and Manzoor Pashteen by calling him an agent of RAW and the NDS. Of course, some of this propaganda is carried out by ordinary Pakhtuns, but it is engineered from the above, however. The bigot does not agree. He also refuses to accept that the PTM has faced a total media blackout and other obstacles at the hands of the same forces.
Former DG ISI and DG MI Asad Durrani at a talk show at the Oxford Union said that the deaths of soldiers and civilians are inevitable and acceptable collateral damage for the country’s strategic interests. The ex-army chief General Musharraf admitted that the Pakistan army trained mujahideen and used them in Afghanistan. Manzoor Pashteen has only reminded Pakistanis of the follies and transgressions of these generals, which they have themselves acknowledged. But even this does not change the bigot’s view, because he has his mind made up before approaching the issue. His ‘prejudices,’ Bronner states, ‘rest on pre-reflective assumption that become fixed, finished and irreversible in the face of new knowledge…’
The bigot has a way to efface the distinction between the victim and the persecutor when the former asks for their rights and protection. Bronner calls it ‘fabricated relativism’. In Pakistan, the bigot’s response, for instance, to the PTM, is that it is not just Pakhtuns — but all Pakistanis — including security personnel who have died in the terror relate violence. There is no doubt that all ethnic and religious groups in Pakistan have suffered, but it is also true that certain groups have suffered much more than others.
Pakhtuns have borne the brunt of terrorist violence and military operations for over a decade — if not more. The South Asia Terrorism Portal shows that from 2005 to 2016, 82 percent of fatalities due to terrorist attacks in Pakistan have occurred in FATA, KP and Balochistan. This statistic is reported by a third party and an impartial source, not PTM, but the bigot does not acknowledge this fact because to him anything contrary to what the military says seems a conspiracy against Pakistan.
So, do not be surprised next time you see a bigot. Now you know why reason does not appeal to his mind.
The writer is Lecturer, Department of English, Rutgers University, USA. He can be reached at [email protected] [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, May 10th 2018.