Pakistan: Social, not class, consciousness

The News International - October 09, 2015 and The News International - October 10, 2015

Part - I

Read any newspaper or scholarship produced in Pakistan today, and the ‘Death of Class’ theory is confirmed. Blaming the political classes for all failure is common. Less discussed is how the politics of class has been thrown into the funeral pyre too.

This is the fruit of a postmodern, post-Soviet, post-real or virtual reality era. Fanning the flames of this ideological cremation is the complete surrender of class analysis by our New Intelligentsia. Sadly, the Elders seem to have packed up or, parked their own class awareness – often in the NGO sector.

A new generation of leaders, activists and opinion makers has landed on the country. They cannot be faulted for being conceived and born in an intellectual wasteland or, for being educated at Anglo-American universities during the dumbed-down, dangerous politics of George W or, the compromised, comprador politics of New Labour. Nor can they be blamed for growing up in the Disneyland democracy of Gen Musharraf – complete with a Mickey Mouse prime minister.

There is the argument that technology is a neutral tool. Yet, the technical leaps in the new millennium seem to have enabled the rearguard to be more effective than progressive forces. IT is used with remarkable efficiency for promoting and abetting hateful propaganda, spreading bigotry, organising flash mob violence, planning and executing assassinations and, systematically attacking not the ruling but primarily, working classes.

Sweeping censorship of democratic expression is proposed under cybercrime laws, while for decades, illegal armed hate groups were given free reign. Hate ideology thrived not just in mosques and madressahs but via mainstream school curriculums. Dozens of anthropological PhD theses proliferate on hijab empowerment and Islamists’ subjectivities – none on their printing presses, economic policies or opposition to curriculum changes, or their systematic persecution of free-thinking university professors and students.

Critically, though, neither the hate-inspired radical violence nor progressive movements for justice and peace are driven by a consciousness towards class equality anymore. In war and peace, love and hate, class is dead.

As if Facebook and social media were not enough, ‘My Spaces’ for this narcissistic under-35 lot, Pakistan’s mainstream newspapers have now relinquished entire editorial content to some professionals called ‘graduates’. The qualification to spread wisdom seems to be dependent on the ranking of the Ivy League university attended by the contributor. It seems that every graduate has at least one opinion and a corresponding column in him/her. After that, their attention deficit kicks in or they need to update their blogs or Facebook statuses or get real jobs.

Some newspapers have given these self-trained media professionals blogs on a playground called the Internet Edition. This allows the publications and their editors to give the impression that they are progressive and 21st Century relevant.

I propose that the medium does influence the political flavour and outcome of an ideology. Social media is for self-analysis, self-gratification and self-promotion. It’s a new venue for the chattering classes – just more expansive, and instead of an armchair, you need a keyboard. This social media generation is certainly more aware and connected as individuals than any before it, but their politics is less collective (that doesn’t mean how many friends or followers you have) and void of class-consciousness.

So what does class analysis look like? Two simple clues – it challenges the capture of modes of production and ideological institutions by the ruling classes and beneficiaries, and it participates in and advocates a sustained class-conscious movement to radically dismantle and change these very structures towards equality.

There are local examples that contrast the relevance against the absence of class-consciousness, as described above. These will be discussed in the second part of this article.

Part - II

In contrast to the nationwide Lawyers’ Movement (2007-2009), which directly challenged a military head of state and sought institutional corrective by restoring an unconstitutionally deposed chief justice, the PTI-type social media-heavy protests against drones never challenged any institution, specifically avoiding GHQ and the security apparatus.

Neither did the anti-drone advocates offer an alternative to the besieged people of Fata who were trapped by the Taliban for years. The demands of Fata citizens were not heeded – and certainly not in class terms.

The tribal areas became a ground for political and academic benefit for those who wanted to fit their ‘anti-imperialist’ credentials through abstract politics and analysis. The alternative was some confused, contradictory, social media-led rubbish that died out as soon as the GHQ decided to own what was always its privilege. No protest, no policy, not even a single press statement by the PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and no analysis by anti-imperialists follows – even as sweeping PAF air raids replace targeted US drone attacks today. Simply abusing the government or the security state online doesn’t make one a leftist.

The Junaid Jamshed blasphemy case is another exemplar of the futility of class analysis. Dozens of post 9/11 scholars invested considerable academic energy into defending the blasphemy laws and made a case for the moral injury that Muslims are permanently vulnerable to. They justified the Salmaan Taseer murder through academic spin and blamed the imperialist west and liberal-secular laws of Pakistan. They even argued that blasphemy accusations were always a disguise for class interest and had nothing to do with religion. Taseer’s murderer was hailed a hero by no less than members of the bar and judiciary, but there is no comment on how religion trumps class in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Junaid Jamshed proved the important collusion and nexus of class and religion with aplomb. Unlike others imprisoned for suspicion or hearsay or even, the unproven allegations against Taseer, Jamshed publicly blasphemed but he enjoys the patronage of the unelected and illiberal Islamist clerical powers that be. Class did not shield Taseer, but the combination of religion and class ensured that Jamshed was not only forgiven but allowed to return from a cushy exile which he could afford (in the safe haven of the imperialist west) due to his capitalist ventures. He returns home within the year, exonerated and safer than any underclass blasphemy-accused currently rotting in our jails. Certainly, he’s safer than Taseer and his family who continue to pay the price.

More salt to the wound – Jamshed is invited onto the pulpit of national day celebrations by our progressive cultural elite, to cement Pakistan’s nationalist-religious-misogyny defining identity. The Coke Studio audience ‘like’ and share his performance and express their sentimental patriotism all over social media. Again, no class analysis from the outraged liberals nor the defenders of Islamic ethos and laws in this case.

More recently, the human rights issue of bonded labour has been ‘rediscovered’, thanks to the Humans of New York (who makes up these titles?). From 9/11 to the short-lived Occupation of Wall Street to drones to human slavery, it seems that Manhattan is the centre of our political consciences….what would we do without its leadership? Interestingly, a year before Stanton’s campaign, a bonded Christian labourer and his pregnant wife were burned alive at Kot Radha Kishan, but that real-time incident didn’t prick our political consciences enough. Apparently, virtual reality is more meaningful than actual reality.

So, the social media post by Stanton renewed interest and sparked many blogs and op-eds, crying shame on Pakistan’s government and advocating the strict implementation of laws to abolish this form of slavery. None of these discuss the nature of the bonded labour or where it is supposed to travel after it has been ‘freed’ nor the transient and precarious nature of the few camps that exist for the ‘liberated’.

Worst of all, the notion that it is not the debt but the land that needs to be restructured or redistributed is not even an imaginable possibility in this analysis. The notion that there are some ‘good’ landowners who don’t bond their labour simplifies the dramatic changes in the political economy of land in Pakistan and ignores the shifts in landowner-haari relationships today. Further, the labour that is maimed and burned alive in factories, and denied minimum wage or abused by industrialists seems not to qualify as modern slavery – nor, for that matter, does household work but let’s leave that for now.

Finally, the death of class analysis explains the emotional defence offered recently by private school entrepreneurs. These businessmen and women attempt to rationalise school fee rates by painting themselves as socially concerned altruists filling in the vacuum, following the market model and with high-maintenance teacher issues.

This is a compelling example of the difference in self-indulgent social analysis versus class-conscious understandings about the ideological factories that make up the education sector. It may just be the proverbial last nail in the coffin of class analysis in Pakistan.

Concluded

The writer Afiya Shehrbano is a sociologist based in Karachi.