No need to fear dissent

By Afiya Shehrbano
STUCK in mythology, symbolism and romantic nostalgia, we seem to continuously look for liberation through these ethereal and allegorical paths. This unwillingness to break out of oppressive historical, religious and political moulds then allows the very real state to control and deny people their agency.

For eight years now, marginalised political dissent has been building a critical momentum through a combination of subversive writings, individual and collective protest, judicial activism, street power and other methods of challenging an anti-people, non-democratic state.

Yet when it comes to converting the power of these people into a meaningful expression of democratic desires, we resort to playing by the rules even if those are unfair, illegitimate and formulated by a dictatorial regime.

Why do we fear dissent and anarchy when we have already lived and experienced an illegal and bloody history for most of our 60 years? Why do we insist on unity, faith and discipline when we know that all three nouns don’t apply and perhaps shouldn’t anymore? Economically we have experienced the most speculative period under the Wizard of US and never questioned the lack of ‘unity’ or ‘discipline’ of a free-wheeling economy, let alone the ‘faith’ in the sinking US dollar we continue to worship.

We cannot question the lack of ‘unified’ command within the army which is splitting at the seams with regard to religious identity and a confusion of loyalty between national or universal jihad.

We also refuse to disengage and move beyond the symbolic value of patriarchal norms and insist on accepting the ‘unifying’ force of entrenched feudal politics, and rationalise it by giving it a different name. The trouble with ‘unity, faith and discipline’ is that it does not recognise the reality of class difference; nor tolerates abstinence from faith; and glosses over the potential of ethnic anarchy.

This spurious nationalism instead allows us a choice of mosques within the community but not of marriage amongst its members; of different political parties but not of the leadership within them; of ‘progressive’ thinking but not of criticism emerging from it because that would break the unity, question the faith and allow disorder. Hence, there can never be change.

So we mimic and duplicate the nationalist discourse in the name of ‘rule of law’, without questioning whose rule and which law. We get stuck in choosing sides rather than defining them. Funnily enough, we also seem prepared to give dictators and oppressive leaders a chance, depending on which side of the faith or ideology they personally represent. Thus the Jamaat-i-Islami breathed life into Gen Zia’s dictatorial rule and is directly responsible for the repercussions that those years yield today and in the future. It doesn’t matter how much the religious parties reinvent themselves, their opportunist role in rooting dictatorship is legendary now.

But unfortunately, so is the liberal class guilty of this sin. By choosing to play the ‘insider’ game, they too trusted Gen Musharraf’s anti-terrorist and pro-capitalist governance. That both generals exploited faith and a ruthless disciplinary method of preventing citizens from expressing dissent, as well as divisionary politics that privileged one class over the rest, is a burden that will be shared by those who supported them in any form.

Fear of losing privilege or compromising for an opportunity to gain it, is despicable but understandable. The other side of the equation, that of agency as a quality that is a potential tool for liberating us from a controlled and vicious cycle, is one we undermine repeatedly. The possibility of our own power, the fear our numbers instil even when it is limited to 10 people holding a peaceful vigil outside a deposed judge’s residence, demonstrates how agency can invert power relations.

Consequentially, the state can fear our intervention rather than the other way around. It is the only means and only moment when we can exert and influence change directly rather than seeking saviours, dealers or misadventurists. So we need to pursue our own brand of liberation. For now we have identified this to lie in the restoration of the Nov 2 judiciary, a restored 1973 Constitution and the removal of a president who was instituted through coercive and therefore unlawful means.

These are not ends, but the means that will tip the balance of power towards the people and which will give us the confidence to play a role in a democratic process in the future. Democracy is not about vengeance through the ballot alone, but by the process that gets us there.

For those who would question the ‘rejectionism’ that is implicit in such demands, we need to return the query unapologetically; why not put the energy spent on converting and saving a crumbling edifice and failed civil-military experiment instead into a redefined, independently representative and self-imaginative one? It is not that those seeking these demands are deniers of any reality. In fact, these arise from a recognition of the agency of all those who were pitted in a struggle against an oppressive state, regardless of their vision or ideology.

While we may not agree with the retrogressive tribal agenda of those who are fighting the state, we also recognise the failure of understanding, vision or tactics of the state in overcoming these forces. We understand that the nature of transition is merely an eyewash that gives cover to a state grasping for legitimacy and which has only created unprecedented mistrust between the state and the people.

If we continue to adhere to the musical chair power arrangements that dominated 2007 we can expect to be in a permanent state of transition. In weighing all the options, the institutions worth saving and protecting should not be in the interest of individual power or personal lifestyle liberties — instead, these must represent the process by which people’s agency is recognised.

This means acknowledging their participation, interventions and demands much, much before they get to the ballot. There are legitimate means outside and in the margins of the power game that we should not fear to use. We do not need to hope that army generals exert self-restraint from political intervention in the future. Instead, we should make it our demand by demonstrating that we can in fact symbolically, practically and democratically remove unlawful leadership now — even without the assistance of compromised parties.

Only those institutions and leadership that have proven to be conducive to the people’s agency should be supported — at the moment, these are only the pre-Nov 3 judiciary, deposed judges and lawyers who stand against the PCO.