The Baloch Hal
By Malik Siraj Akbar
During last year’s SAFMA [South Asian Free Media Association] conference, Imtiaz Alam, the organization’s secretary general, grumbled with the chief guest, the then president Asif Ali Zardari, about the government’s inaction against the Pakistani Taliban. Mr. Alam went on to warn the president that if Islamabad did not quash the Taliban, the people of Pakistan would cajole the United Nations to intervene in order to rescue the country from the cruelty of the Taliban.
Zardari patiently listened to Mr. Alam’s complaint and also his naïve warning. But what the former president said in response merited significant attention. Zardari talked about the shortcomings within Pakistan’s liberal class. He explained how the right-wing was capable of bringing out tens of thousands of people on a short notice to rally for the causes they believe in.
The former president taunted the liberal class for its lukewarm response to the assassination of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer and its aftermath. Some people even did not show up for Taseer’s funeral, Zardari recalled, because they feared being targeted by fanatics like Mumtaz Qadri merely for attending the burial of a man who had unjustly been accused of blasphemy and murdered in broad daylight.
Taseer’s murder sharply polarized the public opinion in Pakistan but it also provided the liberals an opportunity to stand up and vociferously denounce extremism. They missed that opportunity simply because it literally took them weeks to realize what they had actually witnessed under their nose: Pakistan had just entered a distressing epoch of extremism that had permeated even among the country’s clean-shaven, English-speaking professional lawyers and social media users.
I am immediately reminded of Zardari’s observations about the right-wing’s maneuvering capabilities and tactics when I follow their fresh diatribe against teenage activist Malala Yousafzai in the wake of the release of her autobiography I Am Malala. Deplorably, some private schools have already banned the book at their libraries because, according to one spokesman of the schools’ association, they do not want other girls to emulate Malala. The conservatives have convinced themselves that Malala is speaking the language of western countries without realizing that one does not have to be a “western-agent” to advocate girls’ right to education.
It is already known how the religious class manipulates public sentiments by distorting facts and putting otherwise clearly stated things out of context. What has, nonetheless, flabbergasted me is the enormous resources available to the right-wing and the endless opportunities offered to them to appear on the television to champion unholy causes, including the call for violence.
Space for free speech and preaching of liberal views has drastically shrunk in Pakistan in recent years. While seeing courageous people like Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy or Farzana Bari confront conservative commentators like Orya Maqbool Jan or Ansar Abbasi one does not know whether to accolade their courage or worry about their personal safety.
Sometimes when I see them speak on television, I still feel these liberal thinkers are not being fully truthful. But then I also immediately remind myself that nobody wants to end up as the next Taseer.
Amid the fresh controversy surrounding I Am Malala, one must concede the failure of the liberal intellectuals to adequately defend the book in television talk shows. This is either because of the fear for personal safety or the panelists’ ignorance about the overall context of the book.
At least, two liberal analysts, who had been invited on television to defend I Am Malala, embarrassingly admitted that they had not even read the book. On the other hand, the conservatives appeared well-prepared: They had highlighted portions of the book and brought notes with them only to misrepresent and mislead the audience but, honestly, they still looked better than the unprepared liberals.
Genuine challenges aside, the Left in Pakistan seems to be in a complete disarray and unprepared to fight back. Actually, the Left faces a fatal disconnect between theory and practice.
Clearly, I Am Malala has not only put Pakistan’s right-wing into a limbo but it has also pushed the urban liberal thinkers out of their comfort zone. They do support Malala’s cause for education but still fail to fully understand what it means to be a Pashtun girl and flaunt about her ethnic identity and culture while snubbing the Pakistani etiquettes officially imposed upon us in our textbooks.
At times, even liberal thinkers surrender before the official narrative. While Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy said in a talk-show that he’d rather ban The Satanic Verses in Pakistan, Farzana Bari, in another show, said she ‘personally’ believed the Ahmedyas were ‘Kafirs’.
These are some critical issues on which the liberal class should speak rationally rather than being overwhelmed by their emotions while making judgments.
Historically, the liberal class in Pakistan has predominantly been represented by western educated urban elite living in big cities like Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. They were either born in rich families where they inherited liberal life style by birth or they, otherwise, believed liberalism was good in theory because it helped to enliven drawing room discussions.
The urban liberals may have heard of the hardships of people like Malala in rural Pakistan but they did not personally experience her struggle. Hence, even many liberals cannot fully explain what it means to be Ziauddin, Malala’s father whose biggest dream in life was to open a school and raise an educated daughter. In large cities, the Left and the Right lampoon Ziauddin’s struggle because they take a girl’s access to education for granted.
Within Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are such places where liberal theory translates into practice. If Qadeer Baloch’s long march from Quetta to Karachi is not a practical manifestation of a struggle for liberal values then what else is?
The Left and the Right in Urban Pakistan prefers to identify themselves as Pakistanis. They have little exposure to identity politics because the state of Pakistan has systematically crushed or discouraged ethnic identities. Hence, I can imagine why even a liberal from urban Pakistan would be bewildered when Malala identifies herself as a Swati and a Pashtun first before calling herself a Pakistani. Why should one be surprised? Didn’t we notice the semi-literate Baloch housewife from Awaran when she told a B.B.C. reporter, “this is Balochistan, not Pakistan.”
I Am Malala is an educating account for Pakistan’s clergy but it also offers food for thought to the urban liberals to understand how old nations like the Baloch and the Pashtun view the world and how they wish to be identified. Liberals cannot defend Malala and people like her unless they experience her hardships and the context of struggle. Her book introduces the readers beyond the traditional textbook narratives although it also highlights the dilemma of a young girl trapped under multiple identities at the same time.
Some accuse Malala’s father of putting words in her mouth. As a matter of fact, it is totally the other way round. Our textbooks had put one narrative in our mouth for six decades and I Am Malala introduces us to one part of our history and the forgotten heroes that the official narrative intentionally excluded. Personally, I would prefer to learn more about a Pashtun worrier and a Sindhi poet rather than learning about an alien Arab invader because I can hardly relate to the Arab culture.
I Am Malala did make a sincere effort to educate a country suffering from an identity crisis. A sixteen-year old girl can only provide us food for thought. It is now for the liberal intellectuals to initiate an in-depth debate on issues that plague the Pakistani society. By not sufficiently countering the right-wing distortions, the liberals have, unfortunately, let the book and its authors down.
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