The Holy Mind Blow

These Pakistani bhais of mine, (*shakes head*). What can I say? Especially this new “liberal” lot. They have done more to give the mullahs the space to continue playing havoc with the country’s sociology and politics than the mullahs themselves!

And what on earth are these mullahs always going on and on about General Musharaf being a secular out to “turn Pakistan into a secular state?”

How can he when the so-called seculars in the government, the private media and elsewhere can’t even exhibit a simple, non-threatening secular act of kicking off events and functions WITHOUT a lil’ recitation from the Koran or worse, a bloody naat!

Only recently, while attending a big advertising conference in Karachi, how I cringed when the whole suit-tie event kicked off with a recitation from the Koran and conveniently followed by skits revolving squarely around symbols alluding to delicious matters such as the male penis, the female vagina, the breasts and nymphomania!

How come I (the “non-believing Marxist/atheist/anarchist/etc),” was the ONLY one noting and asking this while my more believing (and “liberal”) contemporaries saw little in way of contradiction?

This advertising conference is one small example. Present-day Pakistani TV channels are another great example, including some very popular Pakistani weeklies. You can find EVERTHING here. It is quite like kicking off a fashion show with talawat and, of course, a naat. This allegory should (and must!), seem surrealistically awkward to a secular minded person, but in Pakistan it is tolerated as a rational matter-of-fact happening, no questions asked.

Such hypocrisy no matter how bothersome to us seculars, did make ideological and socio-political sense during the Zia dictatorship, but hey, the last time I checked the malicious, right-wing Machiavellian bugger blew up somewhere over Bhawalpur a good sixteen years ago!

But nay, he lives! The diabolically screwed up, messed up and confused Pakistani Muslim realm and culture he so lovingly cultivated and left behind is still thriving. And unfortunately one wont be able to get rid of it by just (finally) purging the country’s many intelligence agencies off their deep-rooted extremist influences. This was a political necessity now only undertaken as a pragmatic move to suit the government’s internal and international status, security and standing in the post-9/11 scenario. But who is going to purge the country of its lingering Ziaist mindset?

Now don’t you dare ask why we need to do this? We need to do this if the society’s economics, sociology, art and politics need to start evolving again other than only expand while standing exactly where they were during the eleven-year-Zia catastrophe.

They need to move and not just pretend that they are moving. They need to move forward and not get stuck (like they are) in a time (now!) that seems nothing more than a glorified, glamorous, metrosexual version of 1985!
And ironically, the mullahs are not the real culprits anymore … as such. They are doing what they’ve been doing ever since they first made Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sideline the Ahmadies in 1973 and then gave Zia his topsy-turvy “Nizam-e-Mustapha” writ and manifesto as dictator in 1977. And ever since they suddenly achieved unprecedented political and social prominence during Zia’s peak years in the early and mid ‘80s. They are doing what they’ve always been doing and what we have always expected them to do.

But wasn’t this (now!) supposed to be the time when Pakistan’s so-called emerging capitalist/bourgeois revolution start to confront the usually meddlesome and reactionary clergy in line with most other bourgeois revolutions in history?

Ah, too Marxist an assumption? I agree. Because being a Marxist myself and in the matters of the emerging bourgeois’ relationship with a high handed clergy, I am actually devastated to note that in the context of the two’s relationship in Pakistan, this relationship here bears more resemblance to the way the German and Italian fascists struck a psychotic chord with Italy and Germany’s bourgeoisie in the early 20th Century compared to what one expected the emerging, troubled bourgeoisie to behave like (towards extremists) after the American and the French Revolutions.

But the middle-classes (anywhere) have always been an awkward lot. Constantly knocked between upper-class decadence and excesses and underclass “crudeness” and violence. The politics and social behaviorism of the middle-classes (the bourgeois and the petty-bourgeois) usually end up being a socially accepted sum of an emotional and psychological mess.

Being the classic example of the modern, urban, capitalist middle-class ethos, the American lot in this respect are a good way to look at this. That’s why HBO’s Sex & The City is a perfect case in point of the socially acceptable neurosis and quasi-psychosis the American middle-classes have always been victims of ever since the Industrial Revolution first set foot in the Americas.
And no wonder the Americans are the least secular of the modern secular nations of the West. And the most hypocritical and pretentious as well.

In one go you can expect an American bourgeoisie to go from being a passionate Catholic, to a puritanical Protestant, to a humanitarian liberal to a Kabala jew to a sex rabbit to being a passionate Catholic all over again!
But then aren’t all the bourgeoisie (especially today) as …err … diversified?
The only thing the modern post-Industrial Revolution middle-classes (anywhere) have been consistent about is their inconsistencies regarding their definition of stuff like “democracy,” “freedom”, “equal opportunity,” “morality,” “rights,” et al.

It is not the “jaahil” underclasses that have bred and produced the most effective fanatical moralists (in shape of politicians or preachers).

The “jaahils” have just been disposable fodder extracted from matters like social and economic frustrations. Frustrations produced by economics and sociology preached and imposed by the industrial and the feudal classes and their tight assed bourgeoisie lackeys. And it is from such circles of lackeydom moral madness is born; sometimes in the shape of raving preachers, sometimes in shape of cults and “lecturers” and “alims” and sometimes in the shape of plain and simple “moderates” who in the name of “modern Islam/Christianity/etc.” do more to continue the tradition of religious harassment and persecution than the everyday bearded, robed, painted priest or preachers.

For example, in Pakistan, the best thing that ever happened to modern Tableeghi Islam’s move towards making inroads into the already venerable, impressionable and weak minds of the post-Cold-War bourgeoisie youth, was Pakistani pop star Juniad Jamshed!

Liberals (young and old) in Pakistan (and India) are absolutely not secular. Look at them! They are not the ones out to separate religion from politics. They understand neither. They may pretend to be heading a glorious modern revolution in the politics, economics and sociology of their respective countries, but really, one look at India’s Star TV or Pakistan’s Indus Music, Geo or ARY, or even so-called “progressive” weeklies like The Friday Times, and all these (and much more) reminds me of that advertising conference.
Yes sir, toilet humor and jokes about erectile dysfunction and viginal over-function are perfectly fine if kicked off by the holy name of the Almighty.
Not only can Indian and Pakistani liberals not separate the church and the state, they can’t keep a mullah’s or a Sadhu’s God (or the one preached and defined by their favorite guru or “scholar”), away from their thoughts about dicks and holes.

In fact, one shouldn’t be surprised if, for example, he hears someone asking an Islamic scholar on Pakistan’s Geo TV about “what is the religiously correct position to assume while having sex!”

If these are the burning issues of a nation … ah, never mind. Try reading the gossip columns of The Friday Times. The point being, in essence, there’s hardly any difference between the two. The modern Pakistani liberal is actually the notorious Pakistani mullah’s best ally. Cat fights are all they have. The real, meaningful fighting is done by those who have to actually bear the two’s frivolous, profit-friendly bullshit!