In Pakistan, patriotism has become an epithet

“The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist as half empty. What I see is water that can save someone’s life.”

The mantra of my life is not to save someone’s life; to ascribe that kind of importance to the effect of my words and actions would be borderline delusional. I merely wish to make sense of how I observe the world around me, and how I see others do the same.

There is never a conscious effort to look at things for what they are not, as my overactive mind and never-at-peace heart prevent me from never having the indulgence of not looking at the entire picture from all angles.

I’m a strange human mixture of an optimist, a pessimist and a realist, the third category not mentioned in the quote, and it baffles me every step of my life to see human emotions and reactions divided into clear binaries instead of a sheepish admission that there is simply no black and white anywhere, be it personal or something else.

Banaries and their ripple effect

The binaries cause a ripple effect, the worst of which is creation of divisions that instead of being looked at as an enhancer of good differences and a cheerleader for commonalities that make people unique and thus more open-minded and empathetic, are creating a distance that is increasingly hard to bridge, and mostly incomprehensible in its negative connotations.

My beloved country Pakistan. I see it in people around me, I read it on Twitter every day, I watch it in talk shows. In a world in which there is so much emphasis on freedom of expression, freedom of action and freedom of being, there is a bewildering amount of emphasis on negation and rejection of counter-narratives, counter-opinions and counter-ideologies.

My beloved country Pakistan. I see it in people around me, I read it on Twitter every day, I watch it in talk shows. In a world in which there is so much emphasis on freedom of expression, freedom of action and freedom of being, there is a bewildering amount of emphasis on negation and rejection of counter-narratives, counter-opinions and counter-ideologies.

- Mehr Tarar

Those who are different are a misfit, those who don’t toe the line are an outcast with an invisible scarlet letter on their lapel, those who don’t adhere to the rules followed by everyone around them are a rebel being inched out of popular social groups, at times quietly elbowed out, at times pushed out without even a pretext.

Strangely it is the liberal and the enlightened that seem to have a huge issue with co-existence with the contrarian, the conformist and the conservative, the list is endless.

The basic red lines of intolerance, bigotry, incitement to hatred, incitement to violence, dispersion of incendiary propaganda for political gains, incitement to sedition and systematic spreading of the false must exist for everyone, not merely those who think of themselves as liberal. No human being must cross a red line, ideally, but that is a world that tragically is at best a utopia and at worst, yes, a utopia.

We deal with how things are, not how they should be. What is happening all around us is not merely some brave souls saving through words, actions, activism, politics and scholarly influence the sanctity of these red lines, and making the world a better place one life saved from indignity, one refugee placed in asylum, one fascist toppled, one wall broken down, one wall stopped from being made, one death row prisoner pardoned, one corrupt leader jailed, at a time.

What is happening is the steady and methodical establishment of a system in which half-truths are used as the headline, where hearsay is propagated as the authentic, where engineering of rumours and dissemination of rumours is just another hour of cunning in formulation of a new way to harm the political rivals.

Where the noble act of activism and promulgation of truth and free speech are used as disposable tools to further self-serving agendas that singular or three-pronged are blatant in their opportunism: a race for monetary benefits, career advancement, political relevance.

There is no story that is told without embellishment.

There is no narrative that is not subjective in its intent.

There is no truth that is sacred. It would have all been just another facet of being human if only it was without any ulterior motive. The phenomena of observation, absorbing, reaction and action is human.

What makes it a Faustian bargain is clandestine motives, pushing of agendas and establishment of an eco-system in which only the like-minded and the back-patters are welcome, promoted and eulogised.

Machiavellian in its ingenuity of construction and promotion, it is the very antithesis for what it beats its chest in self-righteous indignation and self-glorification in service of freedom of speech, action, literature, cinema, media.

What is being done is the pushing of a singular narrative in the guise of enlightened discourse and debate.

What is happening is a one-sided conversation and a closed-ended discussion painting a scenario of negativity, pessimism and gloom and doom. It is done through editorials, op-eds, hyped negative headlines, linear TV talks, conferences and festivals, and articles and interviews in foreign media.

Presentation of a true picture of the flaws and weaknesses of a country, in this case, Pakistan, is one thing. Constant is the flagellation of Pakistan’s present reality in which much is being done to address and redress the ills that has beset it for long, and the new direction in which the theoretical and the actual emphasis is on a positive and a constructive overhauling of the entire system.

Relentless is the gratuitousness of criticism for every good step that is taken by the four-month old government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to initiate the painstaking and the very long process of undoing the damage done in the last four decades and more.

Non-stop attacks

Non-stop are the attacks that are devised and hurled at the behest of political opposition, which pushed into a painful and a very unexpected cul-de-sac of accountability of their misdeeds and corruption believe that offence is the best defence.

There is deliberate blurring of a line between a gratuitous attack and a legitimate raising of a point, a personal attack and constructive criticism, malicious rubbishing of a good initiative and a healthy debate on its merits and demerits, and disdainful mockery of a failed idea or programme and a calculated shredding-to-bits the good intentions of the government.

Pakistan needs its liberals and its enlightened and its commentators and its politicians to NOT be blind to its flaws, camouflage its black spots and white-wash its past.

Pakistan needs to be aware of all its bad, and find a way forward.

Pakistan needs its individual and collective conscience to not be agenda-driven but to be from a consciousness of positivity and patriotism.

AND: Patriotism is not jingoism. Patriotism is a mechanism of deep introspection, stock-taking of the reality, unity, collaboration of the opposites, forward-thinking inspiration, and refinement of a system of policy and implementation that while taking the inglorious past as the barometer of what not to do forges a roadmap that is clear, practical and farsighted.

Patriotism is asking all stakeholders–government, opposition, armed forces, establishment, higher judiciary–hard questions, and expecting answers.

Patriotism is not the exclusion of the negatives, it is about inclusion of the positives.

Patriotism is lessons from the past and celebration of the good in the present.

Patriotism: Twisted definition

Patriotism cannot be enforced upon you; patriotism is the love, like that for your family — you have for your country with all its beauty and scars and sparkle and warts and the good and the skeletons in the closet.

In Pakistan of today, patriotism has become an epithet, in an unscrupulous twisting of its definition mixing it with hyper-nationalism and xenophobia.

And it is not just the bigots and the fascists and the fundamentalists who are doing it.

The glass is empty today. That makes me deeply sad. And stronger. Something’s gotta give.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to look beyond the glass. Pakistan’s reality is much more than that. Pakistan does not have a single story.