It is not that I really like following politics. It is that the alternative is unthinkable. When you are living in a world where the few have control over the many (trying not to digress into Mr. Spock's words to Captain Kirk in Khan), you have got to know something about what is happening to your choices, your livelihood, your future or the future of a beloved. You might wish to know how restrictive certain laws are, even if your own life is not directly impacted by it (and chances are it is). And if you want to live in a world where you feel everyone should have access to the same rights and or privileges, politics is inescapable.
So yeah, you could say fuck politics! But politics fucks you.
***
We are approaching an election year here in the United States. So is Pakistan. I still try to keep up with what is happening there. It is a little easier now with all the technologies available to us, but still, there is a sense that leaving Pakistan and its twisted politics and policies meant leaving all that behind.
Pakistan today is much better than it was thirty-two years ago in some respects. In others, it is not. Sixty-four years later, various factions are still raging about whether Pakistan was meant to be a secular nation or one based on religion and religious laws. And while they have yet to figure that out, there are those from various generations born in Pakistan, those who remember nothing about what it was like when General Zia ul-Haq turned things upside down and all around, who are questioning the remnants of his dictatorship.
And that is a bloody good thing. It indicates that there is still hope. But hope needs to be within the purview of all Pakistanis, which includes Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and all oppressed populations. Was it Albert Einstein who said You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. Well you cannot simultaneously prepare for a return to more democracy and prevent a small percentage of the population from being equal partners in said democracy.
It was therefore, incredibly disappointing, when the government itself said that it was no longer going to continue a dialogue re: blasphemy laws. It was too much of a security risk, after the murders of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti. Meanwhile, shia mosques continue to be attacked in Pakistan, and Imran Khan who wants to be the next prime minister of Pakistan talks about how he will stop terror groups in Pakistan. How will he do it? What will have to be lost in order for terror to end not just in Pakistan, but beyond. The specifics are still vague, but promises are made, and as always Pakistanis want to believe that something good, better is right around the corner.
There is an episode of the series Law and Order where a former military man has killed a suspected terrorist. In his closing statement, Jack McCoy, the ADA and prosecutor, in reiterating what the respected, decorated man has done asks a question, something to the effect of how much of ourselves as a nation are we willing to succumb to terrorism?
It is a question that has not left me since I watched it.
***
The more I listen to some voices, the more I wish they would go beyond words, or beyond the simple yet really effective words of Aaloo AnDay. Before the Beyghairat Brigade, there was Junoon. Junoon, the pulsating "sufi" rock band who came out with songs like Talaash, Ghaflat, and Intesaab.
Now you have Ali Azmat, former Junoon rocker, in the darbar of Zaid Hamid who would rather blame Taliban bombings on a conspiracy between the CIA, Indian agents of RAW and *gasps* the Mossad. And no one is making this up. Not even the supposed beyghairatoN who are supposedly aligned with the West. And as one who was a fan of Junoon, I think, bloody hell! What has happened to zehni ghulaami se honge kab hum azaad? One might ask where is the ghulaami as far as Zaid Hamid is concerned. Another will question the azaadi that Hamid and his friends and followers, including Imran Khan want.
It makes me think of that scene from Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without A Cause, where James Dean so powerfully and emotively cries out to his parents, You're tearing me apart!
Pakistan has been torn apart enough over the years. There has got to be a way for the rang baranga fabric to be put together again. And it can be done by Pakistanis themselves, many who are still waiting for that dawn to arrive. Waiting and hoping involve greater action. I hope that it goes beyond a song, out into the streets, out for freedom, secularism and justice.
All some of us can do from the sidelines is watch, wait and hope. Those of us who don't have the loads of cash supporting their interests, that is.
