When Arundhati Roy candidly
wrote about the discourse of ‘Anti-Americanism’ through which dissenting voices
are suppressed, she was obviously talking about the American establishment. What
if she had been living and engaged in activism in Pakistan? Would she have
written about the discourse of ‘pro-Americanism’ through which dissenting
voices are suppressed by sections of media, urban middle classes and sections
of the state’s establishment of Pakistan?
Ms. Roy writes:
To
call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti American, (or for that matter
anti-Indian, or anti-Timbuktuan ) is not just racist, it’s a failure of the imagination.
An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment
has set out for you: If you’re not a Bushie, you’re a Taliban. If you don’t love
us, you hate us. If you’re not Good, you’re Evil. If you’re not with us, you’re
with the terrorists.[1]
Just change the
adjectives and subject determiner a bit and you find a very interesting co-relation the opposite of what Arundhati Roy proclaims but with the same effect. May it like
this that to call someone anti-Talibanization, indeed, to be against the
militant disocurse necessarily mean pro-American? And this is also in an
environment where pro-Americanism incites the worst kind of violence. Even if
not violence, at least suppression of one’s voice or loss of political support.
The discourse of pro-Americanism has interesting
denominations in Pakistan. You would be considered a good Muslim and a patriot
when you supported the US war against the Soviets by terming it jihad in
Afghanistan back in 1980s. You are the worst kind of a traitor and pro-American
if you refuse to accept the discourse of violent extremism in Pakistan that has
damaged only and only the state and society of Pakistan. To understand
relationship of violent extremism in Pakistan and American presence and drone
strikes, please read my blog on http://hussainkhadim79.blogspot.com/2013/06/imran-khans-press-conference-in.html.
I have otherwise great
respect for Rahimullah Yousufzai, a veteran journalist working in The News, but
it is in the interest of the fundamental human right that one expresses his/her
difference of opinion in matters related to our collective life. It is perhaps
true for respectable Rahimullah Yousufzai as much as for a common citizen like
me.
While discussing ANP-
JUI seat-to-seat adjustment for by-elections 2013 in his piece published in the
News on Sunday on July 28 2013, Rahimullah sahib has decreed that ANP is a Pro-US
political party. Irrespective of the
fact that one would have expected the same kind of analysis during pre 2013
polls on the JUI –QWP seat-to-seat adjustment in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the one
hand and PML-N Balochs and Pakhtun Nationalist Parties in Balochistan on the
other hand, let’s concentrate on the core issue of ‘Pro-US’ and ‘Anti-US’
discourse. Before dilating on the issue
of ‘pro-US’ and ‘Anti-US’, let’s first analyze the statement per se and find
some visible logical fallacies there.
First, who makes
foreign policy in Pakistan? If a political party in Pakistan is even unable to
talk about foreign policy, how come it is dubbed pro or anti any other country?
If the statement means that ANP has not declared jihad against the Americans in
Afghanistan after 2011, then which other political party has so far done it?
Second, what are the
indicators of being ‘pro-US’ and ‘Anti-US’? Is it worldview? If working for a modern
polity and use of modern technology constitutes this worldview, then perhaps
even Taliban share the same worldview. Is
it strategic, which of course includes support or not support for drones? A
veteran like Rahimullah Yousufzai might certainly remember that it was only ANP
which took protest rally against the drone strike in Bajaur in 2006. Is it
political, which certainly includes dialogue with those militant organizations
which can delink from Al-Qaeda? Again our senior journalist might remember that
ANP initiated dialogue with the Taliban in Swat in 2008 despite substantial
American pressure.
Third, the discourse of
hegemony and resistance to hegemony in Pakistan perhaps originates from the
politics of Khudai Khidmatgars and National Awami Party—both the predecessors
of ANP.
I leave it to the
imagination and information of the readers to find out the history of relations
between the US and Pakistan starting from 1950s till date.
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