Our Chomsky and their Hoodbhoy

Noam Chomsky is a linguist and a philosopher. He’s a renowned expert in his field and is loved by his students across America. But that’s not all. He is known worldwide because of his whistle-blowing and political activism. A heretic, a rebel; who criticizes American hegemony vehemently. He regularly opinionates against militarism, violence, capitalism and discrimination.

His educational work / career remains unhindered regardless of his critical views against the state. He has a strong influence – deservingly – in both education and politics.

In Pakistan, we love Noam Chomsky. We love to quote him. We use his words as a reference particularly in the Palestine-Israel conflict. He is ‘our’ intellectual hero who has exposed all the devils of the world. We just love him.

But.

Brace for impact. We are landing. In the land of pure… hypocrisy.

We have a similar heretic and rebellious professor here. Pervez Hoodhboy. He is a physicist and has degrees from MIT. And like Chomsky, he keeps on expressing his political views. He never hesitates to expose corruption around him. Just last year, he unveiled corruption of millions of rupees in government universities.

But we hate him. We hate him to the extent that we have thrown him out of the university. We don’t want him to teach rationality and modern sciences to our kids.

Because light makes us blind.

We doubt his credentials. As well as his sanity. We doubt his words. As well as his loyalty.

We have tagged him too. Haroon Rasheed – who loves to vomit live on TV – has recently ‘revealed’ Hoodhboy is an American agent. Alas! Here we are. Since the beginning.

Agents. Traitors. From Fatima Jinnah to Bacha Khan to Walli Khan to Marri to Suhrawardy to G. M. Syed to Mujeeb to Bugti to Faiz Ahmad Faiz to Jalib and hundreds of others to those abducted to those in unidentified graves to you and to me.

We have foreign heroes. Arundhati Roy. Edward Snowden. Jullian Assange. Daniel Ellsberg. Chelsea Manning. And Noam Chomsky. Astoundingly, we hate the same minds at home. Like Asma Jahangir. Eqbal Ahmed. Tariq Ali. Ammar Ali Jan. And Pervez Hoodhboy.

We lost one half in 1971. Because 55% of the population was of traitors. So – fortunately or unfortunately – majority decided to part ways. That is too a comic. Because it was the first time in history when majority decided to find a separate homeland after getting tired of stubborn minority.

Anyway.

We are firing teachers. Not like we are firing bullets. But literally. We are firing all the men we doubt. Because credentials and PhDs are guttered when loyalty is doubted. After all, that’s the whole idea behind a successful marriage.

Our hypocrisy and ‘corrected’ history have brought us here. Here.

Dissent is a beauty of any living society. You may disagree, but you defend the right to express. I disagree with Hoodbhoy on certain points, but I know; he knows how to hit the cord where it hurts the most. And the cord is of truth. Brutal truth.

And other times I just feel sad for him. He is fighting for more than 3 decades for sanity. He could have moved abroad. Very easily. But he stood here. And decided to fight against the holy cows – mullah, judiciary and establishment – along with their herd of 22 crore sheep.

Edwin Markham poem “Outwitted” says:

He drew a circle that shut me out-

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle and took him In!

Random Numbness (April 2020)

No more Khalil ur Rehman Qamar vomiting on TV. But it doesn’t mean shit doesn’t exist anymore. It does. Only we have some other problems.

Firstly, there is this virus. Supreme Court is trying their best to control the pandemic. Forgetting that they themselves are endemic.

Then, we have this sugar crisis. Tareen’s sugar levels is high as IK – well, not IK – made the report public. Now Tareen is running here and there, looking for some Musharraf-kinda-daddy. ‘Sugar daddy’ looking for daddy. What luck!

Meanwhile Saad rafique met Pervaiz Elahi. Yes, the same ‘daaku’. In ten years, PML-Q desperately wanted to hangout with PML-N, but they were not needed before. Now political frustration has paved the way for the two ugly ducklings. This is precisely where Zia’s DNA meets Musharraf’s DNA.

And Vawda is back again. Without a boot this time. If coronavirus had a face…

Even religious scholars and mullahs are providing comedy. Yeh to ho ga. When their businesses will be closed, they will be frustrated. And in frustration, they will provide content.

Anyway, with all the fuss, comedy remained intact. IK says something. Sindh goes the other way. Punjab follows Sindh after a day or two. Then KPK follows Punjab. Then Federal endorses everything with ifs and buts. And then comes sugar and wheat report.

Government has issued vague notifications and has directed Commissioners / Deputy Commissioners to resolve the confusions. Well, the bureaucrats rarely handle straight guidelines, and here they are asked to use their minds. Embrace yourself!

There is much ado about nothing. Lockdown is here. It’s not curfew. Yes, you can open your shop. No, not you. You. I mean you, not you. Who?

But don’t blame them.

We got these laws, courts, bureaucracy and military from colonialism. Ranks and designations and hierarchies and grades are exactly the colonial way. In exactly the same offices they made during colonial era. With exactly the same mindset sucking the system.

Majority of our laws and penal codes – including 144 – are from colonial era. The exact same system is lynching the public the exact same way.

Only the elite natives replaced the gora sahibs.

That’s why our history, throughout the decades, is same. Same ink accusing the same class of the same mind.

Jalianwala Bagh before partition.
Babrra massacre after partition.

Manto wrote before and after 1947. And he wrote exactly the same stories.
Stories of atrocities.
Stories of lawlessness.
Stories of corruption.
Stories of fanaticism.
Stories of men. Men of lust.

The only difference is what he wrote as derogatory has become itself a writer with endless scripts and dramas. But we have other problems for now.

An Ideal Time

Have you thought at what time in history – present actually – this virus has spread throughout the world? Well, at an ideal time.

The vaccine isn’t here yet. It will take time. Best case: summer 2021. So, you have to wait.

You always cried for family time, right? So here it is!
Fasten your seatbelt. Because you aren’t going anywhere. And you won’t be able to. By the time it ends, you will have eaten up the loads of stored food and your belly would be swollen and your knees won’t be able to bear a hippo, you big fat f…

“THINGS YOU OWN END UP OWNING YOU.”

When a virus attacks, your body fights. This earth – motherland – was consistently being attacked by us, so it has retaliated. Perhaps it’s my illusionary-pessimistic-self talking. But anyway, considering your family life constant, it feels good. Doesn’t it?

When the patient starts to recover, it feels good. The mother earth is recovering. AQI index of ugliest cities are at par with cleanest cities around the world. The air we are breathing now wasn’t available for over two decades.

Petrol consumption is at its lowest. As is water consumption due to closed industries.

Other than that, crime rate has plummeted globally. How many kids have been saved from potential rape and murder incidents?

There is no war at the moment. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

All the missiles and tanks and jets are waiting for another man-made crisis. But this isn’t a man-made crisis. They aren’t needed now. They’ll be needed when duffers will reign again. And they will. Because insects are immune to…

You know this was – is – the ideal time for a novel epidemic. This is the only planet we own and look what we did to her.

We filled the waters with plastics and crude products. And dead bodies. Millions of dead bodies who became homeless in their homes and drowned while trying to find another home. Finding Neverland.

We even threw Luca Brasi and Bin Laden into the waters.

We destroyed the jungles. We established industries for mass consumption – including animals. We made leather from snakes and crocodiles.

We advertised brands made by hungry hands. We gave them enough to be steady but not enough to stand. We treated those hands in Africa and Asia as cows of dairy industry.

Class. Creed. Sect. Race. Religion. Nationality. We compartmentalized all the lower classes.

Meanwhile, the elite remained classless. Sitting in luxury offices finalizing bail-out packages for people wining and dining in yachts and mansions. Classless. People of the mosque, temple and church; all equal in the eyes of wealth.

Karl Marx said religion is an anti-depressant for struggling class. And he said it was necessary. Anti-depressants are necessary. Aren’t they?

So the virus is here. It was needed. It was time. Every era has to end.

Kingdoms ended. Colonialism perished. Fascism and totalitarianism jolted the world in world wars but were ceased after millions died. An era of liberalism emerged. The liberal half of the world saw its epitome of research and development in those years. While the other half kept on suffering at the hands of conservatism and religion-based politics. Then came the new wars. Wars based on information to target people and regions precisely.

It started with Iraq. Entered Afghanistan. Splashed countries like Libya, Syria and Yemen. Pimps suffered too: Pakistan lost its strategic position and Saudia lost its regional control. China initiated a surveillance war on Uighur. Burma did ethnic cleansing boldly, that too under a Noble Peace Laureate. India committed crimes legally, by passing vicious laws. Boris, Modi, Trump, Bolsonaro, Khan. Do you see there is something common all across the political world?

POPULISM.

Say what the crowd wants to hear.
Do what the crowd wants done.
Be it stupid. Be it cruel.

So, the virus came. It was long due.

Ah! I knew you would say that. ‘People will be jobless’. ‘There will be shortage of food’. ‘People will die’. ‘Blah blah’.

Yes. But, no.

That was all happening before. People were jobless before. There was shortage of food before. People died before. You just ignored all of it.

The only difference is, you will be jobless this time. You will face shortage of food. You will die.

But God forbid. Let’s hope for the best. We all need an anti-depressant.

Let me tell you, a new era is going to begin. Populism will go down organically. The generations eye-witnessing the current scenario, will not be conservative or orthodox as before. Countries will re-prioritize their future budgets. Science will have its due share as will healthcare. Religion will become a personal matter – as it should be – for some time to come.

And war. These tanks and missiles and jets. These decorated soldiers and their synchronized parades for emotional wellbeing of the crowd.

Well, behave yourself.

Nostalgic Descriptivism

“Denoting” is a philosophy by Bertrand Russell. Descriptivism.

Let’s improvise: “Nostalgic Descriptivism”.

Monsoon Rains. Dampness. The whisper of wet leaves. The grass adorned with tiny water droplets.

Was it the monsoon or the dampness? Was it the person or the feeling? Was it the place or the weather?

Was it specific? Or random?

Random it was!

Isn’t descriptivism random too?

Take an example: Who is the poet who died in Kasur, loved to be called Arain over Shah, and was called “infidel” by the Mullahs of his time? This whole description is for Bulleh Shah precisely.

But what if you don’t know Bulleh Shah? This whole descriptivism is random then. Baseless. Meaningless. Is that what defines Bulleh Shah? What if he had been born in a different city? Like Narowal, to be called Faiz?

What is nostalgic descriptivism? Bertrand Russell didn’t talk about it.

Is it the person? Or the weather? Or the dampness? Or the rain?

For instance: Does it matter if she was from Lahore or Islamabad?

Does it matter if her name was not this but that?

Does it matter if she lied happily or didn’t lie unhappily?

No it doesn’t. None of the facts matter.

What matters is the time. Descriptive time. The time which is gone but rewinds. Again and again. Whenever the description matches, it hits your memory. It invites nostalgia. It gives you the same feeling and dampness. Without the presence of anyone. No presence is needed.

And I don’t know how to describe further.

By the way, next time you read descriptivism, remember I described “nostalgic descriptivism” for the first time.

For you!

Until next time…

Mothers

Away from all these conspiracy theories reside our mothers.

The mothers who send their kids to schools even when they know they aren’t as safe as they were once.

Over a hundred mothers saw their little kids for the last time when they went to school on 16th December 2014.

There are mothers who are embracing the dead bodies of their young sons; in police uniform, military uniform, and also in no uniform; on a daily basis.

There are mothers who see their sons and daughters dying daily in the desperation of meeting the basics.

There are mothers who see their daughters suffering because of society, culture, misogyny, and patriarchy.

These mother get hurt daily.

Yet they never ceased the process of reproduction.

They cook hope in the breakfast and clean wounds at the dinner.

Perhaps they inherited this from our fearless mother Fatima Jinnah.

Why mothers in Palestine never stopped having kids? They are suffering since forever, yet they are populated as ever.

Because it is not about death.

It is about life.