The nationalists are angry at the religious on one side and the liberals on the other. The religious and the liberals, more than adequately, return the sentiment. Most people are angry at USA and the West, but they are equally angry at Saudi Arabia and the Muslim countries. Everyone in Pakistan is angry with our own government and there are plenty who are very unhappy with the Hindus and the Jews. The majority of the people are angry with the elites, the local representatives, the political parties, the army and the judiciary and at any other local institution for that matter. We are angry with the police, the WAPDA, the distribution companies, the WASA, the local municipal corporation and even the garbage collectors.
Lately I have been watching and reading the Pakistani media quite a bit, and have been spending some time on Facebook and reading tweets as well. It is astounding how many Pakistanis or people of Pakistani origin, and it does not matter whether they reside in Pakistan or outside, are angry at everything that goes on in the universe. And the anger can spring forth at any time and on any issue, large or small.
There are those who will be angry at everything, whichever way things go. If Nawaz Sharif supports the government people are angry with him, if he threatens to take action, people are angry with him. If ANP tries to talk to the Taliban people are angry with them, if they do not, people are angry with them. If MQM breaks with PPP, the same and if they come back, it is the same. At the root of it all, it is just that we are angry, no motive, person or institution is clean and no one has the trust of the people. People are angry at the Mullahs too: for making religion a matter of politics and play, for making it a bargaining chip in politics, and for spreading hatred and intolerance against other religions, sects and other sub-groups. And the opposite is also true: they are angry at the Mullahs for not standing up for the pure spirit of Islam.
And it is not just in the media, the anger spills on our streets and in our daily lives too. There are daily protests and strikes on energy shortages, high prices of essential commodities, low salaries, poor governance, unemployment, Raymond Davis, blasphemy, drone attacks, and the list, without distinctions of importance, is almost inexhaustible.
People are happy with the cricket team for putting together two good performances. But if the team loses against India, Allah help them. Every gesture that Afridi has made or not made, every catch that Kamran has floored or stumping that he has missed, and every shenanigan of Umar, and every dot ball that Misbah has played is going to get resurrected. And these two wins will not be remembered. And it will also not be remembered that we have had a terrible couple of years with no domestic cricket, with major scandals rocking our cricket establishment, with a nincompoop as the head of the cricket body and with a country that has been going through massive issues at so many levels. And that even making it to the semi-finals was a commendable performance in its own right. The team will be better off coming back in ones and twos if they do lose to India come Wednesday.
The anger can be at trivial things too. Most recently people on Facebook have been angry at a young man who got flustered, spoke a bit incoherently on the question of revolution and so on. People have made fun of him, ridiculed him, and have gone on about it, and some have felt angry and betrayed and this has been going on for days now. And all this about what? A young man from a certain class who was not as articulate about things or as politically savvy as we would have liked him to be? But it has been as if the cause of revolution has been betrayed by him. And by being inarticulate and incoherent he has shown that the whole country is somehow not ready for change.
It is not clear what the cause of this non-directional anger is. There is frustration at poverty, unemployment, inflation and poor economic prospects, and at the poor law and order situation as well as the poor governance of the country. But if those were the only causes the anger would be more focused on the government and various institutions of the state.
This is something much more general, pervasive and deep-rooted than that. It seems there is a very deep level of sense of injustice and unfairness that is being felt and is being triggered in Pakistanis. A sense of injustice that is making people very uncomfortable and angry at everything that appears to either deepen this sense of injustice, typify it, exemplify it or make it explicit. People felt tremendous anger at the release of Raymond Davis and interestingly a number of people pointed out how they felt more or less powerless in the way some people, representing some institutions of the country, dealt with the case without taking the demands for justice into account.
Anger, unless we can understand it and channel it constructively, is a very destructive emotion. When expressed, it creates divisions, deepens distrust and limits the ability of groups and individuals to come together for collective action. But if channeled, it can be a tremendous force for change. Which way are we going to go? This will be an important determinant of how our future is shaped.
The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]
