National narratives

Pakistanis are running out of stories to tell their children.

First, an American spy kills two Pakistanis in Lahore and is subsequently released. Then, foreign troops fly helicopters into Pakistani territory and shoot the world’s number-one target in the War on Terror, who himself happened to be living here for the last six years.

Spare a thought for the retrospective re-engineering of nationalism that this requires on the part of our leaders.

The American President had his work cut out for him: the Saga of Bin Laden is a real-life Tom Clancy novel. Bin Laden first entered a centuries-old narrative of American exceptionalism when Barack Obama’s predecessor addressed the nation on September 11th, 2001. The reason George W. Bush offered for the attack on the World Trade Center was this: “America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.”

The idea that America considers itself a beacon for freedom – completely and unquestioningly – provides the premise for the next statement that Bush made: “I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.”

This is an important narrative in American history, politics and culture. The leitmotifs of heroes and villains, and God and godlessness present themselves in everything from Presidential campaign speeches to sporting events. An anthropologist might go as far to say that America is a superpower – the world’s only, in this generation – because it believes unyieldingly in its own rhetoric, its narrative and fiction. This is what enables it to wage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to send CIA operatives in every corner of the world – in short, to do what it takes in order to preserve what it believes is God-given sovereignty and freedom.

Narratives are important, much like nationalism and patriotism, to the working of any political system. Which is why when Obama and the New York Times constructed an elegant story of the search and end of Osama bin Laden, a very small minority in the United States could credibly argue that the CIA may have known of the al-Qaeda czar’s presence for months, if not years prior to May 2011. Very few representatives on either side of the bipartisan divide are eagerly pointing out that America supported the mujahideen for years, Pakistan for decades, and the Saudis for longer than anyone cares to remember. These are minor, and acceptable, logical inconsistencies of rhetoric in the bigger picture.

The cruel byproduct of a fantastic American storyline is that it has launched the liberals of this country into collective depression. Suddenly, we hate our President, our dependence on the US, the people calling us terrorists, the people thanking us for taking out terrorists, and our own sallow impotence.

We wonder why the military, armed to the teeth, justifying the hemorrhage of our national exchequer into salaries and F-16s, couldn’t take out two helicopters flying over from Jalalabad, let alone know its neighbors at Kakul. We wonder why Obama is thanking our government for its support when our elected leaders and military clearly told us, time and again, that they were acting “autonomously.” We worry, in short, that everyone is lying to us.

We are only partially incorrect: in fact, everyone is lying to everyone. That is the nature of a political identity. It is the basis for identifying international friends and enemies. The lies (or fictions, as they are known in happier nations) are not set in stone, but are reinvented for every generation. This is what a functioning democracy enables its citizens to do – construct acceptable narratives, and place faith in elected leaders.

Consider: Osama bin Laden was a Saudi national, and his very presence on our soil is a grave violation of our sovereignty. Similarly, when American helicopters and drones fly into our airspace, then too is our sovereignty is at stake. Right-wing hacks have already begun to use the latter script to their ends. Which script will the government stick to?

The point is not to place Pakistan at risk of terrorist backlash by taking credit for killing Bin Laden, it is to use this and other incidents strategically to develop a national narrative: one that enables cohesiveness and stability. Instead, Pakistan is faced with the default position of passiveness: a government with no opinions or original ideas, just bottom lines and reams of band-aid.

Let that then be our national identity for the time being – an identity by attrition, where with each passing incident we learn what we are not, but never what we are. Let’s continue to mistrust politicians, and then react bitterly every time the Army lies to us. Let us continue the absurdity of “your war, not our war.” Let us continue to be buffeted by, and to be in a constant state of defensive reaction towards, the rhetoric of others – simply because we have no stable rhetoric of our own.