Cultural chauvinism

While Samuel Huntington’s theory about a clash of civilisations seems pretty ridiculous and even offensive in the context of the ‘war on terror’, adherents of his ideas might find some food for thought in the context of Pakistan’s national politics. Our political elite went on air throughout last week, providing us with hours of amusement and disgust – often simultaneously. But that isn’t the only take-away from these recent bouts of verbal diarrhoea.
What stood out, especially in the on-screen ‘battles’ between former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal and current circus master-in-chief Zulfiqar Mirza, was the massive divide between the civilisational perceptions of the urban and rural political elite of Sindh. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM; Kamal’s party) cultural chauvinism has been fairly obvious for a while, particularly since it began conflating the Pakhtun with the Taliban and villifying the former as ‘backward tribals’ who must be ‘tamed’ by the supposedly civilised, suljhee huee Urdu-speaking community. The MQM has also rigorously campaigned against what the party leadership often refers to as the ‘feudalism scourge’, albeit only when they have a fall-out with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
The PPP’s Zulfiqar Mirza, on the other hand, took it upon himself last week to glorify his feudal land-holdings and rub his own party’s claims of standing up for the working class in the mud by heaping insults upon Kamal’s humble beginnings as a telephone operator at the MQM’s headquarters, Nine-Zero. Earlier, he had used ‘jamadaar’ (cleaner) as an insult during a fight with Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
In reality, neither Kamal nor Mirza had any moral ground to stand on. The MQM can claim zero superiority of principles over supposedly ‘backward tribals’, given its own penchant for the politics of violence. Nor can it realistically decry feudalism while practising an urban form of the same patron-client relationship on which rural tribalism and feudalism thrive. The party’s grassroots organisational structure, the Unit office, stands primarily on the principle of the ‘empowerment’ of jobless, disenfranchised young men (yes, all Unit in-charges are men) by giving them weapons and money. The former lets them unleash a reign of terror in their areas, while the latter allows them to ensure food on their tables, thus putting a stopper to any opposition or taunts from their families.
So entrenched are these values and strategies in the very fabric of the party, that even if the MQM leadership were to want to work towards the ‘de-weaponisation’ of Karachi at some point, its own grassroots cadres would revolt. After all, no one wants to go back to a life of despondency, nor do the young men want to appear helpless in front of the many enemies that they have made in the line of ‘duty’ and acquiring whatever local power they command.
PPP bigwigs, such as Mirza, on the other hand, need to take a step back and re-assess their stands vis-à-vis their own party’s promises of empowerment for the working class and the peasantry through access to ‘roti, kapda, makaan’ (food, clothing, shelter). Insulting the very concept of dignity of labour by constantly poking fun at a rival’s humble beginnings does little for their credibility, and only serves to solidify their image as arrogant landowners who thrive politically on the blood, sweat and labour of their serfs.
As such, all players concerned need to realise that their current diatribes have no basis whatsoever in their proclaimed ideologies. It does, however, have everything to do with their inherent biases: Mirza’s feudal haughtiness versus Kamal’s cultural chauvinism. The cynical use of various ‘ideological’ cards to pit one group of people against another for cheap, short-term point-scoring does little more than expose the vacuousness of their own political discourse.
Moreover, as a Karachiite, I’d hold them responsible for all blood that has, is being, or will be spilled every time these yahoos take to the TV screens to spew their venom. By using cultural differences between the various communities in the city to pit them against one another, you, sirs, have the blood of residents of Karachi on your hands. Please take your personal, petty clashes elsewhere. Spare my city; it has suffered enough.
On a side-note, I’m extremely surprised at various analysts’ assumption that Altaf Hussain’s shenanigans at his recent press conference would embarrass the MQM or put it on the backfoot, when in fact, the MQM rank and file thrives on these antics. The more outrageous Bhai appears in public, the closer it draws the cadres. Dear analysts, please take some time off to understand Karachi and the MQM: one person’s madhouse might be another person’s home.

The writer is a freelance researcher and journalist based in Karachi. She can be reached through Twitter (@UroojZia) or via email at [email protected].