E3. B | Aasim Sajjad Akhtar on Building a Political Society & Social Movements in Pakistan
Translation:
Arsalan: Hello everyone! This is Arsalan, and you’re listening to Jamhoor Radio.
In this second part of our interview with Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, we will be talking about religious extremism, the environment and the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement.
Moving forward, since the 1980s we have seen an emergence of “Talibanization”, where our state created the Taliban to help Imperialism, then later used them to increase their influence in Afghanistan. In today’s post 9-11 era what are your thoughts on the question of Taliban and religious extremism? Is this a primary contradiction for the left?
Aasim Sajjad: This topic has been under intense debate for the past 20-30 years, many people have become a part of it over the years. Many sections of the society have suffered consequentially, and many lives have been lost. Again our point of view has always been, to firstly understand its history. These groups grew with the state’s patronage , and still exist upto some extent. We cannot say that they have grown organically, with support from the masses. After 2001, when the conversation shifted towards killing them. And while the conversation began, whether in reality it happened is also questionable.
There was a lot of disagreement over the years on whether they should be fought against or not? We received a lot of criticism when the military operations gained momentum 10-15 years ago. We had opposed them back then, because the question here goes back to - imagine if you taught people to do jihad for over 20 years, so this is what they understand. And there is a large section of youth in Pakistan, you can’t bomb and kill them. We are against these methods of solving political and social disagreements with bombs. No matter what happens. This is in fact an imperialist strategy when you bomb Afghanistan or Iraq. So we are very clear even today, that this is a phenomenon of long term social engineering. That you can today witness Modi doing in India, where they are rewriting history from scratch. The way conservtive and extremist ways of looking at society have been institutionalized. This happened. And the jihadi groups were a part of it, but that ideological upbringing now forms the foundation of entire generation.
This is how we see this, that you can’t…...yes one thing we have always been saying is that the state has historically patronized them, and still if the state or some of its institutions do this, we are against this. . And after the rise of PTM this perspective has been spread across the world - that “terrorists” were being killed. Many of them were not being killed, and it was the people ultimately bearing the brunt of it. On the surface, there was a war going on between two groups, who were once working together. Irrespective of whether there was an actual war or not, that is a different question, but it was ultimately the masses that suffered, on both sides.
We can see this in the middle-east also, from the conditions in Libya and Syria. So this is a never ending issue. You will kill some today and another the next. You tell me, does anyone talk about Al-Qaeda today? There was an Al-Qaeda once, now its ISIS, tomorrow it will take another form. This is a never ending story. If you brutalize the society and do not address the root of these problems which lead people to pick up guns and shout slogans for Allah and kill people - this is the real question. And for our society , this is a very foundational question. So this is a very serious and complex issue, and unfortunately we can't say that there is a solid solution for this. Firstly, we have to be more historically aware so that we can understand the long-term societal engineering that happened through curriculum changes, through the conversations and the narrative spread through the media. In the long run, this is what we have to change, only then can you resolve this problem. There is no military solution for it, and this will always be used as a justification by the state - that see we have to save you from the terrorists.
This has been happening for over 20 years in the west, even in India. This is happening everywhere, also in Pakistan. So this is how we look at this, and it is quite clear that any kind of oppression either from the state or from a religious groups, or any third party - the fundamental question against it will always be that when you violently force people into adopting your preferred point-of-view, or you directly kill them - so how is this a pro-people stance? So we are quite clear on this. We see them as riders of the same boat. Be it the state or religious groups.
Yes, if there is a religious group in the society that wants to use political means of spreading its perspective, then it is their democratic right. But not through hate, or violence, or by force. This is the biggest question against the state itself. But in the last 10-15 years the way the state has used this as a justification to kill, it this foundational rhetoric that we challenge. Otherwise the state gets a clean slate, and it can begin a new undertaking - to kill those that they themselves created. This is extremely complex, but we cannot ignore these complexities.
Arsalan: So youre saying that your party was against the Zarb-e-azb (operation against Taliban in North Waziristan)...
Aasim Sajjad: Definitely! By party I mean, to be straight with you at that moment there were many disagreements within the party. This was our stand, and within the party itself there was opposition against it. This became much clearer later, and many people were of this opinion. The entire liberal bloc in Pakistan was pro-operation. So I remember that people like us, who were raising these questions, and we would explain it in a very similar way because we weren't in favour of the operation. Many groups would label us ‘Taliban sympathizers’. This happens in politics.
The purpose is not to say that - see we had been correct all along, but rather the point is that history teaches you these lessons. I see this happening on the global political scale, every state in the world right now is fear-mongering, creating the “other” that they can call a terrorist, and using that as a justification to centralize their authority. This entire structure is built on the coercive apparatus, the surveillance apparatus, and this is true everywhere…
Arsalan: Yes America...India…we see this everywhere…
On the climate crisis, we see a lot of conversations on the environment from both the liberals and the Left. This has emerged a huge issue in the last couple of years. We noticed that the Left wasn't paying much attention to this earlier, but then it did. So presently what is AWP’s stand on this issue in the context of Pakistan.
Aasim Sajjad: In terms of the Environment, like I mentioned earlier , to get this issue recognized and find a foundational place for it in our discourse...this was a challenge even within the Left. We have worked towards this challenge and tried to find a prominent position for this. And whatever is happening in the world, we can't turn our backs from it. Even if you can't look at it as an internal issue, the outside world will show you what's happening anyway. This is a very big issue, and more than being an issue it has clarified for us what the ultimate result of capitalism is.
Capitalism has pushed the world to the edge, you can call it a system created by humans, where everything has a price and is bought and sold. The land, water and forests that humans need to sustain, we have ourselves destroyed it to the extent that now human existence itself has come into question. This is the biggest case against capitalism, and in a sense for the first time in human history, all humans or at least those who bear some consciousness, want a deviation from this system, who are not solely profiteering, or at the least they want to be able to see the system for what it is from the outside and are not stuck in that rat-race from morning until evening. This is a possibility now, and in some ways is the largest contradiction for human society - because if humans become extinct then no contradiction can remain either. It is clear that the biggest price due to a degrading environment will be paid by the poor. In the context of Pakistan it will be those who live in the peripheries, Baloch and Pashtuns, who live in deltas or mountains, Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) where we have the glaciers that are melting. So those who are the most worn-out and enslaved will suffer the most, so this is a class question as well. The existing contradiction within Pakistan will only get sharper. Now the question is that the Pakistani class that is not *zere-dast*, or not the lowest of the low- a class that is conscious and observes - will it stand and speak out? This is the real question. This is our challenge, and we will try and create a wider network for it. With not only the people who are being disempowered immediately, but also those who apparently might not, but will eventually also find themselves there. This is an international problem. Either we have a capitalist imagination, where we will buy ourselves a cocoon or buy ourselves a life at a space station. So it's the same thing.
So the question of the environment, it's a huge political question for our present times as well as our future generations. This is a class as well as a national and gender question. This is such a cross-cutting question, which I believe creates the possibility of raising consciousness on an international level where people want to challenge this system which has led us to this stage.
Arsalan: In the past couple of years we have seen PTM as a very promising movement. And it has emerged from the peripheries - from regions where the Left had lost its foundations. So how do you view the PTM and the national question?
Aasim Sajjad: The national question is a very important question for this nation, and has always been so. Again, we have a declared position, and we have acknowledged this organizationally, be it from the perspective of PTM or before that when Baloch youth during 2005-06 (were rising). That movement was crushed. PTM is also a youth movement against the abuse of power, militarization, missing persons, and war. But because the Pashtuns are more significant in terms of their population, and they have challenged the entire narrative against war on terror - so they have become a greater threat to the rulers. But Sindhis also disappeared, there are many issues in GB as well, when the youth in Punjab are slightly critical - they are also not spared.
So this is a strength of PTM, that it has taken up issues that are the issues of many groups, not just the Pashtuns. And therefore we are clear on this, and a lso on the national question, we consider this country to be a multinational country. There isn’t just a single nation here, we don't consider Muslims to be a homogenous group. We acknowledge that there are Pashtun, Sindhi, Punjabi and many other nations. Overlaid on those is this geographical nation-state, history has led all of them to come together. Now to get them all to consensually, peacefully and equitably live in a federation - has never happened before. It hasn't been consensual, equitable or democratic. So this again is a huge part of our struggle, it's one of our greatest pillars, we have been working towards this and will continue to do so. There aren’t differences within us based on this. But yes we will definitely say that a true nationalist is also an internationalist. So that you’re not just working towards the betterment or freedom of your own community, but for everyone. So we agree on this universal principle. You should be an internationalist. The word ‘internationalist’ after all includes ‘nationalist’. These are not mutually exclusive. We have always stood by this principle, and will continue to do so. Just like in the nationalist movements of the 20th century, Communist and Left groups were at the forefront, I believe that's the case even today, be it within Pakistan for establishing a true federation, or at the international level to fight for the dignity of all those national groups that continue to be oppressed, or to stand by them in their struggles. Our stand on this issue is very clear, and will remain so in the future.
Arsalan: In the past couple of years, especially in the last year, we have witnessed a rise in spontaneous movements - including student march, aurat (women’s) march, aurat azadi (women’s freedom) march, and PTM. What should be the role of the Left parties here? How have these movements informed Left politics in Pakistan?
Aasim Sajjad: See parties do not create movements. Movements arise out of social conditions. At the most the role of the parties and organizations is to stand with them and support and strengthen them. Obviously it is their democratic right to integrate people from within these movements into their parties, for them to participate and take their political struggles forward, and not just remain only at the level of that movement. So this happens within all movements. Mainstream parties are in crisis. I mean, PTM has also highlighted the fact that established Pashtun nationalist parties could not do those things, or take up the issues that PTM was able to take up. We aren’t so significant yet, to fear that another movement will take away our cadre. Our cadres that are active, are all involved in taking forward and supporting these movements. So we have had a very deep and engaged relationship with these movements, and it will obviously remain so in the future. Because these movements are how the people express themselves politically.
But it is quite evident that we do not consider these movements to be an ultimate end, because movements come and go. And this is their nature, they are not permanent. They emerge out of social conditions, gain strength…. I myself have been involved with many such movements which are not at the same place as they were during their peak. Parties of the Left clearly have a deep relationship, but the creation of a Left party is an independent task also. You cannot wait for a movement to emerge, or just do politics around it. The most important politics happens when there are no active movements. People will obviously join when there are large crowd turnovers, but when the movement is not as active- you still have to keep doing politics. You still have to work, and that is why we create an organization. And in the recent era people across the world, not just in Pakistan, - and maybe the Occupy Movement was the highest form of that point-of-view, of leaderless and horizontal movement. And this is okay in principle, but you can’t actually work in this way. The organization doesn't have to be necessarily bureaucratic, or undemocratic. I think this is a misconception. Organizations can be democratic and can move forward with better principles. I am not saying that these are substitutes for movements. But neither are movements a substitute for organizations. Both are required and inevitable.
Arsalan: These days we call it the millennial Left, which believes a lot in horizontal leadership…
Aasim Sajjad: Millennial Left, see i’ll be very honest with you. Even 20 years ago, this was a big slogan. The moment the cold war ended, this is what happened - that bureaucracies, and Stalinism, Soviet bloc, all of these failed...Lenenist party failed. And it was very difficult to get the youth inclined towards any politics, because it was such an ugly mark on all Left politics - that organizations and parties eventually get bureaucratized. So this went on for a very long time. An expression, or rather the final peak of this was during the Occupy Movement.
So there are some great aspects to it. The youth are coming forward for their own reasons. Earlier they were not coming forward, because of whatever they were being fed about the Left. Now when they are coming forward themselves and realizing that we cannot just move from one movement to another. No matter how small, but we have to contribute in some way we have to create something that can be sustained for a long time. So this is a thinking that has to be inculcated. Otherwise at some point you stop running between these movements. Organizations are something that arent always glamorous, or not always working in the same way. But it has its own stature and will continue to work at some pace, sometimes slow and sometimes fast. But it's not like the organization will break-up, in the absence of a movement. It will continue, even if it's just one meeting every week - for a conversation or to express an opinion. I say that this is very important, and in the coming years I see a more important role being played by organizations. Because the state is so powerful and the surveillance apparatus is so strong - how else would you resist it?
Arsalan: By organization here you mean a party…
Aasim Sajjad: Yes of course, like I said in the beginning, we are running a party in some or the other way. And if tomorrow we feel that we have to create some other form of an organization, we will definitely consider that. For now we feel that a party is an important vehicle and we should continuously work towards building that.
Fade out.
Arsalan: This was the second part of our interview with Aasim Sajjad Akhtar. In our next episode we will speak to another personality from Pakistan’s Left. Do not forget to subscribe to our podcast.
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