E2.A | Dr. Syed Azeem on Consciousness and Tradition: The Paradox of the Left in Pakistan
Translation:
Arsalan S: Hello everyone, I am Arsalan and you are listening to Jamhoor Radio.
Today we are going to speak to Syed Azeem, who is a Professor of Law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He has been part of the Pakistani Left for many years. He has been part of Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP) and Progressive Writers Association, and these days he is working with a left organization in Lahore known as Mazdoor Akath (Workers United).AS: To begin with, please provide us with a general overview of the Left; what is the current state of Left politics?
Syed Azeem: Fundamentally, in my view, if you speak of a Left consciousness or ideas, then we are seeing that randomly progressive ideas (which fall within the Left) have become more popular nowadays. The reason for this...first we need to see it as consciousness. But as an organized force, the Left is in a very bad state.
These two things need to be distinguished: Left as consciousness, as ideas, as ideology, which has grown; I’m speaking of the broader left (liberal or left parties as Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, they also fall under this). So broader left consciousness, or progressive consciousness, has grown. That is one thing.
But, if you speak of the Left as a political force, political party, or political organization, that is very weak, in fact it has become even weaker, interestingly. This is a big dilemma.
For the first, I can point to the Aurat March. No political party or such (established) group did it; a call was made, and many people gathered. And everyone was surprised at how the feminist cause, which progressives had raised, is so advanced. You cannot say NGOs did it. You cannot say Left parties did it. You would be surprised to learn how so much work had been carried out in small pockets that even those forces, which didn’t have much of a public profile, were able to issue a call and people responded.
Another protest you would have seen is that of student politics. Different groups were doing student politics: the Baloch were doing it through cultural groups, the Pukhtoons were doing it as well, Left parties were engaged, the National Students Federation (NSF) was also doing it, the Progressive Students’ Collective as well. But you would be surprised to learn that as soon as these different groups gave a call, so many students came out that it was stunning. You would never have seen the Left elicit such a big response - from the Prime Minister to the opposition parties, all of whom knew that the student march was organized by Left forces. It compelled the Jamat-i-Islami to give a statement in support of trade unions, because they didn’t want to be left out. In their statement it was included that today there should be no divide between the left and the right in supporting the reinstatement of trade unions. That shows that as consciousness, the Left is very present. But now I will turn towards a bitter reality.
If you ask whether a Left party exists, the first thing to note is that Left parties in Pakistan are very weak. The main party was the Awami Workers Party (Popular Workers Party, AWP), but the AWP holds six parties in itself, which instead of working together, keep having conflicts - not just ideological, but also personal, and of multiple natures. So as such, I don’t think it would be right to call it a party, because a party means a group with coherent thought that brings about change.
Moving on, you can even call them Left parties, but the biggest dilemma I can share is that in Pakistan today, no party is a revolutionary party. This is the biggest problem. In fact let me say something even more important: in Pakistan, the revolutionary tradition itself has broken. When I say this, I am pointing towards India, where the revolutionary tradition is still alive, I am pointing towards Nepal, who carried out a revolution in 2005. In this perspective you see Pakistan where the tradition itself has lapsed. In fact, regarding the Left parties that I speak of, I can assure you that when you ask them if revolution is possible in Pakistan, they begin the conversation by saying that let alone revolution, if we can achieve something incremental, that itself will be a big deal. They say this quite regularly, and many of them don’t even make claims towards Marxism and Leninism, including the AWP. So if you look at it from this respect, not a single party in Pakistan is revolutionary, but there is space for a revolutionary party.
I say that before building a revolutionary party, we are finding that we need to re-introduce the revolutionary tradition. By revolutionary tradition I mean a party that truly wants to uproot and discard this system, and wants to put in a new system in its place, and wants to bring in the rule of workers and peasants. Talk to any Left party and they don’t even believe in this. Some parties believe this in jargon, but practically speaking, all of their tactics are very revisionist. This includes the Communist Party of Pakistan, the Mazdoor Kisan Party (Worker Peasant Party, MKP). Fundamentally, all of their tactics are like those of liberal parties and liberal groups, even though they may claim something different. Their tactics and practice proves that they don’t believe in it [revolution]. They believe that liberal democracy and secularism in Pakistan is an end in itself. If we can achieve that, it would be a big deal. So I personally think, looking at this current situation, that there is no revolutionary party in Pakistan; some reformist groups do exist, which hold a liberal or liberal-Marxist point of view.
AS: So for a revolutionary party, what should be the conception of change, according to you?
SA: To me, a revolutionary party has only one goal: seizure of political power. If any party’s agenda or even struggle is less than this, then that party is not revolutionary. If your goal is just to carve out a small space in a bourgeois democracy, a liberal democracy, then you are fundamentally not seeking to capture power. There is absolutely the potential for revolution in Pakistan, but there is no party or organization for it.
I also say that there is no space for reforms in Pakistan. What is the reason for this? Reforms are possible in those countries where when one class is unfit, another class or organization can replace it. Pakistan’s ruling class, as a whole, has lost its right to rule. This is why the crisis in Pakistan is perpetual. An ongoing crisis. You look at Pakistan and you see it lurching from one crisis to the second, from the second to the third - so neither the military, nor the [mainstream] political parties, nor the religious parties, basically...this upper echelon, which I call them - is utterly incompetent. And it has lost the right to rule, it is bankrupt. So in Pakistan...reforms are feasible (only) where you can replace one group with another. But in Pakistan, to me, this entire group, as a class, should be finished and removed. For me, this is what revolution means.
AS: What are you doing about this?
SA: For me, in this regard, I will say that I too used to engage with the (current) Left at one point. But I felt that none of our political parties - I was also linked to a party - are truly working among workers and peasants. A few individuals might be, but the party’s focus is not on workers and peasants. When I say revolution in Pakistan, the foundational class is the workers and peasants; but when I am not even present among them, when I am (only) present among urban lawyers, or students, or middle-class bureaucrats and professors are in my central committee...the parties are composed of such people, and work among those people (only). And their issues are what? Restoration of democracy, sometimes they’ll talk about human rights, sometimes they’ll talk about the lawyers’ movement, sometimes they’ll talk about the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement - just things like this. I think none of them have ever organized workers and peasants; in fact they have turned this over completely to NGOs. And NGOs are working within private projects.
So from this perspective I feel that in Pakistan we don’t even have that base, and for this reason I have taken a step back. At the first level I have said to you that the revolutionary tradition has broken; therefore we and our group are trying to reintroduce a revolutionary tradition in Pakistan, and the examples I have mentioned to you are Nepal and India’s Maoist parties. We are seeking to bring back that debate that had ended in Pakistan. Because that is a tradition that believes in revolution, not a tradition of giving up. As if merely participating in bourgeois democracy will bring about change.
The first thing is the revolutionary tradition; the second thing is to once again build roots among the workers and peasants. In this respect, we are working with a focus on workers, peasants, and students before we build a party. Until we are able to establish a base within these three fundamental classes, the idea of a party is pure deception. Even today, I can gather more people for you than any Pakistani [left] party; by bringing together the old leftists and calling it a new party, but that doesn’t make it a new party. Today four parties join and eight parties break out of it. So I think that we need to work in the fundamental classes, so with the Mazdoor Akhat (Workers United), the Kisaan Akhat (Peasants United), and the National Students Federation (NSF) we are trying to carve out a space among them first. Until you do sufficient work in these classes, you cannot call yourself a (revolutionary) party. But you can’t work in them without a party either. So this is how we are trying to understand (how to move forward).
AS: So Azeem, why do you think that our traditional socialist parties, or the current left parties, are not able to work within workers and peasants?
SA: There is a very simple reason for this. Fundamentally, in my opinion, I have been hearing since the 90’s from all of Lahore’s political parties, that it is no longer 1917, that the composition of capital has changed. You’ll be surprised to hear that when, in 1993, people were saying in Lahore that there would never be a revolution anywhere in the world again, or that a traditional struggle of workers and peasants is no longer possible, two of our neighbours were preparing in the opposite direction, for struggle. There was one in Nepal, and one in India. This means that our people here gave up on the hope of revolution. We can argue on what the revolution will look like. But I think our starting point has become this notion that that form of revolution will not happen, or that revolution itself is no longer possible. And our (left) tradition has also played a major role in this. Because Pakistan’s Left was continuously engaged in the work of restoring liberal democracy and fighting for secularism. And the third focus was following the nationalist bourgeoisie. Just to defeat the military and battle the mullas (religious preachers), we provided unconditional, non-class-based support to different nationalist movements. So we have done these three things. And in these three things, nowhere did we work within workers and peasants, but I want to make one correction here. It is not as if people did not work within workers and peasants - in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, even in the 90s, to some extent, there has been work among them, which the party cadre has done. But now, the issue was to translate that work into revolutionary work, into macro politics; that politics that the party leadership was engaging in was fundamentally a politics of reform. It revolved around these three issues: restoring democracy, secularism, and nationalist struggle. So when the engagement with workers and peasants was translated above, it was translated into one of these struggles.
After that, well, we openly abandoned the workers and peasants - from the 90s to - it’s been 30 years now, almost. The story of these 30 years is that we abandoned the workers and peasants. So now the left is a pure liberal left. It purely believes in political reforms, not revolution. So this is where we are sitting, as a whole.
AS: We saw that in the last two to three years some very impressive progressive movements have emerged. These include PTM (Pashtun Tahafuz Movement), Aurat March, Student Solidarity March. How can a left party relate to them, because on the face of it these movements are emerging from “outside” the organized left.
SA: There is a very simple response - there will be more movements like these. One approach would be to try and tap into these movements - and start making unprincipled compromises. This would be one way - to say oh, there is an uprising. Remember that in this society, where I have already said that the upper class is completely bankrupt, there will be chances again and again for uprisings. Again and again. We had one in 2007-08, which was called the lawyers’ movement. What is the point? The point is that these uprisings take place, but you (the Left) is not present among the classes through which you can take these movements to a definite conclusion.
Let me give you an example. Five parties go to PTM’s rally in Lahore. They gather hardly 500 people. Manzoor Pashteen alone is able to mobilize 4,500 people. Essentially 80-85% of the stage is captured by those parties of 500 people, and Manzoor Pashteen doesn’t even get time at the end. Now. What should the message have been? If we were among Lahore’s working neighbourhoods, which also include Pashtun neighbourhoods, then we would have been able to support Manzoor Pashteen with 10,000 or 20,000 people. And PTM would have been pulled towards class consciousness, rather than us [the Left] giving them [PTM] unconditional support just so that we can share the stage with it. PTM itself could also have come towards class consciousness. So the point of what I am saying is that the key is not to catch these movements, but the key is to be present so that when movements come along, you can take them towards a definite conclusion.
We call this the difference between activism and organizing. What is activism? Basically, these Left groups are engaged in ambulance-chasing, they are firefighting. They run after crises, instead of being in a position where, when there is a crisis, people come to you because you are an organized force. So wherever, whether it is Egypt, or the Arab Spring - wherever such movements take place, such movements can be created here too. But the question is, who will benefit from them? Those who are organized. So in my opinion, I feel, the working class should be embraced firmly. There should be unshakeable belief in the working class. Only that can be the foundation of change in Pakistan. In the case of any difference I can go into endless movements, those movements will carry on, but they will not benefit anyone.
PTM’s analysis seems the same to me - okay, they have mobilized people. They have mobilized the Pashtun middle class and have even touched the working class, I don’t deny that they have. But who will benefit from this? Who will take the movement to its ultimate conclusion? In my opinion, that party does not exist, not among the Pashtuns, nor among the Punjabis, nor anywhere in Pakistan.
So what should the relation [between parties and movements] be? We should not be against these movements; these movements are without a doubt genuine, the Student March is genuine, the Aurat March is genuine, but if we truly seek solidarity with these movements, then we have to work among the working class, so that when these movements need us, we are able to provide the foundation that they may also wish for.
AS: Azeem, what is your position on US imperialism and the growing influence of China in Pakistan?
SA: The Left has always been divided on the question of US imperialism, and especially in the 1990s and early 2000s. After 9/11, an important debate came to the forefront. Pakistan’s Left believed that after the US attack on Afghanistan and war on terror, if we stood against the clergy and military, maybe that would open up opportunities for progressive politics. I think there was a long, drawn-out debate on this - Pervez Hoodhbhoy, and many of Pakistan’s NGO elite openly wrote in support of the American agenda against the Taliban. Some people were in the middle, with a shaky position, who took a centrist position that both [America and the Taliban] are equal enemies. But during this time I openly wrote and clearly stated that while both are enemies, both are not equal enemies. Pakistan’s main enemy, and indeed the entire global working classes’ main enemy, is American imperialism. But I think Pakistan’s Left is still not, to this day, against American imperialism. It is against the military and the mulla in its entire politics, and considers that the principle contradiction. So this is decided.
Now in this entire situation, China... Chinese imperialism enters. On Chinese imperialism, a very interesting situation emerges, because this is a new phenomenon. The old Left, which regardless of whether or not it supported US imperialism, believed that Chinese imperialism would be great! So their deep-seated desire to see China defeat America - maybe they think this China is the same China. In the old developmentalism and their old hang-ups, some portions of our Left have said that CPEC is not China’s imperialism, but maybe a better form of capitalism. And in very strong language, the Awami Workers Party’s old socialist party elements, including Minto sahab himself, and our old friends from the NSF clearly said that you are wrong to oppose China. So very clearly, the Left was divided on this.
I took a clear position from the very first day, that no, China is a rising imperialist power. If it has a rivalry with America, that is an inter-imperialist rivalry. Then I wrote about the three kinds of theories there are about Chinese capitalism. One is that it is a part and parcel of global capital, because 90% of its trade is with the same Western countries. The second is that Chinese capital has its own distinct features and is completely different. The third theory is that it is part of Western capital but also has its own particularities. To me, this is not decided, but one thing is clear, that Chinese capital is within the structure of global capital; it deals with the flexibility of labour in the same way. This means that when labour is being exploited, when the world’s resources are being exploited, this [Chinese capital] is even worse than Western capital. Because its tradition is also based on suppression, when from the 1980s onwards it exploited its own population, and thereafter exploited the populations of Africa and Latin America as well.
Then I have done further research on CPEC, and based on this, I understand that Chinese capital and Chinese capitalists have no ethics, no morality - profit is their only morality. So I do not say they will be better or worse than Western capitalism. But there is no way that China is not imperial. And it has ambitions, which will emerge, its influence is growing globally, and so on. Pakistan’s Left is quite confused in this regard.
AS: And according to you, a genuine Left party should oppose CPEC...
SA: 100%.
AS: Ok,so according to you what is the Left’s position on religious extremism and the taliban, and what should it be?
SA: See, the Left is against religious extremism, which we are against as well. The Left thinks the real issue is religious extremism, and in fact I have seen that our enlightened, “progressive” and secular Left’s real enemy seems to be the mulla, and in their enmity, they end up making religion itself the enemy. So for them, that is the real problem. Whereas for me I personally hold a slightly different view. I hold that extremism, religious extremism, I am against the patriarchy and suppression that it holds. But we must see that it is the name of people’s culture, it represents people’s feelings, and in this we must be cautious. Because in struggling against this, we must be focused on the economic exploitation and other issues that people face, and in solving those problems, we should move them towards a parallel or alternative culture, instead of treating their religion with derision and thinking that we can solve any of society’s problems or bring about a change in this way.
There was a beautiful example that Major Ishaque used to explain this to us, giving us the example of Mao. Mao used to say that China is old, and it has a number of problems on its head, and it has the crutch of religion in its hands, and it's back is bent. So you should not snatch away its crutch from it; it will fall flat on its face. Better that you should remove the burden of problems from its head so that it can straighten its back; now if it holds on to the crutch or throws it away, that is not our issue. So to me, this is the best understanding of the place of religion in society, and how political parties should deal with religion. This is what I believe.
AS: Ok so you think that this is not a principle contradiction. As far as religion goes, regarding the religious political parties, how should a Left party deal with them?
SA: Absolutely correct, we have divided it into two parts. One is that it is not a fundamental contradiction, it is also about people’s beliefs, people live and you must slowly, carefully, but definitely fight against the suppression, control and patriarchy in it. But in this fight, do not forget that this is something that changes over time - this is the name of culture. If you focus on people’s problems, then you can befriend them more easily and join forces with them and slowly fight against religious traditions that are oppressive.
Now we come to the second question, should we be united or make political alliances with religious parties? I think this is a very difficult question, and it depends on the specific context in which the decision has to be made. If there is a big movement, then maybe we can walk alongside, but the question would be, are they in command or are you, and how deeply are you united. But to me, for now, the more cautious we are, the further we stay away from them, the better. Because religious parties, I think, are fighting for their own existence. Right now, I can tell you very clearly, the future of the Left in Pakistan is bright. Clearly, in Pakistan, the next time - you will find this strange - but as I said, there is Left consciousness, today I won’t do it, someone else will. There are high chances of a future political force in Pakistan emerging around Left ideas. Because clearly, for a long time, religious force and religious parties have been dying out. The media, and many other factors as well, slowly - from the Arab Spring to here, a different kind of liberal and progressive consciousness exists. So to me there will be a politics around this, and it will be a grand politics.
Fade out.
AS: This was Part 1 of our interview. In Part 2 of this interview, we will speak with Syed Azeem on some more topics, which include the national question, environment and feminism.
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