Pakistan: We are crazy?

Note Raza Gillani, published on the website of the International Socialist League.

Why have we spent the last four years, presumably the most crucial moment of our lives, organizing ourselves in various universities throughout the country and their administered areas on issues related to student life, gender, education, class, ethnicity, raza, etc.?

Why have we wasted our time looking for those who share our principles, dreams and resolution? Why have we spent the little money we have had on traveling around various parts of the country to try to meet each of them?? Why do we prioritize and spend more energy on protests and marches (such as the Student Solidarity March of the 29 of November) that in our chances of obtaining good degrees and being successful in life?

We are crazy? Have we been out of our minds?

Don't we dream of having brilliant and illustrious careers? Don't we want to live in big mansions we could own and drive cars we could buy out of our own pocket?? Don't we want to be successful? Don't we want to inspire millions and become the CEO of the next big business idea??

Are we not afraid to continually disappoint our mothers who have spent twenty years of their lives under abuse and violence in the singular hope that one day we will grow up to earn a respectable living?? Don't we disappoint our parents who want us to overcome CSS and make them have the respect they deserve in the family? Don't we want to "study peacefully and not draw attention" to our politics??

Have we not read that the Soviet Union disintegrated in the years 90 and with her (for the moment) the promise of socialism and its politics? Have we not spent days and nights wondering whether trying to reconstruct that policy, we could end up wasting our lives? Haven't we read that there is something called basic human nature? Have we not discussed among ourselves whether financial incentives are the basic motivators for human action?? Don't we feel the guilt imposed on us by saying that our interest in politics has robbed us of the opportunity to become the geniuses we could have been if we had followed their ideals of a career??

Haven't we read the books you've read?

Don't we want to worship a God who loves us all?

Actually, yes, we do it. It's just that we have seen life closely enough to see no point in being happy and successful in a social order that has failed the majority of its constituent members.. We just think there's more to life than this obsession with ourselves.. How ridiculous we are when we begin to believe that the pain we see around us has nothing to do with us if we are not its cause or do not suffer from it.. That choosing to be happy and successful for our own sake is an easier option in the current scheme of things. and as they say, A life lived with ease is rarely a decent life..

We believe that life truly begins when you connect your happiness and pain with those around you. That our politics must be based on the promise of building a world that is equal for all its people, regardless of who they are, what do they choose, what do they wear, etc. That our politics must be pure. That should make us stop living apart from the privileges we enjoy (what, in all cases, are based directly on another person not having the same privilege). It should make us learn from the mistakes we have made and the people who have chosen to abandon us when we have failed them.. It should make us question the forces that define how a life should be led., the structures that deprive the majority of us to empower a minority of our population, the systems that draw their profits and power from the deprivation of women, students and transgender people, ethnic minorities, racial and religious, etc.

We simply think that a policy ends all moral codes, ethical, rational, social and political if it makes us choose to be happy and successful within a social order whose ideals of success are based on the misery and dispossession of the poor and destitute.
We believe that it is our fundamental work, like humans, try to reflect on what lies beyond what we see. We believe that as soon as one realizes the realities of life around him, politics is no longer an option. Leave politics, so, or be what we call apolitical, It also becomes a political decision. As you can see, if you know that you live in a structure that is based on systematic oppression and prejudice, Choosing to prioritize your success and letting the system remain as it is means you are on the side of those who oppress rather than those who are being marginalized..

Now, Don't you know that last week students were prosecuted under sedition laws for demanding clean water? Don't you know that last year more than 300 students were prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws for protesting for their fundamental rights? Don't you know how many weeks and months they were in prison for? Don't you know that more than 500 cameras, even inside female toilets, at the behest of an administration that sees women as mere objects of sexual pleasure? Don't you know that the entire public sector higher education infrastructure of Balochistan, FATA and Gilgit Baltistan consists of less than five public universities? Don't you know that for more than 120 millions of young people have only 97 public universities? Don't you know that there are universities in Pakistan that are not headed by deans or vice-chancellors, but by irrelevant security or bureaucratic officials? Don't you know that there are universities in Pakistan that have decided that the curfew time for female dormitories is at 3 p.m.?

Don't you know how separate the education standards are for Aitchisons and Central Models? Don't you know that we still spend a miserable 2.6% of our GDP in education? Don't you know that higher education tuition has never been so expensive in the history of this country? Don't you know that our curriculum actively promotes extremism and hatred towards identities living throughout Pakistan and its administered territories? Don't you know that our educational infrastructure is sold to private investors at the behest of the IMF?

Don't you remember that Mashal Khan was murdered on campus and that our governments have made no consistent attempts to reduce right-wing extremism on campuses?

Haven't you seen how many students have committed suicide on campus in the last two years?

Are you still happy with life? Do you still want to "study and not waste time attracting attention"?

Maybe you know all this. But it's not your fault. The problem is that we are only taught to see things as they are., while identifying the root of the problems and doing something about it, It is a practice that has been actively rejected in this country. You will see, your power to think, rationalize life and make a change has been taken away from you. Rizvis will teach you that these problems are a direct result of our distance from glorious religious traditions.. The PTI will inform you that these problems will no longer persist once the neoliberal project is completed. The PML-N will inform you that once they earn their share of civil supremacy, you will feel relieved from all your miseries. You will be trained by I don't know who, that all this is an international conspiracy to undermine your national heritage.

Conversely, our analyzes, that are based on both experience and theory, we are led to believe that these problems are a direct result of the lack of student representation in universities. The people most affected by a problem should have the right to make decisions about it. Students make universities what they are and educational institutions become garbage centers if students are not asked how they should be managed. The same faculty members who harass women should not be the ones holding other faculty members responsible who harass other women.. The problems, on the contrary, they only increase as they have been doing. A considerable share of control over the university should rest with the students and not with a state official who has never been to a university.
When student centers were banned in 1984, was justified by saying that student unionization engenders violence and, Thus, should be banned. Dare we ask why campus violence has only increased since the ban?? Why do we still see fascist forces, as Jamiat, who periodically ban women from sitting with men and attack cultural festivals of students who would not have come to Lahore if they had universities in their home towns?

It happens because the State, forever, as if consciously, is wrong. Violence is not reduced by stopping constitutional forms of representation; if it increases. Student complaints about fee structures, eaters, sexual harassment, investigation, transport, disorder, residences, etc., once they are not provided with a representative platform, They are the perfect breeding ground for right-wing extremists to mobilize and carry out violence for their own interests..

further, when we talk about violence on campus, Why are we always forced to remember the violence committed by students? An increase in 100% in the rate does not equate to violence for students who live in working-class neighborhoods? Is sexual harassment on campus not violence?? Racial profiling is not a violent crime? Aren't the youth being driven away from FATA?, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Kashmir of public education with violence against them? The question is not more complicated than this: The Pakistani public education sector is literally based on a context of violent use of power and students are not allowed space to be represented. What were you high on when you expected the outcome to be completely submissive and peaceful??

After all, Students are allowed to unionize on campuses in almost every country where people possess some levels of sanity. How come only in Pakistan will students become violent if they are allowed to form centers? What is fundamental in our DNA? Whose fault is it? Our?

Nevertheless, in the case of student unionization, The State not only abandoned students who had legitimate demands to make. Active support, monetarily and logistically, to fascist organizations that would further strengthen their project and victimize those who could politicize the campus and educational problems. As a result, more than 30 years, the violence is still there, the problems have only increased. They just don't show up as often as they did because talking about it isn't allowed now..

A campus where thousands of students spend half a day, daily, he will surely develop his own political ideas. What do you want to do with that?? Keep it quiet? Do you really think you can?

The State under which we live has based its legitimacy mainly, not in the things known and understood by its people, but in the things of which they are not aware. That is why the logic of all action for our governments is based on forgetting the past, the insistence on the present and a void about the future. People are made to believe that whatever is currently happening is true and that there is no need to look deeper or beyond the immediate reality.. (People end up thinking this is the first time a prime minister has been held to account., etc.)

In the case of students, We are cruelly taught that our fundamental job is to study and becoming what we call politicized is off limits.. We are kept away from the truth that there was once a student movement in Pakistan that played a pivotal role, a move that brought down Ayub, a movement that made Bhutto who he was and when he stopped being faithful to what he had proclaimed, was also against him.
For all those who wonder why we sing “Asia Surkh Hoga”, We do it because we think that in times of collective forgetfulness, remembering the past is also a revolutionary act. The '68 movement took place in the streets, campuses and factories, and now it will be remembered in the same places, regardless of how cruelly the government tries to hide the past. Hasan Nasir will be remembered. Nazeer Abbasi to be commemorated. The voices of justice for Nimrita Kumari will be raised and Mashal Khan will be immortalized, again!

They tell us that we don't matter because we are socialists and that is anti-national. But if believing in the end of class exploitation and in an educational structure based on equality makes one anti-national?, then there is no document more anti-national than the constitution of this country. The article 3 establishes: «The State will guarantee the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the gradual compliance with the fundamental principle, of each according to his ability, "to each according to his work". The article 17 grants us the inalienable right to unionize and Article 25A obliges the State to provide free and quality education to each and every citizen of this country and its administered areas. Since when did traitors start fighting for the constitution?

We are told that we are a bunch of elitists and that our voices will never resonate outside our own circles of influence.. Curiously, that question is never asked of bourgeois political parties, whose collective election campaign fund is ten times our total educational budget. We don't ask them why they dance at their sit-ins., we don't ask them what planes they use and which Bani Gala they live in. Because maybe dancing to the tunes doesn't really matter, as long as they continue to be melodies of the rich and do not become the melodies of the rebellion of a people.

The march will now take place in 50 different cities of pakistan, including the most backward cities of Sindh, Balochistan, Cashmere, Gilgit Baltistan and KP. They told us to control ourselves. Now we openly say that it is getting out of hand.

Many of us don't know Fred Hampton, an inspiring leader of the Black Panthers of 21 years that, curiously, He was also wearing a black leather jacket. (Was he also an elitist bastard?). He said something in his last speech before being murdered by the FBI.. It was a question for our civilization that still needs to be addressed:

“We must understand that people have to pay the price of peace. If you dare to fight, you dare to win. If you don't dare to fight, damn, you don't deserve to win. I wish you peace if you are willing to fight for it.. Why don't you live for the people? Why don't you fight for the people? Why don't you die for the people?”

Will you join us? Do you have an answer to Fred's question, Or do you think the FBI was right to murder one of America's greatest minds??

Or do you not care?

By Raza Gillani