by: Muhammad Aamir Hussaini
There is a whole generation of intellectuals, professors, writers and political commentators in Pakistan who once spoke in terms of Marxism, socialism, class struggle, anti-imperialist politics, enlightenment and rationalism. If we recall their writings, speeches and discussions in private gatherings, there was no impression that rationalization, scientific consciousness, opposition to Malayism, criticism of religious leadership and taking a stand against superstition needed any “liberal” identity. At that time, all this was considered a fundamental part of the Marxist, socialist and progressive tradition.
At least until the early nineties, I had not even heard the term “liberalism” from most of them. They called themselves leftists, socialists or progressives. But then the climate of world politics changed. The Soviet Union collapsed, the Berlin Wall fell, and a cry of capitalist victory rose from Washington to Europe that history was over, Marxism was buried, and liberal democracy was the final destination of humanity.
At that moment, the accents, languages, and loyalties of many petty bourgeois comprador intellectuals in Pakistan began to change. Those who had criticized imperialism, capitalism, and American hegemony until yesterday suddenly became the ode-bearers of “global civil society,” “liberal world order,” and Western geopolitics. Especially the segment that was associated with the leftist tradition within the Pakistan People’s Party in the 70s and 80s, a large number of them gave the ideological regression the name “modernity.”
Today, these same people feel ashamed to call themselves Marxists or leftists but are proud to be called “liberals.” Their intellectual state is both laughable and regrettable, as an entire generation has surrendered its ideological weapons to capitalist global domination. Their rationalism is now approved by the Wall Street market, their humanitarianism is limited to the confines of NATO bombers, and their enlightenment dies on reaching Tel Aviv.
In such a situation, when someone tries to prove himself a representative of the “middle way” by calling a writing exposing the intellectual hypocrisy of neoliberal hypocrites like Arshad Mahmood “an extreme”, I am compelled to ask him a few historical questions.
Where did you stand in 1971 when the Pakistani state machinery unleashed the massacre, repression and gang rape of Bengalis in East Pakistan? Did you ever raise your voice against this state brutality? Did you dare to say that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s stance was wrong? While at that time the Central Executive Committee of the People’s Party also supported Bhutto’s policy. Did you disagree then? Did you ever apologize to the Bengali people later, calling your silence a criminal silence?
Excuse me, Doctor! You are still silent on Balochistan today, as you were from 1974 to 5 July 1977. Even then, your tongue was mute on state oppression, and even today, your “liberal philanthropy” is silent on missing persons, military operations, political oppression and the wounds of the Baloch people.
Therefore, do not preach to us that “both extremes are wrong”. The most dangerous role in history has always been played by those who stood between oppression and resistance and called themselves neutral, but in practice stood with the powerful.
Today, as I am writing these lines, Balochistan has been deprived of another truly progressive, enlightened, humanist, peace-loving poet, writer and teacher. Professor Ghamkhar Hayat, a true poet and intellectual of the Brohi language, has once again been murdered by the same “unknown but known to all” hands that have been busy silencing Balochistan’s resistance wisdom, critical consciousness and national memory for years.
The murder of Ghamkhar Hayat is not just the murder of an individual, it is an attack on the intellectual existence of Balochistan, its resistance tradition, its language, its culture and its right to question. That is why the resistance wisdom of the Baloch society is today both mourning, saddened and deeply angry at the forces behind this murder. Because they know that a bullet does not only kill the body, a bullet is fired to frighten the consciousness of a society.
But Doctor! There is no mention on your wall of the victims of Balochistan, nor of the deprivations of Gilgit-Baltistan, nor of the missing youth of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nor a word against state oppression, nor any question on the policies of the authorities. The pen of your “humanitarianism” always runs dry where the state narrative begins.
You could not even condemn an institution like the Pakistan Academy of Letters, which does not judge the value of writers and poets by their creative greatness but by the standard of state loyalty. Which considers a writer to be a “patriot” who remains silent, bows his head, does not ask questions, and does not deviate from the narrative of the ruling class. But a poet who writes against oppression, a writer who describes the suffering of oppressed nations, a teacher who teaches the youth to question, is immediately considered suspicious, traitorous, or unacceptable.
So tell me, Doctor! Is this your “moderation”? Is this the middle path that you consider to be wisdom between two extremes?
That is, remain silent against the oppressor, do not mention the name of the deceased, keep your mouth shut about missing persons, do not mourn the murdered poets, do not raise questions about state oppression, and then call yourself “impartial”?
History is witness that such silence is never impartiality.
It is always silence in favor of power. And sometimes silence is more dangerous than the loudest slogans raised in favor of oppression.
“To me, both extremes are wrong” seems like a very moderate, wise and “neutral” statement, but the real question is, what are “both extremes” here?
On the one hand, is there the massacre of thousands of children, women and civilians in Gaza, genocide, occupation, bombing and imperial aggression, and on the other hand, resistance to and criticism of that oppression? If these are “both extremes”, then this is not just moderation but a dangerous moral error of weighing the oppressor and the oppressed in the same scale.
This is the same artificial “neutrality” that has always stood in favor of the powerful in history. Even when colonial powers were plundering Asia and Africa, some people said “both sides are wrong”. Even when there was apartheid in South Africa, some people taught “moderation”. When Palestinian land was occupied, millions were displaced, and Gaza was turned into an open prison, the same class kept saying: “Both sides are wrong.”
But the question is, are occupiers and occupied, invaders and subjugated, tanks and barefoot children, F-16s and bodies buried under rubble—are these really equal “extremes”?
The real problem is this false centralism in which every clear moral position is made into an “extreme.” If you speak out against the Palestinian genocide, you are labeled an “extremist,” but if someone calls Israeli state terrorism a “right to self-defense,” they are labeled a “moderate.” As if supporting the powerful is rational and speaking out for the oppressed is extremism.
It is also interesting that those who say “both extremes are wrong” often do not address imperialism, Israeli occupation, American wars, or the devastation of Western powers with the same intensity as they object to resistance. Their impartiality always leans strangely in favor of the powerful.
The fact is that placing oppression and resistance to oppression on the same moral level is itself a political stance, and often this stance benefits the system of oppression. If a person says that both the killer and the victim are equally guilty, he is actually minimizing the crime of the killer.
The issue here is not one of “extremity” but of historical and political truth. Neoliberal intellectuals like Arshad Mahmood are not just giving an opinion, but they are trying to normalize the imperialist narrative, Zionist justification and the moral supremacy of Western power in Pakistani society. In such a situation, to remain silent or to say “both sides are at fault” is actually to accept the existing balance of power.
In every era in the world, some people have stood between the oppressor and the oppressed in the name of “moderation”, but history often remembers them not as impartial but as defenders of the status quo.
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