Zuhaib Ahmed Pirzado
In the animated film “A Bug’s Life,” a colony of ants is colonized by the tyrannical and brutal grasshoppers. “The sun grows the food. The ants pick the food. The grasshoppers eat the food”, When the violence of grasshoppers against the ants increases, one of the small ant, Flick, resists and unites all the ants against grasshoppers and says, “You’re wrong, Hopper. Ants are not meant to serve grasshoppers! I’ve seen these ants do great things. And year after year, they somehow manage to pick food for themselves and you. So who is the weaker species? Ants don’t serve grasshoppers. It’s you who need us. We’re a lot stronger than you say we are. And you know it, don’t you?” And in the end, oppressed ants win. In the same way, can oppressed of Pakistan resist against the grasshoppers?
It is very much natural that where there is suppression there is resistance. The earth one looks at can be very much silent outside, but the magma inside, it is burning, and it can burst anytime. The youth of Pakistan is more than that of America even then Pakistan is a poor developing country. This youth population has many physical and psychological grievances; they are deprived of basic needs and rights. Many young boys are drug addicts due to the frustration, alienation, depression which they get from the society they live in. Many young people have gone religiously extremists and jingoists and many are caught by the clutches of tribal conflicts. The reaction of violence is violence. The oppressed of Pakistan are showing their violence but against each other. This is what the oppressors want. Oppressors are clever, they know, that the violence they do, it has a reaction, which is itself violence, they also take advantage from the reaction of violence, and make people fight each other and people release their violence against each other.
Those who come to know the truth and stand for it radically, they are disappeared and tortured. Elite knows that only fear can work better for them. But, due to the social media which cannot be easily controlled, there is also the program of praising the elite and people take everything for granted. Gramsci calls it, Common Sense. The question is, why does elite not let anyone stand against them? Its answer is in their own words given by the King of Grasshoppers in A bug’s Life, “You let one ant stand up to us, and then they all might stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one. And if they ever figure that out there goes our way of life! It’s not about food. It’s about keeping those ants in line.”
The youth can also possess the narrative of the elite and stay happy with the status quo. Tanna is an Island in the South Pacific Ocean and its people worship the United States Army. In WW11, soldiers of American army landed there with heavy machines and weaponry, with the new experiences, uncontacted tribe started worshiping modern gods and blended their previous gods, like the god of volcano. The John Frum cargo cult was created. The purpose behind narrating this is to tell how inverted consciousness works and how people can believe anything. They consider American Army as their savior and on the other hand, American army has remained brutal and killed thousands of people since Manifest Destiny to Syria. The elite can construct the narratives through securitization and, people may easily believe anything. As George Orwell in his book “1984 writes, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and lgnorance is Strength.” There is no doubt in the fact that most of the Pakistanis also expect mercy from the merciless and it is itself a contradiction. In this all, many a Pakistani man are dehumanized, ethnicized and depoliticized.
UNICEF estimates the youth population (aged 15-24) now forms close to 36 per cent of Pakistan’s labour force projected to rise to 50 per cent by 2050 and Labour Force survey 2014-15 shows around 4 million people aid 15-24 are unemployed. This number is expected to rise by 2020 to 8.6 million. Not only unemployment, the youth has many problems which are not being solved by the government. The extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, deprivation of basic rights and grievances have given way to the youth and youth has taken flags of revolt and resistance.
The recent uprising of the youth of Pakistan can be observed. The Pakhtuns have started struggling for the basic and constitutional rights and its spillover effects are also witnessed in Sindh, Hazara, Gilgit Baltistan, and Baluchistan. The voice of youth from Punjab is also being listened. In Sindh, protests and hunger strikes are continuous for many weeks against the enforced disappearances. New young faces, have emerged who have the message of peace and ask for the constitutional rights in Sindh which are being systematically violated. The resistance of youth in Sindh, against feudal patronage politics and clientelism is in progress; Ustaad Liaqat Mirani has challenged the status quo in Larkana, Faiz Birohi and Seengar Noonari in Warah, and Jibran Nasir from Karachi, and many others, and this is a good omen. Workers’ resistance is fighting against feudalism, dispossession and water crises in Sindh. Different youth committees are made, like Nojawan Sudhar Sangat of Hyderabad, which resist for water crises, youth problems and claim their cities. The poets need to be radical, and in words of Lenin, “One must always try to be as radical as reality itself.” One of the radical poets is, Salman Jakhro from Thatta, who is regenerating revolutionary poetry and rhymes in the youth movement against the degenerated and subjective poetry of two decades.
Due to the strikes and protests, the fear of speaking and resisting from youth is declined. Mainstream media is silent over it and social media has taken place to negate the narrative of elites. History doesn’t move in the straight line; revolutions can also turn back. And, the movement in Sindh, which has started, it needs to be well organized. As Eqbal Ahmed said in one of his speeches, “Organize, Organize and Organize.” This movement needs to be organized and should take the agendas which appeal the masses as the water scarcity, student unions, extra-judicial killing, climate change and feudalism. There are layers of oppressors in Sindh, those all layers should be negated and struggled against and should also keep it away from the national bourgeoisies, the demagogues and the opportunists. It is only achievable through masses. “To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people.”
The grasshoppers may not be defeated, today. One must be prepared for the upcoming crises and keep resisting against the oppressors. In this all, one must always be, organized.
This article was published previously in Students’ Voice magazine.
