The Difficulties In Being A Liberal In Pakistan

Via Rabia, who writes about a show on Dawn News where Nadeem Paracha argued against Zaid Hamid on conspiracy theories (without ever actually talking directly to him; perhaps this is part of Dawn's campaign to revolutionize journalism -- a debate without debating!), I came across this post on Paracha's blog. There's a lot worthy of note in the post, but the portion I wanted to highlight was the reaction he got from emailers:

Before I use this modest space to finally answer Mr. Hamid’s claims punch by punch, I would also like to share a fraction of the tons of hate mail I started receiving the evening after the show was first aired. I have selected portions of a few such emails (out of about – and so far – 197!).

Example one: ‘Dear Mr. Paracha, there is now no doubt that you are working for the CIA. You should be ashamed of defending Zionist lobbying and America. You should be kicked out of Pakistan and sent to Israel.’

Example two: ‘Paracha, how can you be a journalist and have such a big house? The answer is simple: You are CIA funded journalist.’

Example three: ‘Paracha, Zaid Hamid slapped you left, right and centre on the show, you pseudo-intellectual. There is no shortage of people like you in Pakistan. People like you have occupied important positions in our society and are given 90-95 per cent of media coverage. We are with Zaid Hamid and inshallah we will succeed.’

Example four: ‘NFP, you are a slave to the west and working against the interests of Pakistan by attacking patriots like Zaid Hamid. It is clear you and the newspaper you write for is being funded by Israeli and Indian agencies. Better shape up or we will ship you out.’

Example five: ‘Paracha Sahib, you have been trying to propagate your Yahoodi [Jewish], Hindu and Christian masters’ rotten and obsolete ideas of ‘freedom’ and ‘secular liberalism’ and kafirana [heretical] Socialism. But people like Zaid Hamid will never let Godless men like you succeed.’

He says he received one hundred and ninety seven emails to that effect, and frankly I have little reason to doubt him. I want to make a couple of quick points about this.

First, it is no coincidence that the people who espouse the most hateful and nonsensical political views are also the most hateful and nonsensical in their interactions with others. There are very few extreme right-wingers/uber-religio-nationalists who can express themselves in a respectful way, even when they disagree with you. I've experienced some of this myself, but obviously not on the same level as someone who writes for the most widely read English newspaper in Pakistan.

Second, every time I read emails/comments like these, I gain greater appreciation for Irfan Hussain. Many people agree with Hussain's views and many people disagree with his views, but say this for him: he has not backed off. He has continued (in my opinion) to be one of the sanest and rational voices in the Pakistani punditocracy. I am sure that he must receive, quite literally, hundreds of hateful emails every week from the rabidly hateful people that make up his readership. And yet it appears, on the surface at least, that it matters little to him -- he has not tempered his views in the slightest, and keeps taking on the most reactionary elements within our society with aplomb.

Third, liberals in Pakistan are always being defensive, mainly because we're vastly outnumbered, but in actual fact -- on the empirics -- we've been right about most everything. Liberals were the first to wake up to talk about the dangers of the Taliban, about five years before the rest of the country decided to join us. In the 1990s, liberals were the ones who questioned our Kashmir strategy and support for militant groups. If liberals' advice on things like blasphemy and rape laws was actually followed, many fewer people would have lost their lives to violence. So across the spectrum, on the biggest issues in domestic and foreign policy, liberals are right, but treated as if they're wrong, stupid, traitorous, foreign agents, slaves to the west and god knows what else. Which is a pretty strange state of affairs, you have to admit.