Qoomi Wassail Kay Behtar…
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Qoomi Wassail Kay Behtar… - . Read Full Post
Ye Nazak Muamla Hai (P-3)
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Ye Nazak Muamla Hai (P-3) - . Read Full Post
Masala Toheen Resalat(S.A.W)
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Masala Toheen Resalat(S.A.W) - . Read Full Post
Inqilab Naam Aur Haqeeqat
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Inqilab Naam Aur Haqeeqat - . Read Full Post
Mobocracy
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Mobocracy - Words have been a lifelong passion. Ever since I learned to read – rather late to the frustration of my teachers and parents – I have had a love-affair with 'the word'. As a consequence I have a vocabulary that is larger than average and will happily spend hours leafing through a dictionary – of which there are two in my bathroom the better to fill otherwise-fallow intellectual space. So when a word crops up with which I am not familiar, or unsure of the meaning of, I tend to be off like a terrier; sniffing here and there for etymology amongst the undergrowth of language. Thus it was that whilst watching a BBC documentary about the historical canvas on which was eventually painted Great Britain, I heard the word 'mobocracy'. This was in the evening of the day that Salmaan Taseer was murdered, and suddenly several things clicked. The documentary looked at the power of 'the mob' – the ordinary people outside of political process but a part of it by force of either arms or civil pressure; and their ability to provoke revolution. Mobocracy is a form of governance like any other, and there are plenty of examples of it in action down the ages, with the French Revolution being perhaps the best known. But what is 'mobocracy'? Firstly it is the modern form of a much older word: 'Ochlocracy' in Greek or 'Ochlocratia' in Latin, and it means mob rule. This is a type of rule which may evolve in the absence of the ability to exercise governance by the legitimate authority; or the intimidation of that authority by the mob to the point at which the 'authorities' abdicate to the mob. Some argue that it is a purer form of democracy – the rule of the people – in that it is more truly representative of the will of a majority of the populace; others that it panders to the lowest common denominator and is little removed from barbarism. Governments everywhere like to keep an eye on 'the mob' because it is a useful litmus paper, especially when times are hard and oh dear are they hard in Pakistan today. There is a need to keep a balance between feeding a restless populace and keeping them distracted (much as the Romans did in the declining years of empire by butchering countless thousands in public 'games') and if that balance is not kept then the mob may just have its way. So what if the mob – the general populace of Pakistan – were manipulated in such a way by what we might euphemistically call here 'agents of change' as to have tunnelled beneath the institutions of authority and detonated a mine? Because that is very much what appears to have happened in the immediate aftermath of the Taseer killing. The mobocracy that has emerged here may not be at the gates of the Bastille, nor surging through the streets banners aloft – and they don't need to be. This is the mobocracy of the mind, the overtaking of the collective will and consciousness for ends which space precludes analysis of in any depth; but with an assault on governance at its heart. It has been a hugely successful revolution, and with Taseer's death, we saw the transfer of power from the state to a mobocracy. Fear is an essential part of that new structure, both its own internal fears and the fear it projects around itself in order to strengthen its hold on power. Of course, I could be wrong. I fervently hope I am. But seeing Taseer's murderer showered with rose petals by lawyers leads me otherwise. . Read Full Post
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