Lady Gaga and liberals: A dummies guide to an earlier ‘complicated’ article on the New Liberals in The News

For these Not-liberal Liberals, all problems for Pakistan started with 9/11 and will inshallah, end with some sexy sounding date to match. 13/13, if an extra month can be added to next year 

A new breed of patriots, conceived in Pakistan’s drawing rooms, have spawned on the crest of a tsunami and become social-media relevant. These are the New Patriots – can also be called the Not-liberal Liberals. In reality, they are not so new and still liberal because they are not very different from Old Liberals (not Old as in Botoxed but old moneyed). While Old Liberals live in colonial Havelis, Gulberg and Clifton imperialist mansions, the New Liberals have evolved their native politics on the virgin indigenous lands of Banni Galla and Thokar Niaz properties that they inherited as bourgeois heirs. They accuse everyone else of being pro-imperialist so they can put on their Che Guevera t-shirts and sweat in anti-war, anti-drone marches into Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Or at least in the pericardium of it, until the cameras run out of batteries and GHQ escorts them home.

The Not-liberal Liberal cannot be found in imperialist NGOs. But this new twitterati can be found in cyber-space, flirting with the editors of mainstream newspapers and giggling their way to the op-ed pages. Some editors are unflirtable because they have no humour but they do text and twitter ‘Ha, Ha’ a lot, which is encouragement enough.

Apart from mocking the khaadi-feminists, the Not-liberal Liberals also scowl at middle-class type, feudal type, mullah type violent political activists. Instead, they romance with the private-jet, pathaanichappal, Ox-bridge from outside but indigenous inside types, who look so much like Iqbal (thank god, not like Jinnah). Never mind the Kasuri women types – not their kasoor, as one of my public intellectual friend, likes to remind us.

These anti-heroes know all about the poisoned-apple fable so they hate the poison fed by McDonalds but love the apple MacBook. Their laptops stay where they belong – on their laps – all the time - balanced carefully next to their special bred poodle. This way they can iphoto and update their profile pictures with each random article they write. One picture may show yuppie liberal disheveled hair and the next month, a stubble darkened, jaw-thrusting one - a revolutionary sign of solidarity with the Taliban Peaceful Union Against Barbers. The picture reflects their political mood and political party sympathy of the day. A picture is worth a thousand Gillettes and even if an equal amount of flowers do not bloom, there may be a scoring chance of some deflowering if, enough chicks Like the picture on facebook.

Oh, yes, Orientalism is their RT book. Studied it at Ivy League and despite the fact that it’s not on Oprah’s List. Bite me, they say to all the House Nigger, Obama Lovers. They don’t care too much for the US-imperialist leaders before George Bush either – whoever they were and it doesn’t matter much because that was the High Modernity era of 7-11s. This is the anti-secular, anti-liberal, postmodern, post-fundamentalism, post-Islamic, post post-office, 9/11-changed-everything, google-the-meaning-of-orientalism era. They’re so brave that despite their anti-US, anti-imperial, left-of-something views, they still wait endlessly for their US visa so they can defiantly march past JFK immigration in Muslim superior confidence.

For these Not-liberal Liberals, all problems for Pakistan started with 9/11 and will inshallah, end with some sexy sounding date to match. 13/13, if an extra month can be added to next year. This can only happen if there are fair and free elections (not an Enlightenment, liberal idea – one started by Caliphs, in fact) which will see the warrior leader Imran Bhai, victorious, for he is the only one who can stretch the lunar calendar in the same way the water-car could have gotten us that extra mileage and rid of us of our CNG problems.

It’s America-loving Liberals who keep living in the comfort of Pakistan, like Hoodbhoy, who always kill the sufi-mystical possibilities outlined in the patriotic Iqbalian-Shaheen philosophy, which beats all typo-filled, boring corrupt manifestos of sold-out corruptive leaders and their corrupting agendas. Not-liberal Liberals feel Old Liberals should form a party called Kruptonite which would go well with their star-trek memories and fit their PPP-voting, ink-stained, yucky, indigo thumbs. This will be challenged by the PTI non-Darwinian, opposable (green) thumb enabled, text-your-vote, Electoral Plan, which is bound to throw us into the new millennium, past modernity and orientalism and into postmodern, pre-imperial times. Not to be mistaken as imperialist Rumsfeld-Cheney slogan, Back to the Stone Age.

In the new, Not-liberal Pakistan, there will be no need for polio vaccines, madrassas, women’s rights or human rights because either polio virus or madrassa graduates will get the women and humans –whichever reproduces fastest - is the Muslim motto. In the end we may be lobotomized at one end and colonoscopised at the other but at least we’ll be truly decolonized. Oh….., LOL!

Less than 800 words, free of ‘jargon’, in fact free of thought itself, non-ideological, light, personal (most important), easy reading, flippant not earnest style. Like me, please.

Notes:

1. Lady Gaga has nothing to do with article but makes a catchy title.

The writer is a sociologist based in Karachi. She has a background in women's studies and has authored and edited several books on women's issues. Email: