Qadri accentuates politics but not economics, form and not the content, effects and not the cause, mythology and not the reality. He talks about the abolition of feudalism but not a word about the overthrow of capitalism
Yet another facade of a movement has been unleashed by sections of the state, imperialist interests and factions of the ruling classes to undermine and cut across a genuine revolutionary upheaval of the toiling masses from below. Billions not millions are being squandered on the ‘long march’ called by this right wing demagogue Maulana Tahir ul Qadri. The bourgeois media, pumped with colossal amounts of cash, are busy spinning various theories while Maulana Qadri’s campaign has already panicked the jittery incumbent rulers in Lahore and Islamabad. Host of conspiracy theories about the meteoric rise of this televangelist are making rounds.
One theory is rather intriguing. Owing to his Canadian citizenship and links with imperialists, Qadri’s is being linked to the Canadian gold mining giant Barrick Gold. The largest gold producing firm in the world, Barrick Gold has stakes in the Reko Diq gold mine in Baluchistan. The Supreme Court recently cancelled the contract signed in 1993. The imperialist plunder of Baluchistan is one of the main causes of the revolt in Baluchistan. This strife has plunged the region into mayhem.
Though there was a big crowd at the December 23 meeting organised by Minhaj-ul-Quran yet the attendance has been deliberately and grossly exaggerated by the disciples of Qadri and the media. In fact, much-talked-about Minar-e-Pakistan gathering was not such a big success in view of obscene amount of money spent, the arrangements made and the huge publicity campaign to haul the people to the venue. One can safely bet that it was the most expensive political rally in the history of the country. The jumping of the MQM onto Qadri’s bandwagon didn’t surprise anyone. It is typical MQM to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
The rhetoric about converting the Constitution Avenue into Islamabad’s ‘Tahrir Square’ is also farfetched. The prolonged sit-in at Cairo’s Tahrir Square was not the decisive factor that deposed Mubarak. It was strike at the Suez Canal [consequently threat of the closure of the crucial water way] coupled with the general strike that shoved the despot out of power.
There is another chimera that long marches lead to revolutions. Even during the Chinese Revolution of 1949 capitalism was overthrown not by the long march of the mainly peasant red army but by the general strikes of the Chinese proletariat in Shanghai, Nanjing, Peking, Canton and other industrial heartlands of china.
The workers of Karachi don’t have to march to Islamabad for a revolutionary insurrection. They have to seize the factories and the economy to crumble the state. With a revolutionary party a general strike of the workers and peasants of Pakistan can achieve a socialist victory with a relative ease and little bloodshed, if at all.
Mass mobilisations of millions or even tens of millions are not always revolutionary actions. There can be huge mobilisations by the forces of counter-revolution, reaction and fascism. Fascist of various hue have in the past mobilise millions to their rallies and movements. The main difference between a revolutionary and a reactionary mobilisation is important to understand. In a revolution the masses enter the political arena on a voluntary basis with an honest and genuine quest to transform the system and change their destiny. There is a thorough understanding of the aims and objectives of the revolution that makes their participation a conscious act and a subjective element in the equation. Reactionary mobilisations are based upon mythological demagogies and attract rather primitive sections of the society. Mostly these are a desperate expression of prevailing social malaise, stagnation and despair that.
If we try to analyse the present situation and the mood of the masses in Pakistan it is rather dim. They feel betrayed by those in whom they had developed so many illusions. The social and economic suffering has been exacerbated by the terrorist bloodshed of Islamic fundamentalists, imperialist aggression and plunder. The capitalist exploitation and coercion has never been so grave. The army and the judiciary, the political elite and the mullahs, the drug barons and the media bosses are knotted in an evil nexus. They are allies in the ongoing orgy of loot and plunder.
The MQM has been in power for more than two decades while Qadri is no novice either. Both are establishment’s trusted moles. The prevalent conditions of the ruling political elite are analogous to what Karl Marx described about the nineteenth century French elite. He wrote: “The party of Order proved...that it neither knew how to rule nor to serve; neither how to live nor how to die; neither how to suffer the republic nor how to over throw it; neither how to uphold the Constitution nor how to throw it overboard.”
However, one is perplexed by the Maulana’s contradictory and distractive programme and objectives. The crux of his rhetoric is that he wants to change the system without changing it. Like everyone else in this moneyed politics he is the ardent supporter of the capitalist system that is the real cause of this misery, poverty, mayhem and deprivation. These charlatans evade the reality expressed in Lenin’s dictum, “politics is but concentrated economics.”
Qadri accentuates politics but not economics, form and not the content, effects and not the cause, mythology and not the reality. He talks about the abolition of feudalism but not a word about the overthrow of capitalism. When in reality there are only remnants of feudalism in Pakistan and even in the remotest areas of the country there is a crushing domination of capitalist relations and exploitation. Then there is the relentless din of revolutions. Most of the right wing politicians are chanting revolution when it is actually these preposterously rich parasites that the revolution has to target and expropriate their wealth. But imperialists, drugs cartels that boss over two thirds of Pakistan’s economy—the informal or black economy-- and capitalist exploiters are Qadri’s main sponsors and backers.
It is a universal law that in periods of stagnations all kinds of rabble-rousers keep on appearing suddenly and then rapidly vanishing away into oblivion before a revolution of the workers and the oppressed masses breaks out. Qadri and such reactionary characters are actually nurtured and created to confuse the masses, subvert and deprecate the revolution. The petit bourgeoisie as an instable class, with its erratic nature and whimsical, impatient temperament rushes to foist such chicanery. But sooner rather than later its delusions evaporate. Qadri’s has come and will fade away with the same rapidity. Nothing is going to change neither does he has any intentions, policies, programme, methodology, tactics and strategy to effect any meaningful change. However, as the crisis is worsening with the convulsive downward spiral of capitalism, the change has to come. The teeming millions are yearning for an end to this pain and agony. Their time is not far off. The proletariat will transform from a class in itself to a class for itself. And once that takes place it will realise its power and move as a class with its gigantic strength into the arena of history to change its course. Only then the system will be changed, but only by overthrowing it through a socialist revolution.
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Lal Khan is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at |
