VIEW: Us, the libertines —Reem Wasay

Liberalism, in essence, is a disentanglement from the central components of ideologies that must be reversed so as to integrate ourselves within the global intention

In the dangerously disoriented day and age that is today, our glaringly ignorant libertines seem to have fallen off the bandwagon of ‘get-with-it enlightenment’ to become misguided messiahs for what can only be termed a sadly lost cause. Every glossy, time-out rag and two-cent publication will tell you that Pakistan’s neo-radicals are none other than the freewheeling fashion week firewalkers, predominant amongst most of our event-cum-party pages. Whilst most people have absolutely no problem with their midnight shenanigans (their entertainment quotient cannot be diminished early Sunday mornings when we manage a peep into their colourful lives courtesy newspaper weeklies) and hold only minor misgivings with what they choose to do on their own time, yours truly cannot help but let escape a guffaw when they call themselves the ‘liberals’ amongst us…the savages that we are.

With them being part of the chosen few who have self-baptised themselves the enlightened ones, I was waiting for the avalanche to fall from our party hardies at the societal injustices being promulgated throughout the nation at the behest of the political powers that be, infractions that cannot be denied no matter who you are and which political leanings you languish under. We are living under the dark shadow of a democratic displacement where a breakdown and refurbishing of the constitution has borne the brunt of damnability, and not a single peep out of our high-rolling moderates. It is a shame that the very idea of broad-mindedness is unabashedly associated with only one face of western influence and awareness, that of self-indulgence.

Liberalism does not entail just a sweet after-hours reckoning with a bottle of Jack Daniels nor does it only endorse a crash course in flashing what your mama gave you for every society magazine willing to award leverage to your fashion-cum-lifestyle rampage. Liberalism is the name of standing up for the progressive deterrence of the wrongs that are now being seen as sending a society into shambles, and the corrupt practices that fan the flames of embittered grievances that possess the potential to annihilate any last ravaged morsel of justice we have left. Liberalism denotes a fought after achievement of enduring value, of emancipation from practices that leave us the sorry end of state run and eluded terrorism. Liberalism, in essence, is a disentanglement from the central components of ideologies that must be reversed so as to integrate ourselves within the global intention. This roughly translates as an outreach programme towards enlightenment through education, a broader thought process and a willingness to accept where it is that we go wrong. For a nation to project progression only through the yahoos of society’s upper niches, complete with a few inebriating substances of abuse at the ready, is a precarious depiction of a society confused and decked in frivolous abandon.

While the laissez fairies are busy decorating the pages of their social rags, the rest of civil society is inadvertently worshipping the demigod of institutional inconsistencies, strategically enjoined terror strikes and a colossal corruption of power resources. We scamper from the dogmas of perplexing policies, and our libertines? They party on and flash their midnight smiles. Real enlightenment is going all out for your fundamental rights amongst which the ability to choose your own leaders and your own state runners takes the lead. When your country stands precariously at a crossroads where a Muslim has been pitted against another Muslim and the threat of legitimised militancy is growing at an avalanching gait, to act as though you do not share responsibility is to declare you have no part to play in the current status quo. When you shoulder no responsibility, you ought to stop taking up front row dibs everywhere you go as you serve no purpose to anyone but yourself.

It is a shame that Pakistan’s social-cum-party scene has now reached such heights of undeterred exhibitionism that, for the unschooled observer, the entire backdrop reeks of a reckless disdain for anything that could and will disrupt their perfectly acceptable decree of moral free-riding. There is nothing wrong with having a good time and doing it in style — the perception of which may differ in varying degrees of consent with individual choices — but we spiral into troubled waters when we project our youth with only one face of ‘enlightened moderation’ (now a cringe inducing jingle) and that too one which can hardly be credited as a positive source for fulfilling progressive motives. With a bombardment of glossy sermons exhorting their subversive influence over a generation already confused about rights and wrongs in a social order fuelled by warring sentiments, we are teaching our children to either hate each other or immerse themselves in a counterfeit shindig culture where the only unfortunate outlet for after-hours assertion is on a dance floor, intoxication, eschewed sexual impulses and clambake values that scream for attention.

Our party culture thrives on being a superficial role model for our children. It gives to them what they want to see, what they want to associate themselves with; all the glamour, all the front-row glitz, none of the back-alley rot that has managed to seep itself into the very core of what we project as cool today. Open any society magazine and greet today’s midnight darlings: they dance, they play, they drink, they drug and hey, they get front page spreads for doing just that, absolutely nothing at all! The young and the cool are also the intoxicated and the inebriated, social standing is denoted by those who have set no precedents towards educational and intellectual norms yet have stormed their way to our acceptance by dulling the ramifications of priorities gone askew and giving us the kind of lifestyle and culture we may not typically abide by, but one we all want to see because, heck, we all love a little eye-candy.

Today’s youth culture is now exposed to a forsaken cesspool that validates only one kind of ‘cool’ and mode of progression; it has fabricated a smokescreen of carefree oblivion and rampant partying to nullify any other recreational need for societal and self-improvement. Role models have become swishy fashion designers and disrobed models whose only claim to fame is how low they can go without actually participating in our societal circumstance, while being the forerunners for our society’s ‘softer’ image.

Forgive their apathy, their glutted un-interest and their fagged out indifference; they probably do not know any better.

The writer is an Assistant Editor at Daily Times and participant of the Salzburg Trilogue and an essayist and lecturer on interfaith discourse and social analysis. She can be reached at reemk80@gmail.com