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May 2012
The Orientalist enterprise of Western writers has received a great deal of critical
attention since the publication of Edward Saids Orientalism in 1978. As Western
academics have learned to bring more objectivity and empathy to their study of the
Islamicate, a growing number of Muslim academics, novelists and journalists in
their home countries and the diasporahave started looking at themselves through
new Orientalist constructs that serve the interests of Western powers. This native
Orientalism has existed in the past but it has grown dramatically since the launch-
ing of the Wests so-called global war against terror. This essay examines the man-
ner in which native Orientalists in Pakistanwriting mostly in the English languagehave been supporting Americas so-called global war against terror.
Professor of EconomicsNortheastern University
Boston, MA 02115
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The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the foremost minds of the ruledclass, the more stable and dangerous becomes its rule.
Karl Marx1
A few days back, I received a Dear friends email from Mr. Najam Sethi,
formerly editor-in-chief ofDaily Times, Pakistan, announcing that he, to-
gether with several of his colleagues, had resigned from their positions in
the newspaper. Mr. Sethi thanked his friends for their support and en-
couragementin makingDaily Timesa new voice for a new Pakistan.
I am not sure why Mr. Sethi had chosen me for this dubious honor.
Certainly, I did not deserve it. I could not count myself among his friends
nor had I in any waygiven support and encouragement to the mission
that Daily Timeshad chosen for itself in Pakistans media and politics.
Contrary to its slogan, it was scarcely ever the mission ofDaily Timesto
be a new voice for a newPakistan. On the contrary, this newspaper had
dredged its voice from the colonial past; it had only altered its pitch and
delivery to serve the interests of new imperial masters. Several of its regular
columnists aspire to the office of the native informers of the colonial era.
They are native Orientalists, local apologists of neocolonialism, who see
their own world (if it is theirs in any meaningful sense) through filters creat-
ed for them by their intellectual mentors, the Western Orientalists.
Born to Neocolonial Servitude
It is arguable that Pakistan was born to neocolonial servitude because of the
conditions that attended its birth. In significant part, the demand to create a
separate state for the Muslims of India was fueled by their economic inse-
curity. The Muslims were poorly represented in Indias indigenous bou r-
geoisie and professional classes, especially in the provinces that would form
part of Pakistan; but they had a stronger presence in the ranks of large land-
1 Karl Marx, Capital,Volume III (New York: International Publishers, 1967);quoted in: Jon
Elster,Making sense of Marx(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987): 35.
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owners and the officer class in the colonial army and bureaucracy in Punjab,Pakhtunkhwa and the United Provinces. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the
Muslim League the party that led the Pakistan movement was largely
dominated by landlords, a class that identified with and had worked very
closely with the British rulers. This was hardly a propitious start for an in-
dependence movement.Ideologically, the Pakistan movement was doubly handicapped. Since
the Muslim League had to make a case for carving out a newstate for the
Muslims of India, its leaders were anxious to demonstrate that the Muslims
were a nation, distinct from the Hindus, who, therefore, wanted a separate
state where they would be free to develop according to Islamic ideals. In
order to mobilize the Muslims of India behind the Pakistan movement,
therefore, the League told the Muslims that their religion would be at risk in
a united India; and only Pakistan could save Islam. There was no reason,
however, for this rhetoric to monopolize the platform of the League; but it
did. As a party dominated by the landlords, the League could speak of free-
ing the Muslims from the domination of Hindus, but it could not speak of
the rights of Muslim peasants and workers.
This was unfortunate: it meant that the Pakistan movement mobilized
the Muslims without making any demands on their class consciousness. TheMuslim League did not propose an economic program for emancipating the
Muslims peasants; it made no promises to enact land reforms; it did not
have any plans to lighten to the debt burden of the tenants and small farm-
ers, provide cheap credit, or protect them from the tyranny of the land-
lords. The League did not propose measures to set up industries, create
employment, or reform the system of colonial administration. They did not
even come up with any plans to remedy the serious deficiency of Muslims
in various fields of education.
Allama Iqbal was painfully aware of the failure of the League to address
the economic emancipation of the Indian Muslims. In a letter to Jinnah on
May 28, 1937, hewrote: The League will have to finally decide whether it
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will remain a body representing the upper classes of Indian Muslims orMuslim masses who have so far, with good reason, no interest in it. Person-
ally I believe that a political organization which gives no promise of im-
proving the lot of the average Muslim cannot attract our masses.2 Sadly,
Iqbal died a year later. Muhammad Ali Jinnah chose not to press these eco-
nomic issues upon the landlords who dominated the Pakistan movement.
Perhaps, he knew that he could not persuade them to act against their eco-
nomic and political interests.
As a result, in August 1947, when they handed power to Pakistans na-
tive elitesconsisting of big landlords, military officers and bureaucrats
the British had few worries that their departure risked compromising their
economic or cultural interests in their former colony. These elites did not
disappoint their erstwhile or new masters. Within a few years of gaining
formal independence, they had firmly strapped the new country to the
wheels of the neocolonial order. Since 1958, Pakistan has been ruled alter-
nately by increasingly corrupt landlords and military generals, with the mili-
tary generally playing the role of the senior partner because of its closer ties
to the US establishment. Without effective resistance from intellectuals,
workers, peasants or students, these neocolonial hirelings progressively re-
duced Pakistan to a condition of vassalage so complete thatby the 1990scivilian and military leaders could not gain power without the blessings of
Washington. Indeed, these elites have sunk so lowbecause of their de-
pendence on Western powers for aid and hiding their stolen assetsthat
they grovel even before the oil-rich potentates of the Persian Gulf whose
own survival depends on serving US-Israeli interests in the Middle East.
This is not a cri de coeur- only a diagnosis of Pakistans shame and ig-
nominy. Fools have imagined that they can end this misery by appeals to
Western conscience; many years ago, Aim Cezair reminded us that the
2 G. Allana, Pakistan Movement: Historical Documents(Karachi: University of Kara-chi,1969):129-133.
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West uses its principles only for trickery and deceit.3 Pakistanis alone canend their humiliation: only they can overthrow the system that has castrated
them for more than six decades. Pakistan was born gagged and bound, de-
livered into the control of the very classes that had been the chief collabora-
tors and chief beneficiaries of colonial rule. These neocolonial hirelings
have served themselves and their Western masters quite well. Between
themselves, the two local contracting parties of the neocolonial enterprise
the military and the party of the landlordshave taken turns running the
country into the ground. When the people have appeared to get sick of one
these parties, it has transferred power to its twin, which offers itself as just
the medicine that will cure the countrys sickness. The party of the land-
lords regales the people with the wonders of democracy; the military party
rescues the people with homilies about the corruption of the landlords. This
game of friendly musical chairs has gone on now for six and a half decades.
A Pakistani Failure
Why havent more Pakistanis seen through this deception and why havent
they acted upon this knowledge to end this game of musical chairs?
It would be foolish to expect neocolonial managerial classes to produce
an internal enemy, one that aspires to overthrow the system. Such an out-
come is imaginable, but improbable. The leaders of the two neocolonial
factions work closely with Western intelligence agencies to ensure that no
one from their ranks, bitten by the bug of patriotism, manages to rise to
leadership positions in the civilian or military spheres. If the system of sur-
veillance fails, and a patriot rises to the leadership of one of the two parties,
the United States can use a variety of means to eliminate that threat. In Pa-
kistan, this internal threat to the system has never surfaced: at least, not yet.
Challenges to the neocolonial order could have emerged from below
3 Aim Cesair, Discourse on colonialism(New York: Monthly Review, 1972): 9.
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from the growing middle classes; but that too has not happened.4Pakistansemerging middle classes have been too busy clawing their way up the social
ladder to give serious thought to challenging the elites; in any case, they
have been more focused on joining the elites not challenging them. Unde-
niably, there has been a growth of organizations that claim to be working
for social lift. Some of them have been doing good work, and a few have
made a significant difference to the lives of the poor. Too many of these
organizations, however, are managed by scions of well-connected families,
are funded by foreign donors, and, as a result, are willing or unwilling dupes
of the social and cultural agenda of foreign powers.
More lamentable is the failure of Pakistans intellectual classes barring
a few distinguished exceptionsto lead the people out of despondency.
Unable to escape the Wests intellectual hegemony, mesmerized by intellec-
tual fashions emanating from Paris, London and New York, Pakistans in-
tellectual classes have become increasingly alienated from their own people.
Very few Pakistanis pursue doctoral work in history, the social sciences or
humanities; and if they do, their research is directed to issues that are cur-
rently important in Washington or London. Far too many Pakistanis with
PhDs in economics end up working for the IMF or World Bank. As a re-
sult, few Pakistani academics of any standinginside Pakistan or in the
diasporabring a radical perspective to their work. As a result, Pakistanis
have produced little authentic scholarship in the recent decades. They have
failed to educate, lead and guide a people who cannot act correctly because
they lack a proper understanding of their historical condition. They have
failed to connect them to their best traditions of scholarship, governance
and tolerance. As they remain divorced from their own traditions, they can-
not learn from the West without being dazzled by it. Since they have not
developed a deep critique the failings of Western modernity, they have done
little to shape an Islamic modernity that offers models of change that do
4 The only political party that organized the urban middle classestheMuhajir QaumiMovementlacked national appeal because of its ethnic focus, and, as a result, its impactwas localized. Even so, it was persecuted for years until it decided to throw its support forthe status quo forces, both civilian and military.
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not alienate Muslims them from their history. Read the op-eds in PakistansEnglish language dailiesand you will be struck by how disconnected they
are from any tradition of scholarship, either Western or their own.
This failure is common to most former colonies. Captured by the
equivalent of our brown sahibs, more interested in serving their former co-
lonial masters than their own people, few of these former colonies enacted
any authentic programs of decolonization. Independence brought them a
flag, a national anthem and a national airline, but it did little to reconnect
the people to their history and traditions, to rid them of the sense of inferi-
ority that was drilled into them by decades of racist colonial rule. As a re-
sult, we have seen an expansion in the use of colonial languages in the for-
mer colonies; they continue to cling to systems of colonial governance and
colonial education that have stymied the energies of the people, as they did
during the era of direct colonial rule. In Pakistan, the guards and peons out-
side important government offices still wear the dress that was once worn
by Indias ruling class; while the native bureaucrats who run those offices
still dress in three-piece suits. This continuation of colonial policies has
deepened the sense of inferiority among Pakistanis aspiring to join the
elites; and they have become ever more eager to jettison their culture to
quicken their ascent to the upper classes. Worse, since the newly educated
classesfluent only in European languagescan only approach their own
history and heritage through Orientalist intermediaries, this sense of inferi-
ority has morphed into self-denigration and self-hatred.
Native Orientalism
Ironically, the enormous success of Edward Saids Orientalism, his devastat-
ing critique of the Wests hegemonic discourse on the Orient, has deflect-
ed attention from the recrudescence of a native Orientalism in many of the
former colonies in the last few decades. Its victory in Pakistan is nearly
complete, where the Orientalist brigade has been led by the publishers, edi-
tors and columnists of the countrys leading English language dailies and
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magazines. Anxious to serve their Western masters and their local under-lings, these native Orientalists as well as others of their ilk, dwell obsessively
on the failings of Pakistans non-elite, non-Westernized and non-English
speaking classes. Following a curiously inverted analysis of power, they
blame Pakistans malaise on its dispossessed classes. It is the rump that
rules the Pakistani dog. All of Pakistans problems these native Oriental-
ists argue disingenuouslystem from the backwardness of Pakistans Mus-
lim population: their fanaticism, obscurantist outlook, and irrational
opposition to the Pakistani elites unconditional embrace of Americas so-
called war against terror.5 Considering their Orientalist proclivities, some of
Pakistans eminent journalists and social scientists likely feel more at home
in US think tanks, advising their American colleagues and policy makers on
how best to civilize (read: neutralize) the Pakistanis.
In the euphoria of Edward Saids success, left intellectuals have nearly
forgotten that the Wests underlings in the former coloniesthe successors
to Macaulays brown sahibs have been producing their own indigenous
Orientalism. I refer here to the coarser but more pernicious Orientalism of
Muslims writers and journalists who reflexively espouse Western values,
and, conversely, denigrate their own. A few of these native Orientalists are
deracinated souls who, troubled by the backwardness of their societies, but,unable to understand its historical causes, castigate their own religion and
culture for failing to catch up with the West. In Pakistan, they blame the
countrys problems on Islam, on the fanatic religious classes, and trace
these failures back to the obscurantism of its medieval theologians who
5 It should be freely admitted that the fanatical and obscurantist tendencies in Pakistanisociety have been gaining strength since the 1980s, but this is largely the result of officialpolicies. Since the 1990s, poverty has become more widespread under Pakistans embraceof Washingtons neoliberal economic regime. The three-tiered education systemconsist-ing of private schools, government schools and madrasasprovides social mobility onlyto those who attend the private schools; and where government schools are lacking
even as their quality deterioratesthe poorest families are forced to send their children tomadrasas, often espousing the Wahhabi tenets of the oil-rich Arab donors. Moreover,since the 1980s, Pakistani governments have supported jihadist groups, first to fight theSoviets and later to carry on guerilla operations in Indian Kashmir.
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they claimopposed rationalism as well as the natural sciences. However,most of these native Orientalists are opportunists, Western lackeys, or
wannabee lackeys, eager to serve the corrupt elites who have been tearing
down their own societies for the benefit of Western powers.
In the closing years of the colonial erahappy at the chance to replace
their white mastersthe brown Sahibs played down their contempt for
their own people, their culture and religion. This was a tactical move: they
wanted to generate some anti-colonial pressure to expedite the departure of
their masters. This goal attained, the brown sahibs turned their backs on the
nationalist aspirations of their people, since their own class privileges were
more closely aligned with that of the Western powers. Unfortunately, even
as the power and rapacity of these neocolonial underlings has increased in
many former colonies, and especially in the Islamicate, the native ideo-
logues who have been defending their countrys growing subservience to
Western powers have received little attention from left circles. Post-colonial
critics continue to produce learned tomes and erudite essays on the lan-
guage, structures, tools, intricacies and the arcana of Orientalism, but they
have given scant attention to the growing phalanx of native practitioners of
this imperialist grammar.6 These critics prefer to concentrate their firepower
on the Western protagonists of Orientalismso to speak, the far enemy.Perhaps, they imagine that the native Orientalists, the near enemy, will
vanish once the far enemy has been discredited. In truth, the near enemy
has grown more daringeven as the far enemy has been treading more cau-
tiously.In the 1950s, when most Asians and Africans were struggling to over-
throw their colonial masters, convinced that the approaching independence
would give them the power to direct their own destinies, Frantz Fanon was
more skeptical. In The Wretched of the Earth, he presciently sounded the alarm
6 For the only book-length study on native informers from the Middle East who havewon the adoration of the West, see Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks(Lon-don: Pluto Press, 2011).
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about the treachery latent in the national bourgeoisie poised to step intothe shoes of the white colonials and white settlers in Africa. About this un-
derdeveloped bourgeoisie, he writes, its mission has nothing to do with
transforming the nation; it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission
line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged,
which today puts on the mask of neocolonialism.Because it is bereft of
ideas, Fanon continues, because it lives to itself and cuts itself off from
the people, undermined by its hereditary incapacity to think in terms of all
the problems of the nation as seen from point of view of the whole of that
nation, the national middle class will have nothing better to do than to take
on the role of manager for Western enterprise, and it will in practice set up
its country as the brothel of Europe.7 Although Fanon did not have Paki-
stan in mind when he was writing these words, no truer words could have
been written about the brown Sahibs who have managed the neocolonial
enterprise in Pakistan.
Soon after its founding, Pakistan began to move steadily into the US
orbit. Its first prime minister began the countrys migration from British to
American servitude, and in 1954 this was formalized by the countrys entry
into two anti-communist military pacts sponsored by the United States.
Four years later, strengthened by its growing military ties to the United
States, Pakistans military seized power; since then it has directly held power
on two other occasions. The second military coup was launched to termi-
nate a populist, left-leaning prime minister who had angered the United
States by his leadership of Third World causes. General Musharraf, leader
of the third military coup, consolidated his power by joining Americas so-
called global war against terror; only a cover for establishing a more direct
American control over the oil fields in the Persian Gulf and giving Israel a
freer hand in dealing with the Palestinians and the Arab states.
General Musharraf threw open Pakistans airspace, air bases, chief sea
port, and land routes to NATO forces on their way to Afghanistan. Shortly
7 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Constance Farrington (New York:
Grove Press, Inc.): 152, 154.
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afterwards, as the Afghan resistance began its guerilla operations against theAmerican occupiers from bases in Pakistan, General Musharraf turned Pa-
kistans military into a mercenary force. In exchange for American moneys,
he began bombing and shelling the Afghan resistance and their Pakistani
hosts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Pakistans mili-
tary entered into another lucrative deal with the United States as it began
handing over Pakistanis and other Muslims (many of them innocent civil-
ians) to the United States and collected bounties on their heads. When civil-
ian opposition to Pakistans military rule gathered force in 2007, the United
States arranged for the return to Pakistan of several discredited politicians
including Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharifafter persuading GeneralMusharraf to withdraw corruption and (in some cases) criminal cases
against them. Both were willing to serve US interests, but Benazir Bhutto
was the preferred candidate. Her assassination ensured her partys victory in
the February 2008 elections, and Asif Ali Zardarihusband of the slain
Benazir and notorious for his corruption during two previous governments
led by Benazirtook over the reins of power from General Musharraf.
Over the last decade and a half, despite its declared status as a nuclear
power, Pakistans leading political parties and the military generals have se-
cretlyand sometimes openlycompeted with each other to better serve
the interests of the United States. During these years, moreover, Pakistansmediaespecially its English segmenthas spawned a new breed of apol-
ogists, eagerly supporting Islamabads embrace of Washingtons neoliberal
agenda. More damnably, they have persistently made the case for Pakistans
humiliating surrender to Neoconservative designs against the Islamicate.
Native Orientalists at the Daily Times
To return to the Daily Times, surely some Pakistanimoved by the instinct
for collective self-preservationcould have produced at least one damning
monograph documenting the methods that this new flagship of native Ori-entalism has employed to support General Musharrafs corrupt dictatorship
and his decision to use the military to fight the Afghan resistance. Regretta-
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bly, you are unlikely to find even a few articles that shine the spotlight onthe unabashed advocacy of American and Zionist interests by several media
outlets in Pakistan. Unmistakably, several regular op-ed writers at the two
prominent English dailiesDaily Timesand Dawnhave led this pack of
sycophants.
The Daily Timeswas launched in April 2002, simultaneously from La-
hore and Karachi, just a few months after the United States had invaded
and occupied Afghanistan. Was this timing a mere coincidence? Or was the
launching of an aggressively pro-American and pro-Zionist newspaper, led
by a team of mostly US-trained editors and columnists, an imperative of the
new geopolitics created by the Pakistan governments mercenary embrace
of United States global war against terrorism?
Coincidence or not, the Daily Timeshas served its masters with verve.
Its pages have carried many editorials and op-eds justifying Pakistans in-
duction into the US led war against Afghanistan. The editors and column-
ists at Daily Timeshave regularly excoriated Pakistaniswho have opposed
their countrys surrender toAmerican demandsas nave sentimentalists
unaware of the tough demands ofrealpolitik. Endlessly, they have argued
that Pakistandespite its population of 175 million, a half-million-man
army, and an arsenal of nuclear weaponscan save itself only through ea-
ger prostration before the demands of foreign powers. They have argued
that Pakistan could not occupy a middle ground: if it did not capitulate to
US demands it faced certain destruction from bombers and missiles. The
humiliation and disastrous consequences of this capitulation have been
sinking, slowly but surely, into the national psyche of Pakistanis. Since Oc-
tober 2001, ordinary Pakistanis have begun to see through the treachery of
their rulers, as the country so visibly completed its descent into neocolonial
bondage.In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, General
Musharrafs government openly began broaching the need for recognizing
Israel. No Pakistani government before this had so openly made the case
for recognizing Israel; they knew that they would face strong opposition
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from the countrys religious classes. However, General Musharraf and his
American patrons may have reasoned that the time was ripe for such a
move. If Pakistans corrupt elites could get away with the surrender of Paki-
stans sovereignty over its airspace, airbases, and highwayswithout
sparking serious popular protests, why not take advantage of this passivity
and establish diplomatic ties with Israel? The somnolent Pakistanis would
hardly notice. Moreover, as a matter of policy consistency, how could Paki-
stan identify so completely with the war aims of the United States and not
have diplomatic relations with its closest ally, Israel?
Predictably, the native Orientalists at the Daily Timesand Dawnwere
leading the charge, arguing that Pakistan could advance its national interests
by recognizing Israel. Their rationale was derisible in its navet. Grateful
for Pakistans recognition the brown Sahibs arguedthe powerful Zion-
ist lobby would neutralize the Indian lobbys machinations against Pakistan
in the Congress and State Department. General Musharraf argued that if
the PLO could recognize Israel, should Pakistan take the position of being
more royalist than the king? Pakistanis were not persuaded. If the PLO had
capitulated, should Pakistan follow their example? On this issue, over-
whelmingly Pakistanis acted as if they were the voice of the Islamicate. The
religious parties mobilized street protests forcing the General to back down;it was a small but symbolic victory for Pakistanis.
When resistance against US occupation of Afghanistan gained momen-
tum, the United States blamed this on the madrasas in Pakistan; since some
of the leadership of the Afghan resistance had attended these madrasas.8
Once again the writers at Daily Timeswere making the US case for reform-
ing Islam and Pakistan. Shut down the madrasas, they demanded: and
8 Demonstrating their ignorance of history or their imperialist hubrisbelieving they couldsucceed where the Soviets and the British had failed, the latter repeatedlythe Americans
were convinced that they could bomb the Taliban into oblivion. At first that appeared to
be the case; but the Taliban retreated into the mountains and sought shelter with theircousins in Pakistan. By the summer of 2003, when a reorganized Taliban began attackingNATO positions in Afghanistan, the Americans began ramping pressure on the Pakistanmilitary to attack the Taliban from the east.
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mount military operations against the Pakistanis in FATA who were sup-porting the Afghan resistance. Repeated US and Pakistani bombings of the
resistance groups in FATA, which has killed thousands of civilians, called
forth new Taliban factions that have been attacking military and civilian
targets in Pakistan. With barely concealed glee, the writers at Daily Times
applauded when the Pakistan military carried Americas war deeper into its
own towns and villages in northwestern Pakistan.In 2007, when the lawyers in Pakistan took to the streets to demand the
restoration of the Chief Justice sacked by the military dictator, the Daily
Timesdid not support their call to uphold the supremacy of the countrys
constitution. The sight of well-heeled lawyers taking to the streets, braving
police baton charges, threats to their lives, and arrests was a proud moment
in Pakistans history. None of this impressed the columnists at the Daily
Times. Instead, they persisted in defending the sacking of the Chief Justice;
they were making the case for a gradual transition to civilian rule in Paki-
stan. A civilian government, they were afraidmistakenly, for suremight
not be as compliant to US pressures as Pakistans military rulers.
When elections became unavoidable, the United States and Pakistans
generals worked out a plan to bring to power the pro-American Benazir
Bhutto, the exiled corrupt leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, who hadfor years been trying to persuade the US government that she would make a
more effective US partner than the military. At US prodding, President
Musharraf passed an ordinance withdrawing all criminal cases against the
leadership of the PPP. With luck, the US plan succeeded. The openly pro-
American PPP followed General Musharraf into power.
Space allows us to list only a few egregious examples of the Orientalist
mindset on display in the pages of the Daily Times. As the papers resident
Orientalist, Khaled Ahmad, for several years surveyed the foibles and follies
of Pakistans Urdu media, in a column mischievously titled, Nuggets from
the Urdu Press. He scolded the benighted Urdu writers for their navet,
emotionalism, and foolish advocacy of national interests that collided with
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realpolitik (read: US-Zionist interests). Another op-ed writer distinguishedhimself by writing his endlessly clever political commentaries in the racy
street lingo of the United States. Did this make him a darling of the Ameri-
can staff at the US embassy in Islamabad?
Consider one more exhibit that captures Daily Times servile mentality.
In a regular column, oddly titled, Purple Patch, the newspaper ladles out
wisdom to its readers in the form of article-length passages lifted from vari-
ous great writers, who are always of Western provenance. Presumably, the
editors at Daily Timesstill believe with Lord Macaulay, their long-dead spir-
itual mentor, that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the
whole native literature of India and Arabia.9
Will the departure of Mr. Sethi and his acolytes make a difference? I
doubt if the owners ofDaily Timeswill have difficulty finding their replace-
ments, voices equally shrill in their advocacy of American interests. More
than at any other time, growing numbers of Pakistanis have been grooming
themselves for service to the Empire that rules from Washington, as their
predecessors once eagerly sought to serve the British Raj. This groveling by
Pakistans elites will only change when the people act to change the incen-
tives on offer to these soulless servants of Empire. But this will only hap-
pen when the people of Pakistan can put these mercenaries in the dock,charge them for their crimes against the people and the state, and force
them to disgorge the loot they have stowed away in Western banks.
All this will take hard work. Some Pakistanis insist that this hard work
is underway. It daily gains momentum, and, at some point, history will catch
up with the craven and corrupt elites who have bartered the vital interests
of Pakistan and the Islamicate for personal profit. When this near enemy
9 Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who, while serv-
ing on the Supreme Council in India, was instrumental in persuading the British to adopt
English as the official language of India. The quote is from the Macaulays Minute of 2February 1835 on Indian Education. See Thomas Babington Macaulay,Macaulay, Prose and
Poetry, selected by G. M. Young (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957): 721-24, 29.
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has been dislodged from the governing institutions of Pakistan, the far en-emy too will recede into the mists of history. Al-Qaida had got it all wrong.
Drive out the foreign accomplices inside your country: and freedom will be
yours. No foreign power will dare to invade or occupy Pakistan once the
local underlings have been driven out.
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