Our Colonial Present

At its peak, colonialism sets an expectation out of the colonised people to not simply put up with institutionalised violence but also appreciate the strategic necessity of it from time to time to maintain 'order' and 'rule of law' in society.

Part of this stems from the the colonial concept of what constitutes 'rule of law' but much of it has to do with colonised people wearing the colonial lens to see each other as 'savages' that must be tamed through periodic violence.

The British may have left in 1947, but the Raj continues to this date both, at the policy mindset and practice level of the ruling elite in Pakistan.

The events we have witnessed in Pakistan over the decades, especially in the last two years, are indicative of our colonial present. Just because the ruling elite looks, talks, and eats like the locals does not mean they think or feel like them. Fanon’s seminal work Black Skin, White Masks is an extraordinary examination of this psychological phenomenon, which strongly resonates with what we are witnessing in Pakistan today.

For all purposes sake, Pakistan is may not be too far from freedom but it has yet to develop the language of freedom.