ء says…

(Written: October 2007, see note below)

We have been observing a number of ‘cults’ emerging in Pakistan over the last 5 years or so. I would not call them ‘serious movements’ as yet, because I don’t see a long term ‘manifesto’ (or something on those lines) for most of them.

I can spend a whole page talking about how I intend to define the term ‘cult’ in the course of my argument, but I will give myself the leeway and work with the assumption that it starts from one and then more people join that one to make a group; and then many other ‘ones’ spring up and eventually, there are ‘many groups’, doing the same thing.
But the fact that the time-scale for this ‘doing’ is rather short, makes me consider them, at least at this stage of their existence, to be nothing more than ‘cults’.

Of course I am being subjective here!!! But let me try to get some objectivity out of it. I will highlight three such cults:

The first one, I myself have been a part of. In fact I can confidently state that I have been one of the agents for initiating this cult. It’s the 21st century commercial rock music of Pakistan. Today, it has become an identifier of Pakistani popular music, worldwide.

When it started, it was all about young urbanized people looking for an outlet for their frustrations. They were angry for sure, and they didn’t like much of what their life was about – at least sub-consciously. They embraced their lives with hate and suffocation, but also picked up their guitars and found an escape-route. Then they realized that there were too many of them. So they started performing publicly… and then many others followed.

The big companies have been catching up with this trend for the last 5-6 yeas; and today ‘rock music’ is the tag-line for some of the leading product advertisements in Pakistan.

I may sound like the typical critic of commercialism, but I am not. I am very hopeful and I foresee some major developments in Pakistani music. It is on the verge of ‘industrializing’ and, if all goes well, it will be recognized as an industry, just like way back in the 90’s the Indians gave Bollywood official industry status.

As far as musical integrity is concerned, I am afraid that has less to do with commerce and more to do with being human in the broadest of terms. If you are an integrated human being everything else falls into place, otherwise you will never find order!

Now let me talk about another ‘cult’. I am sure, people will be critical of my calling it so, but as I said, I am being subjective here. My conscience is clear from within!

This one has to do with the Earthquake that took place in 2005….

I have been living part-time in Abbottabad since 2004, i.e. just prior to the quake. And I have observed how that city changed drastically within a matter of months.

The city is flourishing now! A lot of traffic though, especially due to trucks delivering supplies to the affected areas, and it takes a good 2 hours (as against 1) to get here from the Hassanabdal entrance.
However, the ‘cult’ I want to mention is not of automobiles, but of NGO’s and philanthropic agencies.

There are about 8-10 big organizations which bring in the money and do the macro monitoring of the reconstruction/rehabilitation process. But when I called in at the office of one of these ‘big-bosses’ to ask for some directions to other offices, the operator said: ‘Sir Yahaan to Laakhon NGO’s hain! Kiss kiss ka pata bataoon?’ (Sir, there are hundreds of thousands of NGO’s here, how many can I direct you to?).

There was this one place, right in the outskirts of Mansehra, called the Ghazikot Township, built specifically after the earthquake to provide land and housing to the displaced. I was guided by the officer to visit this place as it held the bulk of the NGO offices. Right at the entrance I could see at least 50 boards directing all across the Township. The guard at the entrance told me that there are almost 150 offices in this compound. I even went in to check up on a few. More to their dismay and less to mine, I found out, in 4 of the 5 offices I visited, that their funding had exhausted and they were wrapping up their work (and offices), with a faint hope that they might just get another project.

4 out of 5 in a sample, that is an 80% rate of closure – I really hope not. But the reality is that the earthquake rehabilitation process is at a stage where all those 100,000 NGO’s are not required anymore. The big-bosses will stay as they are part of the long-term process. But those who had so enthusiastically set up colorful websites and equipped offices, for them the future seems constrained, at least in terms of financial and logistical survival.

Will they follow on with this philanthropic drive? Will they develop their own avenues instead of banking upon those provided by the big-bosses? Will this ‘cult’ die out?

I don’t really want to answer these questions. But I am, as always, the optimistic type. There are lots of cars in Abbottabad and surrounding regions – big imported 4 wheelers to be specific. There are laptops, Wi-Max, big banks and so on.

This region has woken up with the jolts of October 2005. I don’t see it falling asleep, at least not for the next few decades!

The last ‘cult’, for many is not a cult, but a long-term movement (though I hope not) nurturing itself under the title, ‘clash of civilizations’. Yes, it is militant Islam. It is global and it promises that it will stay until the end – its own or that of its opponent.

A while back I read this news that a new militant organization, by the name of ‘Al-Hizb’ has come up in Darra Adamkhel. It is monitoring the activities of the security agencies in the region. It warns of beheading those tribal leaders who spy for the ISI. It also has an ‘amir’ who will never be identified.

Seems like very familiar modus operandi, and it did make me think about the process of how a cult forms….
Just to make fiction out of facts: In Darra Adam Khel, a bunch of youngsters see a bunch of men set up a group which makes headlines world-wide in a matter of days. These youngsters have a lot of hot blood in them, they too need an outlet, and they have strong sentiments, especially ones which make them feel side-lined….

My optimism is challenged in this scenario. As a student of economics, it makes sense why cults are good for the economy: they give massive returns for a short time span, and they also have the potential to become a full-scale industry.

When I think about the future of this third ‘cult’, it shakes me from my own foundations. Just like the tremors one experiences before (or even after) big Earthquakes!

Personal Note: I must confess that I have failed! I was supposed to put up something else – the sequel to ‘Love and Revolution’. I am not a good writer and it takes me a while to finish something. I thought I would do it quick, but that hardly works when I have to plan what I write, so after struggling all night with Part 2, I gave up.! I had to put something up.. ego badly hurt, so I went through some of my old stuff… I wrote this around a year back, when large scale operations had not started in the FATA regions. In that sense, the last part is a bit outdated. Nonetheless, I find it to be a decent read. Let me know what you think