Of rebellion & revolution

Revolution. One hears the word often these days, if only in passing. Many media personalities promote the idea, others allude to it. Many an average man holds romanticized visions in his head of the land of wonder and peace that will be Pakistan “if only there was a revolution.” Such people should be given copies of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which a group of farm animals, tired of being ruled by a human, decide to revolt, get rid of the human, and establish their own ‘animal’ order. They soon discover that this new order quickly degenerates into a worse oppression, in which some animals, namely pigs and dogs, come to dominate others. What began as a revolution promising the tenet “all animals are equal,” with a new doctrine, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

What is the concept of a revolution, and why do many people hold to this concept as the only means of deliverance? Are there any historical precedences one can analyze to understand what would occur during a revolution? There are many synonyms to the word revolution, most or all probably do not conform to the ideal in the common man’s head, or to what many a TV-host/reporter mean when they casually throw the word around. Bloodshed, crime, destruction, disorder, strife, tumult, turbulence, upheaval, and violence are all equivalents to the word revolution. It is only when one consults a ‘concept thesaurus,’ that one understands what others are attempting to refer to. Radical change, remodeling, recasting and sweeping organic change are all meanings to revolution one finds in a ‘concept thesaurus.’ This leaves a most pertinent problem though. If people are so casually throwing this word around, they must know how this ‘radical change’ is to be brought about? Indeed how is any revolution brought about? The synonyms of revolution probably contain more than a few answers to this question. The French Revolution, from 1789-1799, is generally considered by the layman in Pakistan. In fact, many an article has been written comparing Pakistan to pre-Revolutionary France. However, there was a revolution closer to home, and closer to contemporary times, foreshadowing the dangers of revolution. One refers of course to the Russian Revolution of 1917. The socialists represented by the Bolsheviks revolted against the Russian Monarchy, and the Russian Provisional Government. It directly led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which immediately degenerated into communist rule. However, the one fact that advocates of revolution in Pakistan should remember is, that after the revolution, the civil war that occurred because of the revolution, and the eventual stabilization at the center, 40,000,000 Russians had been obliterated. Yes, you are reading that correctly. It did not matter which side anyone was on.

Everyone suffered, and many died. Each and every man was a target for someone else. There was no controlling it. There was no benefiting from it. It established the USSR which so impoverished the people further that many countries from the former Soviet bloc have still not been able to recover. Russia’s economy had been so devastated by the revolution, that disease, famine and mass starvation were rampant. Many millions more died soon after of disease, and millions of children were forced to live on the streets, after becoming orphans. What of the French Revolution? Apart from mass starvation, and a period of unspeakable horrors, it eventually established a tradition of domination of the state. God was soon replaced by the State as the object of worship, being worthy of obedience. All rights belonging to man now emanated from the State. And what of the nobility? Those who owed their positions to the king, that is, the urban nobility, lost everything.

The landed nobility however, ended up being more powerful than ever. It is hilarious to hear someone advocating an end to feudalism in Pakistan, then going ahead and advocating a revolution, which will accomplish nothing but increasing the power of large landholders in rural constituencies. In fact, the French Revolution had put large estate holders in such a position, that even though the army eventually assumed command on France, domestic policies were entirely dependent on the new nobility. The peasants though, wanted ‘democracy,’ a word of Greek origin meaning literally, the rule of the mob. They soon tasted that very concept first hand. The only problem was that now, they did not know how to turn it off. When more peasants started dying than the ‘rich’ they so hated, power was eventually conceded to the ‘Directory.’ This of course led to the eventual establishment of a military-political elite. All ‘intermediary’ powers between the state and the people, namely the church and family, were completely eradicated, subjecting the French, to this very day, to the state, to which all powers were ‘transferred.’ The peasant as an individual human being was no more, now being merely another resource to be used at the state’s pleasure. The state of course, does not refer to the country, but to government apparatus.

Could something far more terrible take place than either of these two revolutions? Of a certainty, a national socialism on the pattern of Nazi Germany is entirely possible, especially considering recent public opinion. It is very important to keep an eye out for what the military feels about this particular point, and it is of the utmost importance, that the military not be tainted by socialist ideology, which its increasingly lower middle class recruitment would suggest.

Revolution will not bring about a utopia within Pakistan, rather, revolution, as its name suggest, would entirely destroy the current intermediary social groups, concentrating power into the hands of an entirely new and unknown authority. No one from the old order, whether politicians, journalists, generals, bureaucrats, or the upper income brackets, will come out alive. If the idea is to improve Pakistan, it will fail. If the idea is to remove a certain segment of the population, rest assured that such ‘cleansing’ will not be confined to one portion of the population, and it will not be in anyone’s control. Those media personalities advocating revolution should know, that they may very well be the first casualties of such a revolution. Do not create a situation where the ‘peasants’ of Pakistan are ‘unleashed,’ for then, of a surety, it will all be over very soon.

Shan Ali Ghalib

Short URL: http://www.daily.pk/?p=21254

on Sep 1 2010. Filed under Editorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.