Native Orientalists in Pakistan

7/31/2019 Native Orientalists in Pakistan

1/17Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2050547

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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

[email protected]


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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.

Native Orientalists in Pakistan

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