By Aima Khosa
Before we start some of the core arguments of this piece,I must give a little background of myself. I am,what the general Pakistani public calls,‘a burger’. I don’t want to be,of course. I don’t like the association. I brag of my Baloch descent and try to squash the burger in me as violently as possible. But I am a burger,nonetheless. Reading Urdu is a little hard for me. One of my readers called me a part of the ‘2 percent secular breed that lives abroad and is not aware of the ground realities’. I concede to the entire statement – except I do not live abroad.
Don’t get me wrong,this is not a piece about how wonderful burger kids are. I have seen some terrible cases of burger-dom. One burger once asked me,“Why do you work so much?”I replied,“Because I like to.” To this he snorted and said,“Oh,you’re from the naukar awaam”. I smiled sweetly and said,“Yes,I like to think I am.”
Pakistani burgers are rich kids,the waderai ka beta sorts. These are the rich kids who are generally unaffected with most political activity around them as long as the money keeps coming in. But from my generation,a lot of these burger kids are dispassionate,poorly educated on world affairs and national politics and will share a few links on their Facebook pages to sound intelligent. Among this community,many struggle with ideas of atheism and agnosticism. They would never admit to such an inner personal dilemma and would continue to live their privileged lives unaffected by all their inner contradictions.
These kids,however,are among the untapped political crowd in Pakistani politics. Campaign posters by all politicians target the general masses,not this small community,most of whom will not go out and vote on election day. Imran Khan explored this voter base quite effectively,running a good online campaign and attracting some of the ill-informed,die hard Imran Khan loyalists to his October 2011 rally. Since then,the Imran-Khan-for-president fervor dissipated,as with all burger movements and these days,the burger community is left with trolling online blogs and fighting over the ‘truth’ behind the attack on Malala online. No street activism – because,after all,how can we bring a revolution ‘in so much heat and when the police shows so much aggression’?
The state of Pakistan’s dispassionate rich youth is saddening. When the Arab Spring revolutions were happening,some of the most amazing facts came to light regarding how the movement was led by the young –tech-savvy and politically charged. Khaled Syed,a young man who became a victim of Egyptian police brutality,became the face of the revolt. It wasn’t overnight. A Facebook page appeared online,run by Google executive Wael Ghonim who was in detention for 11 days,called ‘We are all Khaled Syed’ which became of forum of exchange between young activists of Egypt. The dates and timings of the protests appeared on the page. I am not saying this because I read some articles on the subject – I followed the page personally and some of the information shared was truly heartening. They were updating constantly,adding tips like “protestors at the scene say there is tear gas,come with masks”.
And it was internet activists that facilitated the revolt. There was a major intellectual debate about the future of activism because the Arab Spring had proved internet activism made the street activism faster and more effective
In 2008,Ahmad Salah and Ahmad Maher branched off Kefaya,an opposition group and started their own group they called April 6th Youth Movement. To amass support and to spread word about security issues,information about strikes and new events and incidents,they used new media tools such as Youtube,Facebook,blogs and other forms of social networking. They learned about ghost servers from Italian anarchist groups. A key activist of this movement was Ramy Raoof,an online media expert. He devised systems where people could use telephones to SMS when the government imposed restrictions on text messaging services. He also helped explain to other activists how new media could be used to share information about arrested activists and to have a lawyer present almost immediately and secure releases. His efforts proved fruitful in November 2010 elections,when his team was able to secure many releases of activist with the help of lawyers who were readily available. Previously,this had not been possible and activists would be arrested and remain missing for weeks on end on trumped up charges.
The live coverage of the revolutions in the Arab world in videos that were shared worldwide,especially in Egypt,were not just random coincidences. Activists who shot videos of protests on their cell phone often had training from people like Bassem Samir. During the Iranian protests of 2009,Samir was disturbed and disappointed by the poor quality of the videos that came out. They were often blurry and disjointed and barely decipherable. In 2010,Samir,in coalition with a Kenyan NGO,organized a delegation that helped train people for taking raw videos and making them credible. And when the time came,his efforts bore fruit. The world watched live as protests grew from small movements to a full-on revolt.
I hate to draw comparisons but comparisons are key to this piece. Compare this to the Pakistani youth that cannot even come to an agreement on what oppression means. The average Egyptian is as tech savvy as the average Pakistani. This means that it was online part of the Arab Spring was led by what one might call the Egyptian burger. Our burgers haven’t learned to take a united stand on online forums. Imagine the hard work they would have to put in if they had to go protest at the scene,send live tweets and video footages at the same time. Facing police brutality would be nearly impossible in such circumstances.
Facebook pages of mainstream political parties like PML-N and PPP are a sorry sight. There are photos of the party leadership that carry captions like ‘Khaadim-e-Alaa how many likes for him?’ or ‘Metro Bus,gift from CM’. No healthy political debate. PPP’s page is filled with huge images that,again,do nothing to invite healthy criticism. . PTI Facebook page is splashed with photos of Imran Khan,almost as if it is relying on Khan’s looks to get him the votes (it seems to be working though,the page has more likes that PML-N’s and PPP’s pages combined.)
In that regard,I have hopes from the Awami Workers’ Party. Their Facebook page is being run by some active young people who not only post critique by others on the party but also actively debate with people who come to their page with disagreements and invite others who have questions. It has been heartening to see the steady growth of their online presence,led by the tech-savvy young people who run it. Perhaps a little more time devoted to this online presence might mean that in case of a revolt,the movement might not fizzle out because someone stayed online and kept updating the rest of the burger community and encouraged them to stop their online trolling for a second and enter the streets,finally.
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