Eclectic interests: economics, politics, history, anthropology, philosophy, music, art. Siraiki سرائیکی — I value my language. Vox clamantis in deserto.
Oct 28 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Identity is undergirded by a sense of place, language, and culture. (Thread)
1/6
Those who say that Pakistan just needs Urdu as a "national language" don't understand why Pakistan suffers from collective pathologies of aculturation, ethnic conflict, and identity crisis without an inclusive identity.
2/6
Mar 30, 2024 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Federalism can be metaphorically explained as being something akin to ecosystems. Ecosystems can be symbiotic or parasitic.
1/5
Successful & advancing federal states develop & evolve administrative units & institutional frameworks of constitutional governance which are symbiotic, & not parasitic, to promote cooperative federalism to evolve & progress in line with national goals of development.
2/5
Mar 15, 2024 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
PMLN has been using Punjabi ethnic nationalism for its populism in GT Road Punjabi belt & to mask political, economic and policy inadequacies since the 1980s. (1/7)
And Ma’am Chief Minister now is adopting full blown Punjabi chauvinist rhetoric & majoritarianism to clutch at the straws & sustain her party’s sinking fortunes. (2/7)
Feb 17, 2024 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Current quagmire of Pakistan didn’t begin a year or two or three or four prior. It’s an outcome of series of disastrous decisions over many years & decades taken for political ambitions & premised on delusional thinking of praetorian guard. February 8 is but an outcome.
We know from history that one of the biggest issue with autocratic orders, praetorian state structures & illiberal dispensations is rigidity, opacity & lack of accountability.
2/11
Feb 3, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
When we lose our language, we lose our context, history, culture, heritage, consciousness & develop collective pathologies. Losing our language makes us lose the embrace of our community.
1/4
It is indispensable to master hegemonic language/s as a skill but critically important to learn, read, write, develop & keep our own first language close to our hearts.
2/4
Dec 20, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
To all Saraiki friends, & others:
People have language rights, and nobody needs to justify those rights being respected by saying that a language is beautiful or complex or that multilingualism benefits the brain, etc.
1/4
Nobody needs to explain how language builds community cohesion, ensures security, supports socioeconomic development, improves educational outcomes, etc. Language & cultural rights are inalienable human rights & they have to be respected & honoured without discrimination.
2/4
Sep 14, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Language desertion, language cringe, collective pathologies and complexes are negative outcomes of colonial mindset, policies that are amiss, and unsuitable sociological and political model of assimilation and homogenisation for a diverse country like Pakistan. A thread:
Speak and teach your native language to your children or watch it die within the next 20 years. Looking down on your friends and family who speak in their native language to their children because you speak only in Urdu or English is silly,
Sep 13, 2023 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
More the establishment & partisans of ethnic majoritarianism & nationalist interests tied to Punjabi ethnocentric outlook push for Ranjit Singh worship & paint him as a hero with clear celebration of Punjabi chauvinism, hegemony & delusional longing for empire,
more Pakistan’s ethnic & federal harmony gets disturbed. Ethnic majoritarianism & unitary interests tied to hegemony, homogenisation & assimilation of inherently diverse cultural mosaic of the country have always hindered political stability & equitable development in Pakistan.
Sep 5, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Academia should be a free speech & independent thinking zone where critical inquiry & in-depth & wide-ranging study promoted. In fact, that is the basis of education after all – to teach students to learn, review, inquire, question, debate, analyse & think for themselves.
1/10
Independent thinking, creativity, critical inquiry, humanity, values, intellectual integrity, ethics, caring for others, civic & social responsibility & moral compass should be valued & emphasised along with theoretical & empirical frameworks, research & logical reasoning.
2/10
Aug 31, 2023 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
Saraikis are marginalised, ravaged, & mistreated by almost everyone. Lack of inclusive & integrated federal structure, keeping out Saraikis by denying integration as a province, & assimilation & gerrymandering is how establishment’s vice-regal project to usurp resources operates.
Saraiki rights & resources are usurped as if Saraikis aren’t Pakistanis in the blinkered, parochial view & colonial imagination of establishment, bureaucrats & hegemonic political elites from select regions.
Aug 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Necro comes from the Greek root nekros, meaning “corpse.”Necropolitics then translates to the “politics of death.” Philosopher Achille Mbembe describes necropolitics as “the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not.”
1/5
In other words, necropolitics is a framework that illuminates how governments assign differential value to human life. The closer you are to dominant power, the more your life is worth. Necropolitics is the calculus behind who gets to live and who must die.
2/5
Jun 10, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I don’t know if Mr Ghauri has ever studied social sciences or political systems with any seriousness to understand that one or two or x, y, z people getting some positions over 75 years is not equity. Majoritarian structural design holds resources & distribution is skewed.
In no other federal system in the WORLD is one provincial unit more than half of the population & it tries to hold more resources of its share & federal revenue for areas (invariably central & northern) of its preferred ethnic (Punjabi) dominance. Study & research debunks myths.
May 10, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I vividly recall 2011 to 2017 phase of formerly Musharraf supporting socialites, fashionistas & assorted lifestyle liberals (otherwise reactionary, regressive with no liberal ideas) full of self-righteous hubris lecturing about virtues of generals. They are all PTI now. 1/7
They represent reactionary middle class & upper crust class interests who usually support military dictatorships, technocratic regimes, spread fear & hatred about legitimate politicians & people’s representatives. They mostly control the media narratives & talking shops. 2/7
Apr 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Milton Friedman & Ayn Rand need to be literally buried, permanently. Surprised how many uncritical disciples of them exist in Pakistan. Just free market economics & numeracy & not understanding politics, political economy, sociology is extremely limiting in vision.
The history of diffusion of such type of neoliberal economics ideas is in many ways based on various assumptions rooted in mindset of Cold War ideologues. As the notion went that “there is no alternative”, even for fallacious assumptions & empirically untested theories.
2/4
Apr 5, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Majoritarian bigotry, ethnic hatred & cultural racism to stereotype, dehumanise & spread xenophobia against Saraikis is not hidden. It is out there & Punjabi supremacists/racists accounts by the hundreds are involved in it & powerful people have been backing it for years.
Fake “punjabi waseb” was coined around 21-26 March 2021 when many Saraikis were attacked by Punjabi supremacist trolls who were spreading their majoritarian hatred and racism. There was no such thing before. Many people have the receipts, so to speak, of those hate campaigns.
Feb 25, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
PAKISTAN, let’s dispassionately reflect on the predicament. Over 22 million kids are out of school. Millions of children are malnourished & stunted. Large segment of population is underfed & lives in abject poverty. Economic crisis, unemployment & inflation will make it worse.
Economic policies driven to increase conspicuous consumption & favour unproductive sectors like real estate only compound issues. On this path, how can we think to feed, clothe, educate & look after health & well-being of population adequately?
Feb 20, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Najam sb, with respect, economists are no godsend; fallible & many beholden to vested interests. MN has often been rightly critiqued for arrogance, smug smirks, entitled attitude to distance herself. Let’s be fair, in politics people matter. People are hurting, going hungry!
Mark my words, bringing in technocrats’ or apolitical regime will not fix issues. Without public interest, & decision making without political oversight can light a prairie fire. Admittedly, Maryam Nawaz’s attitude in disowning policies of govt. is cynical & not a salutary sight.
Feb 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Bureaucratic fossil & quack of all things culture, heritage, arts, horticulture is now apparently a torch bearer of ‘decolonising’ Pakistan. What next? Bernard Lewis & Samuel Huntington used as examples to give exposition of Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism?
1/5
This is just one example. Literary (& culture) circuit is so stale, prosaic & robotic in the country. It has a conspicuously establishmentarian feel & stench about it & being past its sell-by date. Would be funny if it were not so pretentious, insincere & disingenuous.
2/5
Feb 10, 2023 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
In Pakistan, brass hats & judges want people to respect them. It is important that any articulation of morality, integrity, ethics in social & political realm has to be accompanied with a definition of respect. Pray sirs/madams, respect is earned.
And, it is not something that grows on the epaulettes, nor is it gained through the barrel of a gun. Neither is respect proportional to stripes on the robes.
Feb 9, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Not analogous! Ramzan has Persian root & part of languages of region (been for centuries) & is synonymous to Arabic ‘Ramadhan’. While ‘Pizza’ is rather recent to vocabulary of ours but there is a fairly decent loan word adaptation as “پیزا” that can be used fairly easily.
Some people may have trouble pronouncing local adapted or lack understanding so may use ‘Piz-za’ which is different from quite widely adapted loan word in vernacular. There is some confusion & language cringe factor also drives many things in Pakistan but it shouldn’t.
Feb 7, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
There is a fundamental management principle. Authority & responsibility go hand in hand or else it is invariably turns into an unmitigated disaster. For decades, the responsibility has been with PM, cabinet, etc. but authority with backseat drivers.
Look at longer sweep of history & politics over 100 or 150 years around the world. Study military dominated states; praetorian states; study institutional imbalances & structures; how states falter/fail; some evolve from authoritarian to democratic & thrive despite challenges.
