LAHORE: A significant discussion on the ‘Left politics in Pakistan’ was arranged at a session of the Faiz International Festival on Saturday.

The session was moderated by Aasim Sajjad Akhtar and the panelists were Abid Hasan Minto, Tariq Ali and Alia Amirali, also a member of the Awami Workers Party.

While Tariq Ali gave a general analysis of the politics of the left in the world, Minto talked with regard to Pakistan. He said that after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many began to perceive socialism as unrealistic, and capitalism was the reality. The traditional left was in disarray.

In South Asian countries like India and Nepal, the communist parties are intact to this day, said Minto, because they progressed with time and they allowed changes within the party, regardless of whether they had a Soviet inclination or a Maoist.

“In Pakistan, the left was never a proper movement,” said Minto. “Even then the politics of the left was propagated by the middle class, more educated people of the country, and the progressive writers like Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Their impact on society was immense, so despite having no leftist movement, there was still a lot of interest.”

He said Pakistan faced serious issues of feudalism and religious extremism and keeping the left alive in these circumstances was itself commendable. Meanwhile democracy came and went and with it brought about a lukewarm movement similar to ideas preached by leftist politics. But overall the army was always in control whether through martial law or behind the curtains, he said.

Aasim Sajjad said if the media covered speeches and agitation by the leftist leaders instead of only focusing on right-wing figures such as Tahirul Qadri, more progressive ideas would be allowed to come to the fore.

Alia, who had worked with youth for a decade, said that to bring more people into leftist politics was to first make sure they understood that ‘politics’ itself was not an evil. “Today we have so many workers in our left movement that in LG polls where every candidate has a lot of money is still facing a challenge with our presence,” she said.

“Left is an endangered minority but still sometimes we are regarded as the enemy.” However, she said the left had also made its mistakes and it was time they recognised these because that was the only way forward.

“Today there is so much disconnect between the old and new leftist workers,” she said. She also said historically whenever feminist or nationalist struggles took place the left was associated with them, but today because this is not so, these struggles have taken a completely different look.

Tariq Ali, while talking about the US imperialism, said the US had absolutely no right to take over Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, whether the people were happy with him or not. The sovereignty of a country is important, and the US cannot just take it from them, he said.

“The biggest communist party in the world was the Indonesian Communist Party, which was also the biggest communist party in a Muslim country. However the party was repressed and wiped out by a CIA coup.”

In Pakistan, he said, the weaknesses of the country’s origin are misused (religious excuses) and socialism cannot flourish but in reality it is not the local culture that is the problem, it is the fact that the present conditions in Pakistan where there is a proxy war, may not allow socialism to take root.

Fehmida Riaz from among the audience challenged the socialist representatives that when they talk about ‘Pakistan’ did they ever mean to include the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan to which Aasim Sajjad said their party always maintained Pakistan to be a ‘multinational state’ in their manifesto.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2015