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Imran’s Anti-Imperialist Delusions

 

There is an imperial moment continuingly relevant to Pakistan. But it’s not, however, Imran Khan’s delusional and frequent name callings under the umbrella of the populaist driven nationalism as the last effort to save his government accompanied with the pseudo-analysis of the self proclaimed anti-imperialist version of American intervention at each ins and outs of the Pakistani politics. In fact, such a version is reactionary and unproductive. Additionally, it allures the reactionary segment of the society to buttress their unidirectional and one to one determinative scheme which should be combatted at all levels of our society.

The imperial moment relevant to Pakistan, contrary to the simpleton’s view, holds more structural relevance. It is embedded deeply into our social, political and most importantly economic roots. Wreckage of what Pakistani society may call democracy has always been monopolised by the legislatives who were predominantly from the upper class, and this upper class have established themselves within the shadow of imperialist patronage from their genesis to their continual survival. Their economic and political dependency, institutionally and individually, constraints any agency for a liberating sovereignty. This lack of liberating sovereignty in economic terms will amount to the lack of any sustainable projects to accumulate the national wealth and equitably distribute it.

It is thus the ruling blocs innate limitation which has on multiple occasions provided coherence and purpose by the imperial patronage such as American, west, Saudi Arabia etc to provide temporary stemming for the state on key moments such as Ayub’s Five Year Plan, Zia’s Jihad, and Musharraf’s “war on terror” and now CPEC. It is the necessity of the state aligned with the vision of availing foreign investments by the ruling bloc which provides for the foreign as well as internal forces to converge their interests together in order to borrow cement to paper over the internal cracks and structural weaknesses. This imperial patronage is almost central in providing the kind of sustainability to an otherwise chaotic accumulation project by the ruling elite which includes the institutionalised monopoly of some within this country – the umpire. The umpire, along with the civil bureaucracy provides itself as the structural power brokers between the interested elite class for the governance of the fews, and that’s where the rhetoric of Khan sahb has finally worked.