Making of a movement

WHEN Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire outside the governor’s office in Sidi Bouzid in the winter of 2010, nobody knew that his desperate act of protest would not only bring down president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s repressive regime but also spark a wave of change across the Arab world. History holds several examples of a minor incident triggering a massive change. Pakistan has also recently experienced similar shocks of lower scale in the Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) regions, where people’s movements have forced the government to fulfil their demands related to subsidies and price hikes.

Pakistan ranks 27th on the Fragile States Index, with poor economic, social, and political indicators. Its position has gone down by five points in 2024 compared to last year. Cohesion and social indicators are constantly declining, which means that the trust deficit between state and society is facing a critical challenge. This phenomenon can be described as an increasing gulf between power elites and the common man.

The causes behind the Arab Spring, most notably in Tunisia, are usually considered to have been economic in nature, and included unemployment, underemployment, the rising cost of living, and corruption. But what triggered Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation was the humiliation he faced at the hands of police officers, who claimed he was selling fruit without a permit, though such permits were rarely required. He was also harassed and slapped by a female officer. Feeling frustrated, humiliated, and powerless, Bouazizi went to the municipal office to complain but was refused a hearing.

Imagine when police stop a biker on the street or at a check-post and ask for a bribe or issue the biker a traffic violation ticket, while ignoring the bigger vehicles whizzing past. Such scenes are familiar in Pakistan. Police do not spare bikers or small car drivers, even if they are travelling with their families. The common man feels humiliated in every public office related to utilities, health, and education. The security check-posts and humiliation the locals felt fuelled the insurgency in Balochistan more than the province’s economic and political grievances.

Political experts predict a significant protest movement nationwide, particularly in urban areas.

Similar humiliations and check-posts gave birth to the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement in the merged districts of KP. The GB and Azad Kashmir cases are not very different, as they believe that if the subsidies were withdrawn, their identity would be threatened. Such humiliations remain common until some incident sparks anger.

What triggers political and social unrest is a sense of humiliation. In a group, this feeling can create a powerful collective identity. People start believing that they are being victimised because of their different identity from the majority group or that the privileged classes are responsible for their miseries, including the humiliation they face at the hands of state institutions. They start believing that they are facing humiliation because they belong to a lesser class. This is the thesis of many political thinkers, including renowned American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who elaborated this in his book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment and argued that identity is deconstructing the political order in many parts of the world. Now, identity creates new bonds and divides people into new tribes based on shared victimhood and common grievances.

Religious conflicts, including sectarianism, are deeply rooted in the identity of different faiths; political conflicts are mainly about the distribution of resources and power, and social conflicts are triggered when alienation in a group or groups starts when they are less privileged than others.

When the government imposes heavy taxes on the salaried class while exempting income tax on property sales for retired and serving army personnel and bureaucrats, it triggers a similar sense of humiliation among the non-privileged.

The major failure of state institutions is not their inability to manage economic and political crises but their neglect of the consequences of their policies. The state institutions were clueless when the mass protests were gaining momentum in GB and Kashmir just a few months before. Even the state institutions have not analysed why the TTP targets the police. Except for a few perceptions, the state has nothing new to offer to explain the phenomenon.

Political experts predict a significant protest movement nationwide, particularly in urban areas. They assume that opposition parties and a segment of civil society backing the protests have a history of launching forceful and sometimes violent demonstrations. The situation could escalate if radical religious parties also join the movement, underscoring the potential for widespread unrest.

However, major movements for change themselves choose their leadership or evolve a nucleus of a few people as leaders. Usually, political parties and civil society fail to nurture or lead such movements. Nobody knew that a counterterrorism department’s encounter in Balochistan would bring forth Mahrang Baloch and Sammi Deen Baloch as leaders of the movement against forced disappearances; neither was the name of Maulana Hidayat ur Rehman known outside Gwadar before he led the Haq Do Tehreek.

The state response is typical, and consists of seeing political and social issues through a security prism. After surrendering to the public’s demands in Kashmir, the government has decided to deploy paramilitary forces in the region. This action suggests that while the government needs to be more serious about fulfilling the people’s demands it is better at preparing itself to deal with the masses on the streets.

Social media played a significant role in organising and spreading information about the protests in Sidi Bouzid. It empowered the public and demonstrated the potential of technology to shape social and political movements. Many authoritarian regimes have learned that controlling social media is essential to limiting the impact of such movements.

Highly controlled cyberspaces and strict regimes for the telecom sector in Pakistan reflect the power elites’ fear of public outrage. Otherwise, the country would have been more focused on economic, social, and political reforms.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2024