They simply traverse the norm and so many of us might feel more comfortable if we didn’t have to deal with them by labelling them ‘imported’. We need to think along the lines of such constructions if we are ever going to progress beyond name-calling between rich and poor.Īs for ‘imported’, sad to say these people are just as home-grown and Pakistani as anyone else. More to the point, who listens to them and how often? If the ‘real’ Pakistan is the disenfranchised poor, then how do they speak and to whom? They may be talented but may be wasted when it comes to culture and heritage.”Īgain, who defines the ‘real’ Pakistan? And who speaks for them? All of them shown here are the imported lot of Pakistanis. Wake up Dawn, this is not the real Pakistan.
#Beaconhouse school system stamp full#
They did full justice to one very tiny but very wealthy ultra modern part of Pakistan. However, I was intrigued about this piece, and where the thought strain flowed: Certainly not on Internet comment forums, where the goal is not really to engage but often only to pontificate, with some exceptions.
No matter how much we like to think countries are about ideologies and constructions, the lowest common denominator is that countries are about geography and citizens are responsible for creating identities for them.Ĭlearly, as this article aptly identifies, our constructions have become rather confused and one-sided.Īs a principle, I try to avoid reading the comments beneath online articles because as much I wish this weren’t the case, I tend to believe that intelligent debate seldom occurs on the Internet. The truth, however, is that all these groups struggle for space within the ‘real’ geographic boundaries in the same land. The labourer, the feudal, the politician, the academic, the maulvi, the feminist, the poet, the artist, the elite, the Taliban… all think they have dibs on Pakistan’s ‘reality’. Everyone wants to claim this rather limited space of ‘reality’ for themselves. Many of us would like to think we have the monopoly of defining what or who ‘real’ Pakistan or Pakistanis are, but we don’t. The Reuters photo feature shows a class that is no less ‘Pakistani’ than any other because no matter what any of us would like to think, the minimum requirement for being Pakistani is still only a matter of citizenship, a CNIC number and an accident of birth. They should not call themselves subaltern.”
They’re within the hegemonic discourse, wanting a piece of the pie, and not being allowed, so let them speak, use the hegemonic discourse. They should see what the mechanics of the discrimination are. I mean, just by being a discriminated-against minority on the university campus they don't need the word ‘subaltern’.
They are the least interesting and the most dangerous. Now, who would say that’s just the oppressed? The working class is oppressed. In post-colonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern - a space of difference. subaltern is not just a classy word for “oppressed”, for Other, for somebody who’s not getting a piece of the pie. While often rendered incomprehensible because of her sheer verbosity, post-colonial theorist Gayatri Spivak does explain the problems with subaltern constructions and ‘other-ising’ very well when she says: In post-colonial theory, the word ‘subaltern’ was coined by Antonio Gramsci to describe ‘history told from below’ - groups that were completely removed or deliberately excluded from society’s power structures. What I find particularly interesting about this piece is the title chosen, as it simultaneously alludes to a ‘foreign gaze’ operating on defining an ‘other’ in Pakistan. It is no doubt problematic because it depicts a homogenous elite that is visually constructed (through photographs) to appear completely alien from what one imagines to be the ‘rest’ of Pakistan. A recent Reuters photo feature posted on the Dawn website titled " Through a Foreign Lens: The Other Pakistan” has caused quite the storm in many-a-teacup - and for good reason.
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