Pakistan’s right-wingers possess the tendency to romanticize wars and distort the meaning of revolutions. They use glorified images of medieval wars, displaying combat, to ignite passion. Marxists on the other hand romanticize revolutions. They portray Russia Revolution as a utopian concept that masses of the Third World must emulate to bring about change.
Imran Khan is perhaps trying to imbibe Marxism – for, after several successful rallies in Central Punjab, he is saying, “This is not politics, this is revolution… revolution is coming”.
Commentators are describing Imran Khan’s impending Long March as “an invasion of Islamabad”. He is planning to bring thousands of people to Islamabad by May end to exert pressure on the government to call parliamentary elections. He has repeatedly stressed that the “storm of Long March will force everyone out of the way of [revolution]”. He is building a scary scenario.
Revolutions can be nasty affairs with organized violence as an essential ingredient. Imran Khan’s politics so far has shown no sign of organized violence.
Revolution is a western political concept to dislodge political, economic and military structures of the society. Presently, Khan is aggressively demanding immediate parliamentary elections. He has made the powerful military establishment his target. Khan, who initially alleged the establishment of conspiring against him with the Americans, is now says there’s a conspiracy to kill him. He is using fiery and hate-infected speeches to stir emotions.
Imran Khan can no longer be taken lightly. Firstly, his rhetoric is ambitions; his aim is something more than early elections. Secondly, he is making angry speeches at a time when the country is undergoing an economic meltdown.
Why is Khan using such hate-infected rhetoric to condemn his ouster? He is not the first one to be ousted through an engineered process in Pakistan. In fact he is the sixth prime minister in the post-Zia period to be ousted from power. Why is he threatening to upturn the democratic processes with a revolution?
Imran Khan can no longer be taken lightly. Firstly, his rhetoric is ambitions; his aim is something more than early elections. Secondly, he is making angry speeches at a time when the country is undergoing an economic meltdown.
Commentators are suggesting that Imran Khan is aggressive because he has support of junior rank military men. Lenin had called the Russian Revolution of 1905 “the great dress rehearsal”, without which the “victory of the October Revolution in 1917 would have been impossible”. He had said at a gathering of Communists students that in the presence of an organized military force in the country, no revolutionary change was possible. Perhaps, it was not a coincidence that the second successful attempt at the revolution in Russia in October 1917 was followed by a revolt in military garrisons. Again it cannot be considered a historical coincidence that the first signs of revolt against the Shah of Iran in 1979 started with a mutiny at a military base in Tehran.
European author Orlando Figes concludes in his latest research that the Russian Revolution was the outcome of a coup d’etat, and not the result of mass protest as is generally believed.
Revolution is indeed a fear-inspiring concept in political jargon. A part of our collective disability to correctly comprehend the phenomenon of revolution is the absence of credible academic literature produced by Pakistani authors.
