Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

0w0 OP wrote (edited )

You have to keep in mind the actual context of the Pakistani society, in the current state of things this is positive that these questions are being raised. I would also like to see that the Pakistani society get rid of the thinking that they need a state.

1

LostYonder wrote (edited )

Three points: first, can you name one country where the "current state of things" is that dissimilar from Pakistan? Child abuse, discrimination and violence against women, oppression of marginalized social communities - all seem pretty universal practices in every nation-state.

Second, of course a nation is an institution. You conflate "structure" and "institution". The nation idea - territorialized identity based on some semblance of shared culture and history - is a completely and totally fabricated idea. Nations are made-up artifices that are internalized as "real" through a variety of oppressive mechanism that attempt to homogenize cultures, languages, religions within a given territory. They are produced through schooling, mass media, museums, holidays, etc., that people imagine as real and kill others because of that imagination!

Third, nations are inherently oppressive - even without a state to overtly police the boundaries of the nation. Not everyone in any country belong to the same nation, the same culture, have the same language, or history. The nation must somehow claim and assert commonality, which means erasing the culture of minorities, killing them, keeping others out, forcing a single language on them, etc. It happens as much in France and the US, as in Pakistan and India.

The nation-state is the most destructive artifice mankind has ever come up with, much more destructive than religion!

3

0w0 OP wrote

I agree. Hovever, do you know of an anarchist Pakistani article to know if the people there are talking about this? There was a magazine, The Arousal, but is not in circulation any more. There are socialist publications but question the nation state doesn't seem to be a current thinking in the pakistani society.

1

ziq wrote

There's no reason something like that would be in English.

0

0w0 OP wrote

Why not? English is an official language in Pakistan.

1

ziq wrote

It's an official language here too thanks to colonialism but no one would use it to write a radical takedown of the state.

1