LITERARY NOTES: Faiz centennial lecture: Post-modernism: in the series of neo-liberal agenda

The Faiz Centennial year's first lecture was delivered at PMA Hall in Karachi as a tribute to Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The topic of the lecture was presided over by Dr Manzoor Ahmed, country's eminent philosopher and former vice-chancellor of Hamdard and International Islamic University. Dr Muhammad Ali Siddiqui, Dean of Biztek University, was the speaker of the evening.
The speaker traced the background of the fad of post-modernism as something imported from the long dead and gone intellectual gimmick from American & western universities. Its main purpose was to blunt the edge of well-meaning discourse for an equitable society created on the notions of progress and enlightenment. The speaker told the audience that ever since a conference was organised in New Delhi on 14-16 March 2007 on "Urdu ka Badalta Manzar Nama - Mabaad Jadeed Urdu ke Tanazur Mein" there seems to be a stream of articles and books on post-modernism as if it was going to offer a better new world for humanity.
Obviously post-modernism, in spite of its pluralistic outlook in a unipolar world, is the literary and cultural agenda of neo-liberalism and globalisation. It does not believe in any relief to the common masses from the public exchequer. The masses are supposed to pay the bill for their social welfare without looking at the strongest arm of the society ie the government for relief measures. The main plea for this selfish mindset is that all social philosophies and religions postulates promising fair and equitable measures of the governments are counter-measures for the development of market-economy. The protagonists of the market-forces contend that the only valid cannon for human development lies in the promotion of the principle of the survival of the fittest.
The world, just before the vogue of post-modernism, regarded foundationalism, realism and humanism as the irreversible triangle for a meaningful discourse. It believed that all branches of knowledge - social and living, sciences and humanities - believe in the onward march of ideas, and history staying put. That reason formed the basis of all bodies of knowledge and the march of progress was considered indefinite. It also believed that logocentric imbibing of meaning and deconstruction of the text was not thought of.
While it is true that may systems of meanings are possible - and also the one which separates a writer from the text - it looks a bit awesome if the undermining of the text is the hidden (or the real) meanings of the author. The objective is the first and the last resort. After all the human society has made big strides in the acquisition of knowledge through the logocentric discourse and on a system of meaning which has distinguished one school from the other.
Post-modernism, believing in pluralism should have been the last school of philosophy to set aside a time-honoured system of meaning. Instead it has opted for a chaotic situation of having as many "meanings" as the persons discovering them.
Why it is so the only reason behind the undermining of the text and discovering the real meanings of the text through the deconstruction could be to demolish the consensus on the interpretations of truths which create a value-system which distinguishes between good and bad, beautiful and ugly, strong and the weak tyranny and benevolence?
Perhaps the whole burden of post-modernism is to do away with the value which has guided the human destiny so far in order to make Derrida think that the might of Israel was justified in the elimination of Palestinians only because the Palestinians could no longer be accepted as the subject.
Likewise a prior notion and the cause of a just society had ceased to be 'subjects', and 'subjects' Derrida believes, cannot be discussed. He also said that Irfan Shahid Bhinder's book Ma Baad-i-Jadeediat and Dehshatgardi Aur Ma Baad Jadeediyat have thrown ample light on this imperialist philosophy.
Dr Siddiqui asked how come Derrida be termed a socialist if human beings and society had ceased to be subjects for him. How strange that Palestinians were not discussable for him but the twin towers tragedy of September 2009, 2001 (popularly known as 9/11) was a valid enough excuse for the uninhibited denunciation of Muslims. It is simply ridiculous.
Post-modernism is the literary and cultural tool of the corporate imperialism which believes in singling out scapegoats for imperialist's persecution. Dr Siddiqui said that only critic from amongst the post-modern critics of Urdu who was aware of the 'trap' of post-modernism was Dr Wazir Agha who termed it as the western man's 'inferno' in which he finds himself with no exit point to escape from.
Dr Wazir Agha had the moral courage to say that while there was no harm in searching out for new windows for unearthing real meanings of the text - the east couldn't be deprived of its metaphysics as it has been the case in the west. He thought the east could always declare 'Anal-Haq, ie I am the truth' and any attempt at rigmaroling the voice of dissent in spite of post-modernist's claim to be pluralistic in outlook would meet its death.
Dr Manzoor Ahmed said in his presidential address that it is a pity that we greedily pounce upon the 'intellectual games' of the western universities. Not long ago they came up with structuralism thinking the meanings lie in the unearthing of primitive structures and not in the rigid meanings of the text. Soon after the evaporation of structuralism they began toying with deconstruction the system of binary opposites for unearthing meanings. He said that post-modernism is dead and gone and the western universities have moved to post-postmodernism. He thought that post-modernism was an aberration of sorts and efforts to change the world towards better end must continue uninterruptedly.
I believe that the gospel truth coming from the month of Dr Manzoor Ahmed should dispel the conscious efforts of those who have imperialist axes to grind through the advocacy of a philosophy which offers only Doomsday scenario to a world which needs to believe in an onward march for a better world which is possible. Wahid Bashir, Vice President of Sindh PWA, said that the only binary set of opposites he believed in was Labour and Capital and the struggle between the two would continue.