Neo-feudalism is the word used to describe the revival of policies about government, the economy, and public life along the lines of those that were present in previous feudal civilizations. Pakistan is the ideal research facility to visit in the 21st century if someone wants to comprehend the idea of neo-feudalism. Our colonial overlords could test out anything and everything in our nation as a testing ground. Unfortunately for the citizens of our nation, it doesn’t matter one bit how they are (mis)treated because our political leadership has no problem using this nation as a testing ground for various experiments. The most recent experiment was a regime transition, which released a violent genie from the democratic bottle in the shape of a hidden force that attacked its people.
High levels of inequality, such as those found in Pakistan, where the elite practically inhabit a different reality, democracy is unable to intervene to affect change because it is granted gated access to the legislature, and where basic social and security services are rapidly vanishing, are necessary for neo-feudalism to succeed. The finest way to characterise neo-feudalism is by a well-known Pakistani TV personality, who argues in one of his latest video diaries that this is no longer a society where the average person can live since the average guy has no rights. Government officials, the legal system, and the state as a whole fail to uphold these rights. In reality, security in Pakistan is no longer an essential government service; instead, it is only a privilege of the powerful or those with the financial means to hire private security, which is both the preserve of the affluent and a rising sign of neo-feudalism in the country.
Do we currently inhabit a Mongol era? Do we reside in Baghdad in the thirteenth century? Where will this nation go as a result of the privatisation of violence and deliberate targeting of its citizens? Are we even still a civilised nation? We have always been concerned about the war on terror that is being waged on our borders, but what about the horror that this barbaric government has inflicted on its citizens at home? Is this the best that could be set up in place of Imran Khan’s despondent administration? Nobody in the nation is still aware of the person(s) responsible for Shahbaz Gill’s torture and mistreatment. Neo-by-product feudalism This covert use of torture is a brilliant example of neo-feudalism. Intimidation and the targeting of civilians have been frequenting in Pakistan since the establishment of this “put in place, replacement administration,” even though it is the role of the state to ensure security for the people and refrain from using terror against them.
It is imperative that someone recognises the warning signals and intervenes to stop Pakistan from breaking apart and devolving into another Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, or Libya. One may observe that almost everywhere on the globe, states are collapsing from the inside rather than from the outside. States that permit the privatisation of violence by shady, unreliable non-sovereign enterprises gradually wane in authority. The state was first described by sociologist Max Weber as a “human community that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory” more than a century ago. Are we even a state, let alone a civilised one, under this definition? What should citizens of any nation do when they can neither trust the government nor the people who are injuring them? But Mussolini and Hitler’s administrations in Italy and Germany used this tactic to concentrate violence in the hands of Gullu Butts and mysterious non-state groups, so why are our leaders eager to turn Pakistan into a case study of neo-feudalism in the twenty-first century?
Read More: Pakistan: 70 Years of Independence and Future
At the City University of New York, Ruth Wilson Gilmore teaches geography as part of the Earth and Environmental Sciences department. She is the author of several books and is known for coining the phrase “organised desertion” for governments in nations like Pakistan, where the aim of societal success on a broad basis has been substituted with stable and unbroken wealth for the top class only. To put it mildly, this government’s “planned abandonment” of the people and their hopes is pitiful.
Where are the American senators who have made statements like Utah’s Mike Lee, who tweeted: “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want human conditions to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that. ” Will the senator from the United States take a close look at the thriving human situation in our nation? Increased rates of poverty and unemployment, as well as a growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the governing class, are the gifts of democracy in this country rather than thriving human circumstances. All of the Western colonial puppet regimes that call themselves democracies are unpopular autocracies that have no concern for the well-being of their citizens. In reality, these types of regimes have blocked the path to the success of the average person. Forget about success; in this country, more and more people are experiencing a sense of insecurity because law enforcement organisations are occupied with protecting the wealthy, their spouses, and children rather than the general public. They are also tasked with preventing the underprivileged from entering exclusive clubs, hotels, and gated communities. Democracy would have its legislatures pass legislation to eliminate this uncertainty that is causing social unrest and instability if it were to serve the interests of the people and not the ruling class.
According to The Guardian, there are more professionals employed to guard specific individuals, locations, and objects than there are law enforcement officers required to protect the general public in more than 40 nations, including the US, China, Canada, Australia, and the . India serves as a prime illustration of this, employing 7 million private security guards versus 1.4 million state police.
No neo-feudal administration will ever relieve the police of their responsibility to defend and preserve the lives and property of the general population. In reality, neo-feudalists will continue to abuse these institutions to further their authority, much as they are doing now. Will there ever be a political figure who will enact legislation stripping the wealthy elites of all government-provided protection, requesting that they hire as much private security as they can afford, and leaving the general populace feeling safer, protected, and satisfied?
The future of Pakistan and the next generation does not lie in neo-feudalism. There is already a deathly odour in the air.
