Babar urges ‘Left’ to reverse slide of 1980s

ISLAMABAD: PPPP Secretary General Farhatullah Babar has said the leftist resistance politics must strive to counter the dehumanising rightist narrative imposed since the 1980’s.

“When blood is shed in the name of religion and ethnicity, the relevance of the left which glorifies none of it becomes more important to challenge the narrative of the religious extremists and the establishment combined,” he said at a memorial reference held by the Awami Workers Party in honour of its president, the late Yousuf Masti Khan, who died a few days ago, at the National Press Club here on Tuesday evening.

Babar said the beleaguered left must ponder over the causes of its decline and regroup to reverse the slide set in motion since the 80s. “Given the weakening of resistance politics, resistance journalism and retreat of organized labour and civil society and the establishment’s clinging to status quo, the left is a beacon of hope,” he said.

He called upon the left to revisit its standard chant of denouncing everything which though is emotionally appealing. He said the chant of “down with imperialism” was a right, but only if imperialism was a tumbling block in achieving a reform agenda. “Why, for example, raise slogans against imperialism in defence of the rights of farmers on farmlands in Okara,” he asked, adding that the chant must be raised against the usurpers of land.