ONE of my favourite lessons in the classroom is on the use of descriptors and adjectives, and to demonstrate, I teach how national holidays like Aug 14 are reported. Since I began work as a journalist in 1995, I have read iterations of ‘Pakistanis celebrated such-and-such day with fervour’. The exercise on reporting on national holidays without using patriotism in the copy is a great lesson and also allows reflection on how we’ve been conditioned to think.

If we’re singing the anthem every day at school or the cinema, or waving flags at a ce­­­remony, it does not necessarily mean we are patriotic. Habit does not equate fervour.

The opposite is also not true, ie, a person not waving flags etc is unpatriotic. Over the years, the weaponisation of ghaddar coupled with a highly inflammable society prone to violence has resulted in a deadly combination.

Patriotism has long been used to exclude communities — cementing stereotypes, creating divisions and keeping power in the hands of the elite.

Our guests’ beliefs deserve as much respect as ours.

I did not think a recommendation of Susan Brownmiller’s 1975 Against Our Will, about how men use rape to keep women in a state of fear, and its use in war by soldiers, would earn me a label of........

© Dawn