As a young man I accompanied by my friend Abid Ameeq, a fearless intellectual and refined poet, went to see Hasan Raza Gardezi in the historic quarter of Multan.

Mr. Gardezi was a hell of a person; a poet, satirist, great conservationist and cultural figure. He loved to lampoon all, friends and foes. On the way back Abid told me that once when Mr. Gardezi was regaling a small gathering at his outhouse with a lampoon composed to ‘honour’ one of his friends, that very friend sneaked in and unbeknown to all eavesdropped on some of the verses and shouted; ‘this is how you honour me when my back is turned?’.

Mr. Gardezi folding his hands in humility replied; ‘you know I am a civilised person. How can I say such things to your face?’ Interestingly, the gesture hints at an open secret of civilisation; not saying things to somebody’ face. In other words it’s a self-inflicted constraint that not only disallows you to call a spade a spade but subtly encourages you to lie.

Cultural correctness is perhaps a civilisational need. Thus lying has become a deeply-ingrained habit with the people especially with those who inherit ancient civilisations. Lying conceals its real features by presenting itself as a cultural practice. What appears in the guise of culture is taken as a refinement. So much so that straightforwardness is derided as backwardness and simplicity as primitiveness. An upright villager is considered uncouth and a sly urbanite suave.

Barrington Moor Jr. in his book Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy narrates that an American peasant delegation in the later part of the 19th century officially visited England. At the end of the visit the delegation was to be presented to the British monarch. The royal protocol team took great pains to instruct the leader of the delegation, who was a simple peasant, on how to conduct oneself before the monarch. Despite all their efforts the leader failed to understand why he should address a man or woman as your majesty. He was briefed on the traditions, decorum and royal protocol. The American guy having no archetype of king or queen in his subconscious couldn’t grasp the significance of such a ritual but agreed to use ‘your majesty’ when talking to the monarch. But in the meeting he simply addressed the monarch as you and talked as he would talk to his fellow beings. When the meeting ended the protocol team was dismayed as to why he didn’t address the British monarch as ‘your majesty’ as agreed.

The peasant leader replied that he did try to utter ‘your majesty’ but the words stuck in his throat. The author narrates this to show us the difference between the British and the American democracies. The former despite all its proud history and refined culture is highly class conscious and strictly hierarchical. British people have internalised the image of royalty while being democratic. But the latter are different people; their history - whatever it is - and culture have no collective memory of being ruled by kings and queens. So while being a class society they are less hierarchical and freer than Brits.

This is perhaps the reason why the British diplomacy is praised. Not calling a spade a spade is another form of lying whose sophisticated expression is found in diplomacy. So the lies have to be couched in the most subtle words and expressions which are transparently ambiguous and ambiguously transparent. That’s how diplomats are trained. A successful diplomat is one whose words express something polite at the surface while pointing to something far more serious that is between the lines. The practice at its best bears somewhat resemblance to the form of dialogues between saints/Sufis of yesteryears; talking in metaphors which acted as coded messages. There is a popular story that a saint came to a city which was supposedly a spiritual territory of a local saint. The local saint sent the newcomer a bowl full of milk. The newcomer placed a flower on the top of it and returned it. The former’s message was that there was no space for the newcomer in the city and the latter replied that he would make himself a space like a flower on top of the bowl.

The underlying assumption when you don’t play straight is that lying is justified if it apparently doesn’t hurt a person directly or serves a greater good or a collective cause. That’s why, for example, when there is a knock at the door, a man well inside his home sends his child or wife with the message that he is not at home. Lying is easier than facing a potential guest. Imagine a harmless activity ends up as a lie. But no one has honed the art of lying more than modern nation state, the latest avatar of the state. It lies in peacetime, it lies in wartime. It lies at least at three levels. 1, it lies to its citizens on all important issues of economic, political and administrative nature; it informs them partially or dishes out distorted information or misinforms them. 2, it lies about international matters; information on all kinds of foreign relations is partially given or withheld or imparted with a spin in the name of national interest. 3, it lies to itself; the plans it makes and the measures it takes are not always designed for the public benefit but in its world of make-belief it convinces itself that they are. It happens so because the state believes that being the custodian of collective interests whatever it conceives and does is for the general good. And it’s a lie because the state deliberately hides its class nature; it is manned by dominant classes and is committed to protect their core interests. Conflating the interests of the dominant classes with those of people is deviously insidious.

Lying has a long history as it has piggybacked on the march of civilisation. So ladies and gentlemen, continue to lie and be happy like all the civilised liars. After all lying is cultural finesse. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2024