My First Encounter with Woke Culture
When I first heard the word “woke,” I was in Montreal, surrounded by students passionately debating issues of race, gender, equality, and privilege. Having been a part of the Office of Students with Disability at McGill, I have experienced students being differently abled and unable to identify their gender and inclination towards a specific race or community. They have been bullied at school and labelled with different names including red-headed, sissy, tomboy and black from a very tender age.
Spending a year in downtown Montreal at a leading engineering consulting firm, I witnessed the pride movement taking its full form and pace and experienced it first-hand along with the hate they receive. The term woke means you are awake to injustice, an ally to the oppressed, and the one who saw. But the more I tried and later returned to South Asia, I realized that wokeness does not look the same everywhere. In western countries it is a moral badge whereas in South Asian countries it is no less than an insult. One cannot help but wonder: what does it truly mean to be awake in an unequal world?
The True Origins of Woke Culture
Woke culture in its original sense was holistic and mesmerizing. The African American struggle against systematic racism that spanned over a century were the pioneers and seeing them see the twilight of their struggle inculcated belief in others to stand against oppression and injustice. Black lives matter, LGBTQ rights, feminism, climate justice and struggle for democracy all are branches of the woke culture.
I admired how the youth in the West cared so deeply about equality and identity and I learnt a great deal about diversity, inclusion and equity studying with people from 160 countries boxed in the eighty-acre campus of McGill. Professors encouraged open discussion about colonial history, anti-Semitism and gender inequality. I witnessed posters on the walls of the campus advocating the rights of the Palestinians and students in the engineering department raising their voice against a professor whose research was used in the making of drones that hit West Bank.
The pride month and the day for indigenous Canadians are also other events I took a part in while working as an engineer in Montreal. There was something deeply humane about all these experiences I had and it taught that people in general want to make the world fairer.
The Shattered Idealism Upon Returning Home
It did not take long for that idealism to turn complicated. As soon as I returned to Pakistan, I realized my emotional attachment tied to the woke culture would be shattered to pieces. Pakistan has struggled for a democratic system since its inception. It has seen various military regimes and democratic parties being toppled by establishment to play the game of thrones.
I witnessed two elections after graduating from Canada and the results amaze me to this day. The election gets rigged in broad daylight, electable candidates are bribed to be with the other party and complete restriction is imposed on political movement. The state which the establishment defines as a “hard state” brings in amendments in the constitution for their benefit and install puppet judges in the high court and supreme court. The judges are either bribed or their families are tortured or their private intimacy videos are threatened to make them public.
There is no law and order where there is only projection of fraudulent and nonexistent government initiatives aimed at attracting the poor. The poster the size of a building is projected along the busy road of the 20 million population of Lahore.
South Asian Parallels in the Struggle for Equality
The situation is no different with India and Bangladesh where inequality and a fair system is longed by the common people. We witnessed in Bangladesh that students protested against the unfair quota system in government departments that allowed certain amount of seats for the people belonging to a specific group of people who opposed Pakistan before and after the partition of East Pakistan in 1971.
Students showed their grit and determination overthrowing the dictatorial government of Hasina Wajid and installing a government compromising of youth. The youth does not believe in stories and experiences of their elders and want to create their own history which the Bengalis did with the ultimate sacrifice of precious lives in the hundreds.
India on the other hand has marginalized and cornered Muslim population where even a petty government job is competed with a thousand Hindus. The Kashmir situation is also in the public eye with it being a United Nations issue since the illegal occupation and accession by Hari Singh in 1948. They face over 900,000 Indian paramilitary forces for decades and nothing has stopped them from exercising their right to self-determination and practicing their religion with freedom.
Their resilience and belief remain unshaken in the wake of oppression that is no less than the genocide in Palestine. The Indian government repeatedly bans the sacrifice of cows and bans the call to prayer of Muslims which reminds us of the atrocities in the Indian subcontinent before the British empire left. The Muslims do not have a majority in any single province and do not raise their voice at platforms that matter. The RSS is an anti-Muslim and racial seniority wing of the BJP party led by the butcher of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. He is a declared terrorist who has killed hundreds of Muslim lives and wins elections based upon his hate towards Muslims and Pakistan.
There is no woke culture that can thrive with Machiavellian leaders in the likes of Modi and the generals ruling Pakistan.
Feminism and the Eastern Struggle for Identity
On the social perspective, Pakistan witnessed a wave of feminism with its “Aurat March” mimicking the second wave of feminism. I am a believer of constructive feminism and support the role of women that played a big part in the creation of Pakistan and preserving the family structure in the East. The right to vote and other areas such as domestic violence in the West were very significant issues to raise voices for, and the world is a better place because of it.
The adoption of feminist concepts in the dynamics of Pakistan are ambiguous and do not carry weight. There is a big difference in the struggle of women in the East as compared to the feminist movement in the West. Women are an instrumental part in the upbringing of children and have played their part in the political sphere in Pakistan as well. We have had a female prime minister two times in history and the current chief minister of Punjab is also a woman. We never faced issues of the right to vote or the right to stand for the president’s office.
The struggle of the women here in the subcontinent is very different from the West and it is high time to not use the woke movement in the same fashion here in the East and stop mimicking the West in every sphere of life. They do not have issues with food, electricity, internet and housing like we do. In Canada, I experienced a welfare state where every affair is taken care of by the government and women are supported if their husband does not turn out to be fair and responsible.
Women here are ridiculed if they are left by their husband and spend the rest of their lives proving they did not do any wrong. To leave a husband or to disobey him and return to your parents’ home is a doomsday for women. I have experienced these issues first hand. If a woman does not get married, she is ridiculed till she is in grave. If a woman has a child and she goes to work to support her kids, she is ridiculed in the office space and life is miserable for her inside and outside of her household. Her children are the ones that suffer the most and they are left to the point of begging on streets.
The Me Too Movement and Its Unintended Consequences
The Me Too movement in India that highlighted the issue of sexual harassment and child molestation is also a sensitive topic that I will try to give my perspective on. The Twitter trend was the top trend because most people, be it a man or woman, have experienced sexual molestation or harassment either in childhood or during later years. They had an anger they wanted to release and saw social media as a platform to speak their hearts out.
The result was that many people started posting made up stories and blaming innocent people. We witnessed many television series in Pakistan that sprung after the Me Too movement. Many celebrities in India came to the limelight explaining their stories and the shameful stories of casting couch were exposed. The result was a lot of blame and hate that spread across.
Celebrities in Pakistan, most famously the case of Ali Zafar and Meesha Shafi, drew a lot of attention where she blamed Ali Zafar for sexual harassment. The court later passed the verdict that Ali Zafar was found not guilty. This shows that blindly following a trend set in the West results in non-existent issues coming in the East instead of focusing on real and prevalent issues in Pakistan. The liberals of Pakistan have done no justice to highlighting where there is room for improvement as they do not leave their drawing rooms and have no ground knowledge.
Hence, it is imperative to stop using imported wokeness and focus on the real issues such as caste, religion and class dominance in South Asia.
The Awakening of Global Conscience in Gaza
The global reaction to Gaza is a beacon of hope for the world. The Muslim countries were busy with their non-existent borrowed wokeness and the western countries being free, independent and conscious exercised their right of free speech and freedom of movement to raise their voice like they did before the invasion of Iraq.
I witnessed and participated in peaceful protest in Montreal that had a roar like an army approaching with heavy artillery. The conscious and honor of Muslims felt lost and unheard in the wake of the holocaust of Palestine. They are oppressed by Machiavellian rulers and puppet governments and like to remain slaves to them. The West, especially students in California and the Ivy League schools, displayed why they are considered the smartest in the world.
The use of brute force could not stop them nor any bribe. They used their education and intelligence to the full and realized the real meaning of education which is enlightenment. The world will be a better place if youth stand for their rights and against oppression and use their education for the pursuit of happiness.
Conclusion: The True Meaning of Being Awake
From my experience across continents, I have learned that to be woke is not simply to follow trends or imported ideas but to understand one’s own realities. True wokeness means being self-aware, standing against oppression, and refusing to remain silent in the face of injustice.
The West must continue to use its freedom with responsibility and the East must find its own authentic way of awakening without losing its soul. When humanity learns to rise together for truth and fairness, only then can we say that the world has truly woken up. The world does not need more wokeness that is loud and disrespectful rather more awareness that is humble, gentle and human. Perhaps the day we stop using “woke” as a label and start using it as an act of empathy will be the day we truly wake up.