Presenter
Al Adawy Heba - Australian National University, Australian National University, Canberra, AustraliaPanel
62 – Deepening Movement Solidarities Beyond Their Moment of Emergence in South AsiaAbstract
This paper will reflect on these questions by examining how ideological distrust circumvents fleeting, dissensual moments of the political in Pakistan, characterised by the formation of a collective that displaces the might of the state through shared joy, humour, and rage. It explores the anti-political turn in two distinct protests: the Student Solidarity March of 2019, when leftist activists were able to build a fleeting moment of consensus with ghair-siyasi (non-political) students around their political rights for unionization; and the May 9 protests in support of Imran Khan in Pakistan, which were mobilised by a previously ghair-siyasi (non-political) middle class and symbolised by the trophy of a peacock stolen from the military Corp Commander’s house.
