Editorial

Zunnoorain Fatima, Editor

dentity. Selfhood. Recognition. Ill-fitted full stops in place of commas. Fragments where once the living continuity of an idea flowed. The nomenclature of student activism has clearly been altered. Far and wide, student activism across the educational landscape of Pakistan has undergone a paradigm shift, bartering away its ideological compass for a curated selfhood. This shift, on the whole, appears revolutionary due to its commitment to bringing marginalised voices to the core. However, a difficult question lurks deep beneath the surface: has the politics of identity, in its mounting presence, overshadowed the politics of ideology?

First things first, the politics of identity was not an offshoot of apoliticality. Championing the revolutionary perspective of the Combahee River Collective, it solidified not as a performative drift but as a strategic intervention. The general public began to address exclusions within the leading leftist movements, the ones that advocated for inclusivity and solidarity.

Identity, for them, was not a convenient slide to selfhood, but a political instrument: a way to unveil the many loopholes and hypocrisies of the then-prevalent ideological frameworks. It was a tactic, not a manifesto; a lens to expose power, not a mirror to admire the self. To take it otherwise is to mistake its very essence.

But in today’s student discourse, identity politics, in its manifestation, veers more towards symbolic performance than structural intervention. Political clout is increasingly sourced from positionality rather than praxis; visibility is confused with transformation, and experience is cited to serve as a replacement for analysis. This aestheticisation of resistance relegates the cause. When there is an unapologetic transformation of protest into content, the energies are wasted on the spectacle rather than on bringing about a meaningful change.

Across educational institutions, the downturn of student movements rooted in collective transformative visions of structural change, such as the ones contesting power dynamics, class struggle, and neoliberal strains, among many, has materialised a vacuum now saturated with individualised, identity-driven interventions. In the present state of affairs, when ideological debate and strategic plans of action find expression as mere footnotes, performance of identity becomes the most permissible and agreeable form of expression. It is tolerated, even nurtured, largely because it hardly poses a danger to the many manifestations of systemic power.

Government College University, Lahore, a historic sanctuary for known theorists and reformers, now steers through a complex terrain. Students consistently wrestle with contemporary debates on gender inclusivity, diversity, and hierarchy in their campaigns and academic settings. However, these initiatives persistently appear detached from broader global and socio-economic frameworks.

While panels engage in dialogue, sessions are conducted, and hashtags make rounds, positionality is hardly ever conflated with the praxis.

It should be noted here that this discussion is not meant to invalidate identity as a political paradigm; quite the contrary, as politics of identity has always challenged dominant narratives. However, when politics of identity exist in a vacuum without aligning with the overarching narratives of power and capital, it inadvertently risks amplifying the very hierarchies it aims to deconstruct. Nancy Fraser, a critical theorist, warns the world against the dangers of politics grounded solely in recognition. The critique stands against visibility that glorifies itself while leaving material conditions untouched. In a similar strain, Mark Fisher critiques “left melancholia”, which speaks of a mode of activism more at ease with critiquing than equipping how to dismantle it.

It is high time we ask ourselves: How do we make sense of the critique when it lies divorced from collective action? What do we do when positionality goes on without conflating with praxis?

How do we proceed when activism begins to mirror the logic of the market it opposes, labelling, branding, and performing itself?

To critique this turn is to argue that theatrics can never suffice as the sole horizon. Intersectionality, when rightly grasped, fuses the many fragments formed, urging us to analyse relationally: What happens when gender intersects with labour? How does ethnicity entangle with class politics? Can decolonisation occur without dismantling the neoliberal strains?

This time in history calls for a reassessment, a reevaluation to interrogate the nuances of power and to dissect the many symbolic performances. Students must be encouraged to conflate positionality with praxis, not merely articulating who they are but what they contest with a proper strategy and a mode of action. In this sense, identity becomes a point of departure, not a mere arrival.

The Gazette, as GCU’s very own reflective space, stands by this dual imperative: the affirmation of personal narratives and the pursuit of a systemic vision. To choose between them is to compromise on an intellectual choice. Because a discourse excluding identity fails to account for the body. A discourse without an ideology fails to account for the world. But a discursive framework that performs both without a purpose spaces out on the task that, dear Ravians, is the struggle for emancipation.