Unesco was against holding ceremony at Moenjodaro
JAMAL SHAHID
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2014-02-03 07:34:48
ISLAMABAD: The Sindh Cultural Festival took off amid dazzling lights, but the din continues that it threatens Moenjodaro, the inaugural place of the festival listed with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) as a world heritage site.

About a week before the launch of the two-week festival at Moenjodaro on Friday, the director of Unesco’s world heritage sites had described it as an ‘improper’ activity which could threaten its universal values.

But adviser to the Sindh chief minister on culture Sharmila Farooqi said all precautions had been taken during the inaugural ceremony at the ancient site.

Conservationists at the department of archaeology and museum said any human activity within 200 feet of any national heritage protected under the Antiquities Act 1975 was illegal.

“The act states that not even an electric wire can pass above a national heritage, let alone installing floodlights and setting up stage on a site protected under the law,” said a senior archaeologist in Islamabad.

The technical consultative committee of National Fund for Moenjodaro had also warned that the decision to hold inaugural ceremony at the site could cause irreparable damage to the fragile remains of Moenjodaro.

Unesco official Jawad Aziz said the organisation’s world heritage sites director had contacted Pakistan’s permanent delegate to investigate the matter and take steps to prevent the site from any harm. “About five days ago we passed on this message to the Sindh government to safeguard the universal value of Moenjodaro,” he said, adding that they were still waiting for a response from the departments concerned.

Asma Ibrahim, director museum of the State Bank and member of the Heritage Management Board, criticised the holding of the ceremony at Moenjodaro and said no-one had been allowed to enter the site for three days and access to it was blocked by hundreds of policemen.

“More than 500 guests were invited to the event which continued till late night. There is no way to tell the extent of damage caused to the site. The remains of Moenjodaro are already fragile. Salinity has weakened the walls to an extent that they can collapse by even loud sound,” she said, adding that the mud-brick remains required extra care.

Ms Ibrahim said she had tried in vain to convince Sharmila Farooqi to hold the ceremony outside the 200-foot protected area. The event had been held without obtaining a no-objection certificate from the Sindh department of archaeology, she said, adding that cases should be registered for violating the law.

Kaleemullah Lashari, Member National Fund for Moenjodaro, wrote two back-to-back letters to the Sindh secretary for culture, tourism and antiquities warning of the damage to be caused to the ruins by the opening ceremony.

In a letter written on Jan 30, a copy of which is available with Dawn, Mr Lashari urged the secretary to use vast lawns of the museum and offices for the ceremony, instead of protected areas of the site. “The world community does not endorse such improper activity and it will be an embarrassment if a wall of the remains collapses or any other fragile section of the remains is damaged,” the letter said.

No conservation efforts have been undertaken at Moenjodaro for over 10 years. A better sense prevailed in 2010 when the government stopped the construction of a highway through the ancient remains believed to be as old as 4,000 BC.

Sharmila Farooqi claimed that no harm was caused to the world heritage site. “Arrangements for the event were meticulous. All the officials concerned and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari (PPP patron-in-chief) personally visited the site before the opening ceremony,” she added.

But Asma Ibrahim said the damage could be assessed only after the government allowed access to the site which was still closed to outsiders and its caretakers.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1084556/unesco-was-against-holding-ceremony-at-moenjodaro

موئن جو دڑو پر مت رو
وسعت اللہ خان 3 فروری 2014

میں واقعی سمجھنے سے قاصر ہوں کہ موئن جو دڑو میں سندھ کلچرل فیسٹیول کی افتتاحی تقریب میں لائٹ اینڈ لیزر شو کے لیے الیکٹرک ٹاورز نصب کرنے اور ثقافتی پرفارمنس کے لیے ایک بڑا سا اسٹیج پانچ ہزار برس قدیم آثار کے عین درمیان بنانے اور اس کے روبرو پانچ سو وی آئی پیز کو بٹھانے اور ان کی حفاظت پر مامور دو ہزار پولیس والوں کو یہاں وہاں کھڑا کرنے سے ایسی کیا قیامت برپا ہوگئی کہ یونیسکو سے لے کے خود ساختہ سول سوسائٹی اور قوم پرستوں تک سب چیخ پڑے۔ آپ آج جا کے دیکھئے آثار ویسے کے ویسے ہی پڑے ہیں۔ گمان ہی نہیں ہوتا کہ یہاں یکم فروری کی شام کوئی رنگارنگ تقریب برپا ہوئی تھی۔
موئن جو دڑو کے درمیان ہونے والی اس تقریب سے آثارِ قدیمہ کی پامالی پر تنقید ایسے ہے جیسے کوئی گنجا گھنے بالوں کی حمایت میں اٹھ کھڑا ہو۔جیسے باسی کڑھی میں خامخواہ ابال آجائے۔جیسے کوئی تمباکو نوش صحت مند زندگی کے راز بیان کرے۔
حفاظت اس شے کی ہوتی ہے جسے اپنا سمجھا جائے۔ اٹھارہ کروڑ میں کتنے ہیں جو اندر سے سمجھتے ہوں کہ موئن جو دڑو، ہڑپہ ، مہر گڑھ ، ٹیکسلا کے آثار ، مکلی اور چوکنڈی جیسے تاریخی قبرستان اور افغانوں اور مغلوں سے لے کے تالپوروں تک کے قلعے ایسے ہی اہم اور متبرک ہیں جیسے ہمارے پرکھوں کی قبریں ، جیسے اولیا کے مزارات ، جیسے تاریخی مساجد ، جیسے ہمارے نانا ، دادا اور پردادا کی تصاویر اور ان کی تسبیحیں اور ان کے برتن اور ان کی باتیں۔۔۔۔
کیا ہمیں یہ نہیں بتایا اور پڑھایا گیا کہ قبل از اسلام کی ہرنشانی باطل ہے۔تو پھر باطل نشانیوں کا احترام اور دیکھ بھال اور اس سے اپنائیت کے کیا معنی ؟
مگر آپ میں سے کچھ ضرور کہیں گے کہ نہیں ایسا نہیں۔یہ آثار ، عمارات اور نشانیاں ہمارے خاندانی شجروں جیسے ہیں جو ہمیں نسل در نسل بتاتے ہیں کہ ہم کون تھے ، کیوں تھے ، کہاں سے آئے اور کہاں جارہے ہیں۔ہمارے پرکھوں نے کیا کیا اور ہم کیا کررہے ہیں۔
اگر واقعی ایسا ہے تو پھر یہ فرمائیں کہ کتنے سول سوسائٹی بازوں نے ملتان کے دو ہزار سال پرانے سورج مندر کو بائیس برس پہلے منہدم کرنے والوں کا ہاتھ روکا۔بلکہ جن صاحب (پیپلز پارٹی کے مرحوم سینیٹر ملک صلاح الدین ڈوگر)کی قیادت میں یہ کارِ ثواب ہوا انھیں بلدیاتی و قومی انتخابات میں اس ثقافتی جہاد کا صلہ ووٹوں کی بارش کی شکل میں ملا۔
آپ میں سے کتنے جانتے ہیں کہ وادیِ سندھ کی تہذیب کے نمایندہ ہڑپہ، جام پور کے دلو رائے ٹھیڑ اور چولستان کے پتن منارے کے آثار پر فصلیں دستک دینے لگی ہیں۔ٹیکسلا میں گندھارا تہذیب کے نمایندہ سدکپ شہر کے آثار کو جھاڑیوں سے بچانے کے لیے ہر سال ان جھاڑیوں کو آثارِ قدیمہ کے محافظ اہل کار آگ لگا دیتے ہیں۔چکوال کے نزدیک مہا بھارت کے زمانے کے کٹاس راج مندر ناقدرے موسموں کے رحم و کرم پر ہیں اور وہ جھیل سکڑ کے ایک چوتھائی رہ گئی ہے جو شیو دیوتا کے آنسوؤں سے وجود میں آئی جو انھوں نے اپنی بیوی ستی کی موت پر بہائے تھے۔۔مگر ان مندروں اور جھیل سے کچھ فاصلے پر کچھ عرصہ قائم ہونے والے سیمنٹ کے کارخانے نے زیرِ زمین پانی چوس لیا ہے۔اسلام آباد میں مارگلہ پہاڑی سلسلے میں ہوٹلنگ اور کمرشلائزیشن کے راکھشس نے ہزاروں برس پرانے دو غاروں کا محاصرہ کرلیا ہے جن کی دیواروں پر ہمارے آبا و اجداد نے مصوری کی۔
مانا کہ مسلمانوں کی آمد سے پہلے کے ورثے سے بعد کی نسلوں کا کوئی تعلق واسطہ نہیں۔مگر خود مسلم ورثے کے ساتھ کیا ہوا ؟؟ پشاور کا بالا حصار قلعہ فرنٹیر کور کا صدر دفتر ہے۔اکبرِ اعظم کا اٹک قلعہ کمانڈو نگرانی میں ہے۔اور جب دور بدلتا ہے تو اس ملک کے آصف زرداریوں اور نواز شریفوں کو بھی یہاں بلا ٹکٹ مہمان رکھا جاتا ہے۔جہلم کے قریب شیرشاہ سوری کے قلعہ رہتاس کے دروازوں اور اندرونی تعمیر کو بارش اور نمی کھائے جارہی ہے۔
لاہور کے ماتھے کا جھومر مغل فورٹ اور مغل فورٹ کا دل شیش محل۔جہاں چند برس پہلے تک غیرملکی مہمانوں کو ضیافتیں دی جاتی رہیں۔اسی فورٹ کا تاریخی دیوانِ خاص کچھ عرصے پہلے تک نجی تقریبات کے لیے دان ہوتا رہا۔پیسے اور تعلق کی طاقت سے مسلح ملٹی نیشنل کمپنیوں کے اشتہارات یہاں شوٹ ہوتے رہے۔مگر ایسے مواقع پر محکمہ آثارِ قدیمہ اکثر نوادرات و آثار کے تحفظ کے ایکٹ مجریہ انیس سو پچھہتر کو بغل میں دبا کر ضروری کام سے کہیں چلا جاتا ہے۔اور اسی قلعے کے ایک حصے کو بوقتِ ضرورت سیاسی قیدیوں کے عقوبت خانے کے طور پر بھی استعمال کیا جاتا ہے اور یہ وہ دور ہوتا ہے جب قیدی اور قلعہ اپنی حالتِ زار پر گلے مل کے چیختے ہیں۔
اور سب سے خوبصورت ریاست بہاولپور کے وہ قلعے اور محلات کس حالت میں ہیں۔قلعہ دراوڑ باہر سے تندرست اور اندر سے ملبے کا ڈھیر۔اطالوی طرزِ تعمیر کا مظہر صادق گڑھ پیلس جہاں پچھلی صدی کی ہندوستانی و یورپی اشرافیہ کا کون سا نمایندہ مدعو نہیں ہوا آج مکمل طور پر بھوتوں کے قبضے میں ہے۔ شاہی ورثا نے اپنی دولت اپنے ہی ہاتھوں ایسے لوٹی کہ دروازے اور جالیاں تک اکھاڑ لیں۔اور جن عباسی محلات کو فوج نے گود لے لیا وہ میس کی شکل میں رات کو جھلمل کرتے ہیں۔
سندھ میں تالپور دور کا شائد ہی کوئی قلعہ ہو جو نوحہ گر نہ ہو۔حیدرآباد کا پکا قلعہ موٹی دیواروں کے پیچھے ایک مفلوک الحال کچی بستی سے زیادہ کیا ہے ؟حیدرآباد کا کچا قلعہ سیم زدگی کی مسلسل حرمزدگی سے نبرد آزما ہے۔نوکوٹ کے قلعے میں سورج چڑھے آس پاس کے بچے کھیلتے ہیں۔ہاں ایک نیلے رنگ کا بورڈ ضرور دیوار میں جڑا ہوا ہے جس پر محکمہ آثارِ قدیمہ سندھ نامی کسی ادارے کی جانب سے قلعے میں توڑ پھوڑ کرنے والوں کو تادیبی کارروائی سے ڈرانے کی کوشش کی گئی ہے۔مگر مشکل یہ ہے کہ شام کے بعد اس قلعے میں بسیرا کرنے والے کتے بلیاں تحریر نہیں پڑھ سکتے۔عمر کوٹ کا قلعہ اور بھنبور کے آثار کہ جن کے تحفظ کا بجٹ انسانوں کی جیبوں میں اور حفاظت خدا کے ذمے ہے۔جمڑاؤ کینال کے آس پاس ریاست خیرپور کے زمانے کے جو پولیس قلعے بنائے گئے، ان کی چوکھٹیں تک چور لے گئے اور جو لکڑی اکھڑ نہیں پائی اسے جلا ڈالا۔
اور یہ جو ہر مہینے دو مہینے بعد بندرگاہ یا کسی ایرپورٹ پر قدیم مجسمے اور نوادارت پکڑے جانے کی خبر چھپتی ہے یہ کیا ہے ؟ اور جب پولیس کو ان نوادارت کی عارضی کسٹڈی دی جاتی ہے تو جتنے مجسمے حوالے کیے جاتے ہیں کیا وہ اتنے ہی اور اسی حالت میں واپس ملتے ہیں ؟ اور یہ جو وادیِ سندھ کی قدیم تہذیب اور گندھارا پیریڈ کے مجسمے اور نوادارات یہاں سے وہاں تک کے عجائب گھروں کے کمروں اور گوداموں میں پڑے ہیں۔ ان کی آمد ، موجودگی اور غائب ہونے کا ریکارڈ کتنے عرصے بعد اور کون اپ ٹو ڈیٹ کرتا ہے۔ان میں سے کتنے اصلی بچے ہیں اور کتنے اصلی نہیں ہیں۔کتنے نجی عجائب گھروں میں کون سے نوادرات کہاں کہاں سے آئے ہیں ؟
اچھی بات ہے کہ حکومتِ سندھ نے وفاقی حکومت سے موئن جو دڑو کی علامت ڈانسنگ گرل کو انڈیا سے واپس لینے کا مطالبہ کیا ہے۔ یہ ڈانسنگ گرل آ بھی گئی تو اسے اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکستان کی تہذیب و ثقافت کی جدید تشریح کے کس خانے میں رکھا جائے گا ؟؟؟
جب جرمن نازیوں نے پیرس کا محاصرہ کرلیا تو انھوں نے شہریوں کو یقین دہانی کرائی کہ آپ کے ورثے کو ہاتھ نہیں لگائیں گے۔لہذا جب ہم پیرس میں داخل ہوں تو مزاحمت نہ کرنا۔نازیوں نے اپنا وعدہ نبھایا اور پیرس کو جوں کا توں رہنے دیا۔نازیوں نے جن جن ممالک پر قبضہ کیا ان کی آبادیوں پر وہ تمام مظالم کیے جو قابض قوتیں کرتی ہیں۔مگر پینٹنگز کے ذخیرے تباہ نہیں کیے بلکہ انھیں احتیاط کے ساتھ برلن منتقل کردیا۔جب اتحادیوں نے برلن پر قبضہ کیا تو شہر کھنڈر بن چکا تھا مگر مقبوضہ پینٹنگز کا بیشتر ذخیرہ تہہ خانوں میں محفوظ تھا۔۔۔
اقبال کا دل تو اپنے آبا کی کتابیں لندن میں دیکھ کر بہت تلملایا۔لیکن خدا کا شکر ہے کہ انگریز برِصغیر کا جتنا ثقافتی و تاریخی خزانہ لوٹ کے لے جا سکتا تھا لے گیا۔ورنہ یہ سب کب کا غتربود ہوچکا ہوتا۔اگر یہ بات کسی کو بری لگتی ہے تو لگے۔مگر پھر اپنے بچوں کو یہ کہہ کر سمندرپار نہ بھیجے کہ ہم تو جیسے کیسے جی رہے ہیں تم تو اپنا مستقبل خراب نہ کرو۔
ارے ہاں۔۔۔جو لوگ سندھ فیسٹیول کے نام پر موئن جودڑو کے آثار کی پامالی و بے حرمتی پر آٹھ آٹھ آنسو رو رہے ہیں ،کیا وہ اگلی عید الفطر پر ان آثار میں ون ویلنگ کرنے والے سیکڑوں مقامی من چلوں کو روک پائیں گے۔سنا ہے کئی نوجوان شرط لگا کر موٹرسائیکل بدہسٹ اسٹوپا کی بلندی تک بھی لے جاتے ہیں۔

http://www.express.pk/story/223668/

The privatisation of culture
Afiya Shehrbano Zia February 9, 2014 Leave a comment

After the slow and reluctant realisation that neither Islam nor the Army are likely to save Pakistan from itself, many from our elite class now invest hope in this abstraction called ‘culture’

The privatisation of culture
Money defines culture and associated class interests.
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An editorial in a self-acclaimed liberal newspaper celebrates the start of the 5th Karachi Literature Festival. It claims that the KLF revives the dying cultural habits of middle class Pakistanis. It laments how in the absence of Pakistani state support, this free-to-all, (predominantly English language, exclusive hotel and text-based) peoples’ event has to be rescued by corporate and foreign embassy sponsorship. On the back page of the same paper, the ongoing Sindh Festival is advertised as a public event to revive pride in our culture. Both festivals promote the idea of public culture as a political instrument and yet, are defined according to a certain market logic.
Clearly, money defines culture and associated class interests. Under the Sindh Festival, the Mohatta mushaira, fashion festival, ghazal night, film festival are priced events. Free access to the beach that we fought for some years ago, is now the venue for a paid Basant event, as is the Baradari for a paid sufi music event a site for which conservationists fought so as to prevent private functions, such as weddings, from being held there.
Then there are the left-over cultural events. Free, low culture events for the masses and priced, high culture ones for the privileged fewer. Art, music, donkey derby, fishing and cricket tournaments may be observed for free. But public sites may be privatised and monetised if done for a ‘higher’ cultural purpose and if organised by the right member of the elite.
Public culture is very different from the privatised lens through which festival organisers in Pakistan see it. That is why the main bent of these events is really a continuation of the latest trend — to privatise everything, including culture. Then it is masked as for the benefit of the people — as if we are all equal consumers.
This notion that all cultural activity is a symbol of a progressive vanguard that resists a barbaric rearguard was a theme mastered by the Musharraf regime. Urban elite latched on to this willingly.
In our current environment, with the virtual death of the social sciences or academic events, in the flood of repeat development conferences and in the successful replacement of a reading culture with a talk show culture, the Karachi Literature Festival makes perfect sense. This is because it masquerades as the intellectual panacea for the cultural ennui Pakistanis are suffering due to the ‘social and security situation’. It is apt that the KLF has become the meta-narrative of ‘literature for a cause’, as it merges several disciplines and lumps them together in this postmodernist merger called the Karachi Literature Festival.
There is nothing wrong with having a big party of intellectuals that is the envy of the collective Defense and Cliftonian drawing rooms but to pretend that this is to promote something called culture, peace or development is to be delusional. It is essentially a corporate event that promotes its multinational sponsors and whose target audience is the bourgeois elite of a city. Make no mistake, this class needs the education (and the capitalist logic of peace to safeguard their interests) but why does such an event pretend to be anything more than that?
Culture as Resistance
After the slow and reluctant realisation that neither Islam nor the Army are likely to save Pakistan from itself, many from our elite class now invest hope in this abstraction called ‘culture’. This is meant to serve as the shield that will protect us from the capture of public, intellectual and economic spaces by the counter-cultural forces represented by an amorphous thing called, ‘Talibanisation’.
This notion of all cultural activity as a symbol of a progressive vanguard resisting a barbaric rearguard was a theme mastered by the Musharraf regime. Pakistan’s urban elite latched on to this willingly. Whenever this myth is challenged, it is dismissed as negativism. In reality, the idea that high culture is political resistance is simply a ploy, to deflect the guilt of the liberals who like to believe they are solving socio-political problems through charity, entertainment or consumerism. This is like the Paris Hilton alternative to solving an economic crisis by shopping even more. This delusion is amplified even more by that oxymoron which multinationals use to bluff local elites all the time — corporate responsibility.
Some years ago, a critic took exception to my critique of the celebration of any cultural activity no matter how elite and narrow as, “intellectual adventurism” on my part. Admittedly, this is the most polite crime one could be accused of and somehow not quite the insult it may have been meant to be. In any case, in the form of a letter to the editor, this is what she wrote in response to my article; “Your whole premise is that KARA [film festival] is a mere cultural activity and has no political resonance. Cultural practices, however trivial, traverse into the political realm…”
I have no idea what that means. Dancing at a private wedding in Karachi is ‘trivial’ but does not “traverse into” and has absolutely nothing to do with the political realm. However, dancing at a private wedding in Kohistan, if captured on video and made public, has deadly political implications. In between these instances, dancing at the Arts Council or at a demonstration at a press club while celebrating women’s day, is an act of political subversion and is not trivial, either in intent or in political terms. Similarly, the holding of a mushaaira or even a book launch in Peshawar is political because of the specific context, site, location and background. Also because of the controversy associated with the author. These are not trivial in intent or goal — they are distinctly political, unlike apolitical cultural activities.
So the letter writer goes on to admit, in a sort of contradictory manner that, “Any cultural acts of resistance are a contextual affair. The context, however, cannot be narrowly defined.” Say what? The context of Kohistan is very specific — can we really compare dancing in Karachi, Kohistan and Swat and argue that we cannot narrow down and distinguish between each context? What qualifies as political resistance in one context does not translate into the same in another. This kind of limited thinking is unfortunately, common. One Pakistani English language novelist spent an evening arguing with me over how drinking alcohol in a defense society drawing room qualified as ‘liberalism’ because of the ‘context’ — that is, given that we are all such prisoners of forced State abstinence.
Ultimately, the letter writer reduced the entire argument down to our intellectuals’ favourite resort — personalisation. She suggested outright that mine was “a personal feud” with the organisers of the film festival and this became the topic of much drawing room gossip thereafter. Death of ideas by Social Exclusion rather than exhausting intellectual engagement is a game that the upper classes excel at. The KLF is the perfect venue for social inclusion of the literary upper class where we surround ourselves with self-congratulations, applause and class camaraderie — maybe some disparagement of state and government but no self-irony, introspection nor debate.
Maybe there is some irony in a festival that is for social butterflies which features a The Diary of a Social Butterfly but that’s probably about the extent of it. There is always some token Indian author but no recollection or representation of our Persian nor Bengali literary historicism.
The public event of Faiz mela struggles for contributions from us, the film festival collapses after Musharraf’s enlightened moderation is replaced by a democratic civilian governance but the literature festivals thrive with considerable foreign investment and multinational sponsorship.
Ironically, many of the moderators and speakers are self-avowed anti-imperialists and critics of such high brow culture yet, they lend legitimacy to such activity that masks itself as progressive activism. On the one hand, Pakistani activists and NGOs are targeted by ‘radical’ commentators and left sympathisers for being collaborators of imperialism because they have transnational linkages and/or, depend on donor funds, yet they are silent over the upright left leaders who actively participate at and lend political legitimacy to such corporate events.
This year the KLF has announced three prizes — the Coca-Cola Best Non-Fiction Book Prize; the Embassy of France Prize for the best English fiction and; a Peace Prize for the book that best promotes peace, regardless of literary worth.
Sufism — The Mickey Mouse Fight Against Taliban
In 2009, Aaker Patel writing for The News wrote this; “The BBC carried a report last month titled ‘Can Pakistan’s Sufi tradition resist the Taliban?’ No, it can’t. Sufism can no more fight the Taliban than Mickey Mouse. Sufism is flight. It is escape. Those of us who have watched the ecstasy unfold at Nizamuddin Awliya and Baba Shah Jamal and a million heretical shrines in India, Hindu and Muslim, know that most of us can only be weekend Sufis. Sufism’s message of wahdat ul-wajood leads us away from doctrine, and that is an intellectual journey.
Sufism cannot fight because it makes no demands, and it has no daily ritual. It also respects Sharia, and can live besides it quite comfortably. The great Chishti Sufis of Delhi were namazis.”
Farooq Sulehria in his excellent article makes a similar argument against the misplaced notion of pluralistic Sufiism and Sufi festivals as the antidote to religious militancy.
In addition to agreeing with Sulehria and Patel, I’ve also maintained that there is no evidence that sufi Islam as coopted by the state, the corporate sector or peaceniks will be any less patriarchal than any other branch of Islam. What is the material base of Sufiism?
Not a member of this club
Sulehria also makes the point that when dictators become discredited, so does the culture that they patronised and this is the process of de-authenticating some cultural expressions.
Right up until the Lawyers’ Movement, collaboration rather than resistance was the liberals’ agenda under Musharraf’s dictatorship. Festivals under his regime were symbolic and literal historical examples of this trend. Of course, they were always cultural activities but not acts of political resistance. Why try to put this false mantle on and redefine them?
The trouble with expanding the realm of politics to include all ‘trivial’ expressions of culture is that it falls to this level then. It dilutes politics itself.
Those who despair of critique and call upon a united stand against the “barbarians at the gate”, like my letter writing critic, have this to say;
“During the Zia era, a political culture gained momentum when like minded people had the clarity of purpose. I’d rather that you use your gift of expression and intellect in a manner that contributes to what I presume to be a common cause.”
This is what our elite dream of — commonality, consensus, conformity, conservatism and a whipped up dollop of cultural cream to top it off. Under the Zia era, culture did not ‘gain momentum’ at all — it was crushed, retarded and buried under censorship and vigilantism. That cultural activities became a vehicle for women to reclaim public space and expression, was because they were motivated by and used it as an act of political resistance.
Despite the courage and contributions of that generation of resistance activists, I maintain that we have not recovered nor expanded our victories. Instead, we have privatised these on every level. Gender rights, cultural activities, intellectual dialogue — all of these have retreated into published reports, conference rooms, drawing rooms, chat rooms, twitter, facebook, private screenings and now, literature festivals by the sea. The hallmark of these events is limited audiences, limited themes, self-appeasement, applause and an insular feel-good sense that we are doing something.
Sure, it’s something. But for whom and what ‘common cause’? The upper class Pakistani public intellectual is really most comfortable in the private sanctuaries of like-minded gatherings. Challenge them to a debate, disagree, critique or ask thorny questions and you are disrupting, being adventurous, deliberately provocative or just plain difficult.
No wonder the KLF has nominated a peace prize for the book that promotes peace. This despite the fact that the most successful revolutions in history have been inspired by revolutionary, not peaceful literature.

http://tns.thenews.com.pk/privatisation-culture/#.UvdYb_l_uFs

Mr Zardari, tear down this wall

Aakar Patel
Sunday, March 08, 2009
From Print Edition

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Allama Iqbal imagined Pakistan as a utopia in northwest India where Punjabis would do ijtihad and read Nietzsche. The Quaid-e-Azam ordered a Pakistan where religion would cease to be a matter for the state. But both men saw something magnificently dormant in the character of India’s Muslims, which would flower in isolation.

Iqbal returned from Europe in 1908 ashamed by the fall of Islam. He thought its return to glory could come through expelling the polluting influence of Indian culture. Iqbal understood our culture. In 1904, he wrote the song that still defines our culture best (Tarana-e-Hindi), and he translated Gayatri Mantra, the talismanic chant of the Upanishad, from Sanskrit. But Europe taught him that our culture was unable to compete. Muslims needed to break out. In 1910, he wrote Tarana-e-Milli.

Jinnah didn’t understand our culture much, but he thought that Muslims were a separate nation from Hindus, and could become modern once they were separated from India’s archaic culture. Both the poet and the lawyer thought that the solution to progress was to stop being Indian.

Iqbal died in 1938, Jinnah died in 1948. It would be illuminating to see their reaction as they flipped through a current issue of Nawa-i-Waqt (would have to be translated for Jinnah), the guardian of the ideology of Pakistan.

The Pakistan of Iqbal won against the Pakistan of Jinnah. Jinnah’s imaginary Pakistan was sent into the night with a pat on the head by Liaquat and the peerless Shabbir Usmani chanting their Qarardad-e-Maqasid, 60 years ago this month.

Now full-dress Sharia is upon Swat and the Punjabi’s head is cocked towards the frontier in curiosity. The world holds its breath.

The danger of Talibanisation to Punjab does not come from the Pakhtun and his gun. Pakistan is 60 per cent Punjabi. Pakhtuns are only 15 per cent of its population and 20 per cent of its army. The danger to Pakistan comes from its inability to resist the pure ideas of the Pakhtun, of whom the Punjabi especially is enamoured. Talibanisation is happening in the mind. There is no resistance to it for two reasons: one is the lyrical call of Sharia which Muslims are drawn to in their quest for utopia. This will not change.

The second is the deliberate amputation of its own culture by the Pakistani state. This can change. Those who think Pakistan can resist the Taliban intellectually should look at the sequence on culture that unfolded after 1947.

Jinnah, one could say, stifled the voice of culture by giving Urdu a monopoly in 1948. Those who followed him beheaded it by banning freedom of religion (Liaquat in 1949), Indian cinema (Ayub in 1965), alcohol (Bhutto in 1977) and immorality (Zia in 1979). Under Nawaz Sharif in 1992, Pakistan banned the economy citing Riba, but the deranged state saved itself by lying, acting on the instinct of self-preservation, which by now was in short supply. The jihad in Kashmir under Benazir and then Musharraf completed the project of India as foreign and enemy and Indian culture as ‘kufr’, in the Pakistani mind.

But what is the culture of Pakistan? Do Pakistanis own a tradition of music and dance that is separate from India’s?

Mehdi Hasan and Ghulam Ali (who told me this on a flight to Bombay from Ahmedabad) enjoy performing in India because Pakistan’s middle-class is mostly illiterate about raag and taal. But this is our inheritance from the Sam Ved and from Amir Khusro. Why should it be disowned by Pakistanis?

High culture is rooted in tradition, and that is the first thing the religious state attacks. There is no culture of north Indian classical dance, Kathak, in Pakistan. Dance in general is absent (though apparently it is quite popular with Mehsud men, presumably grooving to the rhythm of pop-popping Kalashnikovs) because physical expression tends to be sensual and therefore deemed un-Islamic.

Culture is expression: the expending, the release of emotion that is drawn out through the desire for expression. Through words, through movement, through emotion, through music. Its expression is unique to cultures and in north India and Pakistan we have our unique culture: Indo-Persian (with stress on Indo).

Culture does not directly resist extremism; it only makes extremism difficult to penetrate by diverting the mind. The only way to fight extremism is through reason, but South Asians are not particularly good at reason because we don’t understand its vocabulary. Culture softens us, not in a bad way, and makes us less suicidal, which is a state where pristine religion leads us through its demand of purity.

We have no capacity to soften religion through reason because of our dependence on the great jurists of the 8th and 9th centuries. Iqbal spoke of the possibility of ijtihad, but how much ijtihad can happen in Pakistan, and for that matter in India, in defiance of Imam Azam?

The BBC carried a report last month titled ‘Can Pakistan’s Sufi tradition resist the Taliban?’ No, it can’t. Sufism can no more fight the Taliban than Mickey Mouse. Sufism is flight. It is escape. Those of us who have watched the ecstasy unfold at Nizamuddin Awliya and Baba Shah Jamal and a million heretical shrines in India, Hindu and Muslim, know that most of us can only be weekend Sufis. Sufism’s message of wahdat ul-wajood leads us away from doctrine, and that is an intellectual journey.

Sufism cannot fight because it makes no demands, and it has no daily ritual. It also respects Sharia, and can live besides it quite comfortably. The great Chishti Sufis of Delhi were namazis.

But the Talib cannot live beside Sufism. He will bomb the shrine of Rahman Baba. And now he has brought his war to Lahore’s Liberty Chowk. The message will come through to Punjab as it did in Swat: peace through Sharia.

How will Pakistanis resist the Talib’s hypnotic call? The problem in Pakistan is not that the Sri Lankan team got attacked; terrorism is truly global and affects us all. The problem is that Pakistanis are the only people in the world still unconvinced about who did it. Even intellectuals who are published in its newspapers convinced themselves through a convoluted or paranoid logic that ‘Muslims cannot do this’.

What should be said instead is: this is not us. And it really isn’t.

We have one of the world’s richest cultures of literature, music and dance. Pakistanis need to embrace it; it lies across the border. Bollywood is not just a film industry; it is the dispenser of Indo-Persian culture, and its voice; it is not in Bombay by accident. Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor would spend more time in Lahore’s courts defending themselves against fahashi, as did Manto, than on sets shooting. This difference in environment is not limited to cinema.

Pakistan can legitimately claim to have produced better classical poetry than India. But why? Independent Pakistan’s great poets, Faiz and Faraz, sang of protest, because they had much to protest about. Independent India’s great poets, Gulzar and Javed Akhtar, Shailendra and Anand Bakshi sing of love, because they operate in the natural cultural environment of South Asia. Pakistan’s poets do not. But its being across the border doesn’t mean that what’s produced in Bollywood is not Pakistani culture. It was before 1965.

Musharraf opened up Pakistan’s media, Zardari should open up India’s media to Pakistan. Not the news channels, the entertainment ones. He should leave in place the ban on India’s news channels (for that matter, being deprived of their news channels for a while would benefit Indians also). And he should open the borders more generally.

Pakistan should not wait for this to be reciprocal. After the savage attacks in Bombay, India will not immediately let Pakistanis freely onto its soil. But Pakistan should open itself up to India’s people, culture, tourists (they will come in droves) and trade. This does not mean surrender. Pakistan should remain a strong, sovereign Muslim nation.

But it must let loose its secret weapon on the Taliban. And that is our culture, our Indo-Persian heritage. We built it. We own it; we should own up to it.

Forget Tarana-e-Milli. Let’s sing Tarana-e-Hind-o-Pak. Allama Iqbal would approve, and so, I suspect, would Jinnah.

The writer is a former newspaper editor who lives in Bombay. Email: aakar. patel@ gmail.com
– See more at: http://archive.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=166244&Cat=9&dt=3/8/2009#sthash.7bW62QoR.dpuf