It wasn't bad enough that limeys left us with an addiction to tea and cigarettes, they also left us with a confused identity. We're a nation of many races and faces. In the modern day world, where time has shaped the identities and destinies of nations and empires, it appears that Father Time has overlooked us, or will simply get to us in a while.
For my first post, I'd like to point out Mr Qasim A Moini's brilliant piece in Friday's DAWN Images on Sunday.
In it, QAM echoes my sentiments.
There have been comments in the press and the blogosphere about the sanctity of freedom of expression. One must say these are very strong arguments but this idealism should be peppered with a healthy dose of reality: this is Pakistan.
Indeed, after the Shanaakht fiasco, the elitists were outraged. Their blogs came alive with muted rage over the senseless violence that occurred on that fateful evening and the found another use for facebook and online petition sites, by quickly signing up locally and from the comfort of their homes abroad.
I find it gravely disturbing that someone who has abandoned his/her country as so, can feel so much for it from the comfort of their homes in New York or London. I respect Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. She is a person of remarkable courage and conviction; and quite frankly, it takes guts to make some of the documentary/movies that she has made. Her writing is impeccable as is her personailty, which is graceful and respectful. But I feel that she is not the right person to carry out activities such as the Shanaakht Festival or even be the head of the Citizen Archive of Pakistan. She is a good observer of this nation, but I don't think she can participate in it.
Why?
Simply because she is too detached. Shanaakt is supposed to be about identity, about us, and what it means to be a Pakistani. To be very honest, I don't know the answer to that question: what does it mean to be a Pakistani? But I do know that I have a long way before I even remotely begin to understand or even answer that question. As is Mrs Obaid Chinoy. And more than half of these elitists bloggers, of which even I am a part of.
Now the reason why I'm categorizing myself and these bloggers and Mrs Obaid Chinoy as an elitist is because we're all detached. We've grown up on a healthy diet of Tom and Jerry and Apple Pie, instead of our own rich heritage. I can't write Urdu but can barely read it. This has limited my capacity and limited me to a world that isn't even mine to begin with. The Shanaakht Festival was a part of this limited world. The majority of this festival was in English. Why?
Why are we limited to a language that enslaved us for all those years? Why didn't the festival celebrate the language that gave birth to us? It was free for all Pakistanis, and all Pakistanis are not educated. Art -- like the picture in question -- creates a powerful reaction without careful understanding or administration. And understanding and administration comes with education.
There is also the question of free speech. Like QAM said, this is Pakistan. We can never believe in a concept (or have it) so radical as free speech. Why? Primarily because of religious reasons but even free speech has its limitations. The picture in question may have been an exercise in free speech, but for the matter it carried it was in extreme bad taste.
No matter what you think of the persons in the picture they are all deceased. And if free speech dictates that you can desecrate the dead like that, I frankly want no part of such a speech.
But let me take you to the first ever example of free speech, not during the creation of the Constitution of the United States (and ulimately the nation) but to the point of our creation.
Indeed when God created man and ordered his angels to bow to "Ashraf-ul-Makhluqat", it was the Morning Star who exercised his free speech with "Why?" And look where it got him.
That being said, I don't have a clear mission as to what I'll be posting here, but I'll try to post regularly.
Allah Hafiz. And Pakistan Zindabad.
