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In the curse of the 'interesting times' that we perpetually seem to
dwell in since independence, three issues occupy centre stage in national
imagination - politics, religion and personal economics (who is making
how much money and how). In politics the obsession is about our equation
with India, relations with the U.S. externally, and Byzantine intrigues
within local power groups internally. Religion has become the strategic
high ground that each power group tries to occupy as a vantage point
sans its moral essence in society. The newly adopted doctrine of 'enlightened
moderation' has given it a revamped intellectual lushness. Personal
economics is a more popular entertainment than Indian films and TV
soaps. Each regime gives birth to a new hero with a generic title
of Mr. 'n' percent. Actually the phenomenon is more dilated to include
special interest groups - APTMA, IPPs, Automotive Industry, Sugar
Industry and so forth, to name a few.
National economy is naturally a hostage to these fixations, be it
the defence budget or banking modalities or accountability drives.
The more we focus on economy the more intense the debates about these
issues get, through indirect references.
There is another dimension to the economy that eludes national attention
because the connection is very oblique, not obvious like modes and
rates of interest. It is the cultural evolution through Arts. There
is a symbiotic relationship between economic well being and cultural
progress that is hard to discern, as to what takes the lead, a 'chicken
or the egg' conundrum. Do culturally advanced societies have an economic
edge or does economic progress provide a better environment for arts
to flourish? I don't have the answer; neither would I dare try to
arrive at one in this column. I merely want to emphasise that the
two go hand in hand somehow and that the debility of one holds the
other back.
We are not talking of culture as a set of social customs and moral
modes but as a collective designation given to art forms in a society.
There are classic forms like painting, sculpture, music, drama, literature
and there are modern innovations in photography, cinematography, journalism
and advertising. Yes, advertising, in my opinion, is a contemporary
art form. In a hundred years time when historians write art history,
contemporary advertising, especially in videos and print, is going
to count as a major form of creative expression of our times.
How are art forms faring in Pakistan? If not on the brink of extinction,
thanks to the indomitable spirit of creativity in humans, the art
culture has an ailing paleness to its complexion. Here, artists live
on the fringes of civilisation and people with aesthetic appreciation
of arts are closet freaks with this esoteric sense, which is irrelevant
to national obsessions with politics, religion and making money. The
apparent face of social fabric is as sensitive to artistic creativity
as the back end of a bus plodding the Lahore-Multan route. The dearth
of creative sensitivity reflects in business and economy too. Entrepreneurs
are averse to charting new paths; beaten tracks are the most populous.
In literature we have the ubiquitous 'ghazal' and the short story.
There are no more than ten novels in Urdu language that could pass
the test of universal art. Ghazal has been flogged to death even after
contemporary poets have altered its classical structure. After Faiz
and Qasmi there are no giants visible on the horizon. Appreciation
is frozen in classical context and classical context, both in form
and substance, has lost relevance to contemporary human situations.
Poets like Fehmida Riaz who try to break new grounds in diction and
subject matter are exiled by the society as heretics. Khalid Akhtar
tried to bring a cosmopolitan spread to Urdu language but his genius
was never acknowledged because he didn't gel with the literary bureaucracy
despite Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi's patronage and admiration.
The great icon of literary appreciation, Zia Mohiuddin is a prisoner
of classic form - his repertoire never veers away from a select few
classic poets and crony humorists. Ask the culture-smug audiences
at his recital sessions and they would stare back at you, "Fehmida
who? Which Khalid?"
Painting and sculpture is an alien art form, borrowed from the West.
Traditional miniatures are a dying craft, although some youngsters
are doggedly persisting in reviving it by adopting old techniques
with contemporary context. Painters live a hermetically sealed cultural
bubble with little feedback from the masses, as there is no tradition
of hanging paintings in our culture, barring the elites. The successful
ones ride on the wave of a cult they develop around them. Most odd
is that our giants never manage to start schools of their unique form
of painting. Their style dies with them and is edified for posterity.
There is no dearth of talent or creativity; just that social milieu
has not developed vehicles to reach the masses.
Music is frozen in time. The evolution of classic music stopped with
the Moghuls. Contemporary music is a plagiarised potpourri of borrowed
beats. As perhaps the Qawali was the last innovation in serious music
springing from the shrines, today's 'bhangra' beat is the only innovation
in site, and that too was introduced and popularised by the Indian
youth in Manchester and Bradford, U.K where their exposure to pop
music inspired them to revive their ethnic bonds with homeland. Local
pop groups are emulating them and riding on the band wagon; thanks
to the corporate sector's patronage otherwise most of them would be
playing video games in cyber cafes. What goes for music in films,
well, lets keep a distinction between entertainment and art.
The films have not progressed far beyond plots borrowed by Agha Hashar
Kashmiri from Shakespear - hero, heroine, villain, joker package.
Their form has stuck faithfully to the 'nataks' of the stage where
in three hours the audiences were entertained in all human sentiments
in a composite package without a theme - romance, conflict, tragedy,
humour the lot. TV plays that began with a promising start in the
sixties and seventies, bringing a touch of literary subtlety have
degenerated into B grade soaps serials.
One could go on lamenting and end up as a petulant bore. The bleak
reality is that a bright community of 150 million people has yet to
produce a Bob Marley, a Zubin Mehta, a Kiri Te Kanava, a Marquez,
a Khushwant Singh, a Satyajit Ray or an Alexander Solzhenitsyn to
capture the world's imagination. We disown Rushdie; are not fully
comfortable with Dr. Abdul Salaam; Sheema Kirmani and Naheed Siddiqui
are more at ease setting up bases in Washington and London respectively.
Pakistan's cultural landscape is so bland that it is considered a
punishment post for most foreign diplomats and businessmen (specially
the wives). It is a tough call to keep visiting foreigners (not necessarily
westerners) entertained in Pakistan for more than two evenings. Economy
is business and business is not money or numbers; it is people-to-people
contact and interpersonal goodwill. Gender segregation, prohibition
and cultural blandness are serious impediments to creating a hospitable
environment for foreigners in Pakistan. While the fanatical militants
are tainting Pakistan's image abroad, there are no cultural emissaries
to assuage or redeem that notoriety. Terrorism alone does not drive
business away; Ireland and Sri Lanka have had their share but their
cultural mellowness counter balances militant hostilities. The purpose
of this column is not to suggest setting up a cultural development
board with a retired general as chairman. We need a more cultured
approach. We could begin by asking ourselves, are Arts un-Islamic
Iqbal Mustafa
1230 words
07 August 2004
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