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issue review
The 'gospel' of
Orientalism Under
paradoxical conditions The
Demented
The decision to rusticate 23 minority students from a medical college may turn out to be irreversible considering the heat around the issue. A recap of events as narrated by all those involved By Aoun
Sahi On June 5, 2008, Asghar Ali
Randhawa, Principal Punjab Medical College (PMC), Faisalabad, According to the college administration, the students threatened to turn violent if their demand was not fulfilled immediately. "Students started gathering around the principal's office at 8am and did not move till 12:30pm -- the time the expulsion order of Ahmadi students was released," said Dr Khalid Mahmood, associate professor and warden of boys' hostels, PMC. According to Mahmood, students belonging to all student organisations like Muslim Students Federation (MSF), Islami-Jamiat-e-Tulaba (IJT), Anjuman Tulaba-e-Islam (ATI) and even a majority of neutral students were present. They were giving warnings as well as asking for a deadline from the administration through a mike. "The principal called an emergency meeting of the Academic Council and after a very long (lasting three and a half hour) consultation, a unanimous decision was made about suspension, to maintain law and order." Mahmood used the word
'suspension' while the order says 'rustication'. He clarified: "The
students No one is ready to buy the administration's stance. Some think they took the measure in haste. They expelled 23 students without proper procedure. The expulsion order reads "due to the religious dispute, hate material distribution and on recommendation of the college disciplinary committee, the following students are rusticated from the college as well as hostel roll under Rule III clause-V of the college prospectus with immediate effect to maintain the law and order situation in the college and hostel premises." In the first place, the expulsion orders were against rules and regulations mentioned in the decision. According to clause-V of Rule III, a student may be suspended "from the university/college rolls for a period not exceeding two weeks at a time excluding the suspension if not exceeding 10 days ordered by the Vice Chancellor/Principal of university/college, pending inquiry into misconduct of the student." According to students on both sides, the administration's role in the whole incident was odd. "The administration failed to handle the issue properly," said Hasaan Ali Chauhdry, Nazim IJT, PMC. According to him, the administration should have restrained this fitna (contentious issue) the day some Ahmadi girls of PMC started preaching among fellow students in the hostels." According to Hasaan, the girls in the hostel told them with them that two girls announced publicly that they had decided to convert to Qadianiyat. This was sometime in May, 2008. Some students in the hostel gave an application to the warden demanding that the Ahmadi girls be expelled from the hostel. Hasaan told TNS that representatives of all student organisations in PMC also met the principal in person and appealed to him that all Ahmadi students should be expelled from the hostels. This happened in the last week of May. "The principal assured us if they were involved in such activities, the college administration would take action against them, but he did nothing and that encouraged the Ahmadi students." Actually, the warden told this scribe, the girls were shifted from dormitories to senior students' hostel where each girl is allotted one room. But this, he says, was not enough for the protesting students. According to Hasaan, the students then decided to condemn the acts of the Ahmadi students and put up a poster in the college containing details about the Ahmadi beliefs. "We did this to show the real picture of Ahmadis to Muslim students." Hasaan claimed the poster was torn the very day it was pasted. "The next day we arranged a lecture on 'Khatum-e-Nabuwat' in all the classes of the college to clarify the concepts for students. We also requested the principal to give us permission to hold a 'Khatum-e-Nabuwat' conference in the college but he declined." After two three days, a Student Action Committee, comprising representatives of all student organisations in PMC, was formed to tackle the issue. "In its first meeting it was decided that posters about the beliefs of Ahmadis were to be put up in the college so that no more students are inclined towards them." Hasaan recalled that in all five posters were put up on different spots of the college which were also torn after three days. "One Ahmadi student, Zeeshan, was caught red-handed and we also found torn pieces of a poster from his pockets. Later he admitted tearing the poster in front of us; we also have video of his statement," Hasaan told TNS. Ahmadi students deny they were involved in tearing up the posters or preaching their beliefs. According to Ahsan, a student who has been rusticated from the college, on the night of July 4 around 11:30pm, he was in his room in the college hostel when some fellow students rushed into his room and forced him to come out of the room. "They were furious and dragged me to the main gate of the hostel. There I found two of the other three Ahmadi boarders as well as almost 250 students from the hostels. The boarders were being questioned by the student leaders of different organisations about the tearing up of the posters that contained hate material against Ahmadis within the premises of the college. They had also found some torn part of one such poster from my room." Ahsan told them that he found torn parts of the poster from the college premises and as these contained names of sacred personalities he decided to keep them in some safe place. "It has always been a practice in college that the administration clears all walls of posters after two or three days and sometimes torn posters are left lying on the ground." Ahsan said nobody was ready to believe him; instead all of them started harassing him. "Angry, they all wanted me to confess to tearing up of the posters. When I refused they started abusing me and my beliefs. Some of them even slapped me and tore my shirt. Meanwhile a maulvi from an outside mosque was brought there by some student; he gave a lecture to all students on our beliefs and asked me if I could defend my beliefs or could I deny what he had said. We all were in deep trouble." According to Ahsan, one of the Ahmadi students informed the families of the situation. "My parents immediately called up the police and around 2am the police reached there. The students ensured them they would not torture us more and they did not hand us over to them. They also called the warden of hostel as well as the principal but both of them did not come before 5am. From 11:30pm to 5am we remained in the custody of hostel boys. At 5 in the morning, the principal reached the hostel and promised to the students that he would act according to their wishes. Hearing this, the students handed us over to him and he took us to a safe place from where we were sent to our homes. We heard the news of our expulsion at our homes." Sadar Anjuman Ahmadiyya Pakistan Rabwah spokesman Saleemuddin says that the expulsion was totally baseless. It is yet another example of the cruelty that Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan have to contend with. According to him the Government of Pakistan made a submission to the UN Human Rights Council Geneva in May 2008 in which it stated its commitment to invest and support the education of its citizens, as well as safeguarding the rights of all minority groups. "It is thus most unfortunate that less than one month later, this violation of basic human rights has been allowed. It is hoped that this wholly unjust decision is revoked immediately," he said. Shahid Ali, president MSF, PMC denies that students tortured Ahmadi students. He also shows TNS a video in which Ahsan admits that one of his fellow Ahmadi students Zeeshan was involved in tearing up of the posters. "It is true that we met all the Ahmadi boarders on June 4, but it was just to ask them why they had torn up the posters," said Shahid. Shahid said they have all the material to prove these students were involved in preaching their religion and tearing up posters. "Some of them have also declared themselves Muslims in their admission forms which is a crime because our constitution does not allow them to do so," he added. Shahid said the students will not allow these students to return to PMC even if the administration reinstates them. "I have heard that government is pressurising the PMC administration to reinstate them, we will protest peacefully." Secretary Health, Punjab Anwar A Khan told TNS that there is no pressure on the college administration from the government. "We have not directed PMC administration to reinstate Ahmadi students. Instead a committee, consisting of senior teachers of the college, has been constituted which is investigating the issue. We will act according to committee's recommendations and any one found guilty will be punished," he said. The governor of Punjab has also asked the relevant department to provide him with a complete report of the incident within two days. "We have not received any application against Ahmadi students and to rusticate them was just under pressure exerted by the students on July 5," said warden Dr Khalid Mahmood. "The principal has constituted a committee of five senior teachers of PMC that will investigate the matter and whoever is found guilty will be punished. All the students involved in the matter are being called upon individually for interrogation. Two girls who have allegedly converted submitted their affidavits to the administration saying they have not. We will accommodate the Ahmadi students if the committee finds them innocent. We will also provide them with proper security if needed," he said. But it is not so easy now to accommodate Ahmadi students as majority of students of PMC are not ready to welcome them. "PMC has a very rich history of curbing this fitna. In the 1974 movement against the Ahmadis, PMC played a very important role. Some of our teachers who were then students of PMC took an active part in that movement. We are once again ready to lead such a movement if the Ahmadi students are allowed to come back to PMC," said Moeen (name changed), a student of third year. Many others at the college support his view.
review By Beena
Sarwar Ismat Chughtai's short stories are a delight to read. Irreverent and iconoclastic, they cut across stereotypes, morals and manners, exposing social injustices and foibles through engaging narratives and characters often related in the first person. Her boldness, social realism, wit and satire call for comparisons with her contemporary Saadat Hasan Manto. Both were part of the Progressive Writers Association, informally the literary wing of the Communist Party of India although they fiercely retained their intellectual independence, refusing to be bound by any party line. There have been several
theatrical adaptations of Manto's short stories (starting with 'Badshahat Anwer Jafri, who scripted and directed the 20-minute 'Kafir', has long been engaged in drama with a purpose, along with contemporaries like Anjum Ayaz, Khalid Ahmed and Akbar Subhani. Some Karachiites may remember their Manto dramatisations and also their association with the well known director Ali Ahmed's theatre group Natak which aimed to bring serious theatre to the people -- much as Sheema Kermani's Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women's Movement) has tried to do since 1981. Jafri was involved in the production of an early dramatisation of Ismat Chughtai's 'Dulhan Kaisi Hai' (How is the Bride), presented at Sir Syed College in Karachi, in around 1972. Zahra Mumtaz, who writes songs for children, was also involved in that production and happens to be the mother of the talented actress Mahvash Faruqi who ably portrayed the scheming, jealous Qamar Ara in 'Amar Bel'. Producing high-minded 'art with a purpose' is not always received enthusiastically. But Manto and Ismat Chughtai's engaging, everyday stories are different. For 'Kafir', Jafri steeped himself into the story and then 'squeezed out its juice'. He also shuffled it about and added scenes and dialogues that the original only references, he staying true to Ismat Apaís language, style and spirit. Ismat Chughtai tells her 'Kafir' story chronologically, starting with the childhood friendship between a Muslim girl, Munni, and a Hindu boy, Pushkar, ending with their elopement as young adults. Jafri's version starts by establishing the relationship between the adult 'Musalmanti' and 'Kafir' as they called each other during childhood squabbles, nicknames they now use as teasing endearments. There is a flashback to a string of childhood scenes, then forward to Pushkar finally convincing Munni to elope. The twenty minute play was well produced and acted but somehow unsatisfying perhaps because the conflict did not come across as strong enough. The two plays drew on Tehrik-e-Niswan's regular band of talented and committed actors. In 'Kafir', Asma Mundrawala and Salim Meraj transited from adults to children and back through subtle shifts in body language and deft touches in costume. One was reminded of the 'Gripps' plays in the 1980s and 90s that the late Yasmin Ismail directed, with regulars like K. Sajeeruddin, Faiza Kazi and Khalid Anam playing small children. Anwer Jafri, who occasionally did the sets for Gripps, brought a light touch to the recent Tehrik plays with minimal, evocative settings leaving much to the imagination, conveyed through lighting, mime and dialogue. Painter and art teacher Asma Mundrawala, the agile little Munni in 'Kafir' who grows up to be a defiantly strong firebrand (like Ismat Chughtai herself), was equally convincing in 'Amar Bel' as the resentful Noor Fatima, younger sister to Mahvash Faruqi's spiteful Qamar Ara. To her additional credit, Asma also deftly directed the engaging forty minute play using the unusual technique of some of the characters doubling as narrators. Sheema Kermani, as the catty Imtiazi Phuppo, does the initial narration, between sharp exchanges with the sisters who are looking for a suitable second wife for their adored older brother Shujaat Mian, a widower played by Saif Hasan. Saif Hasan as Shujaat Mian does the narration concerning his character's development -- or deterioration, rather. Hasan convincingly portrays the gradual transformation of infatuation to the impotent rage as the ageing Shujaat's lovely young bride Rukshana, like an evergreen 'Amar Bel' sapping the life out of an old tree, remains radiant and youthful even after the birth of two children and her own comical efforts to become fat and ugly. Another interesting directorial touch is that we never see the beautiful Rukshana. Her presence is tangible through Shujaat's baleful eyes following her as she returns subdued to her room after he viciously chastised her, or Qamar Ara's rebukes for running around with children chasing chickens. Both plays were punctuated by evocative musical extracts compiled by Zaheer Kidvai, the 'education technologist' who can always be counted on for any kind of support towards meaningful cultural efforts. Views of Kazakh artists reaffirm the western notions of the Orient, besides stating that we live in a world where ideologies and imaginations cannot be categorised easily By Quddus Mirza Not many people know that
Almaty is the name of a city in Kazakhstan. This unfamiliarity makes it a
perfect place to discuss ignorance of other kinds, usually termed as
Orientalism by Edward Said in his seminal work (under the same title, printed
in 1978). Hence, a conference on 'Eastern Despite the new realities, Orientalism is still considered a gospel among our academia. It is ironic that you may find various individuals who have heard of Said and the famous publication, but only a minority has actually read the work. Somehow in our intellectual world, the book is treated like a sacred text. In their zeal to find every phenomenon, under the vast shadow of Orientalism, majority of our intellectuals have a peculiar viewpoint towards the past. They reject history, denounce colonialism and criticise foreign intervention: of how the Imperialist rulers tried to subjugate and discredit the local conventions and culture. But colonialism had diverse shades in different cases. In comparison, the Spanish conquistadors wiped out the race, religion, language, dress and other customs of natives in America. However, the British rulers in India were not so ferocious. They introduced language, system of education and government, dress code and new forms of art, but more or less, the Indians retained their own cultural and religious practices. Although some of our ancestors opposed the British presence, ridiculed their practices and rejected their knowledge and inventions (so much so that riding on the locomotive -- satanic vehicle, was decreed an unfaithful act). Similarly, reformers like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan foresaw the need to embrace the Western civilisation and the necessity to excel in this area. A phenomenon that culminated in Indians becoming the leading authors of contemporary English literature! With this past, and a present confused about its placement, the classic debate on Orientalism has less relevance in today's reality. The separation of East and West needs to be re-examined. Actually with the advancement of technology -- in terms of media and communication, the previous notions of place and region are not applicable any more. For example, a person who is constantly communicating through electronic mail, has an address which does not specify a certain locality, nor is he dependant on being in one place in order to send or receive his messages. He can be travelling to Timbuktu, and still be connected to the rest of the world, without them having a clue to his whereabouts. This experience of globalisation has contributed towards transforming the practices of several artists in our surroundings. In some ways, they operate like multinationals. For example, (like our most celebrated artist, Rashid Rana), they conceive their work in one country, get it executed somewhere else, exhibit it in a third country, and the work is finally collected in the fourth country or continent. This fortunate situation for our artists, who have recognised the necessity to emerge out of their ghettos of national and regional confinements, has put the classical concept of Orientalism into a wider debate and disagreement. Now it is not only the West which is describing or having power over the East, but it is a world populated with Rushdies, Anish Kapoors, Laxmi Mittals and Birlas that are dominating the realm of art, literature and industry of their former colonial rulers. Under the circumstances, the artists from Central Asia face a dual dilemma. On the one hand, like Kazakh artists, they feel that that they belong to the Orient -- West of Europe -- and try to locate their roots with the other Asian nations, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and India. But simultaneously they are aware of their European/Russian connections. This duplicity was evident in the general discussion at the seminar, as well as in the exhibition that accompanied the conference on Eastern Orientalism. Majority of the works were executed during the Kazakh artists' travel to India where they participated in an exhibition of Central Asian Art, titled 'Destination Asia: Conversations I'. In the group show, titled 'Versions', currently being held through June 22 at Ular Gallery in Almaty, one finds videos, montages and digital prints, mainly inspired from their visit to South Asia. Videos showing the street life of Mumbai, pictures of coast and images of school children in Colaba district in Mumbai were the result of Kazakh artists' first encounter with India. In all these works, regardless of the medium or scale, one comes across a sense of narrative about the South Asia. It deals with the preconceived image of India in the mind of the West: greatly populated, poor, peasant and pathetic (all the ideas, which can be spotted in the pictures and writings of European visitors throughout the centuries). Even recently, the same face of India is being projected negating its economic and industrial growth. Recent developments in the urban centre, large buildings and the metropolitan culture have never been the real subjects for a Western visitor. In a similar way, when the Central Asian artists portrayed India, they saw in the same light as it was represented by many before. Half starved school girls standing against a wall with barbed wire, vendors of fruit on the beach and people crouching on the crowded alleys of Mumbai appear to be favourite themes for the artists from Kazakhstan. However, one cannot blame them for this approach, since this is the archetype of India well rooted in majority's minds. The approach of these artists may be equated with the Orientalist mindset, but one must admit that the cultural encounters of this sort (no matter how politically incorrect these are) have always added to the narrative about other people and practices. Not only the old Orientalists, but several nations and groups have been defining others in the history of mankind, such as the Vedic Aryans mentioning the desi population from Harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro, the Nazi literature describing Jewish characters, and the chronicles of Columbus about the natives from the cost of Caribbean. All these chronicles, whether true or false, have enriched a wider body of knowledge. Probably this act is in harmony with the essence of creative activity, because it also provides an occasion to move beyond one's self and visualise something else -- something which may not exist in reality, but it resides in the imagination of the artists or writers (such as a character of Shakespeare that demands a piece of flesh for his money; Borges' reconstruction of tales from Arabian Nights and Intezar Hussian's appropriation of the Old Testament's episodes). All these texts are attempts to imagine the other but are actually the extension of general ideas of their age. In that respect, the views of India, recorded by Kazakh artists, reaffirm the Western notions of the Orient, but these simultaneously prove that we live in a world where ideas, ideologies and imaginations cannot be categorised easily as the national boundaries or a system of thought - even if it happens to be Orientalism. RPTW's freshly created Peer Artists Management seeks to build a positive image of the country abroad By Sarwat
Ali There have been desperate
cries from within sections of the population and the government that The world itself is curious about the Muslims. About thirty years ago everything went ethno and ethnomusicology became the most vibrant branch of musicology but in the last twenty odd years everything Muslim has come under intense scrutiny. Music and performing arts of these lands are now an area of intense curiosity because of its survival under paradoxical conditions. The government on its own may have geared up to project an image of the country but no government has the resources and the expertise to take on this task exclusively on its own. Even the most all pervasive governments in the course of the 20th century in accepting the challenge and taking up the task only landed up by projecting a very propaganda laden refurbishment of their country's image which in the larger context proved to be counterproductive. Usually with countries and with organisations the media is expected to work magic and fabricate a positive image irrespective of the ground realities. If a particular company is not doing well and its products are not up to the required standards the media is expected to gloss over the faults and sing praises on the goodness and greatness of the enterprise. Especially in media that is independent such management and selective control becomes difficult to handle and its repercussions very dicey to project and forecast. If the law and order situation in the country is not good, if the state institutions are twisted to personal gains, then no amount of positive media projection will achieve the desired objective. Actually it will end up by being counterproductive. But if one side of the country is projected without papering over the problems and institutional limitations then there might be a possibility of the results not boomeranging. We know that the country has been earning a very negative image since a very long time and it has been judged variously in loaded jargon but the other side of Pakistan has not really been projected. This has had an adverse effect on the cultural life of the country. Exposure to the outside world and the opening that it affords to artists can help in sustaining them financially and providing for them in situations when the domestic conditions do not allow so. For most of the Pakistani artists the local market has done precious little. There were the local fairs and the local circus where the artists performed and it provided just enough for them, they survived and subsisted because they had limited choice. The film industry that paid more has been in a state of decline for the past three decades, and television and radio never paid enough serving more as platforms for greater exposure rather than providing for decent living standards. It was left to the opening up of the world market and bigger audiences but somehow that was always ill-managed. The government took no real initiative and the private sector being very informal was not structured to take on the assignments. It was haphazard, chaotic with many such companies flying by night that ended up by abandoning the artists and decamping with whatever cash there would be. These promoters mushroomed over the decades as the Pakistani diaspora became more confident and wealthier to assert its culture in countries of its adopted residence. Now the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, has taken on the task by creating a special section in their organisation to project the image of the country abroad through performances and shows. Their group has been traveling abroad and holding shows, participating in festivals and arranging programmes all over the world and has decided that it is the right time to move in a more concerted manner. They have earmarked a large number of artists, especially musicians and dancers, printed a catalogue with their essential credentials to make the foreign festival directors and organisers aware of the talent available in the county at one glance. It is also accompanied by Cds and Dvds with tracks of the artists performances included in the brochure. The Peer Artists Management (PAM) has been created "for the promotion of indigenous, folk, devotional, classical and semi-classical music of Pakistan. It aims to promote upcoming artists and develop collaborative projects through its rich network of international contacts -- it plans to focus on artists from rural, remote areas and upcoming musicians." The brochure has information about one hundred and fifty artists with an accompanying CD sampling their music. It has also announced the launch of Pakistan Music Awards which will be awarded to outstanding musicians in categories previously omitted by the mainstream awards. The problem in Pakistan has been of patronage as the old system of patronage suddenly disappeared overnight at independence. The state did its bit but was not prepared for the awesome task and since the performing arts has been on the limb; surviving on the sheer gut and persistence of the performers, the result was that the art was not transmitted to the next generations in any structured manner. It has been chaotic and it has grown on its own in hundred different directions. But in Pakistan we have become conditioned to seeing a silver lining in every dark ominous patch of cloud and sensing an opportunity in every blunder. This lack of structure ushered in unbridled experimentation. There has been more diversity in music and the performing arts in the country which is the continuation of the diversity that already exists in society. This new diversity has added to the multiplicity of voices and styles that already exist and has added more shades to the spectrum. More exposure abroad will definitively help in building the asset base of the country's art and will foster institutions of learning, training and resource building. The finances earned can be properly channelised rather than fritted away in extravagance. The country can benefit not only by projecting a positive image abroad but by building the art and culture infrastructure of the country. It is the creative health of the people that we all should be more concerned about rather than how we appear to others. How we appear to ourselves and our own fulfillment should be the two sides of the same coin rather than being treated as two separate issues. The artists should be treated with respect and the arts taken more seriously than mere entertainment and if it is asking for too much then we should remind ourselves that optimism is one state that has never failed us.
Dear all,I am in the midst of reading a book called 'Diary of a Demented Housewife'. The title itself has provoked much mirth in those who have glimpsed it lying around the house. I picked it up at Karachi airport because I thought it had the potential to make me laugh, and as I have mentioned before I love books that can make me do that (P G Wodehouse, Sue Townsend, Helen Fielding are the authors to be relied on for hilarity). Anyhow, it is quite fun
reading because basically it catalogues that slightly crazed phase of a It is a difficult phase, which one often gets through one day at a time, and which is marked by achievements such as potty training, teething and so on. What is interesting is how this phase is now featuring in so much contemporary writing. Over the past two decades we have tended to adopt a rather different approach to parenting and family, with much more emphasis being placed on a hands-on, emotionally engaged approach. Advances in employment legislation (in the west, at least) encourage people to take maternity and paternity leave, and are a recognition of the fact that families are important and part of an employee's life. Many educated, successful professional women still opt to take years out of their career in order to spend their children's early years looking after them full time, but now, as 'career breaks' are becoming much more common, these women are (hoepfuly) less akward about going back to work and demanding professional advancement. When you are looking after small children, there are times when you feel slightly sub-human. Their schedule also tends to make one feel very trapped. I remember being so fed up (at a stage of my life when I seemed unable to get back into the workplace) that I actually started ticking 'yes' on the application question which asked 'Do you have a disability?' and then writing: 'I have children'. These new realities of parents and families have resulted in a rather entertaining genre of fiction: there are the 'yummy mummy' columns of the Times which have now made it to book form, there is Alison Pearson's "I Don't Know How She Does It' , India Knight's 'My Life on a Plate', Owen Wittaker's 'The Househusband' to mention just a few. Of course these themes feature in other weightier, more complex works as well, but it is the lighthearted, humourous works which really serve to reassure us, to convey the fact that this is a phase in life -- it is manic as well as mundane and but most of us go through it-- we are not alone and therefore we should be able to laugh at all its little absurdities.And having recognised that we can enjoy our demanding, annoying families, muddle through it all and pat ourselves on our backs for every little achievement! Best Wishes
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rusticated all 23 (15 girls and 8 boys) Ahmadi students from college as well
as hostels with immediate effect. The decision was taken after some 1000
students of the college encircled the principal's office and demanded the
expulsion of all Ahmadi students from the college. The students' anger
against the Ahmadi students was a consequence of rumours that they were
preaching their religion in the college and were involved in tearing up
posters related to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).
have been suspended. The word 'rustication' was used only to cool down those
who did not want Ahmadis in the college. At that time there was no other
option. The students were extremely emotional. The Ahmadi students are
suspended for 10 days and after the inquiry, if found innocent, they will be
allowed to come back to college."
ka Khatma' in 1958, produced on Manto's death anniversary by none other than
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, then director of the Lahore Arts Council) but we've seen
little of 'Ismat Apa' on stage in Pakistan. Tehrik-e-Niswan's production of
her 'Kafir' and 'Amar Bel' at the Karachi Arts Council, June 7-9, was a
welcome move, particularly given the overall excellence of the production.
Orientalism' was held in Almaty and several critics and cultural theorists
were invited to share their views. While many mentioned Said and his thought,
only a few were able to understand that the book was written some 30 years
ago and after all that time -- with the break of Soviet Union, Eastern Europe
joining NATO, and with Japan, China, India and other booming economies of
South East Asia, the world is no more divided between East and West or into
Orient and Occident.
the negative image of the country can only be countered by giving adequate
space to positive happenings in Pakistan in the international media and other
cultural forums.
woman's life when she is looking after small children, trying to manage the
house, trying not to alienate the husband with her tiredness and complaints,
while also trying to remind herself that she still has a personality, a
potential career and a brain (which might kick into action once the children
start full time school).