SA
few nights ago, while awake at an ungodly hour, I watched the BBC
unfold a familiar story. "There has been another bomb blast
in Pakistan in the Northern city of Peshawar," announced the
News anchor in a rehearsed voice. My London home, seemingly cocooned
from such stark day-to-day realities, is suddenly filled with wounded
images of the country I still, and always will, call my home. It
is a haunted moment that has been repeated far too often of late.
I can also bet my bottom dollar that this is also the only picture
of Pakistan most people living this side of the North-South divide
are ever going to see.
The news is the news you might say, but nothing on the electronic
media is the whole truth. There is always a slant, a tone and an
inferred conclusion. The clarity of blood and guts packaged into
gory headlines confirms existing Western notions of Pakistan as
a country that seems wild-eyed, unruly and bearded. The curtain
is pulled back dramatically: Behold, ladies and gentlemen, "the
most dangerous country in the world." That brilliant interplay
of words and preconception, straight from the cover of The Economist,
has branded Pakistan more definitively in the West than any multimillion
dollar marketing campaign from Saatchi and Saatchi ever could have.
That Pakistan is struggling against the odds, is beleaguered by
political fracturing and blighted by terrorism cannot be denied.
That it is being presented as that and that alone, however, is cause
for alarm.
 Cut
to another channel and a seemingly different picture. The Tonight
Show on NBC used to be one of the most watched shows on American
television. In recent months, replacing the popular Jay Leno with
the rather less wholesome Conan O'Brien has seen a startling drop
in the ratings for the show. I watch O'Brien trying hard to warm
up the audience, which should be easier since he no longer hosts
the Late Show from New York and has moved to the sunnier climes
of California. One joke does better than many. Has the audience
heard about Pakistan Fashion Week? (Much laughter, O'Brien knows
he is on to a good thing). Apparently they are showing the newest
collection of Burqas on the catwalk, he says! O'Brien then proceeds
to put his hands, goggle-like around his eyes to emphasize his point,
and the audience responds with applause. It would be hard not to
laugh; even if we as a nation often find it hard to laugh at ourselves
and even harder to join in when we are being laughed at. But you
see, the problem isn't that Conan O'Brien made a joke about Pakistan.
The problem wasn't even that he made the wrong joke (which he did).
The real problem was that this was the only joke he could make or
indeed could think of making, and the only joke the American audience
that watches his show would actually get. Taliban, burqas, and bombings
- it is all easily bundled up together into a convenient picture.
It's familiar. It's convenient, and best of all - it sells.
The fact of the matter is, we have been hijacked. Even the smallest
companies in the world have some sort of marketing department. But
as a country Pakistan, it seems, is largely content to sit back
and let others do the talking. Or when we do talk, we are edited
to suit the angle. Pakistan Fashion Week organizer Tammy Haq's remark
that the event was "a gesture in defiance of the Taliban,"
has been highlighted ad nauseam in every Western publication, whereas
the real purpose of any Fashion week should really be to garner
buyer interest and procure orders. I am sure Haq said a lot more
besides, but this was the one quote that fitted reports filed largely
by foreign political correspondents on a day trip from Islamabad.
One hardly expects commercial events to be political manifestos
at large but some designers like Sonya Battla for instance, explored
complex themes such as "Conflict in Karachi" and female
strength with vigour, Maheen Khan's sweeter homage to Swat - ravaged
battleground of the Taliban - worked on a gentler level, and Ismail
Farid's salute to military attire was aggressively provocative.
The contextual tone of these collections certainly carried political
weight.
In either case, Tammy Haq did well to manipulate the Western media
as effectively as it usually does us; while the Taliban angle may
have detracted from a discussion of the collections presented on
their own merits, it certainly got Pakistani fashion more newspaper
space in the USA and UK then it has done in all its years of existence
put together. If Pakistani designers are able to convert this widespread
interest into some real business prospects, then we - and the money
- are really talking.
Clearly Conan O'Brien doesn't read newspapers. In his mind, and
by proxy, in the minds of those who watch him, Pakistan is a land
of burqa-shrouded women, a faraway place with predictable sartorial
tastes. And so I decided to write an email to The Tonight Show (reproduced
here) objecting - albeit almost tongue in cheek - to the short-sightedness
of his remarks. The enormous feedback to what has now become a widely
circulated email was quite unexpected. People have pasted it to
their Facebook pages and sent it on to thousands of friends. My
inbox is flooded, and the debate has continued unabated through
the viral impact of social media. So what if the Tonight Show and
Conan O'Brien have not as yet deigned to answer - we've taken the
reins in our own hands and boy does it feel good.
Amidst the brouhaha there have also been some words of caution:
Saira Abbas from the UAE wrote that while she totally agreed with
the points in the email, she felt that wearing the burqa was "a
choice" and it might even be a solid business proposition for
an industrious fashion designer. While I for one have no desire
to see either fashionable burqas or the chadars we wrapped around
us in the late 70's make a comeback, I think we should have the
imagination, liberalism and grace to embrace that sometimes we may
see on catwalks what we personally wouldn't like, but allow it to
happen regardless because someone, somewhere might want to buy it.
Let artists paint, journalists and writers write, and designers
design what they will and face review and critique but not dictates
and censorship. We have had far too many years of that happening
via successive Pakistani regimes already. The debate of whether
fashion should reflect local values and/or a designer's own creative
impulse and/or the market will continue. Certainly these are issues
that designers must resolve primarily by themselves. I'm not sure
that telling artists they should only paint Pakistani landscapes
or designers they should only design what we think fits in with
our cultural and social context is productive.
But if women have a right to wear the burqa I also reserve the right
to burn mine in protest outside the Tonight Show studio to finally
get some attention! Of course I'd have to get one first and buy
a ticket to LA but if you want to save me the hassle perhaps you
could email NBC's affiliate in Pakistan at info@ cnbcpakistan.com
and suggest this as a way the Tonight Show can make up for their
blooper: Invite a few Pakistani designers on to the show in Universal
City and let us show you what we can do. Saves me buying a burqa
- after all there is a credit crunch going on.…
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