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debate review Prime
objection Death
of an instrument
debate In the imaginary
contest for the title of, ‘Daughter of the Nation’, both Afia Siddiqui
and Malala Yousafzai have been nominated for this one-dimensional status. As
a ‘reward’, they get to serve and bear the burden of nationhood and
Islam, progress and modernity. They have become valuable symbols for
masculinist politics to elicit political sympathy and lucrative funds. The reason Afia and Malala
lend themselves to political opportunism is that their cases have been made
exceptional — as extensions of the main (male) actors on both sides of the
war on terror. More important than the violation of their individual rights,
both women have come to represent the abstract values and false divisions of
Islamic discontent vs US Imperialism. To pick certain cases of
violence against women as exceptional, is directly contradictory to the
claims of local feminists, who argue that all forms of violence against
women are systemic, connected and benefit men primarily. Making women into
symbols or objects of honour, nation, Islam or modernity allows perpetrators
to attack them with impunity and for the larger imagined cause. The violence
then is no longer seen as a crime against the individual but instead, as an
act of male heroism. The debate over Malala has
entered a similar domain. Some sceptics feel compelled to qualify absolute
support for Malala or her cause for female education and emancipation
because they see her and her ‘agenda’ as pro-US, liberal, secular
purposes and supposedly, anti-Islamic ends. Some critics protest the use of
Malala as a metaphorical ‘child soldier’ for the State in the war on
terror. The trouble is that this analysis does not help the very real child
soldier of the jihadist narrative. Most of all, such analysis does not
account for the gendered nature of violence against women who are targeted
by states at war with each other or indeed, during intra-state insurgencies
and conflict. Unfortunately, it is not
just the government, military, domestic and international politicians who
are milking advantage from both sides of the Malala narrative. Increasingly,
international academics, analysts and cyber-activists have found her case a
useful subject matter too. Many of these voyeuristic commentators are not
necessarily invested in the issue of violence against women or human rights
abuse in Pakistan. Instead, they find the symbolic value of such cases
useful for their own thesis and political positioning in the abstract world
of academia and cyber space. Such commentary also relies on Malala the
metaphor, rather than the criminal act perpetrated against her. By setting up a moral
equivalence between Malala and drone victims, such analysis suggests that
the Taliban are simply vengeful victims of US imperialism and drone attacks
and the Taliban’s militancy is only in reference to the war on terror.
This apologia was also present in the case of the cell phone video of the
flogging of Chand Bibi, broadcasted on YouTube, which was called a hoax and
‘sensationalised’. The suggestion is that actually, life is just as good
or bad as anywhere else, as it is for women living in the context of
religious-militancy. Just like the political conservatives, such
commentators also, conveniently, never discuss the routine life under the
Taliban regime or according to tribal codes. Nor is there analysis of the
outcome of the Swat take-over by the Taliban — the public hangings of
dancing girls, stoning cases of suspected adulterous women and severe
restrictions on mobility. Such deliberate myopia and
dishonest intellectual commentary is matched only by the cries of the
bleeding heart liberals who insist that, “We Are All Malalas”. This is
an equally delusional proposal that emerges from a certain sector of the
chattering classes. The fact is, we are NOT all Malalas and neither she nor
Afia, are daughters of anyone other than their own parents. Victims of drone
attacks are not Malalas either and neither are they ‘collateral damage’
of liberal-secular imperialism. On the other hand, Malala’s perceived
liberal and/or secular agenda is in fact, a very real threat. Female
mobility, autonomy and freedoms of expression that are not determined by men
or not according to male-prescribed religion and culture, are foremost
threats to all forms of patriarchies and male social control — many of
which are sanctioned by religious laws and state collusion. The dangers of moral
equivalence and competing nationalisms are that, they reduce women to pawns
rather than respect them as individuals. Such ‘reasoning’ suggests that
the rapes of Bangladeshi women in 1971 should be seen in ‘the context’
of the war and nationalist fervour and as a defence against Indian hegemony
and should somehow be exonerated in view of the reprisal attacks by the
Mukhti Bahini. Consider the danger in arguments like this in the context of
Karachi and Bombay, where the fires of ethnic and religious resentment
simmer constantly. The rape of a woman of one community can become
justification for an internecine war. In the battlefield of male
ethnic/national power games, the crime against the woman is erased and the
systemic regularity of intra-community rape and domestic violence is made
invisible. Justice for victims will be diluted and impossible if we always
engage in moral equivalence. An accurate analytical
framework is critical because otherwise, the act of making Woman into a
symbol — of nation, religion or progress — makes her exceptional, more
than human and into an object. It also makes all other women invisible and
the violations against them worth — less. If we de-value the attack
against Malala by equating it with all other crimes or even, by saying that
all of us (not victims) are like her, it is to normalise the crime. Drone
victims are victims but, however horrific, of a different nature and must be
protested accordingly. Gender violence has a very
targeted, specific, yet multi-purpose benefit. To merge all crimes into one
block, simply for the convenience of proving our hypothesis, is the most
arrogant disservice we can offer all the victims. Such academic engagements
enable us to dabble in long-distance politics from urban centres and the
diasporas but do nothing for the immediate, small-scale and routine threats
that women negotiate on a daily basis. What is the responsible
way of analysing the Malala case? Perhaps we should learn from those girls
at Malala’s school who are refusing to be merged into a one-dimensional
entity. By resisting the re-naming of their school as a tribute to Malala
they are resisting the idea of an imposed identity. They are refusing to be
held up as some anonymous, ubiquitous collective of “All Malalas”, who
are seen either as agents of US imperialism or responsible for protecting
the nation from religious militancy. Strangely, they pay the best tribute to
the cause of education and women’s emancipation by demonstrating that they
are not symbols but individuals who can think as individuals rather than be
locked into some collective symbolism that serves every one’s purpose
except their own.
review Umberto Eco in his
essay, “Do Children have Bad Effect on Television” discusses
how reality is altered so it can be represented effectively. This phenomenon
is not restricted to the electronic media; many other forms and formats of
culture and creative expressions also turn into experiments of that sort. One such exercise was the
recently held exhibition Ussman aur Mein (December 13–22, 2012)
at the Koel Gallery in Karachi. Artists were asked to work on the pieces
left by the late artist Usman Ghouri, or to use his imagery in their work.
About 67 artists responded by incorporating his prints and including some of
his recurring motifs in their art pieces. Hence emerged a collaboration
between two persons, or between two worlds: the realm of the living and the
dead. When Ghouri made those works (which remained unfinished due to his
untimely demise), he could not have imagined that another individual would
be completing what he had initiated. Artists do work in close
relationships and there are many forms of interactions: physical, material,
technical, conceptual etc. Sometimes, they paint on a single piece by taking
turns; at other times, they make their separate works in response to each
other. They can also collaborate by influencing each other through
discussion and criticism. But the connection in Ussman aur Mein seems
unique since it was a dialogue between life and death. The motive behind the
collaboration was basically to support the family of the departed artist, a
significant endeavour since none of our official organisations established
for the benefit of the artists performs its duty. The artists and
gallery’s efforts to help one of their colleagues is commendable. Usman
Ghouri was a likeable person, an enthusiastic teacher and a hardworking
artist, but his status as an artist is yet to be determined; not only Ghouri
but every practitioner of art has to go through that test of time.
Sometimes, unexpected factors, unforeseen appraisal and hype play a major
role in raising the worth of an artist. Mostly, this revisionism is based on
the artist’s concepts, method or his response to the surroundings (all of
this, in some cases, is understood after that era has gone). Death, certainly, is not
counted among the reasons that promote a minor artist into the league of
great names. Death does create a sensation and interest but it is temporary.
It cannot impact the standing of an artist for long. It appears that the
interest in Usman Ghouri’s art owes itself to his death. He had studied in
Australia, held his shows and taught at the Indus Valley School of Art and
Architecture but, by and large, his sensibility was that of someone who
picks, rearranges, refurbishes and presents. In that sense, he was not alone
because many artists begin their career in this manner, till they reach a
stage which they can claim to have found their individual, unique voice. Ussman Ghouri,
unfortunately, had yet to attain that level when the angel of death took him
away. His work, left at galleries and elsewhere, reflects the artist’s
surge to find his own vocabulary but, in order to get to that state, he was
relying on a set of typical visuals and techniques. A majority of the
artists in the show had to deal with certain motifs such as fish,
almond-like shape, dots weaved in tapestry, lines of text on a page and
print of a man with naked waist. Many artists tried to extend these images,
change them and add other forms to make a balanced visual, linking it with
the artist and their own aesthetic practice. One notices how hard it must
have been to achieve a perfect or sophisticated synthesis since, in most
works, the fish popped up, no matter if it was the sculpture pieces by Abdul
Jabbar Gull or mixed media works by Rabia Jalil and likes. Similarly, the
half-dressed male appeared in works by Anwar Saeed, Afshar Malik and others,
but the merger was not impressive. Ghouri’s imagery and
influence seems hovering over the works of our incredibly interesting
artists; while the real task for them was to get away from the shadow of
Usman Ghouri and create works which were in response to his imagery but with
independence of thought and maturity of formal resolution. In that sense, only a few
works were able to liberate themselves from the burden of duty, and survive
independently; for example‘Mistress of Spice’ by Salima Hashmi, ‘The
Squares’ by Saba Khan and ‘Look in to Look out’ by
Ameen J, works which do have roots in his work, yet do not explicitly
declare that link. In a way, these works
prove that artists could always liberate themselves from their prescribed
roles and offer something which is not only a service to the dead artist and
his family but also to art.
Prime
objection The recent issue
regarding airing of foreign dramas on Pakistani channels has rung up bells,
gongs and what not, of concern and alarm among artistes and producers. “It’s important to
understand what we are most concerned about; it definitely is not the
competition, has very little to do with the content of foreign drama, and
has everything to do with the economics of a level playing field vis-à-vis
local and international entertainment production”, says Humayun Saeed. Their prime objection, at
least for now, is that these imported productions should not be aired at
prime time as it is going to cause a collateral collapse of the local
television industry. An elaborate and animated
press conference, by a star-studded cast including Chairman Rashid Khwaja,
Asif Raza Mir, Humayun Saeed, Saba Hameed and Mustafa Qureshi, was held to
voice the reservation of the United Producers Association (UPA), which is a
registered trade body. Their demand is that the
Federal Government and the Pakistan Electronic Media regulatory Authority (PEMRA)
should take immediate action to regulate the influx of foreign dubbed
content on TV channels as it is directly affecting the local television
industry. The problem with this
demand, however, is that it is beyond Pemra’s scope of work to devise or
implement such a policy, explained Zahid Nadeem, Deputy General Manager
Pemra. “Pemra rules delineate that any Pakistani Channel has the
discretion of airing ten percent foreign content. It is strictly the choice
of the channel as to which country’s content it wants to air and at what
time. It is for the market forces to decide the factors UPA wants Pemra to
regulate,” explains Nadeem. The absence of a framework
that provides protection to the local television industry is the very reason
this issue has surfaced in the first place. In most countries of the
world, local production is not only groomed under a loose garb of
protectionism, but this protection of television entertainment is used to
enhance tourism and employment. Canada is one such country, where if one
needs to air content on a Canadian channel one needs to have a specific
proportion of cast/crew of Canadian origin and/or the content be shot in
Canada. India too practices a
stringent policy regarding content aired on indigenous channels at prime
time. The question therefore is what unsurpassable economic or technical
expertise our local television production industry has that merits no
protection in this regard. It can be argued that the
local television industry has kept up some quality standards, especially
those of soap-operas and dramas. With the advent of private channels and a
much wider canvas to exhibit on, the industry has seen a boom in terms of
economic activity, employment and even a range of innovations. That precisely is the
reason Humayun Saeed believes this industry needs protection. “The
significant growth in amount of capital, human resource and infrastructure
this industry has employed will collapse if their prime time is replaced by
cheaply-bought decades-old foreign dubbed dramas,” he says. “Although it
might sound a little out of place but it’s like a thrift shop up against
new garments; and not just that, you are throwing the local producers out of
the market to sell their product on sidewalks while giving the thrift shop a
prime outlet in the top markets,” says Director Syed Faisal Bukhari. ‘The most alarming fact
is that six on-air serials have been taken off the air to make way for
foreign dubbed content,” says veteran film and television artiste Mustafa
Qureshi. “It is a conspiracy to crush local entertainment industry in all
its forms. When the film industry was ambushed, nobody agreed with us but
it’s only now that the television producers have realised when they’ve
had to take the same heat.” Is it glamour and
skin-show among the prime reasons for high viewership of these dramas? And
is this all that the audience yearns for? Senior artiste Samina Ahmed
disagrees. “The science and theory of viewership lays it out plainly that
you can create viewership of a particular genre which might not reflect a
community’s aspirations and norms”, she says. “Prime time, in addition
to its monetary significance, is also important as this is the time when
families gather in front of the television screens; they desire content that
they can relate to and connect to, not what would create an air of
uneasiness in the TV lounge.” Ahmed identifies the basic
problem is that Pemra, in devising a mechanism that deals only with the
channel owners, very conveniently forgot the main production hub, where all
infrastructure and employment is hinged. “PEMRA needs to reconsider its
modus-operandi and must reform this system by bringing UPA on board all
decisions that might in any way affect the television industry.” Algoza is an
instrument synonymous with the music of the middle and lower Indus valley
and when an exponent of that instrument dies it is like losing the
representative sound of that particular area or land. Allah Bachayo Khoso’s
loss is more poignant because the traditional instruments are going out of
use. The instruments made from natural material that produced natural sounds
are being replaced rapidly by computer generated sounds. Soon, if not
already, acoustic instruments will become history and the great musicians
only to be remembered in a museum like hall of fame. So the death of Allah
Bachayo Khoso was not only the death of a great musician but also the death
of an instrument. It also means saying adieu to an age that lasted as long
as mankind’s collective memory. Probably the entire evolution of our
species has been documented by the musical expression that accompanied it in
its periods of highs and lows, all manifested in natural sound. It is not an oddity to say
the instrument became an extension of the body of the musician. They lived
with it, ate with it and breathed with it. It is impossible to think of
Bismillah Khan without the shehnai, Vilayat Khan without the sitar or Sain
Marna without the aiktara. In the case of Sindhi
musicians, perhaps, algoza is the nearest to an extension of their self. In the past, there has
always been a two-way interaction between the more standardised musical
expressions manifested in the classical tradition and the more localised
forms which were in comparison much more varied and diverse. But the
intervention of technology, both in the production of sound and in making a
mockery of distances, is a totally new stage in human development with no
precedent to fall back upon. All regions, till the mad
rush of globalisation, had their distinct sounds, made universal by their
being moulded into a musical ang. It was discernible when a note was struck
or sung by a Rajisthani, a Bengali or a Punjabi. Similarly, the instruments
too developed which could play so with greatest evocation. Some of the
instruments are identifiable with the regions and the sound creates the
ethos of the land. Classical tradition
extended over a reasonable swathe of land with a reasonable diversity of
people. But it was limited to an area. This new form of standardisation
which extends possibly to cover the entire globe is fascinating and poses a
few challenges as well. The most crucial being the revision of the
established canons for the evaluation of music. Algoza is a difficult
instrument to play because the two reed pipes have to be blown into
simultaneously. The one reed pipe maintains the tonic note, that it acts
like a drone so to say, and the other has the facility of playing the melody
on it. It requires great effort and constant riaz in blowing uninterruptedly
into the two pipes. It can really strain the lungs. It is said that in one
such marathon session of playing, Allah Bachayo Khoso felt unwell and was
short of breath. He was later diagnosed with asthma which is like sounding
the death knell for a musician who plays any wind instrument. Some great algoza players
have been born in Sindh. Khamiso Khan and Misri Khan Jamali come to mind;
they enchanted their audiences by playing the traditional modes of Sindh
called surs. Shah Lateef had selected 17 from Sindhi folk music: Samundi,
Abri, Madhoor, Kohiyaree, Rana, Khahoree, Rip, Lilan, Dahar, Kapaitee,
Pirbhati, Ghatu, Seenh Kadaro, Marui, Dhol Maru, Hir and Karayal. It was the good fortune of
Allah Bachayo Khoso that he benefited from the intuitive application of the
note and the deep understanding of the particularities of that musical form
of the above mentioned ustads. Born in 1935, Khoso rose
to fame in 1976 after he was introduced by Radio Pakistan. His playing was
recorded on numerous occasions by the radio and though he couldn’t get a
Pride of Performance, he was presented with the Bhittai Award which is the
highest award in Sindh. His best came out when he
was accompanied by Nazeer Khan on the tabla, Mohammad Areeb on the dambora
and Mitha Khan Zardari on the ghara. Such an event was a treat to hear and
watch for algoza lovers. One wonders how many
competent algoza players are around. One knows of Akbar Khamiso Khan who is
carrying the tradition of his family. The fortunate part is that one of
Khoso’s sons, Arbab, is into playing the algoza. He learnt the art from
his father and decided to stick with the instrument despite changing times.
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