KARACHI: Cultural festival on human rights inaugurated
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Sept 6: A large number of people were entertained and informed regarding various human rights issues at the inaugural function of a three-day cultural festival
, jointly organized by three non-governmental organizations, at a local hotel late on Sunday night.
The festival with a theme of 'cultural action for change' is being organized jointly by the Action aid, DASTAK, and the Interactive Resource Centre. Dr Fauzia Saeed, Khalid Ahmad, and Mohammad Waseem of the Action aid spoke at the function.
The speakers said that over 40 participants, including artists, folk singers and musicians, belonging to the Indian state of Rajasthan, who were to join the festival, could not come as they could not get visas.
They said that various Indian ministries were approached, but the visas for the Indian participants could not be arranged. They said that they could not understand why the government, despite it's repeated announcements that the relations between the two neighbouring countries were fast improving, did not give the visas to the artists to participate in such annual events.
They said that their organizations worked with the 'marginalized' communities to secure their identity, cultural heritage and their right to empowerment to fight against poverty.
They said that by promoting and using cultural tools, various forms of poverty could be simplified and people could be mobilized to attain social cohesion. They said that their organization's country strategy "Fighting poverty together" attempts to addressed attitudes related to social hierarchies that had been internalized by the poor and the marginalized.
The first session of the festival comprised storytelling by Sanwal Faqir and his friends, belonging to the Johi Group. They presented a play "Aaj Ki Marvi" (Today's Marvi). They first told the story of a brave folklore character, Marvi, who was kidnapped by a ruler, Umer. She never gave in to desires of her captor, and was later freed by him.
The group, pointing out the plight of the girls in those days, highlighted a socio-cultural menace, child marriage, prevailing in certain sections of the society even today.
They depicted the plight of a 12-year-old girl, whose father, in his bid to repay a loan to a moneylender, agreed to marry off his child to an 80-year-old man. The father was called by a group of elders and was told a story, in which a monkey had refused to sell her kid. The father agreed to cancel the proposed marriage and sent his daughter to a school, the storytellers related.
The session ended with Sanwal Faqir and his group singing various folk songs, while youngsters from among the audience came to the stage and danced along with the performers.
Two other stories were depicted in the form of interactive theatre in the second session of the festival. The first one, presented by the members of the Pakistan Fisher folk Forum, depicted the adverse effects of spillage from an oil tanker, Tasman Spirit, in the Karachi harbour's entrance channel that threatened the marine environment as well as the coastal communities, fishermen being one of the most affected.
The fishermen then invited some people from the audience as characters, and asked them to suggest some solution to their issue. Some of the audience came up to the stage and gave their suggestions regarding how the fishermen could solve their issues.
Another group, the Kook Theatre and IRC, presented a play depicting a true story of the struggle of a woman, Bilquis, who was married off when she was just 14 to an older man.
Soon her husband died of a chronic disease, and she was told to leave the house as her in-laws could not support her and her children. She decided to support her children by stitching clothes.
When her daughter completes class five, the mother, in a bid to support her daughter's ambition for further education, as there was no secondary school in the area, approached education minister, who dismissed her request.
Bilquis decided to run for the council lorship to improve matters herself. The narrow-minded people, who thought it was immoral for a woman to run for a public office, attacked her integrity and slandered her to such an extent that she was demoralized and resigned to her fate, and that of her daughter.
