THAT Pakistan appears spilt along cultural lines, in addition to socio-economic and class-based divides, has of late come under increasing debate.

Generally, popular culture is held to refer to that of the “the masses”, which is understood to be different from “high culture”, relating to the cultural practices of the elites. Between the two lie differences of context, content and expression, even location.

The country’s media, which can play an instrumental role in exploring and reconciling these apparently divergent streams, have themselves chosen one or the other path. Where some media gurus bemoan what they call the “poor quality” of Pakistani television – low technical standards, slapdash scripting, etc – other commentators love predicting hell-fire for the proponents of “obscenity, vulgarity and falling moral standards”. At the root of the debate is Pakistan’s poor handmaiden, Culture, which no one can quite abandon and yet everyone is ashamed to own. Where lies the difference between “Pakistani” and “foreign” culture, is the question asked. And, dare we abandon what’s “ours” for what’s “theirs”?

The answer is so simple that it appears to have been missed entirely. Culture is not a unitary entity. There is no such thing as “Pakistani” culture and it can certainly never be billed in a fight versus some other culture. Culture evolves by taking cues from everything it is exposed to, and is therefore – as anthropologists through the ages have found to their chagrin – notoriously hard to pin down.

It may be tempting to dismiss the arguments for either kind of culture as uninformed or myopic. But such cultural confusion is common to all colonised nations, as is the ruling classes’ tendency to condemn popular or indigenous cultural roots — the exception being when the indigenous culture is of a pre-colonised age, such as Sufi practices. As Ashis Nandy wrote, “none have emerged from colonialism culturally unscathed” and “when the West was partly internalised during the colonial period, its cultural stratarchy and arrogance, too, was internalised by important sections of the colonised societies.”

Remember the old joke about decolonisation replacing the white sahib log with the brown ones? Sixty years later, Pakistan is still largely ruled by interest groups that have, at root, the British to thank for their status.

The problem lies not in culture but in access. Quality in the media depends on (technical) production values and content. The most thought-provoking documentary, if badly edited or poorly rendered, will not impress. The most meaningful newspaper commentary, if presented on an inside page surrounded by ads, will rarely be read.

The irony in Pakistan is that the people who have the technical and aesthetic expertise (based on education, exposure and training) are not the ones who truly identify with the country’s stories. And the ones with innate understanding born of experience, don’t have the technical knowledge.

Matters are not helped by the fact that higher levels of education and technical training are available mainly to the prestigious elites — who are predisposed to steer away from popular culture.

True quality is possible where the two come together, in rare instances where the country’s sea of stories sparks the imagination of technical expertise. For this to happen, the roots of popular imagination must be owned, not just unashamedly but proudly. Characters such as Maula Jutt or John Rambo proved immensely popular because they drew on the realities of millions of people. Where they drew a blank was on technical qualities — poor choreography or sound layering, for example.

The benefits of such an exchange are visible already in Pakistani music videos, whose quality has improved significantly in recent years. Some television shows have succeeded on this count as well, but they are drowned out by the flood of programming. Institutions such as the National Academy of Performing Arts in Karachi, or the National College of Arts’ Multan campus, are therefore vital. Their low fee structures attract the non-elites, and they impart technical training to people who have their finger on the country’s pulse. Students are taught the language of the performing arts; the books they then choose to read are up to them.

Pakistan’s colonised elites (a term that refers to a mind-set, not a bank balance) could play a pivotal role by joining the mainstream. Instead of hedging themselves into the corner of private performances and venues, they could change the look of the country’s electronic media. But they must first own and own up to the country’s popular culture and its influences.

Think of jazz, which first started being heard towards the end of the nineteenth century in America. Based on black work songs and field shouts, it was frowned upon because of its cultural origins and associations with loose morality and low social status. What began in New Orleans’ red-light district gained public acceptance only when white orchestras began to adapt it, finally becoming kosher in the late 1930s when Benny Goodman led racially mixed groups in concerts at Carnegie Hall.

And in 2005, in Pakistan, Faakhir based his hit Mahi Ve on 1960s soul jazz, while director Asim Reza created a sparkling video that brought to life the Chicago style jazz of the ‘20s and ‘30s.

The irony is that Omar Sharif is belittled while Eddie Murphy, who began his career similarly, is loved by Pakistan’s elites.