AT a time when we pursue ‘connectivity’ with vigour and single-mindedness, it is amazing to see how grandparents live almost beyond the range of communication in most nuclear families.

The few short hours spent with them as a Sunday ritual or even an odd annual Eid for those who live in different towns or countries has transformed this link between generations into a mere exchange of pleasantries. Within just a few decades Pakistan’s rapidly urbanising society has begun to lose the vital threads that bind generations, dialogue and family memories being among them.

The term ‘generation gap’ that explains the chasms created by time and the identity of family members with different educational and social experiences in the 21st century has to take into account the physical distance between family members located in cities in several continents. This distance that is exacerbated by the priorities of other cultures stretches beyond the miles of separation. It has left us poorer in many ways.

As a teenager in the late 1960s I once read a story that caused surprise and dismay among those my age and older. It was about how old people’s homes were gaining popularity among couples in the UK as they were no longer able to accommodate or support their elderly parents. Living separately, the grandparents often needed permission to visit grandchildren and their presents and affection were indulgences not readily permitted in a society undergoing a generational disconnect.

Almost five decades later, Pakistan too has its version of the nuclear family in which grandchildren are often deprived of a feeling of emotional and familial connectedness that only grandparents have the capacity and patience to impart. Many grandparents feel this rupture is widened by the technology-driven change that divides the 21st century human race between users of computer/cell-phone/ipod and ‘the rest’.

The 80-plus generation is often bewildered by the speed of technological change while the computer kids have no time to reflect on how ‘the rest’ have contributed to the history of inventions leading up to this digital age. So for this ‘gap’ to disappear we must wait for technology to be viewed for what it really is, a mere tool to access knowledge, before the focus can shift to the generators of knowledge, whose unfamiliarity with the digital means of knowledge-dissemination has not in any way hampered their intellectual robustness.

Ageism too has bred attitudes leading to social exclusion. While senior citizens may be given retirement privileges in developed countries they also tend to get ghettoised in special homes and geriatric wards. An obsession with de-aging drugs and surgical procedures has created a society that perceives old age as a disease to be cured and not a stage of life that should be allowed to come full circle with dignity.

The recognition of contribution and continuity lies at the centre of vitalising multiple generations within a society. Starting from the smallest social unit of a community — the family — grandparents can be valued for their unique position as the keepers of family culture and civilisational wisdom.

Ali Shariati, the Iranian thinker/scholar, in an article on the Martyrs of Karbala explains how ‘martyrdom’ leaves behind two vital legacies, blood and message. Both the symbolic and factual message and sacrifice that created Pakistan has been lost in the agenda of political compromise for six decades. This makes the personal experiences and motivation of the ‘independence’ generation even more critical. Needless to say this should go beyond the token coverage on television and the print media of national events.

In Pakistan, a country born out of resistance to oppressive colonialism and violent partition, these largely unheard narratives of the life-changing trauma of displacement and the generosity of those who received the newcomers in their new homeland were incorporated in textbooks and archives. The truth of this enriched collective memory can be a catalyst for understanding why millions of people from villagers to nawabs, intellectuals to artisans were so committed to freedom and historical change at the risk of losing material wealth and ancestral links.

While watching Obama’s victory speech and the spark of hope it lit in a nation’s eyes, one thought of the fervor that Jinnah’s words inspired. Surely the people must have felt the same palpable optimism in their future as a free people.

The texturally rich diversity of Pakistan’s culture faces the danger of conforming to urbanisation, although grandmothers as the cultural activists of every family have traditionally shouldered the responsibility of keeping knowledge alive in the consciousness of every generation. Reinforced through language, rituals and cuisine, continuity had been zealously maintained by them.

A part of this cultural memory are the writings of dissident women icons of previous generations like Ismat Chughtai and Quratulain Hyder who introduced their own brand of indigenous literature that critiqued retrogressive tradition while strengthening the essence of civilisation. Iqbal’s cathartic Shikwa and Jawab-i-Shikwa, too, need the closer attention of the generation of this new century that seeks social and religious direction. These creative interventions are important to emphasise the non-linearity of history which is not enslaved by tradition but can respond freely to issues.

For as long as we seek wisdom, which is defined as the combination of experience and knowledge with the power to apply it critically and with sagacity, it can never be ‘the end of history’ for us in Pakistan. The strands of the past continue to touch our lives through their potency and relevance. Every civilisation articulates itself through a partnership of generations committed to recognising the best in humanity and nurturing it with renewed energy.

asnaclay06@yahoo.com

CRITICISM that Britain is not doing enough to halt the violence in Gaza grows in volume the longer that the fighting continues. Anti-war activists and others demand “unequivocal condemnation” of Israel, an arms embargo and swingeing sanctions. British Jews demonstrate for and against Israel’s actions. And British Muslims warn that the government’s perceived insouciance over Palestinian deaths is enabling extremists “to spread their message”.

On the face of it, all this is a bit over-cooked. Britain no longer holds a mandate to govern the historical territory of Palestine. It cannot enforce a ceasefire or impose a settlement. If any single country now wields that sort of power, it is the US.

Defenders of Britain’s approach claim the government is doing all it can. It backed an immediate ceasefire on the day Operation Cast Lead was launched in December, they say, and has regularly repeated that demand. Through the EU, Britain also condemned Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force. Britain has been engaged throughout, at the UN and elsewhere. What is more, its clear and consistent position has been recognised as such by the Palestinian leadership and by Arab states.

There are two problems with this defence. One is that the spectre of a cornered civilian population torn to bits by modern army ordnance constitutes a deep assault on people’s moral senses, whatever the stated reason for it. From this viewpoint, government has an overriding moral duty to intercede to stop the daily slaughter.

The second is more political. A series of apparently tough, resolute statements by the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, his foreign secretary, David Miliband, and others has given the impression, perhaps accidently, that Britain has more leverage than is actually the case.

On December 29, two days into the Israeli assault, Brown said he was “deeply concerned”, told Hamas to stop firing rockets, and urged Israel to meet its “humanitarian obligations”. His exhortations were totally ignored.

On January 4, Brown said the crisis had reached a “dangerous moment” and for the first time personally called for an “immediate ceasefire”. On January 6, Brown’s dangerous moment became the “darkest moment”; Gaza was facing a “humanitarian crisis”, he said. On January 9, he urged the world to build on the UN’s ceasefire resolution. But each intervention was greeted with more gunfire and rockets — the Gaza equivalent of a giant raspberry.

In a speech last year, seen as defining his tenure, Miliband warned Britain must be cautious about its capacity to change the world. “But while we have less influence than we might hope, we have more than we might fear,” he said.

As the blood flows and the outrage grows, critics say Britain is not only not doing enough — but has failed to use the not inconsiderable levers of powers that, by its own estimation, it still retains. Post-imperial decline does not fully explain this omission. And nor is it all the government’s fault. It may have more to do with a collective failure of national confidence to act.

— The Guardian, London