KARACHI: “Has our youth depoliticised or opts to be apolitical,” was the question put forth by Dr Jaffar Ahmed, director of the Pakistan Study Center, University of Karachi, at the conclusion of the Karachi peace conference on Sunday.

The question came up after various discussions during the day, including a session on culture and representation and later another one on dialogue and alternate spaces, and the sitting concluded that the depoliticisation of the youth was keeping them from actively participating in the affairs of the province in particular and the country in general.

The question received a variety of responses from the panelists.

Founder and director of The Second Floor, Sabeen Mahmud, said there was a lot of skepticism towards the word ‘politics and ‘politician,’ resulting in them having a simplistic view of things.

Quoting writer Arundhati Roy, she said that it was necessary not to complicate the simple or simplify the complicated.

“Not everything has a simple solution. Let’s grapple with the complexity and discomfort and start to think about getting political. Politics is a part of our everyday life. There’s a politics over water, land, electricity etc. Denying it won’t simplify things for us,” she added.

Writer and columnist Aijaz Mangi said the reason for the depoliticisation of the youth was because the media did not have something substantial to say anymore. “There are same conversations and discussions happening every day. Answers for, at times, quite basic questions are not there because too many narratives are already claiming space on television,” he said.

But can historical context and political history be understood through television debates alone? Hasil Murad, a young lecturer at the Benazir Bhutto University in Lyari, said no.

“What we are missing at the moment are the spaces to sit, debate and discuss. These spaces don’t necessarily have to be formal but can be informal too. For instance, how it used to be in the earlier times. Informal settings were the best training grounds for the youth where an elder could also be a mentor and a teacher. Such spaces are not there anymore,” he said.

Mangi, however, explained that over a period of time, the curriculum at schools and universities had got ‘sanitised’ as intolerance for a progressive opinion, or even a different opinion, increased, it resulted in the youth having a myopic understanding of issues rather than a well rounded one.

The actual session that prompted the debate was ‘Dialogue and Alternate Spaces.’ Speaking during the session, Sabeen Mahmud spoke about how her basic purpose of establishing T2F was to have an alternate space for learning.

Narrating her story she said: “I have been a victim of the education system. It is an insular form of education which is the reason why I found it difficult to specialise in anything. That’s why I looked for a space where people could learn music, have theatre, discuss science and arts and just live in the moment.”

The funds for that space, however, came from the savings her mother had kept aside for Sabeen’s ailing grandmother, who was 82 at the time.

Narrating her struggle and especially the part about persuading her mother for her savings, which drew laughter from the audience, she explained: “I needed the money to start this place. And these 1,000,000 were available to start it. My grandmother gave me the money.

“Eventually, I worked for four years without a pay because I invested some more money in making the space, which is T2F. But the point of narrating it all is that in any given situation one needs to decide to do something and then be willing to pay the price for it as well. It takes time to build a community space.”

She said that rather than complaining, it is our duty to look more for solutions than forever being on the complaining side.

Lecturer at BBU, Hasil Murad, said that despite the fact the space for interaction in Lyari was quickly shrinking there were still some signs of hope. “We have a mini Karachi in Lyari. We still have the most number of ethnicities in our area living side by side. The only problem is interaction between these ethnicities as small neighbouring streets are being gated with a surge in gang war. We are making sure that we don’t lose that space where youngsters can interact with each other. Because they stand to lose a lot in this war,” he said.

He also explained that the current response of the state towards the gang war in Lyari was like the adage, “they are busy cutting the tree, rather than focusing on the roots.”

A sociologist and assistant professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Nida Kirmani, said that in her recent visit to the area, she noticed people avoiding going into some streets.

“The activities of the people of Lyari, which remains one of the older neighbourhoods of Karachi, have been restricted due to the continuing gang fights and violence. They are being stigmatised in a war that is not of their own making,” she added.

She said that as a result most of the initiatives started by the youth remained dependent on funding by an outside source, “while they don’t realise that it takes more than funds to keep a project or an alternate space afloat, it is passion and rigour.”

Published in Dawn, December 22th, 2014