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January 1, 2002
Thoughts on 2002
Talat Abbasi
Author of ‘Bitter gourd and other stories’
What’s in a number? A year by any other number will bring the same!
Can one hope?
Urdu literary critic and author of ‘Faiz Ahmed Faiz: shaer aur shakhs’
My new year thoughts are neither profound, nor inspiring. They are gloomy. They reflect the gloom generated by the last four months of the year 2001. September 11 saw the mind-boggling tragic scenes in New York and Washington for which Osama bin Laden was arbitrarily held responsible by the Americans. So, with a view to capturing him, dead or alive, they launched a strike on Afghanistan where he was supposed to be hiding. The strike has been a most gory story of death and destruction of innocent people.
Another story of death and destruction of innocent people is being enacted in Palestine. Watching the BBC and CNN coverage of Afghanistan and Palestine has been a real agony. We in Pakistan feel concerned because of our links with the peoples of these lands. But on December 13, the dastardly attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi caused an even deeper concern to us because the Indian leaders started holding Pakistan responsible for it without any proof. The tension between the two countries has consequently escalated to new heights.
All that is happening around us is not likely to come to an abrupt end on December 31. Things are not going to change with the change of date on the calendar. In these circumstances, how can one be sanguine about the new year?
A future so bleak
Retired Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester in England
Our future has never looked quite so bleak. Successive governments (not all civilian) have driven us into virtual bankruptcy. When we began, Pakistan was committed to secularism and industrialization. Incompetent politicians began to cover up their political bankruptcy by religious rhetoric. Bhutto’s nationalization ended industrialization. Initial policies were reversed. We were dragooned into a military alliance with the US, diverting our scarce resources to serve American interests. Pakistan began to be bled white by successive thieving governments.
Today we are virtually bankrupt, with few friends in the world. We are looked upon with contempt, even by the US, our temporary friend. The impact of the Afghan war has entailed losses for which the trivial US handouts are (in Zia’s phrase) just peanuts. Now we do not even have the guts to say so. We have a military regime and politicians with no roots and no real prospects of return to a genuine democracy. The only future that our talented youngsters can see is in emigration — that is their verdict. Hope seems to have moved beyond the reach of faith.
Death of emotions
Historian who is the author of several books
What is going on around the world is enough for disillusionment. The future looks bleak. What humankind has achieved as a result of a long struggle to acquire fundamental rights and constitutional protection for the weaker sections of society is losing ground. What thinkers, philosophers, writers, and artists have contributed to construct the world on the basis of social justice and human harmony is no more relevant. Instead technology is taking dominant place by suppressing all human feelings and emotions.
The trend throughout the world is to ignore and neglect philosophy, literature, and social sciences and give more emphasis to science and technology. The result is that we no longer hear of great poets, musicians, writers, and thinkers but of scientists and technologists who are busy in shaping the world without regard to moral or ethical values. Technology is making the institution of the state more powerful than before.
Now state terrorism is justified in the name of ‘national interest’. Civil liberties and fundamental rights are sacrificed to make state institutions more arbitrary and tyrannical. Those who speak against these draconian laws are marginalized. There is no equitable distribution or justice between the powerful and the weak states, nor between the privileged and the oppressed people. Though the hope to change the world for the better is now dying, there is some hope if we go by what Marx says, man makes his own history but not according to his wishes. So, we hope that the efforts of the big powers to make history according to their own plan, might be subverted as a result of other forces at work. Thus people may obtain their release from the dictators and tyrants who are protected by the West.
A famous victory!
Writer and author of ‘The book of Saladin’ and ‘Fear of mirrors’
The interpretations of the mysteries of terrorism seem to have brought about an amazing coalition of self-interested countries. The European Union are used to acting as altar boys and girls for the United States, but now Putin, the blood of 30,000 dead Chechens on his hands, has also joined them as have China and India and, of course, plucky little Israel killing Palestinian children each week as the West turns a blind eye.
And then there is the unsolved mystery of the disappearing OBL.
They seek him here, they seek him there
The yankees seek him everywhere
Is he in Mecca or Baden-Baden?
That dammed elusive Osama Bin Laden.
And the Taliban who melted away, where are they? And what will they do in 2002? And the world of disinformation that is ruled by six giant media conglomerates and which now serves the Big Empire with the same zealotry that Pravda once displayed in reporting news from the Politburo in the good/bad old days.
The dragon seeds sown in 2001 will start to sprout in the New Year and so nothing much will change though the coalition might begin to weaken if the United States decides to wage war on Iraq or create a puppet state which it can recognize immediately. And as for Afghanistan, if any good came out of the bombing campaign it is still invisible, but never mind. It was a famous victory.
Year of fire... then?
Feminist writer and author of ‘The other side of silence’
It all began well enough: the new millennium had to be different we told ourselves after we’d stopped arguing about whether it began in 2001 or had begun a year before that. Either way, what did it matter — when you’re talking of a thousand years, a year or two makes little difference. But what we could not have foretold was the despair: at the terrible natural disasters, and then at the man-made ones, which we don’t really need to name. And now, at the threshold of 2002, what, if anything, can we look forward to?
As I write, India and Pakistan are virtually at the point of war — the enormous euphoria and hope of the Agra summit are a thing of the past — and this despite the fact that we know too much about war to think it can ever lead to anything good. Last week, I happened to meet a journalist friend at Lahore airport — he was on his way back from Afghanistan. He too was in despair: at the devastation this war had wrought, at the lies the media were telling, at the international collusion with America.
‘What’s happened to you,’ he said, referring to India, ‘you used to be a country with ideals.’ The unfortunate truth is that there are no ideals left any more, not with states, not with governments and often not even with people. I used to call myself the eternal optimist but I’m not sure one can be that any more. A few days ago I heard a friend of mine say: ‘If I was asked whether I wanted to bring a child into this world now, I would say no.’ I was shocked and taken aback at her comment; at the sorrow, and indeed the truth of it. Is this what we have to look forward to ? A world of aging people, with none of the joy that the young bring? After such knowledge, I thought, what forgiveness?
If only...
Feminist activist, writer and poet
What hopes should I nurture for this new year? Will the self-proclaimed caretakers of this world, the gods that stride this earth, allow myself and others like me to make decisions, allow us to live? Live once again this year? That is all I hope for and wish, as I have wished last year and for all the years that I have lived.
I can only hope that there will be peace in Pakistan. That human beings will not be slaughtered by each other like cattle or butchered at the hands of the upholders of justice, religion or politics. I can hope that women will no longer be subjected to violence and are finally treated like human beings. That my friends at institutions like the HRCP, WAR, WAF and the like sit idle in their offices swatting flies...
This year, I will say the same old prayers for causes old and new, for Palestine, Vietnam and peace. For Afghanistan to return to normality. I will light a tiny lamp of hope in my heart once again for the women of Afghanistan. I will hope that they will be able to look at the sun with their open eyes and not through the folds of a veil.
Once again, I will make a wish that our Bengali friends forgive me, and those like me, when our paths cross, when we look at them with tears in our eyes ...As Faiz wrote: “ Khoon ke dhabe dhulenge kitni barsaaton ke baad?” (How many monsoons will it take to wash away the stains of blood?)
I will also say a prayer for peace between India and Pakistan... but for how much longer? As a seven-year-old girl I would tremble when the warning sirens went off during the 1965 war. I continue to tremble to this day out of the same fear and terror. And anger. And the same question comes back to haunt me: why can’t the two live together as friends?
Will I live to see the sun rise on a new year of my hopes and dreams? Or will these old and tattered dreams I have dreamt since my childhood become useless like my old textbooks?
If only.... If only...
Wish for tolerance
Researcher, former teacher and literary writer
May the new year be a time of peace and security for all. May we get to see a better society at home and abroad — humane, tolerant, prace-loving, free of terror and tyranny. My thoughts specially go out to the oppressed people of Palestine, Afghanistan and Kashmir who have suffered so much. The terrorism unleashed against them by organized forces in a systematic way has been a matter of serious concern for all peace loving people. May this tyranny and oppression come to an end so that the year 2002 brings a better life for all people on planet earth.
Sun will rise again
Author and head of Urdu Dictionary Board
When I talk of tomorrow, it means, the dawn of a new morning for me when the sun will rise again from a new horizon. I look forward to a time full of light and warmth. This is how I feel about the new year. My observation and experience encourage this optimism: the future of arts and literature like other human activities is evolutionary, hence promises progress.
It is commonly believed that the new century will be predominantly an age of science and technology. This appears to be so, but there is no reason to believe that it will hamper the progress of art and literature. Physical science and technology has never been hostile to literature and creativity. Rather science promotes these pursuits. A cursory look at the close of the nineteenth and the opening years of the twentieth century, reminds us of the phenomenal rise of Urdu literature. An intellectual and visionary of the stature of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan appeared on the scene and under whose influence other writers enriched literature with new ideas and researches. We had Hali, Shibli, and Molvi Chirag Ali, followed by Iqbal, the great philosopher poet.
Urdu literature of the twentieth century had flourished under the influence of science and technological knowledge coming from the West. Similarly, I hope, the explosion of scientific knowledge will not slow the progress of the arts. I hope to see a new sense of commitment and vigour in the 21st century which will enrich human society.
What’s a new year?
Retired ambassador and author of ‘Pappio’
I am convinced that New Year celebrations were invented by a masochist. It is not merely that the revellers who “ring out the old and ring in the new” pay for an evening’s exuberance with several days of careful nursing of head and stomach but also because the concept of a new beginning arouses hopes that cannot but be disappointed. If time is a continuous stream, yesterdays, and yesteryear, merge seamlessly into the morrow and beginnings are merely the ripening of what has already been sown. What 2002 will bring is contained in 2001. Don’t expect radical departures.
On the individual level there is a species of pipe dream called “New Year Resolutions”. If someone has made, and kept, a New Year resolution I have not met him. I resolved, New Year after New Year, to give up smoking and, year after year, for the whole year, I felt guilty every time I lit up. And the more my conscience hurt, the greater the need for a smoke. One day — not a New Year’s eve, not the first day of a month, but an everyday day in a nondescript year — I extinguished (as PIA hostesses say) my cigarette and never took another one. Had I waited and hoped for an auspicious beginning in a new year, I would still be puffing away. One thing is certain about 2002, I will break no resolutions.
Nothing to welcome
Urdu critic, fiction writer and newspaper columnist
I feel no desire to welcome the new year. It is the same old year, which repeats itself after every twelve months posing as a new year. Each year looks new on the first day of its beginning and then it falls into the hackneyed cycle of day and night. The exuberance with which it is welcomed fades out.
This will happen again. I doubt if the coming year will bring with it anything really new. It will be a continuation of the outgoing year, as the outgoing year was in continuation of the year before.
This cynicism in me has been born from the fact that I live in a society which for long has ceased to respond to the ongoing changes in human situations. Such a society can hardly experience creativity with the passage of time.
On a personal note: no annual progress reports for me on my creative writing. I wonder at the critics, who at the end of every year write a literary survey trying to identify the trends which emerged during the year along with an account of the writers who dominated the literary scene. But do trends in literature emerge and fade within the framework of a calendar year? Creative activity has no respect for the calendar.
So I hope to continue writing as before. No new hopes for 2002, which simply means another year added to my daily life.
Will we be a digit?
Writer and translator
Living in the UAE every world event becomes personal. The multi-religious, multi-cultural, milieu in which we live causes each horrific happening to effect us directly. So when there is an upsurge in violence in Palestine we fret and fume with Suhair, who left her home in Nablus in the 70’s and still pines for it.
When Faisal al-Husseni, who was to take over from Arafat, died a few months back we mourned his loss for Samar is his niece. When the US says it is to extend its war beyond Afghanistan we worry about Suad’s parents who are old and live in Baghdad and she cannot fly to them because of the sanctions.
When the WTC came crashing down we did not watch the grief and torment on CNN but sat with our friend Cathy waiting for news of her two young sons who had offices in the towers. When the bombing began in Afghanistan my friends worried if I would be able to make it back from a trip to Karachi. I know what it is like to be displaced and helpless at the mercy of the great games that are played among nations.
We become statistics like Cathy’s sons who mercifully were among the living. Will we count as individual lives in the year 2002?
Dangerous year
Chairman National Language Authority and author
My wish list for the new year is long. On a personal level, I pray for my good health so that I can complete the draft of my book Tareekh-i-Adab-i-Urdu (History of Urdu literature) which has kept me engaged for the last eight years. But I also have an intense desire for peace and security, so that the mightiest power on earth may not deem it necessary to attack a powerless country. Only when there is justice and no one goes hungry would each of us be free to use his/her creative talents.
As I express these wishes, I know they are based on self-delusion. The cruel capitalist system and the market economy have now emerged as the basic philosophy of the 21st century. With the break-up of the Soviet Union ten years ago the concepts of social justice and welfarism have been reduced to meaninglessness. The weak countries now feel insecure because the protection provided to them by the equilibrium of power in the hey days of the Soviet Union is no more there. Might is right and most third world countries will become the markets of the rich as they are shackled by the world trade order which favours the powerful. The year 2002 will be a dangerous year and I wish it were not.
Challenging times
Consultant editor, ‘The Pioneer’, and author of ‘two novels in Bangla’
As 2002 approaches, I am increasingly uncertain as to whether the liberal, humanist weltanschauung, a product of the intellectual churning catalyzed by the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, will survive. Characterized by a belief in the supremacy of reason and of the welfare and freedom of the individual being ends in themselves, it has been instrumental in producing the culture of modernity with its spirit of inquiry, a proneness to question all existing assumptions, and a secular view of the world.
The Renaissance and the Reformation, which reinforced each other, undermined the authority of the church and liberated scholarship from ecclesiastical shackles. This set off a massive creative ferment not only in the arts, but also in science, technology, philosophy, jurisprudence, and social and political theory. If the last two centuries, with their emphasis on the individual’s rights helped the evolution of political structures conducive to the maximization of individual freedom, progress in the other areas provided democracies with their cultural and economic foundations.
Liberal humanism is threatened by the rise of religious fundamentalism as well as the consumer culture — a product of market capitalism — which undermines people’s autonomy by making them slaves of consumption through advertising. Challenging times are ahead.
Please, tell them
Author of ‘The story of noble rot’
This is a true story: a mother forbade her daughter from attending a party but the girl still went to it. The mother found out and told an armed guard to shoot the boy that dropped the girl home. The guard did. The boy is dead. The girl’s family is more powerful than the boy’s. The killers walk free.
We read similar tales in the paper daily. The difference here is that the girl was spared, if you can call witnessing a friend’s murder ‘being spared’. We also read about crimes against innocent civilians in Palestine and Afghanistan, and much outrage is expressed against these assaults. Good — Bush, Blair and Sharon need to repeatedly be told that economic and military power does not permit them to commit brute murder. But families like the girl’s need to be told the same. They are not above the law either.
With what credibility can we demand freedom, dignity and justice for Muslims when we cannot grant the same to each other? These are some of the thoughts plaguing me as we approach 2002. Will this year be different, or are we still going to value family ‘honour’ over liberty and life?
Breath of life
Professor of English at Penn State University and author of ‘Passport photos’
In the year to come, we will be unable to bid goodbye to the year that has passed. I expect to read books and articles in 2002 that will compel us to relive what happened on September 11. Writers living in cities like Karachi or Cairo or Kolkata have lived with violence for a long time. But, America has only now woken up to the reality of sudden attack on its cities.
American writers and other writers in the West will produce work in the next year that will reflect in direct or indirect ways on the shocking but also spectacular violence that was unleashed on a clear and bright September morning. Will there be work by writers from the periphery that will also do the same? I am not sure about this. I guess what I would like to see most is the production of serious writing that views violence not simply from afar but from a distance that is born from intimacy.
American imperialism, as well as a reactionary terrorism, has already linked divided parts of the world. We need a new and different account of our connectedness. What we need are more complex maps of the world. This will mean that we write imaginative books which, unlike brutal acts which erase lives and histories, breathe life into the unnoticed details of our existence across continents, our loves and hatreds, and our interwoven destinies.
No way to peace
British freelance writer/ photographer/ aid worker for the Kalash
Fear is the overriding feeling I have for the year 2002: fear that all that is good in the United States will dissipate under the Bush administration. That with the continued bombing of Afghanistan, the breaking away from the Kyoto Agreement, the ABM Treaty, the introduction of military courts, America will feel increasingly less accountable for its actions.
This will continue to give free rein to Ariel Sharon (Israeli prime minister) to be oblivious to international conventions. Afghanistan, Palestine and Israel are bleeding. Will Iraq, already suffering, be added to the list of countries to be targeted? And Somalia? A country reeling under economic pressure — will that also come under fire?
And what of the UK? A country that prides itself on its democratic principles, and its regard for fairplay. With Blair aligning himself so closely to Bush, and Jack Straw dismissing calls for investigation of the massacre during the prison siege at Qila-i-Jangi, does not that country also become tainted?
What will the current policies of Sharon and Bush produce? Peace in Afghanistan, in Israel and Palestine? Or will it lead to out and out war in the Middle East, more suffering in Afghanistan and the birth of a whole new generation of suicide bombers?
Oh for democracy!
Short story writer of the progressive writers movement
I find it hard to discuss our immediate future and that of our neighbours in an upheat tone. The year that is now ending has been an unhappy one for the entire region, extending from Gauhati and Chittagong in the east to Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat in the northwest, and from Sri Lanka in the south to Kashmir in the north. The people of Afghanistan, in particular, have experienced the worst tragedy of their history in the last 20 years. The whole area is now one vast zone of hunger, destitution, ignorance and ill health.
Despite its diversity, this huge luckless region is united in one thing. It shares a culture marked by fatalism, conflicts born of old prejudices and narrow loyalties, bad governance and lack of vision in those who claim to be their leaders.
South Asia is home to about a fifth of the entire human race. Surely its vast suffering mass of humanity deserves a better fate. But it is for the South Asians themselves to decide whether they wish to seek a better future.
I should like to end this with a prayer and a hope. This concerns the promised restoration of democracy next October. Today’s world upholds democracy as the only way in which a civilized community can govern itself. Democracy such as we knew it may have been very imperfect. But we want it back so that we can remove its weaknesses in the process of working it. For it is the only way in which we can move towards political stability and good governance.
Changed meanings
Feminist writer, poet, translator and author of ‘The distance of a shout’
The bells of 2002 will ring with nuclear bombs and in an atmosphere of terrorism. All symbols and words have changed meanings in this new year. Those who claim to be democratic and the promoters of human rights have the right to kill as many people as they wish. Why are the writers of this country silent? Why are the artists not protesting? I wish my young generation may find a way of living in peace and respect without raising the slogans of America.
No easy answers
Teacher and author of ‘Memory stains: a collection of short verse’
New years don’t change old themes so it seems a little presumptuous to ponder what happens next. Nonetheless....caught in the dialogue of ‘civilizations’ from civil/civilian points of view.... that’s a concern for ‘02, along with the usual list of world peace, global warming, population explosions, children’s rights....you get the picture.
I’m sorry, was this meant to be profound?
My resolution is as pointless as the next fool’s, who harps on about love and joy, peace and understanding, growth and development, while staring at the mad futility of war and death in our time.
No easy answers. How’s that for a bite-size cliche on New Year’s Day? Don’t get me wrong; there might still be room for pleasantries between us — if you dream enough to think the difference could be you, if you try for right reasons, in wrong ways.
Happy New Year.
Year of hope
Freelance political and defence analyst
The year 2002 is a year of HOPE. The hope is that Pakistan will return to participatory and inclusionist democracy that will be responsive to the growing socio-economic pressures of a linguistically, ethnically and regionally diversified populace.
The collapse of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan offers an opportunity to the power elite and the civil society to work towards reasserting the tolerant, accommodating and pluralist ethos of the Pakistani society. This calls for discarding religious and cultural bigotry, political violence and terrorism that has been on the rise for the last two decades. Let us hope that the Pakistani state and society work towards creating instrumentalities for respect of the human rights and freedoms and pays greater attention to improving the lot of the disadvantaged sections of the society.
Renewed efforts are needed to improve India-Pakistan relations. This holds the key to peace and stability in South Asia. Peace in Afghanistan and rehabilitation and reconstruction of its society will also benefit Pakistan.
These hopes cannot materialize in one year. If the processes for their realization are initiated in 2002, this will restore the confidence of the people in the ability of the Pakistan state to discharge its primary obligations towards its citizenry.
Creativity challenges
Author of ‘Animal medicine’ and ‘Where they dream in blue’
The challenge for 2002 as I see it is that Pakistani writers, artists, dancers, musicians, poets should go on working with confidence, without being embarrassed or ashamed of who they are. In a post 9/11 world where Western moral, intellectual, and cultural superiority will be assumed now more than ever, artists must go on creating, the best that they can, with the self-assurance that their message and vision as people from this part of the world has as much strength, purpose, and validity (if not more) as it did in the year 2001.
A fine line
Author of ‘In the city by the sea’ and ‘Salt and saffron’
There’s a fine line between facetiousness and ponderousness that I can’t quite seem to find. It’s easy to be facetious about my feelings for the year ahead — “2002: a numerical palindrome. Let’s make up for the lost opportunity of 1991 and enjoy this one while we can.” And it’s certainly easy to be ponderous — everything we already knew about the corrupt workings of power and the hideousness of rage were thrown into sharp relief in 2001, and. . .you see, I’m off and running already.
But I don’t particularly want to be ponderous right now because I keep thinking of Stephen Fry at a Red Cross fundraiser in September quoting Chesterton’s line: ‘Angels fly because they can take themselves lightly.’ The quote is often mis-spoken to leave out that vital ‘can’. We don’t have to flit around at all times; but there are occasions, and I think the dawning of a new year is one such occasion, when even — or specially — in a world weighed down, we need to seek lightness within and around us.
So here’s to the reprieve of lightness — may it find us in all our heaviest hours in the year ahead.
Future optimism
Pakistan’s English language novelist, author of The bride, The ice-candy man, etc.
Happy New Year to all at Dawn, and to all those who read it online and in print. I cannot help but feel optimism for the future. We have been put through some arduous tests, and I feel our leadership has steered us through with courage and foresight. Like most of us I have a wish-list for the New Year:
First of all I wish for peace in our troubled world, and specially in war-ravaged Afghanistan; it appears poised for some remarkable changes in 2002. Does it know the world is committed to make reparation and to put it back on its feet? I wish for compassion and empathy between nations, and the healing that comes with empathy.
I wish Pakistan to prioritize education and to advantage its children with knowledge in the arts, sciences and technology. I wish Pakistan to be at peace with all its neighbours and its neighbours to live in peace with Pakistan.
And I wish the indefatigable Books Editor at Dawn to continue her efforts to promote a love of literature in Pakistan.
End of morality
Social scientist, author of ‘Issues in Pakistan’s economy’
The year 2002 which has just begun, is likely to be remembered as the year-after-the-year-that-was. Most probably, 2001, and particularly September 11 onwards, will overshadow the new year, if not for the full year, at least for many months to come. Despite everybody’s claim that the world has changed, this claim is rather exaggerated. The same bully which used to mess about in its own backyard, has over the years, extended its territory and jurisdiction across the world map.
A decade ago the US took control of the Middle East, placing its troops in Saudi Arabia and controlling the Gulf’s oil supplies; today, it dominates Central Asia and will control the as yet largely untapped oil reserves there. The twentieth century, which was called the US century, is likely to continue well into the 21st century.
Perhaps the greatest lesson that I have learnt in 2001 is, sadly, that there are no principles in world affairs and world politics. There are no friends, only interests, interests which vacillate after every episode. Expediency governs morality and principle. Many others may have known these truths years ago, but 2001 took away my naivete. As for the first months in 2002, all I can say is that I am really looking forward to reading the three books about to be published by three very talented friends, all incidentally, women!
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