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June 13, 2004
CHILDREN’S BOOK REVIEWS: Yearning for peace
It’s 92 pages of pure cerebral delight giving you an insight into how young minds yearn for peace. Peace is no more an abstract idea that our children are toying with but an issue that is taking up more and more of their time, something that they are hankering after and rightly so. Little wonder then that Kamran Mohammad (grade 4) starts his poem with — ‘May there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’.
And yet the solutions they give are simple but ingenious that leaves an adult mind rather befuddled — is achieving peace so simple? In fact, since the adults have all but lost on this front, it would not be a bad idea to make room for the young ones and see if their formulae work. Amna Ahmed Sharif (grade 7) defines peace as: ‘It’s just waking up and beginning the day;/ By counting our blessings and kneeling to pray;/ It’s giving up wishing for things we have not;/ And making the best of whatever we’ve got’ or as Fatima Hassan Kazmi (class 6) says, ‘If we hold hands and unite on a base’.
This anthology of poems by children — Amn ki Tasveerein — is a second laudable attempt on the part of the Human Rights Education Programme to contribute towards making a “positive difference to the world”. It comprises some 106 poems, both in Urdu and English, selected from some 4,200 entries submitted to the HREP for their peace campaign based on the slogan, ‘Peace can be achieved piece by piece/Can you contribute a piece for peace?’ that ran from August 2000 to June 2001.
The poems have been edited by Amber Musharraf Haq, Ayla Raza, Rumana Husain, Tahira Hasan and Zulfiqar Ali and the book has been designed and illustrated by Riffat Aliani.
HREP’s young director Zulfiqar Ali writes in his foreword: “The true worth of education lies in its ability to create a thinking and participating citizenry. Therefore, the HREP continues to strive to promote socially relevant education and provide innovative, educational activities for children to interact with various social concepts and issues.
“Protracted wars is all our children have seen — some make-believe on the celluloid and some real — with the 20th century perhaps being the bloodiest of all centuries and children being forced to partake roles and responsibilities that are not age appropriate. All agents of change with the media spearheading them have unfortunately polluted the young minds and turned them into precocious kids. You get a glimpse of this reflected in their writings. Thus Amreena Zulfiqar (class 7) feels that children should take on the responsibility when she says: ‘With war and hate around us and small things leading to big fuss;/ We children of the world must unite’.”
As you take a leisurely journey through the book, at places you marvel at the thought processes — innocent, pure, naive yet potent, like when Jordan Harris (class 8) says: ‘Peace is a hand shake; between two leaders while neither is secretly plotting behind the other’s back’ and ‘Peace is the only thing that makes sure that we are going to wake up tomorrow without worries or fear.’
At times it makes you uneasy at how the children’s minds work and how they see things through. They can see through so-called politically correct roadmaps that are drawn for peace, where mosques, churches and temples are targeted to give peace another chance.
The book leaves you with mixed feelings. There is hope as well as despair, even sarcasm and forewarnings that are hard hitting because they are starkly true, like in the first poem given by Aeman Majeed (class 9) who taking a leaf off from George Orwell’s Animal Farm describes the scene when the animals gathered together to celebrate the self-annihilation of the human race and ‘Peace was brought when all the humans in the world;/ Lost their humanity;/ And turned against each other;/ When every black turned against the white;/ Turned in hatred;/ When the poor;/ Rose against the rich’
While the attempt is great, there is something terribly amiss. The voices of those directly affected by war and conflict. What is missing is an Afghan child soldier’s feelings when he presses the trigger for the first time in the name of peace, or how a child on her way to school steps on a landmine in Bajaur feels about peace. When a young refugee girl learns to read and write while in camp, what are her feelings, how does a child refugee living in a camp define peace; what are their feelings as they enter their country.
This is not to undermine the efforts of the young writers, or the Human Rights Education Programme’s attempt at exploring the theme of peace, but to help them take their project a little forward next time. The children of the 348 schools who participated with 4,200 entries are really remarkable but they need to give a concrete shape to their vision of peace based on ground realities to keep in mind the children’s human rights fact sheet, which is so abysmal in our country. There is a need to come out of the cliches and the rhetoric and only then will their writings be refreshing and more meaningful. They have to understand that before peace can be achieved, they have to plunge in and dirty their hands. Peace is not an elusive entity but it certainly is difficult to achieve and more difficult to retain.
And lastly, one also felt that in some poems the children’s work had been tinkered with by adult thoughts, thereby spoiling their spontaneity and naturalness.
Amn Ki Tasveerein: Peace Can Be Achieved Piece by Piece (An anthology of poems by children)
Edited by Amber Musharraf Haq, Ayla Raza, Rumana Husain,Tahira Hasan and Zulfiqar Ali
Human Rights Education Programme (HREP), 9-C/1, 8th East Street, Phase I, DHA, Karachi
Tel: 0215800245, 5886481
Email: info@hrep.com.pk
Website: www.hrep.com.pk
ISBN: 969-8347-05-4
92pp. Price not listed
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