I READ with interest Khalid Ahmad’s recent comments on a discussion on culture in a private TV channel. Those participating in the discussion were Enver Sajjad, Kamal Ahmad Rizvi, and TV artist Talat Husain. Khalid Ahmad regards them as non-intellectuals, not competent enough to define and discuss culture in an intellectual way. The kind of intellectuals competent enough to do this job are, according to him, no more around. He himself has in his column tried to do this job.
Whenever there is a discussion on culture with reference to Pakistan, somebody inevitably raises the question of cultural invasion and we soon are overtaken by a fear of invasion by some alien culture.
In this discussion Enver Sajjad talked of a cultural invasion from the West, which, backed by globalization, may wipe out our culture and our languages. In another TV discussion programme, one discussant pointed out to the cultural invasion he saw coming from India.
So we carry with us a bogey of two cultural invasions, one from the West and the other from India. But Khalid Ahmad summarily dismissed the bogey of these two cultural invasions. He pitied these people for having no awareness of the real cultural invasion coming from “the ‘hard’ Islam of the Saudi-Salafi variety with a lot of financial leverage”.
Khalid is right. But why call it invasion. There is perhaps something culturally wrong with us. Perhaps, under the influence of the clerics, we have nurtured deep down in us some doubts about ourselves, our culture, rather everything close to us. So we don’t need an outsider to come and play havoc with our culture.
Now and again an enthusiast from among us stands up and begins pointing out to what he has discovered as un-Islamic in our culture. So the real threat to our culture comes not from outside but from within us.
I wonder that Enver Sajjad is so acutely conscious of the evil cultural influences of globalization, but is oblivious to the anti-cultural influences of Talibanization, which are slowly, but steadily, creeping in our society.
When the Talibans demolished Buddha’s statue in Bamiyan, there was much hue and cry against the act. But they had to do it. Their queer version of Islam, which Khalid Ahmad will like to call Salafi variety, has no tolerance for their own cultural heritage, not even for holy relics calling it Bidat. How could they be expected to have a tolerance for relics belonging to any other culture or religion. And we can’t treat talibanization as a foreign commodity. It owes so much to our Pakistani maddarssas. It has roots in us.
Coming back to the so-called un-Islamic elements in our culture, there are a number of customs and rituals, which have a local origin. But the zealots among us will more like to brand them as Hinduana rasmain and hence will demand for their abolishment.
Those claiming to be intellectuals or writers do not like to identify themselves with these zealots, lest they may be regarded as communalists. They prefer to base their cultural isolationalism on national sentiment than on communal fanaticism. So the usage of ‘Indian’ in place of ‘Hinduana’. That gave a patriotic respectability to their isolationistic thinking. A few of them had at one time conceived some very interesting cultural defence plans.
One such plan offered a proposal to erect a cultural China wall, Siqafati Diwar-e-Cheen between Pakistan and India. The other one carried with it a ten-year plan of green curtain around Pakistan. During these ten years, with no intellectual trafficking with the outer world, we were expected to build our culture in accordance to our national aspirations and Islamic ideology.
This later plan, a brain child of my friend Haneef Ramay, reminded me of old dastans. On the occasion of the birth of a son in the royal palace, the king was instructed by the astrologers to keep the child for 12 years under closed doors.
During this period he should not have the opportunity to see the sky. But at the end of 12 years there was inevitably some confusion of dates. He came out one day prior to the last day and slept in the open under moonshine. His premature appearance landed him in trouble as he was abducted by some fairy or by some ugly dev. That is what a life in isolation leads to.
We, in our patriotic zeal, often forget the fact that cultures don’t flourish in isolation. A close door culture is doomed to decay with no chance of recovery. A culture for its development and for reaching to its heights requites an atmosphere of openness, of freedom, and of opportunities to come in contact with other cultures. Why should we always think in terms of cultural invasion?
In more cases, the meeting of two cultures, even when they are in clash with each other, gives birth to a process of acculturation. This process may well result in a new enrichment of both the rival cultures or may even lead to the birth of a new culture, rich and deep in its own way as it happened in India after the arrival of the Muslims in this land.
I READ with interest Khalid Ahmad’s recent comments on a discussion on culture in a private TV channel. Those participating in the discussion were Enver Sajjad, Kamal Ahmad Rizvi, and TV artist Talat Husain. Khalid Ahmad regards them as non-intellectuals, not competent enough to define and discuss culture in an intellectual way. The kind of intellectuals competent enough to do this job are, according to him, no more around. He himself has in his column tried to do this job.
