During a recent lecture I gave on the role of art and literature in Pakistani society, a gentleman asked what we could do to stop influences from across the border. “Don’t leave a vacuum” was my response.

This is an age of influences. Like King Canute realised, we cannot halt the tide. In fact, influences are not only to be expected but encouraged. Humanity has always learnt from the experiences of others. However, being able to choose what influences one wishes to adopt requires a filter.

The filters are created by a number of factors including belief systems, collective societal values, family, language and educational systems. These evolve over time and are protected, refreshed or added to in a considered way and normally embedded in cultural expressions.

However, we are living in an age of disruption. The custodians of cultural transmission fall silent. Culture is a series of organised events, rather than a seamlessly assimilated continuity.

As the architect Ole Møystad writes in his article ‘Rapid Change and Cultural Vacuum’, “A precondition for living a life is the capacity to live today as a continuation of the near past and that tomorrow can be counted upon. When one’s life is under constant threat, one develops a pathological relationship to time. Every need, every wish, every intention is directed to the immediate present. When rapid change is a consequence of factors beyond our control, daily routines don’t evolve, but dissolve. Society loses its resilience. Administrative infrastructures go into crisis management mode and cease to work for the ordinary needs of citizens. Socio-cultural vacuums give rise to pockets of highly unstable meaning. This instability in turn unleashes a ‘race for meaning’.”

Schools are no longer places for the social development or even character building of a child, but focus on grades and examinations. Television, that other powerful influencer, has no programming for young children. There are no ‘neighbourhoods’ despite city people attempting to live in ethnically defined localities.

In a Pakistani context, that ‘race for meaning’ has turned to religion on the one hand and consumer placebos on the other. The diversity of religious allegiances are mostly oppositional rather than simply diverse. Consumer practices are equally divisive in the economic polarities of Pakistan. As David Wells writes, “Vacuums may be empty, but they are highly destructive.”

If one looks at two communities — Native American tribes and Australian Aborigines — that have faced near annihilation yet have a strong sense of cultural identity, the one central factor of their cultural survival has been the transmission of narratives. It has ensured the distinct identities of 600 tribe nations in Canada and 562 in the US in a combined population of merely 6.5 million. The Aborigines with a population of just over half a million have 700 distinct ways of telling stories — depending on people and region.

For both, storytelling is a key component of a child’s education. Children are taught knowledge of everyday survival, spiritual beliefs, heritage and laws and pass these on when they reach adulthood. It is an oral tradition communicated through narrations and folklore, dance, music and art.

The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” is widely quoted. What is “the village” for Pakistanis? Given that Pakistan is increasingly urbanised, if we look to the notion of the village as a concept, it would imply a nurturing environment that is collectively responsible for enabling new generations to carry forward cherished values and customs. Other than religious training, there is a deafening silence.

Schools are no longer places for the social development or even character building of a child, but focus on grades and examinations. Television, that other powerful influencer, has no programming for young children. There are no ‘neighbourhoods’ despite city people attempting to live in ethnically defined localities. The nuclear families busy with livelihoods and housework sit their children in front of cable TV or thrust a phone with game apps in their hands.

Adult city dwellers tend to socialise at night or work late hours so no bedtime stories are told. Ironically, the world’s fables and children’s stories are said to originate in this part of the world. The Panchatantra that came to be known later as The Fables of Bidpai was translated into Arabic as Kal la wa Dimna and from there entered Europe, eventually influencing the Grimm Brothers, famous for their fairy tales. The fables with animal characters convey important life lessons about friendship, betrayal and the wise use of power. In ancient Greece, the Turkish slave, Aesop’s also employed animal characters to teach moral lessons.

Few children today would know of Alif Laila, Sheikh Chilli or Amir Khusrau’s riddles or paheliyan and, for most, language has lost its beautiful subtle nuances, metaphors and proverbs. Children’s stories have what Perry Nodelman calls the “hidden adult” where societal values are embedded in “apparently simple and innocent texts.” We are in a continuous process of re-socialising without the prerequisite process of socialising. A “kati patang” or cut kite becomes easy game for anyone to capture.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 3rd, 2017