Many people assume storytelling is an art that belongs to writers. In fact, we are all storytellers. The only way we can make sense of our experiences is by finding connections that can form a meaningful narrative.

Stories transmit social and cultural values across generations. We are the sum total of all our stories. Storytelling takes many forms — from writing our bio-data, to sharing memories with friends, revisiting family albums or, more formally, as writers, poets, singers or filmmakers.

Homer’s epic stories, the Iliad and Odyssey, written in ancient Greece, established the masculine ideal of the courageous warrior and the glorification of war. This ideal came to define heroism in Europe, eventually seeping from the actual battlefield into cinema and computer games.

Arabic epic literature, best known through The One Thousand and One Nights, abounds with fantastical adventures, animal fables, proverbs, the supernatural, and humorous and moral tales. Pakistani folklore centres around ancient love stories. The Ramayana and Mahabharat, while depicting wars, also made the more obscure religious texts accessible to ordinary people, generating more relatable deities such as Krishna, Ganesh and Hanuman.

The tales and narratives that are passed down from one generation to the next serve as a codification of collective beliefs, ideals, myths and, in some cases, agendas

Hollywood has emerged as the most powerful source of modern mythology, creating archetypes of lovers, criminals and family drama, with far-reaching global influence. The war film genre became a propaganda machine glamorising war and heroism, and stereotyping the enemy.

Native Americans were depicted as brutal savages, defending a land that was ‘destined for white people.’ Black Americans were presented through the lens of slavery, shown to be simple, naive or dangerous. Black American actors pushed back to claim centre stage, and the recent film, Killers of the Flower Moon, attempts to correct the perception of Native Americans. Arabs, once fascinatingly exotic with genies, flying carpets and horses galloping in the desert, soon became ‘violent Palestinians’ and, post 9/11, have been depicted as evil terrorists.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet symbolises the perfect love story across the world, and Che Guevara the perfect rebel to all those who want to defy the establishment from Peru to Pakistan. Parveen Shakir became the voice of the modern Pakistani woman, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib the voice of protest. The definition of an advanced society is its ability to go to the moon, rather than the eradication of poverty.

Narratives can also be inverted. The 2022 biopic of Elvis Presley highlighted his inspiration and respect for Black music, challenging the all-white American image promoted in the racially divided America of the 1950s and 1960s. America was uncomfortable when Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and refused to fight in the Vietnam War, but he has now become a much-revered icon proving his words true: “I am America; I am the part you won’t recognise. But get used to me.”

The narrative of the suffering of the Jewish Holocaust has been sidelined by the current brutality of Israeli attacks on the civilian inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank and, as a consequence of their support of these attacks, the US, Britain and many European countries have lost their image as the upholders of human rights.

Even the story of Superman, created by Jerry Seigel, is being revisited as a symbol for the loss of the Jewish homeland, as the planet Kal-El (Hebrew for “All is God”) blows up and Superman is sent to Earth (America) in a spaceship, not unlike baby Moses in his reed basket.

Pakistan is also in a maelstrom of shifting narratives. The ignorant masses have turned out to be politically aware. The awe of the powerful has turned into disappointed contempt. In his paper “Anti Hero”, the social researcher Matthew Mezey writes, “Over the last 30 years, we have lost the respect we once had for all experts and professionals and most notably politicians,” — a phenomenon called the ‘decline of deference.’

Yet, society needs its heroes — those extraordinary people who show what is possible for a human being to achieve. Heroes defend the defenceless and downtrodden, and represent the triumph of good over evil. In the words of the indigenous Canadian Chief Dan George, “If legends fall silent, who will teach the children of our ways?”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.
She may be reached at
durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 17th, 2024