ISLAMABAD, June 8: Federal Minister for Education Javed Ashraf Qazi on Thursday urged the scholars and intellectuals to restore the true image of Pakistan in the international media by properly defining its culture in context of its rich diversity and uniqueness.

He said this while inaugurating a two-day national conference organised by the Quaid Azam University at a local hotel.

The minister regretted that Pakistani culture was dubbed as being anachronistic as if Pakistanis were living in the Stone Age. This was not true and, therefore, we must do our best to retrieve the good image of the country, he added. He said culture had become a burning topic nowadays because some politically-motivated religious leaders were spreading confusion, and the foreign media had picked it up to the country’s disadvantage.

He said pseudo intellectuals here thought as though the whole Pakistani population had migrated from Saudi Arabia. “In fact, they were children of converts to Islam, who had absorbed elements of prehistoric Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Christian civilisations and gave them an Islamic orientation,” he said, adding, “Culture is shaped by history and geography.”

In this regard, he cited the case of confused individuals, who thought that singing by girls within the four walls of their college offended Islam. “This is very silly, hence I have rescinded the ban.”

In this connection, Mr Qazi also referred to the singing of girls on the musical instrument duff to welcome Holy Prophet (PBUH) on his first arrival at Madina. He also quoted examples of women accompanying their male members to the battlefields to minister to the wounded.

The minister said that misinterpretation of Islamic culture had caused harm to the minority communities. He said people had damaged traffic lights, burnt cars and churches after the publication of blasphemous sketches.

The minister said that publication of blasphemous sketches must be condemned but not in an outrageous manner. Christians also are Pakistani citizens and not blood relations of Europeans or Americans,” he said.

He requested the provincial governments to return nationalised schools to their former owners. “The FC College had regained its formal bright standard after its denationalisation,” he said.

Former minister for culture S.K Tressler, who presided over the first working session, spoke from the minorities perspective.

He said Pakistan had a pluralistic culture since ages and though Christians were just four per cent of non-Muslim population, they lived in these parts since Saint Thomas Aquinas came to Taxila in 40 AD.

“No Christian had opposed the creation of Pakistan or Quaid-i-Azam. On the contrary, a Christian deputy speaker, Dewan Bahadur, had tabled the casting vote when the question of creation of Pakistan constitution was being voted.” He said a number of Muslim members had voted against the proposition.

He regretted that some pseudo intellectuals were promoting hatred against the minorities by preaching that Pakistan was created only for the Muslims. “But Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah never said anything like this,” Mr Tressler said.

In the second working session held in the afternoon, eminent journalist Hasan Askari Rizvi said that the provincial aspirations should be recognised and the provincial governments should be allowed to handle their own language and cultural affairs without being looked from the shoulder by the central establishment.