KARACHI: A series of activities marked the opening ceremony of the two-day conference held to celebrate the centenary of eminent Marxist thinker and writer Sibte Hassan at the Arts Council on Sunday morning.

Photographs of the different periods of his life adorned the council walls. There were pictures in which he’s seen with literary luminaries such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ali Sardar Jaffery, and a separate stall was set up where books were placed, many of which were written by Mr Hassan.

The day formally began with a heartwarming video made by the late Musthaq Gazdar and edited and presented by his daughter Aisha Gazdar of an event organised in Mr Hassan’s honour in 1985. It is a historic document because it contains memorable speeches not just by Mr Hassan but by Majnoon Gorakhpuri, Ismat Chughtai, among others, was one of the participants of the event.

After the video, Dr Tariq Sohail representing the organising committee of the conference gave the welcome address. Dr Syed Jaffer Ahmed briefed the audience on how the idea for the moot was conceived.

‘We need to close down our textbook boards’

The first session of the day had four speeches. Renowned historian Dr Mubarak Ali, referring to three of Mr Hassan’s books –– Musa Se Marx Tak, Mazi Ke Mazaar and Pakistan Mein Tehzeeb Ka Irtiqa — said it was important to study civilisations. He said they raised the question whether we could learn from our past or the past was just a distant thing about which we did not know. He said there was a time when we actually did not know much about old civilisations but it was in the 1770s that old cities were discovered near Naples after which the discipline of archaeology emerged. He said archaeology discovered a new world.

Dr Ali gave a detailed account of how man made use of archaeological discoveries which in certain cases infused him with a sense of superiority. He said Rousseau at one place suggested that after the gathering and hunting period, agriculture changed the world because it was during this era that for the first time man started to own pieces of land. All this, he said, paved the way for the concept of power and the tussle between the powerful and the powerless began. However, he said, there were also people such as farmers and workers, who challenged the notions of power, as a result of which dictators were removed from their position. He said now history was moving in another direction and the gap between the powerful and the powerless was diminishing.

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy said he had met Mr Hassan only twice. He said in 1984 he had penned an article titled ‘Science ke maidaan mein Pakistan ki pasmandgi’, for which he had taken help from Mr Hassan’s book. He said when Mr Hassan read that essay he wrote him a letter following which they met twice.

Dr Hoodbhoy said those were bad times. In those days, he said, everything was being Islamised, even science. He said at the time intellect-hating forces were at their peak. But, he said, it seemed that what came after Gen Ziaul Haq’s rule was not good either. He said he had lately been disturbed because Donald Trump was elected the United States’ president. He said one had to think how a misogynist, an enemy of Mexicans and Muslims, and a semi-literate person could become the leader of the most powerful country. He said there was no Ziaul Haq there. Rather, there was freedom of thought. He said America had the best of universities, and yet they elected Trump.

Dr Hoodbhoy said America was not the only country where such forces were on the rise; in our neighbouring India, the country which used to be liberal and secular, Muslims were leading a fearful life (chhup chhup ker phir rahey hain). Why is it happening to the world? He asked arguing that we needed to find reasons for it.

Dr Hoodbhoy said in his view people were neither good nor bad, but when fear was instilled in them then their instinct of jahiliat (ignorance) came to the fore. The same people could be good and bad. He said in America Trump said to the people that Mexicans were snatching their jobs, Muslims were fomenting terrorism, and until we stopped them from coming to the US, America would be in danger. He said in reality it’s not right because the reason for lesser jobs in America was that manufacturing in the country had become expensive and excessive weaponisation (availability of weapons) was the reason why shootings took place in education institutions. But, he said, you could tell all these things to those who were literate. He said the class disparity that had been created in America in recent times had enabled only a small percentage of the people to acquire higher education. Therefore, people were angry and all the blame for it was being put on others, because of which Trump won.

Dr Hoodbhoy said there were more problems in Pakistan. He said the kind of education being imparted in our educational institutions did not improve our thinking faculties (shaoor) but destroyed them. Mentioning Mr Hassan’s speech in the video, he said our education system did not allow us to ask questions. He said unless we questioned things, we would not learn. He said it was taught in our institutes that Darwin’s theory of evolution was unimportant. He said if that’s the case, why we taught biology in schools. He said we needed to improve our system of education and there was a need for closing down all textbook boards.

Dr Anwar Ahmed told the audience that a student in Multan had done PhD on Sibte Hassan.

Prof Mazhar Jameel shed light on the narrative beauty of Mr Hassan’s nonfiction prose.

A performance by Tehrik-i-Niswan and another session of speeches were the next items on the progrramme’s list.

The second day’s proceedings of the conference will take place at the Jinnah Medical and Dental College on Monday.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2016