I WOULD like to share my experience at the third international folk festival in Antalya, Turkey, which was held from Aug 28 to 30. Countries such as Azerbaijan, Iran, Romania and Sakha Republic (Yakutia) participated in the festival. Unfortunately the Pakistani contigent was also there.

I have used the word ‘unfortunately’ because the participants from all the other countries wore their cultural folk dresses as it was a folk festival, while Pakistani participants wore sports trousers and jeans.

Moreover, all participants were aged between 12 and 25 years, while the participants from Pakistan were aged 45 plus. They were supposed to perform in the festival, but they never appeared for any performance on all three days.

The whole crowd kept asking about the Pakistani group because the Turkish people love and respect Pakistan. But I as a Pakistani felt embarrassed and humiliated as the Pakistani group members never showed up.

When we approached and asked the Pakistani group members why they were not performing, they said they were least interested in the event and that although Turkish organisers were requesting them to perform, they won’t perform.

The situation was frustrating. They could not perform because they were there in the event on the basis of favouritism and did not know anything about folk festival and folk dances.

Would anyone like to tell us why did this happen?

Suhaib Aamir

Turkey

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2017