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“Dreams are mansur”

August 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Ahmad Faraz was on of Pakistan’s most famous poets; he passed away in 2008. Of course, like most great artists he spent time in prison and in exile.

I hope the poem below touches some dreamer…

Dreams do not die by Ahmad Faraz

Dreams do not die
Dreams are not hearts, nor eyes or breath
Which shattered, will scatter (or)
Die with the death of the body.
Dreams do not die.
Dreams are light, life, wind,
Which can not be stopped by mountains black,
Which do not burn in the hells of cruelty,
Like light and life and wind, they
Do not bow down even in graveyards.
Dreams are letters,
Dreams are illumination,
Dreams are Socrates,
Dreams are Mansur!’

Filed Under: Poems and Poets Tagged With: , , ,

News Article: Poetry confronts the Taliban in Pakistan

August 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Wow I love time differences because as my blog post I get to share this news story from Australia Network News (http://australianetworknews.com/stories/200908/2664856.htm?desktop)

Mustafa Qadri – Monday, August 24, 2009

People in a Pakistani frontier region threatened by the Taliban are trying to preserve a culture rich in poetry and dance from religious extremism.

The culture of the ethnic Pashtun peoples often delights in worldly pleasures – like sex and alcohol – considered un-Islamic by religious conservatives.

In the Badaber district of North-West Frontier province, the poems of the great Pashto literary figure, Ghani Khan, are still recited.

Khan celebrated such pleasures as “my beloved, my youth, and a cup of wine”.

Promises

He also offers a more immediate answer to any preaching about rewards in paradise:

Give the promises of eternal bliss to the Mullah after my death;
Could dreams of nymphs in the afterlife ever satisfy the poor?
Give me here just one nymph, smart, exalted and mesmerizing;
O God, if you do not do this, then keep your heavenly bounties;
I need them neither here nor in the afterlife.

The Taliban and other militant groups that champion a strict interpretation of Islam challenge such poetry.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, in the Swat valley before its recapture by the Pakistani army, the Taliban murdered several dancers and soothsayers they deemed immoral.

In Badaber, members of an anti-Taliban lashkar, or army, defend the vitally strategic tribal region, where the Taliban and government security forces wrestle for control.

Fazal Maula, who works for a non-government aid organisation there, told Radio Australia’s Connect Asia that Badaber, surrounded by tribal areas and with Peshawar province also on one side, is “the gateway into Peshawar”.

“Hardly six to seven kilometre area, in other words, protect the whole Peshawar from militancy and terrorism,” he says.

Ghani Khan (1914-1996) was the eldest son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, known as the Frontier Gandhi, who led the Pathans of today’s Pakistani North-West Frontier against British colonialism.

Outdates
His poetry echoes a style of verse that outdates the Taliban by about a century.

It paints a very different picture of the Pashtun peoples, who have more recently become associated with extremism.

But local communities are forming networks across religious, gender and political lines to preserve their culture and protect their society.

Fazal Maula says: “The people of Badaber area constituted different committees on the grassroots level to become united and to face this terrorism in the area.

“In this mobilisation process, mullah were also involved.”

But with many decades of radicalisation to contend with, it will take some time for the great poets to be heard in full again.

Filed Under: -Asian Traditions Tagged With: , , , , ,

Write stories that convey the greatness of life

August 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Peshawar, Pakistan links Central Asia with India, the Far East and the West and was the place to be in ancient times if you were interested in art or doing business because that is where people from all over the world would converge. In Peshawar, there is a place called Qisa Khawani Bazaar, which translated means “market of storytelling” this is because this is where storytellers would gather and entertain people.

Back then, artists, poets and of course storytellers from all over the globe would meet and swap stories of love, war and life in all its glory and pain and in so doing impart wisdom, traditions and cultures to each other through folktales, parables and song. But as time goes on this practice has slowly disappeared. In a city that was once filled with professional storytellers, there are now very few that can tell traditional stories in the traditional way. Today, Peshawar is just a city like any other, except that it is known for its storytelling CDs (every city takes advantage of history to earn a living). The tales that are told on the street of storytellers are not about the glory of life but about its brutality – they are raw and brutal and can be read on a daily basis in newspapers or watched on any news channel anywhere in the world.

Traditionally storytelling in Pakistan is a grand affair, going the whole nine yards, with singing and instrumentals. But as with all other countries, Pakistan finds itself making a concerted effort to revive the art of traditional storytelling. There are organizations that are actively recording storytellers as they tell traditional stories and there are others that are encouraging the younger generation to learn the stories and their performances from the traditional storytellers and there are even others that are compiling digital folktales online and sharing them all over the world. All in an effort to save a dying tradition for future generations.

This is the normal evolution of the world, as some may say so why fight it? I guess with the change in time we lose and gain a lot more than we bargained for. We live in a world where traditional folktales sometimes play second fiddle to video games and great movie creations onscreen. What does this mean for cultural histories and diversity when kids start to hear and see the same stories globally (usually on a TV screen)? This is neither good nor bad, it is simply something worth pondering. I guess the real question, as my mom often points out is: what culture’s history and values is being preserved on that TV screen?

Filed Under: -Asian Traditions Tagged With: , , , , ,

“In Pakistan politics is hereditary,” – Imran Khan

August 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Today Pakistan announced that it captured one of the leaders of the Taliban and is pressing forward with the war against terror. Meanwhile, the UN has also announced that flash floods have killed 27 people in Pakistan and affected 80.000 people. And this is just the news report for one country in one day. And there are how many countries in the world? How many days in a year?

And then we wonder why students at liberal arts colleges protest for a living or at least appear to. Could it be that the world that is being left to us is less than ideal? We are a generation that will spend most of our lives cleaning up the flash floods caused by climate changes and reaping the spoils of the war on terror caused by economic greed. Thank God for those liberal art students. Because after all what is the role of art if it is not to change the way we perceive the world and propose a better or worse outlook?

Look at any country and there is some underground movement against something. Why? Will we ever reach Utopia? Even in Pakistan you will find a history of protest theater which dates back to the 1980s when poets and playwrights decided to use the theater as much more than an entertainment platform but a place to inspire social change and push anti military ideologies. The theater in Pakistan has always been diverse in terms of gender and not restricted to the stage – it encompasses the streets, the rural villages and even schools. And has one aim: to show society up and force political and social change. Someone has to right?

The theater may seem like harmless fun but it is the one place where women shine and can become very famous in a country that is not focused on gender equality. It’s very interesting to note that in 2007 there was a major international incident when one theater group – Ajoka – was being terrorized by the Taliban and was forced to request the international community to write to General Pervez Musharraf to urge him to address the matter. Ajoka’s mission is to address social issues boldly but artistically and to promote a culture of peace and enlightenment. In this case the play (Burqavaganza) that sparked criticism, addressed gender discrimination and religious extremity by having all the characters (regardless of gender) dress in Burqas. Obviously this may spark a reaction. The whole issue really boiled down to freedom of expression: was the director of the play blaspheming Islam or was it satire? Does it even matter?

Filed Under: -Asian Traditions Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Pakistan: The last of the romantic frontiers

August 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

A friend once told me that the way the west recites poetry was boring. She could not understand why spoken word poets in Boston were not writing about love. She explained that reading Urdu poetry brought her to tears (I once found her crying as she was reading poetry) because the love described was so intense. She told me all this after I took her to a poetry slam hoping to show her something new and interesting that I was sure she had never seen before. Imagine my shock when I learned that slam (or other form of poetry games) is all over the world and has been for years? I admit – I have moments of plain ignorance at times but luckily there are people that set me straight.

It struck me though a few weeks back that all I ever read in the papers about Pakistan was about instability, and to be honest, I was clueless about anything else. Which is why I was baffled by my friend’s announcement to move there. I mean to me it was not the first place I would jump to as a vacation spot. But it turns out that poetry is a social past time in Pakistan and that alone may take me there. Urdu poetry is love poetry that is philosophical and mystical all at once; it is native to both India and Pakistan. The romance described in the poetry is very soap operatic (to me anyway) – it is all about attaining some one’s love and how you cannot breathe without them close to you…

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan and, of course, Urdu poetry has various genres and is recited or sung. Urdu poetry gatherings are very popular and can attract thousands of people. I honestly had no clue that poetry was so big in Pakistan (I knew it was massive in the Middle East) but there are tons of blogs that give day to day updates on the Urdu poetry scene in India and Pakistan and there are various websites that allow people to download Urdu poetry Mp3s as well.

Now that I know all this I feel a little relaxed but slightly baffled. Relaxed because personally, I have often found poetry events to be a great way to socialize in most countries that I have been to so I know I will be fine in Pakistan if and when I go there. Even President Obama visited Pakistan and fell in love with Urdu poetry (apparently he spent some time there with college roommates).

I am baffled because I cannot understand how a country that is constantly reporting violence is obsessed with romance and poetry. Not only that, but it is famous for love poetry that is so intense it moves people, even army Generals, to tears. Is there a disconnect somewhere? How is this possible, am I missing something? If people can feel love so deeply why is there so much violence? Is this just another glitch of being human?

Filed Under: -Asian Traditions Tagged With: , , , , ,
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