and was a profound comment on life, its vagaries, its joys, trials, tribulations and a whole lot of other aspects.
He especially eulogised Russian writer Maxim Gorky and, heaping praises
on him, said that Gorky really, most prolifically, brought to the fore the shortcomings in Russia’s elitist/feudal set-up. “Gorky’s writings created mass awakening among the masses and mobilised them for the Russian Revolution of 1917,” he said.
He lauded the “good work” being carried out by the Progressive Writers Association (PWA).
Noted prize-winning journalist Zubeida Mustafa, in her erudite discourse, said that the conference was highly timely given the state of the country and the world today with extremism and bigotry becoming the norm, utterly unmindful of the heavy toll they were taking in human life, the exploitation of the masses at the hands of a handful of capitalists. It was amid these grave conditions, she said, that the indispensable role of literature, and its power to inculcate noble sentiments, was felt with all the more urgency.
She said that even though the constitution of the country made education for children between 5 and 16 free and compulsory, education was a shambles. Education was transferred to the provinces under the provisions of the 18th amendment but no rules of reference had been prescribed.
“Government schools must fulfill their civic obligations towards the children and schools must be equipped with proper toilets and constant running drinking water,” she said. Here she quoted many cases where girl pupils, to relieve themselves, had to go all the way home because of a shortage of sanitary facilities at school and then didn’t return.
She was of the firm view that teaching at school need not be in English, insisting that it should be in the child’s mother tongue as that would expedite the process of assimilation and hasten learning.
Earlier, Dr Badar Ujjan, President, Convention Organising Committee, welcomed the guests and Mohsin Zulfiqar from the UK outlined the activities of the PWA in the UK and described how Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s birth centennial celebrations were organised there.
Masood Qamar from Sweden and Agha Gul from Balochistan also spoke.