As we go on living closed lives

In the middle of the much coveted process of dialogue between the Pakistani government and the outlawed TTP – the start of which brought insurmountable joy in the flanks of the right-wing political parties and commentators who refuse to emotionally or intellectually leave the medieval age and enter the present times – another batch of our soldiers kidnapped by the TTP some time back have been killed in cold blood.
The myth propounded by focused religious political parties like the JI and confused religious political parties like the PTI that US drone strikes are the only cause of terrorism in our country has fully exploded as there have been no drone strikes for some time. Besides, while the collateral damage caused by the drones has stopped at about 450 lives of innocent citizens, the collateral damage of citizens in the process of bringing Shariah to Pakistan and/or paying the price for the government’s decision to side with Nato-Isaf forces continues to increase each day from almost 40,000 lives when the dialogue process began.
Bombs continue to explode and kill women, men and children in streets, bazaars, cinemas and public places by a number of militant organisations active across Pakistan. The recent train blast in northern Sindh caused casualties of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with oppressing the Baloch nationalist movement. On the other hand, scores of bodies are found buried in unmarked graves in Khuzdar.
Be it the indiscriminate killing of Hazaras in Balochistan and other Shias across the country, targeting of orthodox Sunni clerics, a volley of attacks on non-Muslims and their places of worship, the sporadic and targeted firing causing the death of ordinary citizens, political activists, health workers, polio vaccinators, et al, violence rules the roost. In Karachi alone the official number of unnatural deaths in 2013 surpassed 2,000.
Fear is instilled in the hearts and minds of the people by the militant extremists who terrorise and kill and by the militant political parties who are armed to the teeth and continually use violence to further their interests. But the biggest reason for this fear is the ultimate failure of the state and subsequent governments to save people from the forces of terror. One is not sure if the state and its institutions are even able to exercise their agency and power to save citizens.
If they have the ability, it must be shown now. Otherwise, we will not be wrong in thinking that they are equally fearful and unable to take on the forces of terror. If that is the case, rather than conducting dialogue and wasting time while people keep getting killed, an instrument of surrender should be prepared by the state, presented to the terrorists and signed accordingly. I still remember the photograph of Gen Niazi and Gen Aurora from 1971. Particularly for the supporters of the PTI, JI, JUI (different factions), etc there is no harm in trying out for once how tribes in the medieval age or before lived rather than just romancing with the values and ideas of those times.
What do we do as a society if the state fails to protect us? When we are subjected to fear and violence on a daily basis and when we are left at the mercy of militants and terrorists. When the political leadership some of us voted in for change have either chickened out or remain confused to the hilt. When the powerful institutions do not speak, it is the responsibility of the influential and vocal sections of society – academics, intellectuals, writers and artists – to speak up.
Barring some courageous journalists, poets and commentators, the majority has not done anything collectively to raise their voice, stand with the people of Pakistan in solidarity, condemn what we are subjected to live through and resolve to create a modern, progressive, plural and just Pakistani state and society.
At the Karachi Literature Festival recently, where a large number of writers were in attendance, fear, violence, terrorism, suffering at the hands of the bigots were discussed at literary sessions, book launches, art shows and seminars. But conspicuous by its absence was a collective voice of these creative writers and authors, a joint resolution, a shared demand. Individually, poems, articles or scant couplets were recited but there was no common voice.
We are living in times similar to those of fascism in Europe, Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain, etc. Writers and creative artists of Europe came together to struggle for democracy and peace. In our own Subcontinent, there was the Progressive Writers Movement that spoke for the poor, the wretched and the oppressed, the labour and the peasants. One understands that the literary festivals in Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad are not representative enough but the platform could have been used if there was a vibrant association of writers and creative artists.
Some months ago, Bilal Tanweer, the young promising fiction writer, poet, translator and teacher, sent me an essay, ‘The necessity to speak’, by Sam Hamill. The title of this piece is inspired by the essay, which is about what poets (and writers) must do when seeing what we see around us in this world.
Hamill begins with a quote from Albert Camus which I quote here. “One must understand what fear means: what it implies and what it rejects. It implies and rejects the same fact: a world where murder is legitimate, and where human life is considered trifling … All I ask is that, in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish between those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being. Since this terrible dividing line does actually exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly marked.”
Our writers can at least come out and clearly tell people where the dividing line lies in Pakistani society, in our homes and public spaces. There is a dire need today for all our creative artists, writers, poets, painters, sculptors, etc to come together and shed any fear, laziness and indifference they suffer from. Whether we as a nation win this war against bigotry, tyranny, totalitarianism, poverty, injustice and militancy or not, history will find it hard to ignore the absence of a collective voice that could give voice to the voiceless.
Sam Hamill further says, “And yet we go on living closed lives, pretending we are not each personally responsible for the deaths we buy and sell. We go on living our sheltered lives among the potted plants and automobiles and advertising slogans. We don't want to know what the world is like, we can't bear very much reality. The man in prison remembers. The man who's been in prison remembers.
Cesare Pavese brings the message home most forcefully: “The lonely man, who's been in prison, goes back to prison every time he eats a piece of bread”. The woman who was battered remembers. The woman who was raped will never forget… Writing is a form of human communication pressing ideas regarding the human condition. Because writing creates emotion in the audience, the writer's responsibility is enormous.”
To me, this responsibility does not end with penning a poem or writing a story while sitting in the comfortable corner of one’s study and then sending it to a literary journal that has a print run of 500. It is time to speak up – collectively.
The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.
Email: harris.khaliquegmail.com