Over 100 speakers and performers to take part in Adab Festival on Nov 26 and 27

Climate change will be the theme of the fourth edition of the Adab Festival that will take place at the Frere Hall on November 26 and November 27.

Founder and director of the Adab Festival Ameena Saiyid, director Shama Askari and Habib University President Wasif Rizvi announced the programme of the literary festival at a press conference at the Frere Hall on Thursday.

Saiyid thanked the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation Administrator Murtaza Wahab, Commissioner Muhammad Iqbal Memon and various organisations including the British Council, Habib University, Lightstone Publishers, BARD Foundation, Institute of Business Management and Bank of Punjab for their cooperation in making the festival possible.

She said the organisers of the Adab Festival were thankful to Wahab as he had allowed them to use the Frere Hall for the event free of charge. She added that everyone would be welcome to the festival without any ticket, and the theme of the festival was climate change.

The Adab Festival founder announced that new publications would be launched at the event and along with literary figures, politicians and journalists such as Aitzaz Ahsan, Javed Jabbar, Nadeem Paracha and Iftikhar Ahmed would also attend the festival and address its sessions.

She remarked that the festival was a new silk route through which our traditions and culture, literature and arts and their luscious fruits could travel and enter the hearts of the people in every part of Pakistan and the world.

“Through Adab Festival, which is free and open for all, we want everyone in the community to love, experience and enjoy literature,” she maintained. Saiyid said that the festival belonged to Karachi and its community, which was why they were having it in an open public space.

British Council Deputy Director Maarya Rehman said Pakistan was at the cusp of the climate crisis, and its large youth population must be part of the long-term solution for tackling the global challenge. At the British Council, she said, they had brought underrepresented voices – especially those most affected by the climate change – into the conversation. “Through arts and culture, we can bring young people together to connect and collaborate on creative responses to the climate emergency. The Adab Festival aims to stimulate conversations around the climate emergency and inspire transformational change,” she said.

The Habib University president said Pakistan would soon be unlivable for humans if the climate issue was not addressed. Extreme weather events - disastrous rains, devastating droughts and heatwaves – had caused unimaginable catastrophe in the country, he added.

Rizvi was of the view that climate change in Pakistan would likely have increasingly terrible impacts on food security and water scarcity. “Despite this existential threat, Pakistan has done little to impact the mainstream climate change narrative,” he said, adding that the Habib University, being an intellectually vibrant institution, considered it its responsibility to initiate critical discourse highlighting the severity of such existential threats.

The theme of the Fourth Adab Festival, he said, was close to the Habib University’s mission of working towards protecting our ecosystem. German Consul General Rudiger Lotz said it was a good precedent to make climate change a central part of the Adab Festival. The climate change, he said, was a global issue and it had been causing people to migrate.

About 100 speakers and performers will participate at the Adab Festival, including Zehra Nigah, Sherry Rahman, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Wahab, Tariq Alexander Qaiser, Iftikhar Arif, Kishwar Naheed, Wusatullah Khan, Yasser Latif Hamdani, Zafar Masud, Dr Samina Zahir, Fatema Hasan, Afzal Syed, Tanvir Anjum, Bina Shah, Noorul Huda Shah, Taimur Rahman, Natalia Gul, Rumana Husain, Shahnaz Wazir Ali and Baela Jamil.

‘The Lost Lullaby of Mother Nature’ art show by Fauzia Minallah curated by Pomme Amina Gohar will also be held at the festival. There will be a separate section for children to draw them to reading through storytelling, music, performances and art.