The silencing of Sabeen

In my long career as a columnist, I have been constrained to chronicle the sorrows of this unfortunate country. And the focus mainly remains Karachi where I have grown up. But this experience has not made it any easier for me to come to terms with a tragedy of this enormity and depth.
Sabeen Mahmud was shot dead late on Friday evening. If you know who she was and what she represented in the context of our struggle for survival as civilised human beings, you are bound to feel it as a very personal loss. She was a member of your family, and while you grieve and suffer incomprehensible pain, you should remember that Sabeen Mahmud is now a national hero.
It is obviously very difficult for me to collect my thoughts in any orderly fashion as I write these words on Saturday morning. What can one say? Those of us who were at the morgue until after midnight were too stunned to speak to each other. It will take time for us to grasp the meaning of this calamity. It felt as if the members of Sabeen’s tribe, spread across the world, were spiritually with us to share our bereavement.
In the immediate past, I can recall two other violent deaths that prompted somewhat similar emotions as Sabeen’s killing has aroused. Parveen Rahman of the Orangi Pilot Project was shot dead in Karachi and Rashid Rehman, a lawyer and human rights defender, was targeted in Multan. This is how some of the most precious and truly courageous individuals in our lives are removed from the scene by the dark and evil forces of intolerance and anti-liberalism.
To present a glimpse of Sabeen’s story, let me lean on reports published in Saturday’s newspapers. This is the intro of one front-page story: “Sabeen Mahmud, the director and founder of The Second Floor (T2F) café, was shot dead by gunmen in an upscale neighbourhood of the metropolis on Friday”.
Another newspaper said: “Sabeen Mahmud, social media campaigner and human rights activist who founded the social forum T2F, was shot dead on Friday evening, minutes after the end of an interactive discussion ‘Unsilencing Balochistan’ organised by her and attended by journalists and rights activists, including the founder leader of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, Abdul Qadeer Baloch”.
This report said that DIG Police of District South, Dr Jamil Ahmed “ruled out the killing as a result of a mugging attempt and said she had been attacked deliberately but he could not share any possible motive”. He was quoted as saying: “She was returning home with her mother in a car after the seminar she had organised on Balochistan”.
To learn a bit more about Sabeen, here are excerpts from a profile published on Saturday: “Peace activist and founder of T2F Sabeen Mahmud, who died from gunshot wounds on Friday, was a woman of many talents that mostly revolved around creating digital platforms for arts and culture…… She set up The Second Floor (T2F) as part of her non-profit umbrella called PeaceNiche of which T2F was her first major projection in 2007…The watering hole soon started organising talks, discussions, exhibitions, pioneering events (Pakistan’s first hackathon, stand-up comedy acts) with prominent local and international artists, writers and activists that it became essential for nearly everyone to attend these events at T2F as Ms Mahmud passionately worked for it day and night from fundraising, marketing to building maintenance”.
It is noted that she was an amateur sitar player and founder member of the All Pakistan Music Conference. She not only organised music programmes but also gave space to music educationists at T2F.
What emerges from this is that Sabeen was, in effect, the conscience of Karachi. I am very anxious to find out how our rulers would honour her for what she has contributed to society. The T2F idea is something that reflects our aspirations for a more meaningful existence in the midst of forces that represent death and destruction. Does this mean that Sabeen’s murder certifies a loss of hope in our future? This surely will depend on how the establishment responds to this tragedy.
I have my own memories of T2F. One session comes readily to mind when I moderated a discussion on Omar Shahid’s fictional account of violence in Karachi, The Prisoner. It is strange how almost every effort to celebrate a literary or cultural achievement in this city is rooted in a recollection of grief.
Very ominous it seems to me that I have to mourn the death of a civil society activist when I was all set to celebrate a very enterprising civil society campaign to establish peace in Karachi and to reclaim its public spaces. Yes, I am a member of the ‘I Am Karachi’ consortium and a grand event is scheduled today. The theme I had chosen was to compare what we have won and what we have lost in Karachi. With Sabeen’s murder, the balance has tilted drastically in the wrong direction.
In essence, T2F could be the model of what ‘I Am Karachi’ wants to replicate on a large scale. Concerned citizens of this city must come together and create an environment in which arts, culture and a rational discourse can flourish. I am personally involved with an initiative to promote dialogue and have participated in interactive discussions on some campuses.
Even when I do these things with full commitment, it is always hard for me to ward off the pessimism that is firmly lodged in my heart and in my mind. I keep telling friends that I am a proclaimed pessimist with a distinction that I must continue to do what I can. I will not give up and will not join the enemy. Yet, the prospects are incontrovertibly grim. Karachi, in particular, is in a state of decay – materially, intellectually, socially, politically, and spiritually. There is a lot of garbage on our streets and in our minds.
Someone might suggest that the situation is changing in the aftermath of the massacre of our schoolchildren in Peshawar and the ongoing operation in Karachi has produced some positive results. But the overall social conditions are not changing – and our rulers are unable to fight the war that is to be waged in the minds of men.
When I am told that there is a silver lining, my pessimism argues that every silver lining has a dark cloud. On the very day when Sabeen was killed by gunmen, two public rallies were held in Pakistan by ‘banned’ terrorist outfits. Draw your own conclusions.
The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com