karachi literature festival: ‘Literature teaches us to celebrate differences among ourselves’

Literature and the arts do not teach us to tolerate differences among ourselves. They rather teach us to enjoy and celebrate those differences. British author of Egyptian descent Ahdaf Soueif said this as she addressed the closing ceremony of the 11th Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) as one of the keynote speakers on Sunday night.

She said Karachi reminded her of Egypt, where she was born, and felt at home when she arrived in the city. She started her brief speech with discussing historical similarities between Pakistan and Egypt, saying that both the regions where these countries lie today were once under the control of Alexander the Great.

She said that both Egypt and the Sindh region came under the Muslim rule in the early years of Islam. Later, both the regions became part of the colonial rule. Ahdaf remarked that the arts and literature were intertwined with politics. She said that no individual could detach themselves from politics because even if someone said they did not care about politics, politics still cared about them.

The British author called for accepting and enjoying differences among countries, cultures and individuals. She said that had all the human beings been the same, there would have been no point in reading narrative fiction. Empathy, according to her, was the name of recognising similarities within dissimilarities.

Pluralism

Poet and rights activist Harris Khalique was the second keynote speaker at the concluding ceremony. His speech revolved around his concern of pluralism losing ground worldwide and the growing popularity of fascist ideas.

“Today we witness a world falling apart,” he remarked. To explain his point he cited the electoral victories of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil and India respectively.

He said that on the one hand it seemed that we had lost track, but on the other, the current situation also presented an opportunity to mark a new beginning. “The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously,” Khalique quoted author Julian Barnes.

He also lamented that artistes did not enjoy complete freedom to fully express their imagination. He said that both military and civilian governments of the country tried to suppress the arts and progressive thoughts.

According to Khalique, the current situation was more challenging for those who defied the power compared to that of the past. He said that our predecessors had well-defined opponents but now such opponents were manifesting themselves in a multitude of ways and employing a range of tactics from Fatwas to detentions.

He said that the dominant classes had little interest in listening to the concerns of others, and added that such an attitude paved the way for violence, and once violence prevailed, critical discourse was muffled.

Great nation

The chief guest of the concluding ceremony was Azad Jammu & Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan. He said he was happy to see people of all ages in the audience: from teenagers to those who were of his age or even older than him.

He said Pakistan is a great nation, which is evident from the fact that it survived many vicissitudes. He added that there were many nations in Africa and Latin America that faced implosion.

He reminded the audience that they were free people and they had exercised their freedom to attend the KLF. He said that people living in the Indian-occupied Kashmir did not have such freedom.

“Speak up for Kashmiris,” he said, and added that doing so was an easy task in the current era, as people had their mobile phones with them, through which they could raise their concerns against the Indian brutalities in Kashmir on various social media platforms.

He also discussed the riots happening in Delhi and termed them “organised massacre”. He said that due to effective campaigning on mainstream and social media, parliaments of many countries and key global bodies such as the United Nations had started to call out India. He also requested global leaders not to paint Modi in positive light. He recalled that once Hitler and Mussolini were also praised, but then their ideologies resulted in global wars.