Experience

Pain is very personal

A few brief glimpses -- among hundreds of thousands more -- from the camps inhabited by people now called internally displaced

By Naeem Safi

Pain--has an Element of Blank--

It cannot recollect

When it begun--or if there were

A time when it was not.

Emily Dickinson

Pain is personal -- a deep, dark emptiness -- may be some part of which can be traced in the blank eyes of those who are feeling it. But that is the thing with feelings -- it is hard to express the best and, unfortunately, the worst with words. It's beyond the faculty of language. No wonder observing a few minutes of silence is the best way for nations to express feelings.

Can one write about the blankness in the eyes of a mother from Swat who has left the dead body of her husband on a bed behind locked doors, and fled the area with her children to survive -- physically, of course. She, carrying the newly acquired title of the widow… Can all the gory metaphors really make one feel what the children, women, and men of Swat are actually going through?

What words would you choose when you meet an old man, who is bent down with age, carrying his entire refuge in a plastic bag on his shoulder, empty gaze fixed on earth and mouth slightly open with fatigue, with rubber slippers that are stitched together with multicoloured threads, dragging his feet which have become one colour with dust, as if the dust is slowly taking over his body.

"We were 17 in total when we left Chinärgè," Muhammad Zaman, 73, narrates, "but at Barikot we realised we were walking through a curfew zone. Everyone around us panicked and ran for their lives in the mountains to hide from the army... It was late at night, when I climbed down to Dargai with strangers, and then walked all the way to Mardan in the hope that I might find my sons, Munir and Nazar Hussain, among the crowd. Spent a night there and came back to Jalala. It's been four days and I'm still looking for them."

A very old man handed over his two granddaughters to some strangers, pleading to take care of the little girls -- for God's sake. If this is not the only case, then the history of the lost children of Balakot might be repeating.

A family left a boy, who had polio, back in the valley inside their locked home, because they had to cross the mountains on foot. They left some dry bread and water by his side. Now the mother is a living dead, praying for his life but with very little hope.

These are just a few brief glimpses. There are hundreds of thousands more. One does not even have to use one's imagination to lose it. It takes thousands of years for cultures and cultural landscapes to develop. These IDPs are the victims of pride.

The damage done to a people and a culture is irrecoverable, but no one seems to be aware of that. The government is asking for more from the donor countries, but the majority of IDPs and their hosts yet have to see the first sign of any government presence. On the other hand, the government is refusing to acknowledge the total failure on its part for not being able to plan things properly. It still has to own this mess along with everything that is going on. Even the All Parties' Conference was just another drawing room meeting, some participants denying the government's announcement of their support for the military operation. It is not surprising that the overwhelmed locals and volunteers in Mardan, Charsadda, and Swabi find it hard to believe that the government was not aware of the scale of the catastrophe. Chomsky has rightly observed, "Hypocrisy is the standard. It's ugly, but it's the standard."

The media has got something new to sell. The TV channels are feeding their huge 24-7-transmission bellies, and some even have the courage to make skits on the scarcity of naswaar in Mingora. TV talk shows are a good pastime. And an FM radio correspondent, reporting about the plight of pregnant IDP women in Mardan, thinks it would be a good idea to add, "…and since khan saab is seldom satisfied with fewer kids, so we have a lot of such pregnant cases here." After all, it's all about entertaining the audience.

And the audience, in this theatre, is playing its role. There are stalls on every other crossing, with loud speakers screaming and banners showing in big bold letterings the names of the 'concerned' individuals and organizations.

If it were not for the people of the immediate districts that absorbed the major load of the IDPs, the world would have witnessed a disaster of much greater proportions than what it is coping with now. The locals are mostly farmers living in farmhouses. They still have not shown any sign of displeasure or fatigue to their guests. But they too fear the time when there will soon be no grain in their stores.

It is true that some of people supported the Taliban. But regardless of the time and the context, has not movements throughout history gained sympathies of a few common men? Masses are like a herd of sheep, they will cheer and dance if ushered towards a sports festival, and will support any gun that promises a better future (and is frequently pointed at them). May that promise come from a red banner, a green banner, a white one, or the bright blue; along with them -- no God, one God, or more than one gods, there will always be a few to follow them.

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Published in The News on Sunday

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/may2009-weekly/nos-24-05-2009/dia.htm#4

Book Review: Coming Back Home

Expecting from this review to cover each area of this compilation might not be fair. This is just a foretaste of what this book has to offer. Coming Back Home is yet another credible compilation on Faiz by the renowned literary scholar Sheema Majeed, whose name is not new to the Faiz reader. The book is divided into four parts, each giving a distinct perspective into his life and his world. There could not be a better timing for its arrival because it reminds how Pakistan started and what the aspirations behind this state were.

The first part follows a very elaborate introduction by Khalid Hassan and is a careful selection of Faiz's editorials and articles for The Pakistan Times, covering almost every aspect -- political, social, cultural, or intellectual -- of Pakistani society of the era. The articles give a rare insight into the formative years of Pakistan and one can clearly see the origins of the present national imbroglio. Part two of the book covers some of his very moving interviews, where he gives a very intimate view on Ghalib and the state of affairs that lead to the poetic style of that period. It is a rare find for Faiz lovers, bringing to light some amazing observations about the great poet. In an interview titled 'There's No Concorde To Heaven,' he expresses his faith in the wretched of the earth thus: "do not lose faith in the ordinary people. They are capable of great deeds. They shall overcome." One should not assume that these words were uttered out of sheer passion, rather he had his reason despite acknowledging the fact later in the same interview that, "the dream of Pakistan was in shambles. The pieces could not be put together. The country had been mortgaged to the neo-imperialist power bloc." The interview section ends with his talk to Amrita Pritam Kaur, him saying in a certain context, "There is intense pain in love, but friendship is peace." The third part following the interviews has two essays by Khalid Hassan and I.A.Rehman, with a very intimate look into Faiz and his life. Both of the essays offer something that is for sure the not-to-be-missed part of the compilation. The book ends with homage to Alys Faiz, an all-embracing interview by Cassandra Balchin. Who else could have known Faiz better than Alys? This is such a beautiful conclusion of the book.

Overall, this compilation is a very valuable record of the times gone by, showing some clear images among the blurred ones and bringing some disturbing silhouettes to light. It takes us on a journey to the times of the young Faiz, the dreamer, who was living with all his passion and intellect, which was not reserved just for his people, but rather had a universal appeal. He is sentimental, emotional, reasoning, complaining, persuading, encouraging, and above all, persistently reminding his people never to lose hope and always strive to make this world more liveable.

Faiz is no more among us but we can still hear the echoes of his very bitter but astute reading of our political crises: "the machinery of the law had to be prostituted for personal whim." He uttered these words, when the country was barely eight months old, with "chilling accuracy", as Khalid Hassan has written in his introduction. Have things improved since then? If not, is this not the right time for us to tell this to the political puppets and their directors to stop "prostituting" all of the institutions of this state-in-shambles? According to Faiz, "the law has no potency unless it is backed by the government and government has no validity if it is not backed by the law. If these two institutions begin circumventing each other by tricks and stratagems the people will soon give up recognizing both. If a government starts behaving towards the law in the same fashion as a tax-dodger or a black market operator, all the lawbreakers will soon become the law-givers of the community." Faiz warned us against what is happening in the streets, on the TV and in the assemblies even now.

Faiz not only romanticized politics, like Neruda and others, he brought reason to poetry and arts too--persuading writers, artists, poets, and the common man alike, for a better tomorrow. Our land has somehow ceased to produce such visionaries and intellectuals. After reading him, one feels that many contemporary writers have become numb and apolitical. The columnists today are mostly entertainers and pseudo intellectuals, each with his/her own style of repeating the same information, that people usually are familiar with; and they fail to give a break to the people, unlike Faiz, and make it clear to the people that they should never buy tickets to the political theatre. This compilation opens a door to the place in our past where we can find some remedy for the current calamity caused by the imposed political and cultural circus; a place where someone was dreaming and hoping for the 'cultural renaissance'. A visionary who had "slept on an empty stomach--many a time", but his pride will not let him go to even his friends, let alone the powerful 'others.' Something we have forgotten as a nation, to have a sense of pride and honor, possible even with an empty stomach.

At the very least, we should try to understand his pain and love for this country and its people and peacefully get rid of these "petty tyrants." Has not the time come yet to reclaim our "privilege of free citizenship in a proud and freedom loving land."? This book should not gather dust on the shelves, or become a source for after-dinner discussions among the armchair revolutionaries. This book is a valuable source of inspiration to understand the political message of Faiz and also to know ourselves and realize our collective potential.

Let us conclude this with a quote from the introduction of this book:

"Nijat-e-deed o dil ki gharri nahin aayi/ Challe challo ke who manzil abhi nahin aayi"

Unfortunately true for today.

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Published in The News on Sunday.

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/may2008-weekly/nos-25-05-2008/lit.htm#2