|
[Commencement lecture by Pervez Hoodbhoy at the Indus
Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, December 9, 2006.]
It is indeed a pleasure to see the Indus Valley School of
Art and Architecture emerge as a thriving educational
institution. I remember my first visit here around 1994 when
it had barely come into existence. The Nusserwanjee Building
in Kharadar had just been pulled apart and transported
brick-by-brick to this site. Over the years it was patiently
put together again, and this innovative experiment has now
born fruit. To those who will graduate today from the
School, I extend my congratulations. You are ready to set
sail into the big, wide world as artists, designers and
architects. Many of you will doubtless become rich and
famous, and I hope all of you do.
But, as a general fact, the success of individuals does not
always lead to the betterment of the larger milieu in which
they live and breathe. Improving the state of society is a
far more difficult and complex matter, and it involves much
more than just increasing the consumption of material goods
and services. Societies change when people change their ways
of thinking. It is on this that we shall reflect upon today.
To help us along, let’s imagine a film like “Jinnah”. You
die and fly off to the arrival gate in heaven where an angel
of the immigration department screens newcomers from
Pakistan. Admission these days is even tougher than getting
a Green Card to America. You have to show proofs of good
deeds, argue your case, and fill out an admission form. One
section of the form asks you to specify three attitudinal
traits that you want fellow Pakistanis, presently on earth,
to have. As part of divine fairness, all previous entries
are electronically stored and publicly available and so you
learn that Mr. Jinnah, as the first Pakistani, had answered
– as you might guess – “Faith, Unity, Discipline”. This
slogan was in all the books you had studied in school, and
was emblazoned even on monuments and hillsides across the
country. Since copying won’t get you anywhere in heaven, you
obviously cannot repeat this.
What would your three choices be? As you consider your
answer, I’ll tell you mine.
First, I wish for minds that can deal with the complex
nature of truth. Without minds engaged on this issue
there cannot be a capacity for good judgment. And, without
good judgment a nation will blunder from one mistake on to
the next. Now, truth is a fundamental but very subtle
concept. The problem is that things are usually not totally
true or totally false. Still, some things are very true and
others are very false. For example it is very true that I
will be killed if I stand on the tracks in front of a
speeding train. And it is very false that the earth rests on
the horns of a bull. But these are quite easily established;
separating true and false is often extremely difficult.
Take art, architecture, music, poetry, or sculpture. They
are so absolutely necessary that we cannot conceive of a
satisfying or civilized existence without them. But there is
no true or false in any of them, just shades of gray. Harold
Pinter, the British dramatist who won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 2005, emphasizes this in his acceptance
speech:
The real truth is that there never is any such thing as
one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These
truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect
each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind
to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a
moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and
is lost.
Pinter says it so well. Who wants to read a book or see a
drama about absolute heroes and total villains? Or perfect
beauty and total ugliness? These extremities do not engage
our mind or sensitivities.
Truth in art is a subtle matter, and I am not a philosopher.
At one level it appears to me that truth in art is really
about preferences. Is it a truth that Ghalib was a better
poet than Mir? Or that Mehdi Hasan is the greatest ghazal
singer on the subcontinent? Is the renaissance neoclassical
art of Raphael and others more true to life than the modern
art forms that superseded it? Or that modern machine-driven
architectural geometries are superior to buildings designed
with columns, arches, and gargoyles of classical
architecture? Surely, these are matters of taste.
At another level there is a question of honesty and truth
that relates squarely to your profession: should someone, as
a commercial artist, design a great advertisement for a bad
product? Of course, some people will hold very strong
opinions on these issues because, perhaps as a consequence
of their education and socialization, they have accepted a
certain point of view and acquired certain tastes.
Fortunately, most will accept – even if grudgingly – that
truth in art is unknowable. There are no hard distinctions
between what is real and what is unreal, or between what is
true and what is false. In effect, a thing can be both true
and false. And here I will go happily along with
post-modernists even though on other matters there is much
that I disagree with them about.
But what about truth in matters of religion? Religion
occupies a far larger domain of our national existence than
art, literature, and the rest. Here there are still stronger
opinions and people shy away from discussions on this
everywhere. This is because there is usually a total
conviction of where the truth lies. Every religion is
convinced of its correctness and of the incorrectness of
others. My deeply religious Catholic friend at MIT – with
whom I shared a room during my freshman year – would kneel
by his bed every night to pray for my salvation because he
felt that, as a Muslim, I was destined to hell. His truth
was different from mine, but he was such a sweet person, and
so genuinely disturbed by what he saw as my ultimate fate,
that I simply did not have the heart to tell him that his
prayers were quite unnecessary.
We could, of course, avoid talking about religion and I
could stop just here. But it is a fact that religion
determines what large numbers of Pakistanis live for, and
what they will die for, and – all too often – what they will
kill for. So we cannot afford to avoid the subject when the
stakes are as high as they are today. The choice is between
conversation and violence.
So let us be bold and examine religion at its three
different levels.
At one level religion is inspirational and emotional.
Marmaduke Pickthal, who first translated the Holy Qur’an
into English, wrote that the melody of its verses could move
men to tears. Abdus Salam, transfixed by the symmetry of
Lahore’s Badshahi Mosque, said that it inspired him to think
of the famous SU(2)xU(1) symmetry that revolutionized the
world of particle physics.
At a second level lies the metaphysics of religion. This
relates to the particular beliefs of a religion, including
such issues as monotheism and polytheism, death and
reincarnation, heaven and hell, prophets and holy men,
sacrifices and rituals, etc. At both these levels, the
absoluteness of a particular truth is obvious to the
believer, but not necessarily to those outside the faith.
Nevertheless, he or she is happy to achieve a sense of
purpose in an otherwise purposeless universe. Of course, the
particular beliefs held to be true – as in art and
aesthetics – depend upon the individual’s family background,
education, and socialization into the wider community.
There is a third level: religions are prescriptive. You must
do this, but not do that. Some prescriptions are very
sensible. But several are understood very differently by
different groups belonging to the same overall faith. Some
differences are relatively harmless, such as exactly when
you may break your fast, when to celebrate Eid, and whether
your hands are to be folded or held down while praying. But
other differences are deeply divisive and the source of
bitter conflict: How much of her face must a Muslim woman
cover? None, all, or half-way in between? If a man declares
three times to his wife “I divorce you” adequate grounds
from an Islamic point of view for a divorce? Or, to take
another example, against whom and in what manner is the
Quranic injunction for jihad to be followed? This question
has pitted Muslim against Muslim in bitter disputation. Is
it okay to set off a car bomb in Baghdad and, if so, in
which neighborhood? Are suicide bombings un-Islamic? Was the
911 attack on America a crime by standards of Islamic
morality? Is Osama bin Laden a good Muslim, or perhaps not
one at all?
There are religious authorities on both sides of these
divides. I do not wish to take sides on these issues here,
but the very fact that there is serious disagreement even
among believers of the same faith – not to speak of faiths
hostile to each other – means that there cannot be only one
single truth in religion. At best there is a plurality of
truths, as in the case of art and literature. Some truths
are more true, or less true, than others.
And what about science? Are its truths absolute? At the risk
of appearing evasive, and of having to disappoint some
friends, I have to tell you that my answer is both yes and
no.
The good news is that, at the level of epistemology, truth
in science is ultimately knowable. Post-modernists are up
the creek if they think that all scientific knowledge is
relative. A scientific fact has to pass rigorous tests
before it is accepted. This means that different scientists
in different laboratories at different times must be able to
observe the same phenomenon. The nationality, sex, religion,
or ethnic affiliation of the scientist is irrelevant. This
is why scientists form an international community. Precisely
because their differences can be resolved on the basis of
experiment, observation, and mathematical argumentation,
they don’t kill each other or condemn other scientists as
heretics worthy of execution. I have yet to hear of a
scientist equivalent of Salman Rushdie.
But there are questions that science will never be able to
address. Nor is science a monolithic body of doctrine. The
great scientist and visionary, Freeman Dyson, reminds us
that:
Science is a culture, constantly growing and changing.
The science of today has broken out of the molds of
classical nineteenth century science, just as the paintings
of Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock broke out of the molds
of nineteenth century art. Science has as many competing
styles as painting or poetry.
Well, the objectivity of scientific knowledge was the good
news. The bad news is that the world’s scientists are also
responsible for some of the greatest crimes against
humanity. They make nuclear bombs, germ weapons, polluting
factories, and serve the narrow interests of their national,
religious, or ethnic groups. As individuals they are no more
enlightened than anybody else. Some brilliant scientists
that I have known are mere morons when it comes to matters
of society or of human relations. So, scientists will not
save the world – or even Pakistan.
Who will? Only those capable of nuanced, balanced, critical
thought can – and they don’t have to be scientists. We can
put our hopes only on those who realize the provisional
nature of truth, and who do not claim a monopoly on wisdom.
The dogmatist, who thinks he has a divinely provided
blueprint to reform society, will only get us into deeper
trouble. So this is why my first wish was for Pakistanis who
can think.
This is not a hopeless wish. Students here should think back
into what they were like before they came to this School,
and how they changed because their teachers encouraged them
to ask questions. You learned that good questions lead to
good answers that, in turn, generate more questions and
ideas. Those ideas helped you move forward. So, be critical,
be thoughtful, and don’t be satisfied until you are
thoroughly convinced.
But I must move on because I still have two more wishes to
make.
My second wish is for many more Pakistanis who accept
diversity as a virtue. So I am not asking for unity, but
acceptance of our differences. Let’s face it, we’re all
different. The four provinces of Pakistan have different
histories, class and societal structures, climates, and
natural resources. Within the provinces there live Sunnis,
Shias, Bohris, Ismailis, Ahmadis, Zikris, Hindus,
Christians, and Parsis. Then there are tribal and caste
divisions which are far too numerous to mention. Add to this
all the different languages and customs as well as different
modes of worship, rituals, and holy figures. Given this
enormous diversity, liberals – who are rather good people in
general – often talk of the need for tolerance. But I don’t
like this at all. Tolerance merely says that you are nice
enough to put up with a bad thing. Instead, let us accept
and even celebrate the differences!
Nations are built when diversity is accepted, just as
communities are built when individuals can be themselves and
yet work for and with each other. If we want unity in the
face of diversity, then the majority must stop trying to
force itself upon the minorities. Most crucially, the state
must stop acting on behalf of the majority. It is imperative
that all Pakistanis be declared equal citizens in every way.
The Constitution of Pakistan does not accept this. It must
be changed to reflect this.
For sixty years we have feared diversity and insisted on
unity. But Pakistan paid a very heavy price because our
leaders could not understand that a heterogeneous population
can live together only if differences are respected. The
imposition of Urdu upon Bengal in 1948 was a tragic mistake,
and the first of a sequence of missteps that led up to 1971.
We have not learned the lesson even now, and the public
anger today in Balochistan and Sindh against Punjab stands as
unfortunate proof. After the 80-year old Nawab Akbar Bugti
was murdered by the Pakistan military, no Punjabi – even if
he strongly disagrees with the actions of the military –
feels safe in Balochistan. To my mind this is a terrible
thing and undermines the very concept of Pakistanis being
one nation.
Accepting diversity is something that we all learn, to a
greater or lesser extent. I ask students to look at their
classmates who come from different backgrounds. Here, as
elsewhere you have different economic, ethnic, and religious
backgrounds. But probably most of you have learned to work
together. You acquired a set of values that allows you to
work together, appreciate merit and honesty, and see the
individual for his or her merit. Surely education is really
about acquiring these values – not just learning technical
skills.
And now for my final wish.
My third, and last, wish is that Pakistanis learn to
value and nurture creativity. Creativity is a difficult
concept to define but roughly I mean originality,
unusualness, or ingenuity in something. If nurtured from an
early age in children, it leads to great writers, poets,
musicians, engineers, scientists, and builders of modern
industries and institutions. No one can dispute that
creativity is a good thing. But how come Pakistanis – with
some important exceptions – have done so poorly on the world
stage? Why are there only a dozen or two internationally
known Pakistani inventors, scientists, writers, etc for a
nation of 165 million people?
The poor performance comes because our society is not
willing to pay the price for having creativity. Individuals
are creative only when they are not subject to oppressive
social control, when the intellectual space in which they
can function is large enough, and when they have a
sufficient degree of personal autonomy. It is therefore
axiomatic that creativity runs counter to tradition and
coercion. Authoritarian societies don’t want the lid to be
taken off because who knows what can happen after that?
There cannot be creativity in a society where students learn
like parrots, where the teacher is an unchallengeable
authoritarian figure “jo aap kay baap ki tara hai”. Except
at a few leading universities, the written word – even if it
is in a physics textbook – is slavishly followed. The
students in our public universities are just overgrown
children, including the ones who are in their mid- or late
twenties. In fact they prefer to be called girls and boys,
not women and men. For recreation they do not read books but
walk aimlessly in bazaars and waste time in pointless
chatter. Most have never read a single classical novel,
either in Urdu or English. In my department – the best
physics department in the country – their only contribution
to what you see around is the huge birthday or “mangni”
greeting cards displayed on bulletin boards. Teachers insult
them, throw them out of class, and encourage deference and
servility.
Wrongly, the cornerstone of our education is itaat
(obedience), which is the very negation of creativity. It is
to challenge itaat that Faiz Ahmad Faiz wrote:
ab sadeeon kay iqrar-e-itaat ko badalnay
lazim hai keh inkar ka firman koi utarey
I am done with my three wishes. May that inkar ka firman
come sooner rather than later.
At this point I don’t know whether I will get past the
Pearly Gates or not. The first Pakistani to get through was,
we are told, the originator of the call for Faith, Unity,
Discipline. What I’ve put down on my form is quite the
opposite, as you will have surely noted. But Pakistan is no
longer what it was in 1947. Different situations in
different historical epochs call for different solutions. So
I’m still hopeful about my application for admission.
Now, of course, there must be many applications pending in
heaven and it will be a while before I know how mine went.
But meanwhile, there are lots of urgent things that you and
I must seriously work upon.
First, we need to bring economic justice to Pakistan.
This requires that it possess the working machinery of a
welfare state. Economic justice is not the same as flinging
coins at beggars. Rather, it requires organizational
infrastructure that, at the very least, provides employment
but also rewards according to ability and hard work. Incomes
should be neither exorbitantly high nor miserably low. To be
sure, “high” and “low” are not easily quantifiable, but an
inner moral sense informs us that something is desperately
wrong when rich Pakistanis fly off to vacation in Dubai
while a mother commits suicide because she cannot feed her
children.
Second, we must fight to give Pakistan’s women the
freedom which is their birthright. In much of rural Pakistan
a woman is likely to be spat upon, beaten, or killed for
being friendly to a man or even showing to him her face.
Newspaper readers expect – and get – a steady daily diet of
stories about women raped, mutilated, or strangled to death
by their fathers, husbands, and brothers. Energetic
proselytizers like Farhat Hashmi have made deep inroads even
into the urban middle and upper classes. Their emphasis is
on covering women’s faces, putting women back into the home
and kitchen, and destroying ideas of women’s equality with
men. The culture of suppressing women and excluding them
from public life is spreading like wildfire. As our
collective piety increases, the horrific daily crimes
against women become still less worthy of comment or
discussion.
Third, and last, we have to wake people up and get
them politically engaged again. Young people have tuned into
mindless FM entertainment and tuned out of participation in
social causes. University campuses are empty of discussion
and debate, and movements against manifest social and
political injustice bring forth only handfuls of committed
individuals. Millions demonstrated in the streets of London,
Rome, Washington, and New York against the criminal American
invasion of Iraq. But in Pakistan – where the anger was
still deeper – the response was invisible. We have become
cynical and think that nothing can be done. Today the
military rules an apathetic nation.
This apathy must go, and can go. Last year’s earthquake
galvanized people across the country. It broke the myth that
we have stopped caring for each other. I have never seen
Pakistanis give so whole-heartedly of their money, time,
effort, and energy. Ordinary people, students, shop-keepers,
businessmen…just about everybody pitched into the huge
relief effort.
So we can change for the better. We can be like other
nations on this planet. We can make responsible choices for
who should govern us. We can bring justice to our people. We
can be a decent civilized, peaceful, well-informed, educated
people. It’s only a question of trying and getting our act
together. That is the task before all of us, young and old.
|
Articles/Opinions
Cartoons
