Pakistan has been able, sporadically, to infuse a momentary impact and presence in the American consciousness of the great treasure of the Pakistani cultural heritage and its vibrant contemporary reality.
BySenator (r) Javed Jabbar | July 2022
On 24th June 2022 the US Consulate-General in Karachi hosted the screening of two out of eight short films made by young Pakistani and Indian film-makers under a US-sponsored programme titled “Kitne Duur Kitne Paas” (How Far, How Close ). A laudable initiative. Except that, I said to be one of the hosts:
“The only subject missing is Kashmir. There should be an attempt to collaborate on a jointly made film on that subject.” Predictably, the Counsel General smiled and rightly expressed scepticism that such a hypothetical film could be made jointly, or if done, could ever be screened in Pakistan or India. He was probably right. But that does not diminish the need for such a project. (The films can be viewed on the internet via the Seeds of Peace website).
Be that as it may, the project theme applies as pertinently to the Pakistan-India relationship, including the cultural dimension, as it does to the Pakistan- American relationship. Distant from each other by about 10,000 miles, the two countries have remained fitfully, variably close yet uneasy with each other over the past 75 years.
There is the sharp contrast in the reach and spread of their respective communication frontiers. America’s media frontiers embrace the entire globe, as omni-present as its 800 military bases and centres, large and small, that are located around the world.
Pakistan’s communication frontiers are far more limited.
Even through social media, and with coverage in news media virtually exclusively focused on the negative, violent aspects, Pakistan has only a nominal, fleeting presence in American media. Our own media barely, or never, penetrate the insulated American media ecosystem.
There is a deep nexus between culture and media, specially when we view culture, as it is generally perceived, to be the array of music, cinema, theatre, literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, dance and other art forms, such as folk arts that a society generates and presents to itself and to other countries. But even when we view culture in a holistic, all-encompassing way, media remain a fundamental conduit for self-expression by a society, both as a mirror and as an external projection to others.
The Pakistan-American cultural connect is shaped by geopolitics, respective states’ self-interests, technology, trade, travel, broader altruistic frameworks, e.g. the United Nations, the specific interest taken by particular governments in office at given times in the subject of promoting conventional cultural exchange.
Between 1947 and 2022, the bilateral cultural relationship has been predominantly shaped by the USA. Just as the same pattern has occurred in most other countries that do not possess the worldwide reach of Uncle Sam. Behind America’s obvious thirst for global supremacy, accentuated after the Second World War and challenged with the rise of China since the 1990s, is, to be fair to America, enormous creative, technological, financial energy and freedom of exploration and of expression, the result of the First Amendment to the US Constitution which bars restriction on the right of freedom of expression, except for incitement to violence and other excessive extremes.
In Pakistan, the vast, inherent talent and potential for creative expression in myriad forms drawing strength from a rich civilizational history and intricate cultural tapestry of thousands of years is, comparatively, stilted and suffocated due to repressive forces being permitted by the state to prevent spontaneity and creativity from flowering, in the name of misinterpreted religious beliefs and primitive social practices. Which is not to suggest that Pakistan should follow in the footsteps of America where it comes to making the name of Jesus Christ an exclamation mark, and worse, prefixing the Prophet’s name with a four-letter word, and being allowed to do so in cinema and TV in the name of freedom of expression. In some irreducible respects, never the twain shall --- or should ! --- meet.
To give America due credit, over the previous seven and a half decades, Pakistan has received, absorbed, welcomed --- sometimes banned, if the content violates deeply-held beliefs --- a huge volume and variety of cultural imports from our distant friend and alien. The range goes from jeans to Coca-Cola, from Hollywood to McDonalds, from jazz to rock n’ roll to pop to rap, from Duke Ellington visiting our country in the 1960s to Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson to Madonna now, from Star Trek in the 1970s to Netflix in the 2020s, from a consistently large Fulbright Fellowship programme that benefitted --- and still benefits --- hundreds/thousands of Pakistani scholars to music and arts support programmes that link the National Academy of Performing Arts in Karachi with the University of Texas in Austin for musical sharing and mutual learning, from support for projects that build citizenship for Karachi to twinning the city with an American metropolis --- there have been abundant expressions of cultural support. Perhaps there could have been more, but those that were, and continue to be given, however inadequately, have been most helpful.
As a Karachiite slightly younger than one is today in 2022, I recall with pleasure and appreciation participation in a Young Film-makers’ workshop at the American Centre in Karachi in 1970 led by a visiting American film-maker Jeff Strickler. And then --- viewing free of cost a large number of excellent films from Hollywood that could not have made it to the commercial screens of Pakistan, being invited to visit the USA as a guest of the State Department in its International Visitors’ Programme in 1972 --- and meeting stars like Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson on set during the filming of “Soylent Green”, and meeting the beautiful Rita Hayworth, and the immensely talented directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Franics Ford Coppola at the San Francisco Film Festival that year, And then, in 2017, being contacted by Bonnie Sauer, film archivist in the Lincoln Arts Centre in New York, to convey that they had in their vaults the only surviving print of my film “Beyond the Last Mountain “, originally sent in 1976 for the New York Film Festival, and abysmally forgotten by the producer-director himself! How considerate, and subsequently, so helpful --- to help preserve a small cultural artefact.
The preceding acknowledgements of America’s generous, friendly interest in cultural exchanges with Pakistan do not divert attention from America’s excessively self-centred, insensitive approach to relations with Pakistan in the geopolitical context.
That bias, ignorance and disregard for Pakistan, for Afghanistan, for Vietnam in the 1960s, etc remains a sore point. But as the subject of this essay is the cultural context, let me list some of the names and references of how Pakistan has been able, sporadically, to infuse a momentary impact and presence in the American consciousness of the great treasure of the Pakistani cultural heritage and its vibrant contemporary reality.
Here is a random listing, not in any way, complete. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan rendering the soulful sound in the film “Dead Man Walking.” His collaboration with Peter Gabriel. Arooj Aftab wins the Grammy in 2022. On TV and in cinema, Mo Naqvi and Asad Farooqi winning Emmys for Best Documentaries. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy securing two Oscars for Best documentaries. Riz Ahmed and Kumail Nanjiani demonstrating exceptional acting talent on the screen. Laraib Atta as an outstanding animator in Hollywood. Shazia Sikander, Salman Toor, Imran Qureishi, Kamal Ejazuddin and others in the visual arts. Mehreen Jabbar’s cinema directorial debut “Ramchand Pakistani” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in 2008, then multiple festivals, culminating with week-long screenings at the Museum of Modern Art, NY. Among remarkable novelists, Uzma Aslam Khan in New Hampshire, and more recently, Aminah Ahmad in California. Several distinctive persons in academia, from Ayesha Jalal to Akbar Ahmed to Azra Raza to Akbar Noman to Adil Najam to Shazia Rahman to Kamran Asdar Ali to Sayid Amjad Hussain and several others. My regrets at the inadvertent omission of other esteemed names.
To conclude: the Pakistan-USA cultural connect will be partly shaped by continued geopolitical, technological, economic and communication factors and partly by the sheer interest and will of Governmental leaderships in both countries to recognize the vital importance of this facet of international, interstate, interpeople relationships.
The writer is a former Senator and Federal Minister, and author of, among other books, “Pakistan --- Unique Origins; Unique Destiny?”. He can be reached at www.javedjabbar.net
On 24th June 2022 the US Consulate-General in Karachi hosted the screening of two out of eight short films made by young Pakistani and Indian film-makers under a US-sponsored programme titled “Kitne Duur Kitne Paas” (How Far, How Close ). A laudable initiative. Except that, I said to be one of the hosts:
Leave a Reply