Pakistan’s
Antidote to Extremism
By Scott Baldauf
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Last month, President
Pervez Musharraf made an announcement that many
here say could reshape the cultural landscape.
No, he didn’t trumpet the capture of some
one-eyed mullah. He opened Pakistan’s first-ever
performing-arts academy. This might seem frivolous
in a country with endemic poverty and thousands
of hard-line Islamist seminaries. But many liberal
Pakistanis say this small step is downright revolutionary.
The new National Academy of the Performing Arts
(NAPA), opened on Feb. 1 by President Musharraf,
has set itself a daunting task: to reawaken a tradition
of music, theater, and dance, and by extension,
to open up free expression.
Pakistan, like many parts of the Muslim world, is
ambivalent about the visual and performing arts.
Some staunchly conservative Muslims feel the arts
border on blasphemy and take one’s mind off
of God. But others say artistic expression is a
crucial safety valve for social frustrations that
extremists like Osama bin Laden exploit for their
own purposes. Indeed, Musharraf’s opening
address spoke of projecting a moderate image for
his country, instead of its vexing reputation as
a terrorist haven.
For many of the institute’s founders, NAPA
has been needed for a long time.
“It should have happened 60 years ago,”
says NAPA director Zia Mohyeddin, who spent most
of his career on stage in Britain. The arts can
open up minds and bring social change to a society
where hard-line Islamists have gained an increasing
hold, he adds. “I don’t know any other
way to bring social change.”
Pakistan’s arts scene has been at a low point
for decades, but reached its nadir during the 1977-88
dictatorship of Gen. Zia-ul Haq. Citing national
security needs during the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan,
General Zia curbed artistic expression. Many artists
went underground for fear of being declared “un-Islamic.”
Changing Pakistan’s cultural mindset and weakening
the grip of Islamists will not be easy, Mr. Mohyeddin
admits. “This Islamic influence is the sword
of Damocles that hangs over our heads. Dancing,
singing, these are anathema to the Islamists, for
they can only lead to the further de-Islamization
of our souls. The biggest thing is the stigma, the
prejudice. This is still seen as disreputable work.”
But the very fact that NAPA has attracted so many
applicants - hundreds have applied for just 80 positions
- suggests both the pent-up interest of students
and the at least tacit support of parents, many
of whom in the past would have preferred their child
to pursue more gainful employment in engineering,
medicine, or accounting. Still, supporters say it
is only a first step in a long process of restoring
a moderate Islamic culture that is tolerant of free
artistic and political expression.
After all, in the very week that NAPA was launched,
politicians from religious parties in the Northwest
Frontier Province announced a bill to ban all public
music performances. Proposed punishments range from
heavy fines to hard labor.
Yet all that seems far away on the impressive campus
of NAPA. Set in the fairy-tale architectural landmark
of the old Hindu Gymkhana - a former health club
for Karachi’s Hindu elite - NAPA has quickly
become a magnet for talent. At the campus café,
classical singers practice the scales of an evocative
raga in the fading light of dusk. At a nearby table,
drama students make a scene (naturally). And on
the Gymkhana’s rooftop, a cluster of acoustic
guitarists share their favorite licks, before joining
one of the most sought-after classes at the school,
learning music theory from Pakistan’s top
rock and jazz guitarist, Aamir Zaki.
Their music is an exotic mix of Delta blues and
classical ragas, a blend that Mr. Zaki encourages.
“We’re doing classical Western on one
side and Eastern classical on the other side, and
sometimes we mix it up,” says Zaki, who has
had 150 applicants for his class thus far, but has
accepted only 10. “My advanced students are
already stars. So if we increase the level, and
the word gets around, it’s going to be great.”
Students, most of whom come from middle- and lower-middle-class
backgrounds, say they are thrilled to receive formal
training. The hardest part is convincing their parents
that they can make a living with their career choice.
But students are optimistic that they can convince
their parents, and improve the image of arts in
a country struggling to define what it means to
be Islamic.
“There is a lot of ignorance in this country,
so whatever the mullahs are preaching, it is taken
as the law,” says Sami Siddiqui, a guitarist.
“I’ve studied my religion very deeply,
and it’s not what they are saying.”
Creating a school for performing arts from scratch
is a daunting task. NAPA’s director of programs,
Arshad Mahmud, pulls out a scene from Barrie Stavis’s
play “Lamp at Midnight,” he has had
translated into Urdu. It’s a play about Gallileo’s
fight with the Roman Catholic church, a battle of
faith and reason that resonates with many secular
Pakistanis.
“We don’t have enough texts, so we have
taken up the task of translating classic plays ourselves
to give to students,” says Mr. Mahmud.
Fatima Ijaz and her classmates in the theater program
say that the most important thing to notice is how
many young women have entered NAPA. It wasn’t
so long ago that Pakistanis looked at acting or
music as a disreputable profession, not so much
because it was un-Islamic, but rather because it
was akin to the saucy nauch dancing girls of the
Moghul times.
“Most of the girls are feeling more comfortable
expressing themselves here,” says Miss Ijaz,
a playwriting student. “Our parents are supportive,
that is why we are here.”
“Anyway most of us are social rebels, and
we’re determined to improve the state of the
arts in Pakistan,” says Mehreen Rafi, an acting
student.
Salamat Ali Khan, a top Eastern classical singer,
says Islam is not the problem. The problem is that
society has held onto ancient prejudices.
“When the Aryans came to India, they divided
society according to caste, and the musicians just
happened to come from the lower castes,” he
says. “When musicians used to come to the
cities, they would sound the drums to warn people.”
Even so, he says, society has always taken its higher
ideas from the performing arts. In addition, the
arts provide a natural outlet for the normal frustrations
of daily life. “Our traditional music has
a soothing effect, rather than what you get in the
West, which makes people hotter rather than settling
them down,” he says. “Our society could
use a lot of soothing right now.”
o Owais Tohid contributed to this report. (Courtesy
Christian Science Monitor)
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