Literary events help eliminate politics of hate, says minister
A female student performs old method of weaving during the ongoing 9th Hyderabad Literature Festival at the Sindh Museum on Saturday. photo: inp
"The literature festivals create interest of people in the literary activities at a time when innocent people are being killed in the name of languages and ethnicities," said Caretaker Sindh Information Minister Muhammad Ahmed Shah.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony of Hyderabad Literature Fetival (HLF) on Saturday, the minister announced that Pakistan Literature Festival (PLF), a three-day event, will start in Hyderabad from March 1.
He bemoaned that the people were killed in Karachi and Hyderabad during a span of 40 years because of ethnic divide.
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He told that the Arts Council of Pakistan (ACP) Karachi will bring Pakistan Literature Festival to Hyderabad and from Iftikhar Arif to Anwar Maqsood, all well-known writers, poets and actors belonging to Urdu community will attend the festival.
He said that hatred and violence could be eliminated by the force of culture and power of literature because culture and literature are more powerful than politics. He believed that the people speaking different languages can be connected with the help of poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Shaikh Ayaz and Ibrahim Joyo.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2024.