‘Even right-wing literature is a form of resistance’

Discussion on ‘Literature of Resistance’ at the LLF included writers Selma Dabbagh, Basharat Peer and Mohammed...

LAHORE:

During her time working in Pakistan as a journalist for the BBC, Lyse Doucet found that there was nothing like the absolute truth. “One person’s truth is another person’s propaganda,” she said. “We [the BBC] do the best we can to get close to the truth. I guess we need to do a better job, talk to many more people.”

Doucet was responding to a question about how much propaganda there was on the BBC, asked amidst resounding applause, at a panel discussion on ‘Literature of Resistance’ at the Lahore Literary Festival on Saturday. The session was moderated by Human Rights Watch’s Ali Dayan Hasan and included writers Selma Dabbagh, Basharat Peer and Mohammed Hanif.

Doucet spoke about the Arab Spring and how a region that had not been producing much or saying much had not just started speaking, but speaking out. People lost their fear, she added.

She said that maybe this was down to the power of social media, but history was never that simple. Even when the internet was off, people would come out on the streets. She pointed to Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building as a text that spoke about resistance in a novel.

The moderator asked the panellists if documenting human right abuses or uprisings had an archival purpose or if it was merely preaching to the converted.

Hanif, responding to Doucet, said that at times he thought politics was the only art and the rest was propaganda. Urdu newspapers, he said, were full of stories about unknown people being killed by unknown assailants at unknown places. “The most basic form of resistance is naming names. They are not unknown. We know where they lived, their families and localities. At times we know the ranks of who killed them.”



Hanif said that when a Shia doctor was killed in Okara 20 years ago, it was a new phenomenon. “After killing thousands, we can now finally say the hundreds killed yesterday were Shias.”

He questioned why the media refused to name those who killed Shias. “They have been doing it for decades and have vowed that they will continue doing it,” he said, adding that when one mentioned the names of those who killed Shias on TV, one was cut off or not invited back for three months. “Even rightwing literature is a form of resistance,” he added.

Pointing to Arundhati Roy’s video-taped message, Hanif said literature festivals did not amount to resistance. He added that the Baloch were demanding their people back, and all that they were getting was literature festivals.

Dabbagh, an author who is half-Palestinian, half-British, said she had given up a career in law and human rights as she thought she was preaching to the converted. Writing fiction was a way to connect with other people. She stressed that any author must humanise her subjects and guard against misrepresentation. “Do no suppress flaws. Humanise people in a vibrant manner,” she said.

“Sometimes you write because it is necessary to write,” said Peer about his book on Kashmir. He wrote, he said, in opposition to what was written about Kashmir by outsiders. “I was writing against the PTV and Doordarshan headlines. I don’t know whether it changes anything, but it lets you live,” he said.

Hasan asked whether the authors felt they were humanising their subjects or objectifying them when they described human rights abuses.

Doucet said it was worth it even if only a few people changed their minds. “Changing minds is a complex process. Being seen speaking out is crucial,” she said.

Peer added that it was important to be aware of power dynamics and class. “If we are patronising towards these people, then we are no worse than the perpetrators,” he said.

Hasan asked what made something literary. Could novelists conjure up a world and say nothing about their contemporary reality?

Dabbagh responded that it could be argued that everything was political.

Doucet said the distinction between public and private was fast diminishing. For example, some artists in Palestine who made still-life paintings about fruit were asked why their work was not about the crisis in Gaza. They responded that they did not want to work on that. She said those artists were criticised for their choice.

Hanif said that lots of Palestinians would say a bowl of fruit was political as Israeli settlers had poured acid on fruit trees. He mentioned mainstream TV serials by Umera Ahmed. Watching them, he said, he saw the politics in families, which was politics of “the bitterest” kind. “It’s all very political. Umera Ahmed will not come to the literature festival as she is a real writer,” he said.

A video message from Indian writer Arundhati Roy cautioned against the idea of literatures of protest from becoming a middle class term. She asked what one was protesting and examining that with some care. She also said that things seemed hard in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, but India was not far behind in building a culture of repression.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2013.