Endangered heritage

A country at risk of losing its heritage, comes under risk of losing itself. We rank among these unfortunate nations. According to experts speaking at a heritage forum organised by the Taxila Institute of Asian Civilisations at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad to mark the United Nation’s Mother Language Day, observed globally around the world on February 21, each year, Pakistan is in danger of losing some two dozen indigenous languages and around a dozen of its crafts, mainly due to a lack of patronage. This would be a huge loss — taking away a piece of our culture, of our past and of our identity.

The problem is that as a nation we have failed to respect our diversity or to celebrate it. Indeed, we have too often tried to impose uniformity on people, believing that it will help bring us together. This is a basic error in thinking. To come together as a nation, we need to accept ours is one made up of many different groups, many different people, all of whom should be allowed to come together to form a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours. This will strengthen, not weaken us. Languages and the crafts both need promotion. The efforts by a few organisations to do this are simply not enough — official patronage is also required. Many of us have little idea that over 300 languages and dialects are spoken in our country, some only by several thousand people.

Just as we have failed to promote these languages, we have allowed crafts to die. This heritage is important to us in so many different ways. Far greater attention needs to be paid to keeping them alive, and making sure the craftsmen in various places are saved from the state of neglect they currently suffer. The task has been achieved in other countries. We need to emulate them, and to do so, we need to build greater pride amongst people in the country about all that is shared by them and why this needs to be preserved so it is not lost forever to future generations.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2014.

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