Collision of Cultures

On Saturday, February 14th, I witnessed the collision of two distinct cultural groups, one increasingly antagonized and violent towards the other, when few religious men threatened a Valentine’s Day event at Nisar Shaheed Park in Karachi. Some claim that it was simply the noise from the event’s loud music which disturbed prayers of these men and ignited the confrontation. Others hold responsible the rising extremism and intolerance in society. In my opinion, it is the increasing compression of space and time especially in the urban environment that is fueling mistrust and hatred between different cultural groups.

David Harvey describes in ‘The Condition of Postmodernity’, how vast distances in time and space have dramatically shrunk to intervals of no more than a few seconds. The recent slaughter of innocent men, women and children at Gaza reverberated in the hearts of all Pakistanis since horrid images and videos were instantly beamed on TV screens and websites. An hourly counter of casualty figures from Israeli attacks was also available. Time held no meaning for every act was grasped moment-by-moment and loudly condemned by people sitting hundreds of kilometers away.

Harvey continues that paralleling this compression of time, space has also shrunk. Any small incident in the farthest corner of the world is felt and reacted to as if it happened in one’s own backyard. Decisions of military men at Washington affect the lives of peasants in Bajaur, while statements made in Beijing affect workers in Buenos Aires, all within the span of a few hours.

The world seems to have collapsed inwards, funneling populations into a single pool. Harvey correctly stated that as space and time have shrunk, individual quantities of different spaces and localities have grown in importance. The global reversion towards one’s ethnicity or class has ascended in the first decade of this millennium.

In Karachi, the newly moneyed urban population enjoyed immense luxuries during the last six years. It afforded latest cars, bought international brands, ate fine cuisines from Thailand, South Africa and Italy and also reinvented its image via television shows and glossy fashion magazines. There would be no grounds to critique these ‘developments’ if actual reforms in governance, education and health had taken place for every citizen of Pakistan. Moreover, this segment of society is completely isolated from the vast number of people in the country.

Simultaneously, atrocities committed in Afghanistan and Iraq by the War On Terror fermented the rise of extremist forces not only in the invaded countries but in Muslim communities all over the world. Pakistan’s vulnerable youth deviated towards the religious right by blindly supporting anti-American elements, vainly arguing over the details of the fiqh and unrealistically obsessing over Islamic concepts as the only answer to global predicaments.

Both cultural groups have become mutually exclusive and occupy distinct space and time in Pakistani society. On the one hand are exciting commercial brands on cityscapes, buses, community events, magazines, sports, music, arts and schools. The promise of an admirable personality and better lifestyle through consumerism is part of this group. Its space and time is correlated with Hollywood, the Dubai Shopping Festival, latest innovations in technology and English-centered international discourse.

On the other hand are mosques, dars gahain and tableeghi jamaats, present in every social class and race. Vast religious gathering, both political and apolitical are arranged in every major city. An urgent need to zealously enforce injunctions of the Qur’an and Sunnah is present, including beards for all men, burqas for all women, qazis rather than judges, ban on all ‘western’ items and media and violent crushing of all political and social circles found unislamic. This space is attuned to discussions of alims and imams, fatwas and ijtihaad. Time is measured by the sacred days of Islam’s lunar calendar.

There is no denying that both cultural groups exist and proliferate in all Muslim countries. Unfortunately, in Pakistan they have now collided.

I had reached Nisar Shaheed Park late but still found a sizeable crowd of teenage boys and girls, as well as some families. It was an entirely innocent affair, organised inside Sinbad Playland. Lively food stalls offered snacks and soft drinks. Local bands played Pakistani pop songs in selected locations with fans singing along. The front and back gates were efficiently managed through the checking of tickets and each individual being passed through metal detectors. The evening's highlight was the band "Call" from Lahore.

Suddenly people began running away from the main gate. I went forward and found 20 to 50 middle-aged bearded men in shalwar-qameez, some sticking bamboo sticks through the bars of Sinbad's entrance. They shouted at the top of their voices for the programme to be ended since it was immoral to celebrate Valentine's Day and the loud noise they said was disturbing them.

In the present situation when militant groups have unleashed havoc in two provinces, suicide bombings take place regularly and the fear-mongering of the Taliban in Karachi is at its height, the violent demeanour and threatening screams of these men would have scared the bravest of souls. If police, rangers and armed forces are vigilant of such religiously aggressive men, what other than senseless panic was expected from youngsters at a simple musical event?

Terror ran through the crowd as the men continued shouting. The organisers, all young men themselves, begged the angry men to lower their voices. The outstretched arms of the religious zealots tried to grab them, while these men swung bamboo sticks at the hosts. The organisers grabbed hold of some sticks and pipes to protect themselves.

Families and groups of girls converged at the back gate but were not allowed to exit for their own safety. The hosts' complete inability to counter baseless rumours added to the fear of the trapped people. Someone mentioned that a car had been burned, while a boy ran up, claiming mullahs were beating up people in the parking lot.

I ventured out of the back gate and found the parking lot as dark and quiet as it had been earlier. The single DHA employee available had called the police instantly, a police van stood nearby and I caught sight of the rowdy men leaving the premises, glaring furiously at everyone present. No car had been burned, nor did I see any signs of a fight. The policemen, who had arrived five minutes after being called, reported that no unpleasant incident had taken place. However, the rumour mill had done its work.

Nobody knew what was happening outside, families pleaded with the gatekeepers to let them through. Worst of all was the manner in which the hosts mismanaged the crisis. They were far more panicked than the guests. Rather than trying to calm frightened boys and girls by regular announcement over the speakers, they ran around arguing with each other and even scuffled with a rowdy bunch of people who demanded their money back. The band sat inside the waiting room unaware of the mess and the crowd was led to believe that a concert would still take place. I advised one of the organizers to speak with D.H.A officials and police to calm the people inside Sinbad and continue their program. Sweating profusely, the boy ran away from I had time to complete my suggestion.

Ten minutes later, policemen entered and asked everyone to leave. Media personnel had also arrived and fallen prey to the rumours. With the support of DHA authorities and the police, the event could have been a success but a small incident ruined it.

Nor can the actions of the men from the nearby mosque be condoned, since no one dares complain about the noise coming from their loud speakers at all hours, the words usually full of biased, narrow-minded religious-political sermons. At the same time, no concert or wedding ceremony should take place in residential areas, where entire neighbourhoods are disturbed by the noise.

It is easy to state that followers of both cultural groups should learn to respect and tolerate each other in an age of accelerating time and space compression. But with the dramatic polarization of both groups, cultural sensibilities have vanished. And how is it possible to demand understanding when the religious minded, armed with high moral values, are violently bent on imposing their will?

The current state of affairs remind me of Faiz -

"Yahan say shehar ko daikho toh halqa dar halqa,
khinchi hay jail ki surat har aik simt faseel,
har aik rahguzar gard-e-shay aseeran hay,
na sang-e-meel, na manzil, na muflisee ki sabeel"

(When you look at the city from here,
this is its pattern: circles within circles,
each outer one a wall imprisoning the inner,
no escape in any direction. Each road, each street seems viciously trapped, a prisoner
with no milestone, no destination,
and no occasion for fidelity.)