Today's Pakistan: Conservative or Progressive?

[RiazHaq]

Today's Pakistan: Conservative or Progressive?

Pakistan is often portrayed in the international media, particularly the western media, as a highly tradition-bound conservative society dom...

www.southasiainvestor.com

Pakistan is often portrayed in the international media, particularly the western media, as a highly tradition-bound conservative society dominated by Taliban sympathizers. Fatima Bhutto, a granddaughter of former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, offers evidence to suggest otherwise.

Fatima Bhutto

In a recent Op Ed published in The Guardian titled "Superheroes, jazz, queer art: how Pakistan’s transgressive pop culture went global", Fatima Bhutto offers recent examples of the Pakistani pop culture going global. In particular, she cites television series Ms. Marvel, feature film Joyland, Grammy winning Urdu singer Arooj Aftab, world-famous qawwali singers Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida Parveen, celebrated artists Shazia Sikandar and Salman Toor, and novelists like Mohammad Hanif, the author of "A Case of Exploding Mangoes".

Fatima talks about the history of the ongoing struggle between the conservatives and the progressives that dates back to the nation's independence in 1947. She also contrasts Pakistan with India: "Though Bollywood films from earlier decades addressed injustice, feudalism and political oppression, today the industry is little more than a mouthpiece for India’s quasi-fascist rightwing government, obsessed with spit-shining the image of its prime minister, Narendra Modi". Below are a some excepts of Fatima Bhutto's Op Ed:

1. "Even though the film (Joyland) was...subject to various bans in Pakistan, after being accused of pushing an LGBTQ+ agenda and misrepresenting Pakistani culture, it finally appeared in Pakistani cinemas in November, with Malala Yousafzai signing on as executive producer". Note: Joyland was the first Pakistani film to be screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival where "it won the Un Certain Regard prize, receiving a standing ovation nearly 10 minutes long".

2. "Ms Marvel follows Kamala Khan, whose parents, formerly of Karachi and now of New Jersey, are not caricatures of immigrant parents, but droll and charming, embarrassing in the way all parents are while their young daughter suffers the indignities of teenagers everywhere. The writing team knows only too well the codes and ciphers of Pakistani life and have seamlessly blended them into this Disney tale. Kamala has a brother who prays constantly (every Pakistani family has one resident fundamentalist), her father quotes poetry at the dinner table and Nakia, her hijab-wearing best friend, has her shoes stolen at the mosque – a timeless rite of passage for all mosque-going Muslims".

3. "In the past few months, the contemporary Pakistani artists Shahzia Sikander and Salman Toor have been glowingly profiled in the New Yorker; Toor’s Four Friends recently sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $1.2m (£0.99m). His paintings are celebrated for their depictions of queer intimacy, and reimaginings of classical masterpieces from Caravaggio to Édouard Manet. “My immediate reaction was that this artist could paint anything and make me believe in it,” wrote the New Yorker’s Calvin Tomkins".

4. "Pakistanis have always understood their heritage to be culturally rich and transgressive: from the romance of the Urdu language, spoken by poets and in royal courts, to qawwali singers as diverse as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida Parveen, to television dramas and literature. Artists such as Iqbal Bano sang songs against dictators and shows on state television satirized military juntas with jokes so sophisticated that even army censors couldn’t catch them. In 1969, Pakistan state television aired Khuda Ki Basti, or God’s Own Land, a series set in a Karachi slum in the tumultuous days after independence, from a classic Urdu novel. To ensure that the drama was faithful to the novel, Pakistan state television convened a board of intellectuals to oversee the scripts, including Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the country’s most beloved poets".

5. “We’ve been having a really hard time in a post-9/11 world,” says the Brooklyn-based Arooj Aftab, the first Pakistani musician to win a Grammy, taking home the 2022 award for best global music performance. Aftab’s album Vulture Prince reimagines traditional ghazals, melancholic love poems born out of Arabic and Persian literary traditions. “There’s been a significant amount of Islamophobia and a lot of bad marketing towards Pakistan in general – associations with terrorism and pain and Afghanistan-adjacent confusion – while the narrative around a lot of other south Asian countries is like ‘Oh my God! Beauty! Exotic landscapes! Yoga!’ And the west loves that shit.”

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Today's Pakistan: Conservative or Progressive?

Pakistan is often portrayed in the international media, particularly the western media, as a highly tradition-bound conservative society dom...

www.southasiainvestor.com

 

[Super Falcon]

We live in conservative society because they use a religion as a blackmail tool benefiting from un educated Pakistani people who don't know or think be their own mind what is right or wrong they just follow that cult blindly but with religious fact what little i know they are getting away from İslam that way because İslam prohabit blind faith on humans

Blind faith is only for ALMİGHTY ALLAH and his messager MOHAMMAD P.B.U.H rest are questionable to public and that question no one raises

 

[SoulSpokesman]

@RiazHaq

Brofessor sb,

Pakistan's challenge is to be progressive in a way which is compatible with its Islamic heritage.

Regards

 

[Mirzali Khan]

Pakistan is more complicated and complex because of its diversity, its bad rep doesn't help either.

In KPK and Balochistan you will see Burqa and Niqab being worn by the women there, but in Lahore you won't see burqa that much.

Pakistan's educated class and artists can put it on the map, but Pakistan's elite tries to hinder it as much as possible.

 

[epebble]

Blind faith is only for ALMİGHTY ALLAH

Why? You can have faith with eyes wide open. Can you not?

 

[Clutch]

1% elites live lives of delusions and illusions that they are Liberal Progressive coconuts.

99% of poor suffering from malnutrition illiteracy and the effects of a failed state live lives of delusions and illusions brainwashed by Arabized Mullahs with their own version of "Islam".

Fatima Bhutto represents the 1%.

 

[N.Siddiqui]

Conservative is not the opposite of Progressive, rather Regressive is.

People and families can be conservative and still very progressive.

Being modern doesn't mean to go western.

 

[RiazHaq]

Afghan Man Takes Daughters To Pakistan To Get Them An Education. Asif Shakuri moved his family to Balochistan, Pakistan from Kandahar in Afghanistan after his eldest daughters were shut out of university by #Taliban ban on girls' college education.

https://www.rferl.org/a/afghan-man-daughters-pakistan-education/32194242.html

The Taliban in Afghanistan has prevented many women from attending university and suspended secondary education for girls since retaking power in 2021.

 

[RiazHaq]

Pakistani Pop Culture Has Had a Global Year
From Cannes to the Grammys, the country’s arts shone on multiple occasions in 2022

By Surbhi Gupta

Pakistani Pop Culture Has Had a Global Year

From Cannes to the Grammys, the country’s arts shone on multiple occasions in 2022

newlinesmag.com

Between the first Pakistani win at the Grammys, the first Pakistani film to be selected at the Cannes Film Festival, a Pakistani song topping the most-searched list on Google, local actors featured in international series, and the highest-grossing film in the history of Pakistani cinema, 2022 has been a banner year for Pakistani art.

Pakistani music and television dramas have long been popular cultural exports in South Asia and its diaspora communities. Yet some legendary artists and performers have enjoyed legacies transcending the subcontinent, placing the country squarely on the global map. The singer Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, known as the “Shahenshah-e-Qawwali” (the “King of Kings of Qawwali”), single-handedly popularized the musical form among international audiences. A form of devotional song, qawwalis were originally performed at Sufi shrines across South Asia. He toured extensively, performing in over 40 countries in the 1980s and ’90s and becoming an inspiration for musicians the world over, from the United States to India and beyond.

In 1981, 15-year-old Nazia Hassan and her elder brother Zohaib made history when their album “Disco Deewane” became one of Asia’s best sellers. It broke all records in Pakistan and India and charted in 14 countries, including the West Indies and Russia. Nazia went on to pioneer disco revolution in Indian film music in the 1980s. In the ‘90s, the four-member band Junoon put Sufi rock on the musical map when they merged elements of rock with Sufi poetry and instruments such as the tabla and dholak. Dubbed the “U2 of Pakistan” by Western media, Junoon performed at New York’s Central Park in 1998 to an audience of over 20,000, quite apart from other concerts in countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Denmark and Japan.

After two decades, Pakistani pop culture and art finds itself in the limelight once again this year. Coke Studio is the longest-running musical program in Pakistan, ongoing since 2008. Now on YouTube, the show creates studio-recorded collaborations between established and emerging artists in the country, fusing a myriad of music influences such as classical, folk, Sufi, qawwali, ghazal and bhangra with hip hop, rock and pop. It is extremely popular in South Asia, with fans awaiting it with great anticipation. When season 14 was released this January, it was no surprise that it was a success.

What no one had expected, however, was that the song “Pasoori” — a collaboration between the Pakistani singer Ali Sethi, who has a huge following in South Asia, and Shae Gill, a newcomer popular on Instagram for her covers — would turn out to be a global hit. Apart from racking up almost 460 million views on YouTube and becoming the most watched Coke Studio video, it also became the first Pakistani song to top Spotify’s global viral charts. Last week, it was revealed that it topped the list of most-searched songs on Google in 2022, beating the K-pop band BTS.

“Pasoori” — which roughly translates to “conflict” or “difficulty” in Punjabi, a language spoken in both India and Pakistan — draws on the age-old story of forbidden love. It emerged from Sethi’s experiences in engaging with the walls that exist between India and Pakistan, countries that share histories and cultures but are always at the brink of war. The song’s popularity prompted several Western publications to take notice of Sethi and commission stories on him. He now has over 5.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

----------

In addition to music and cinema, it has also been a good year for Pakistani art. Last month, the New York-based Pakistani artist Salman Toor’s most celebrated and powerful painting — his 2019 work “Four Friends” — sold for a record price at a Sotheby’s auction. Highlighting an intimate moment in the life of young brown queer men in New York, it was the key painting in Toor’s widely acclaimed solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2020-21. At this auction, it was expected to sell for a maximum of $400,000 but instead fetched $1.2 million. Toor, who hails from Lahore, has become one the most sought-after artists in the contemporary scene. “Demand from collectors remains very high for Toor,” wrote Lucius Elliott, Sotheby’s head of The Now Evening Auction in New York, ahead of the event. “As Toor continues to gain institutional recognition, as well as interest from the general public, I think there will continue to be increased interest from collectors.”

All in all, Pakistani pop culture, which has always enjoyed popularity locally, in South Asia and its diaspora, has had a remarkable year. It can pride itself on having cut across languages, borders and cultures and left a global mark.

----------------------------------
My added comment:


I'm afraid many have unwittingly bought into Islamophobic stereotypes of Pakistan and Pakistanis that are promoted by the Hindutva brigade now ruling India, and its compliant Godi media.

The fact is that, in spite of Modi's best efforts, Pakistani culture still finds a lot of admirers in India.

Although Indian government has banned airing of Pakistani content on Indian TV channels, Pakistani food, fashion, music and entertainment are still popular in India. Examples include Shan masala, dresses by fashion designers like Sana Safinaz, Coke Studio, HUM TV dramas, films like Maula Jatt etc etc.

A lot of Pakistani music and entertainment are available in India and elsewhere via steaming platforms like Spotify and Netflix which younger audiences enjoy.

Pakistani products like Shan masala and women's dresses can be purchased online via Amazon and other e-commerce sites.

Please check out the following:


"Why Pakistan's Shan masalas have a cult following in India"
The Pakistani packaged masala brand has many fans in India, despite a somewhat erratic supply chain. What makes it so popular?

Why Pakistan's Shan masalas have a cult following in India

The Pakistani packaged masala brand has many fans in India, despite a somewhat erratic supply chain. What makes it so popular?

lifestyle.livemint.com

"The Pop Song That’s Uniting India and Pakistan"

The Pop Song That’s Uniting India and Pakistan

The writer and musician Ali Sethi has created an unconventional hit with “Pasoori.”

www.newyorker.com

"10 landmark Pakistani shows that were hugely popular in India"

10 landmark Pakistani shows that were hugely popular in India

Even before the advent of Zindagi TV, Indians loved to watch Pakistani shows. A look at the evergreen Pak shows that have been ruling Indian hearts since 1980s.

www.indiatoday.in

 

[SIPRA]

Today's Pakistan is "Phuddu" Pakistan.

 

[jamahir]

1% elites live lives of delusions and illusions that they are Liberal Progressive coconuts.

99% of poor suffering from malnutrition illiteracy and the effects of a failed state live lives of delusions and illusions brainwashed by Arabized Mullahs with their own version of "Islam".

Fatima Bhutto represents the 1%.

I find your post confusing. You denigrate the "Liberal progressives" like Fatima Bhutto who in general should be the ones guiding Pakistan other than committed leftists like Arooj Aurangzeb, but you also condemn the enemies of the progressives - the mullahs, who are actually not Arabized ideologically but totally Hindutvatized via the Deoband ideology but these mullahs certainly put on Arab elements like wearing thawb ( at least some "Muslims" do in my neighborhood and I also see this in Britain ) and adding "Arab" to the names of their madrasas. So who are you condemning ?

About Fatima Bhutto, she visited Bangalore in 2010 when I was there and I regret not attending her book ceremony ( for "Songs of blood and sword" ) because I wanted to be in the audience and declare to her at an opportune moment "Fatima ji, your father started a leftist organization and I am a leftist. You have luscious lips and so do I. Let's marry". In the end I was too lazy to attend the ceremony.

@SIPRA @Paitoo @Zibago @ghazi52 @Mentee @fitpOsitive

"The Pop Song That’s Uniting India and Pakistan"

The Pop Song That’s Uniting India and Pakistan

The writer and musician Ali Sethi has created an unconventional hit with “Pasoori.”

www.newyorker.com

"10 landmark Pakistani shows that were hugely popular in India"

Nice article and I have been reading about this song often. Must watch it soon.

 

[RiazHaq]

Why was Pakistani pop culture so big in 2022?
December 28, 20223:59 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

Why was Pakistani pop culture so big in 2022?

2022 saw a rise of Pakistani pop culture worldwide, punctuated by a Grammy win, Ms. Marvel and an ovation at Cannes.

www.npr.org

2022 saw a rise of Pakistani pop culture worldwide, punctuated by a Grammy win, Ms. Marvel and an ovation at Cannes.



SHAPIRO: The first Muslim superhero to have her own comic.

SURBHI GUPTA: Showing a Pakistani American teen in a Pakistani household, that felt amazing.

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

Journalist Surbhi Gupta wrote about this banner year for Pakistani pop culture in New Lines Magazine.

GUPTA: We in South Asia know of this, but there were too many global moments, you know. And I was like, OK, this needs to be out there.

MCCAMMON: Gupta was born and raised in India. She writes that this is far from the first time Pakistani culture has made a global splash.

GUPTA: So, like, in the '80s, you know, my parents would talk about the Hassan siblings. They were the rage with "Disco Deewane."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DISCO DEEWANE PART I")

NAZIA HASSAN: (Singing) Disco, disco, disco deewane.

SHAPIRO: That 1981 album broke sales records in Pakistan and India, and it charted worldwide, including places like Russia and the West Indies.

MCCAMMON: This year, a Pakistani hit again drew global attention.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PASOORI")

SETHI AND GILL: (Singing in non-English language).

MCCAMMON: The song "Pasoori" by Ali Sethi and Shae Gill climbed to the top of Spotify's global viral charts, and Google searches for it beat out tracks by the K-pop group BTS and the singer Harry Styles.

SHAPIRO: Then in April, the Brooklyn-based Pakistani singer and composer Arooj Aftab won a Grammy for best global music performance for her rendition of the traditional song "Mohabbat."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOHABBAT")

AFTAB: (Singing in non-English language).

It's important to define this moment, I think, for everyone and ourselves.

MCCAMMON: We spoke with her earlier this year before she won that award. And while Aftab was excited about being nominated in a global music category, being part of the best new artist category sent a bigger message about her place on the world stage.

AFTAB: The industry has put us in these other categories for such a long time because of the sort of racial climate of America for all this while. And so this moment where I'm in this best new artist category next to all these other artists is a monumental moment.

SHAPIRO: Pakistan had monumental moments in film this year, too, with the first Pakistani film ever officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival, a transgender love story called "Joyland."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JOYLAND")

SHAPIRO: Here's Gupta again.

GUPTA: It's about a family in Lahore, and it unpacks, like, different nuances of gender and patriarchy. And then, like, his relationship with this trans starlet, this was almost banned. But the international recognition that the film had had kind of forced the federal government to intervene and then pave the way for its release.

MCCAMMON: We asked her, what's spurring this renaissance? One theory - the world is ready.

GUPTA: I think it's been 20 years since 9/11. So there were a lot of stereotypes also associated to Pakistanis and Muslims, which I think now perhaps we are shedding.

MCCAMMON: Still, she says, Pakistani artists are doing it on their own terms, being authentically themselves.

GUPTA: American pop culture has such a strong influence globally to kind of define what local culture has become. But I think the beauty of Pakistani culture is that it is not pretending to be something it is not.

SHAPIRO: That's Surbhi Gupta. Her article, "Pakistani Pop Culture Has Had A Global Year," is in New Lines Magazine.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PASOORI")

SETHI AND GILL: (Singing in non-English language).

 

[Rusty2]

We live in conservative society because they use a religion as a blackmail tool benefiting from un educated Pakistani people who don't know or think be their own mind what is right or wrong they just follow that cult blindly but with religious fact what little i know they are getting away from İslam that way because İslam prohabit blind faith on humans

Blind faith is only for ALMİGHTY ALLAH and his messager MOHAMMAD P.B.U.H rest are questionable to public and that question no one raises

brah... with this kind of talk, you will be mullah mob lynched so fast.
Isn't is wonderful that Pakistani society won't lift a finger for useful pursuits, but will outright murder people for hurting their religious feels.

Conservative is not the opposite of Progressive, rather Regressive is.

People and families can be conservative and still very progressive.

Being modern doesn't mean to go western.

Yet here we are, on western technology, speaking a western language, debating about western concepts.
What does "go western" even mean?
Literally our entire existence is "western"
Our mosques use western tech in their speakers and even structures, our Quran is printed used western printing presses.

I don't understand this obsession with "not going western"

 

[TheSolution]

Pakistan is more complicated and complex because of its diversity, its bad rep doesn't help either.

In KPK and Balochistan you will see Burqa and Niqab being worn by the women there, but in Lahore you won't see burqa that much.

Pakistan's educated class and artists can put it on the map, but Pakistan's elite tries to hinder it as much as possible.

If on the map means Joyland then it's better it not be...

Yet here we are, on western technology, speaking a western language, debating about western concepts.
What does "go western" even mean?
Literally our entire existence is "western"
Our mosques use western tech in their speakers and even structures, our Quran is printed used western printing presses.

I don't understand this obsession with "not going western"

Technology is just technology, there is no eastern, western, liberal, conservative, you just have technology.

What is your obsession with "western", is it an inferiority complex?

A moderate Islamic society will always be the best with freedom of speech and discussion while being traditional and conservative but not on the extreme end.

It's called Pakistan, not America or Britain. Their idea of how they want to shape their society and culture will be rooted in their own history. Now our upbringing in foreign lands.

 

[Fasbre2]

1% elites live lives of delusions and illusions that they are Liberal Progressive coconuts.

99% of poor suffering from malnutrition illiteracy and the effects of a failed state live lives of delusions and illusions brainwashed by Arabized Mullahs with their own version of "Islam".

Fatima Bhutto represents the 1%.

The likes of Fatima Bhutto live in a bubble, insulated from the average Pakistani. The problem is not as much the conservatives, they breed and instil fear due to ignorance and lack of education among the poor masses. If the parties ppp and pmln (you can take pti out of the equation , their 3 years of governance are insignificant in comparison) were not corrupt and had spent money on education the conservatives/ mullahs would have no platform.. people would be able to see through their machinations..
The only time during Pak history that education excelled was during Ayub Khans or Musharraf’s time..
PPP and PMLN do not focus on education as people would have the veil of ignorance lifted from them and recognise these two parties for what they are, dynastic leaches sucking the blood from the country…