The federal government has apparently prepared, with the help of UNESCO and several professionals of repute, a draft of a proposed ‘Cultural Policy’ for Pakistan. A seminar was held in Lahore the other day to debate the scope and contours of such a cultural policy. The ‘road show’ is now headed for Peshawar where it will unveil its ideas and solicit recommendations from noteworthy ulema. The plan is that once all the provinces have been ‘consulted’, an integrated ‘cultural policy’ framework can be established.
The media has not been formally provided copies of the draft for comment. Therefore we are obliged to refer to sketchy news reports about the seminar and the ideas floated therein. Why, we might ask, did no one think fit to make a distinction between a national ‘culture policy’ and a ‘cultural heritage’ policy? The two concepts are interlinked but separate. Culture is an amalgam of historical legacy and contemporary trends which people claim to own. But cultural heritage, or what a nation or people have inherited from the past, may or may not be the source of inspiration for a nation’s contemporary worldview, depending on the nature of the political ideology in vogue. How, then, can we have a viable policy on cultural heritage without placing it in the context of a national cultural policy?
We might also ask why everyone seems to be talking of a policy about how to physically treat our cultural heritage as a value-neutral, bricks and mortar object – on how to renovate and preserve historical monuments, erect statues, dig up archeological sites, display artifacts, build up museum collections, etc – but no one has had the guts to initiate a discussion about what should constitute the elements of a ‘national culture’ in Pakistan in which we can proudly own up to our historical legacies as constituting an integral dimension of our national character and psyche. How can we discuss how best to ‘preserve’ our cultural heritage when it has been drilled into us for the last thirty years that we must not own up to much of it because it is not Islamic? Would such a discussion in our environment be branded by vested ‘cultural’ interests as being orchestrated at the behest of supposedly ‘anti-Pakistan’, ‘foreign’, ‘liberal’ or ‘secular’ elements who are out to ‘subvert’ the ‘ideology and integrity of Pakistan’?
Indeed, a policy on cultural heritage can only logically flow from a political and philosophical understanding and acceptance of what constitutes our national ‘culture’. In other words, we must first come to terms with the concept and definition of ‘culture’ in modern-day Pakistan before we can adequately define a policy on how to treat our ‘cultural heritage’. The physical treatment of cultural heritage – preservation, display, etc – cannot be torn out of the context of how we view and own it in the larger context of our everyday lives and state philosophies.
Many questions arise. Is our Pakistani culture rooted in a multi-religious, multi-dynastic and multi-civilisational South Asian experiences born of the socio-political convulsions of state and society or is it an expression of a monolithic, relatively arid Middle-Eastern culture? Is it an exclusive articulation of predefined and preconceived ‘Islamic’ values or is it an amalgam of ancient pre-Islamic rites and non-Islamic rituals, medieval Islamic values, modern secular-colonial practices and post-modern globalising tendencies? Should we accept honour killings, child marriages, bonded labour, mass rapes, etc as valid outcrops of our social culture? Should we spurn classical South Asian dance and music as alien transgressions on our Islamic culture which are as abhorrent as modern western ones? Which, if any, constitutes a significant element of our contemporary composite culture – Hollywood, Bollywood or Lollywood? Should we preserve Islamic monuments but destroy non-Islamic ones and burn down shops selling video movies and music? Should we open classical ‘Indian’ music academies to both sexes while forbidding five star hotels from opening discos in their basements? Should we teach ‘modern’ art in our national arts colleges while forbidding our art galleries from displaying figures on canvas?
A by-product of this one-dimensional and hypocritical debate on ‘cultural policy’ is related to ‘tourism policy’. This can be summed up in one banal sentence: spruce up the historical monuments, get the ‘rest houses’ ready, pave the mountain roads, and never mind that the ‘politico-Islamic culture’ of the country is fiercely opposed to the unfettered enjoyment of leisure in a safe and secure environment. Try flogging Pakistan’s beautiful mountainous areas as tourist havens when world press headlines are screaming about the country’s Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, kidnapping, sectarianism and nuke rattling.
When the misguided ‘Islamic’ Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, their ‘cultural policy’ was clearly aimed at fiercely disavowing Afghanistan’s ‘cultural heritage’. We too in Pakistan have suffered from a similar disorientation between cultural policy and cultural heritage since General Zia ul Haq’s exploitation of Islam. It is time we set matters right. One of the integral elements of enlightened moderation is to fashion a true cultural policy that proudly owns up to its living and breathing cultural heritage and integrates it into our everyday lives.