Adil Najam
PIA print advertisement from the 1960s (Originally uploaded by PakPositive.com which is a blog that highlights the positives aspects of Pakistan).
Let me continue with the ‘Image Pakistan’ theme in choosing the picture for today. I find this advert for PIA absolutely fascinating; both for what it says about how PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) saw itself and how it saw Pakistan (or wanted Pakistan to be seen).
Was this the reality of Pakistan before theso-called ‘darhi wallahs’ took center stage? Or was this ‘image’ of Pakistan as much out-of-sync with the reality of what was Pakistan then, as the image of the bearded-gun-totting-bomb- throwing-jihadi-Pakistani is today?
Speaking of ‘image’ and ‘brand’ the Association of Pakistani Professionals (AOPP) has recently launched an initiative on the subject and held a thoughtful and thought-provoking event on he subject in New York on June 3. I was asked to moderate part of the program, and found the discussion to be mature, reasoned and reasonable–something we should have more of.
[quote comment=”3469″]
“Anyway I prefer to call God with orignal name that is Allah rather depending on other language terms.” [/quote]
Adnan,
Yes, you are right on this. God’s original name even in pre-Islamic Arabia was Allah. The pagans of Arabia had several gods and godesses like Al-Laat, Al-Uzza, Al-Manaat etc. but the high God was called Allah, which in Persian became Khuda.
MQ:And i was not attacking you or your knowledge. i was also talking about literal translation of Allah hafiz and it has nothing to do with arab culture.
[quote post=”96″]unless the tableeghis have been working there too.[/quote]
It has nothing to do with tableegh. Its all about what’s provided in a language. Arabs don’t have issue like Khuda/Allah Hafiz so such assumption is pretty lame.
Samdani,
Yes, you are right. It was more a classist society in the 60s than it is today. And liberalism (the social part of it) was more evident in upper segments of the society. You are also right that ZAB shook the established social structure — for better, and also for worse.
We began to lose religious tolerance, I think, during Yahah Khan’s time when the government drafted Jamaat Islami’s al-Badar and al-Shams gangs to beat the Bengalis in East Pakistan. After the fall of Dhaka, however, the Islamists turned their frustration and anger against Bhutto and started and used the anti-Qadyani movement as a convenient tool. Ironically, a liberal man like Bhutto, gave in to the mullahs, at a terrible cost — to the society and to personally himself.
But looking backwards, after having seen all turmoil and troubles in Pakistan since 1971, the 60s do look a much quieter, more peaceful and tolerant era. I am aware, though, that the past always looks more pleasant than it actually was. That’s what nostalgia is. Isn’t it?
Adnan Siddiqi,
I have lived among Arabs for several years. The popular greeting for “goodbye” is “ma-assalamah”, which means “remain safe”.
“fi-imaanallah” is correct but not commonly used, unless the tableeghis have been working there too.
[quote post=”96″]Ironically, Arabs do not use Allah Hafiz. They say “ma-assalamahâ€
Mast Qalandar, thank you for a thoughful message on an important topic.
You are probably right on most of those points, but all was not good for everyone. Yes, a certain class had it very good and yes they were truly and deeply liberal. They could party all they wanted and for them it WAS a very liberal time. But for the vast majority it was a much more feudal time. The liberalism was of the elite, and they were ‘more elite’ than they now are; that is they had more power (or the rest of the country had less). It was clearly a more divided, even more apartheid time. ZAB was the one who changed it and his real revolution was giving the Pakistani ‘awam’ a voice they did not have before. In that sense the 60s Pakistan was defined by a much narrower segment of Pakistanis (liberal elites) than it now is.
I AM NOT SAYING THAT NOW IS GOOD. I AM JUST SAYING THAT THEN WAS NOT THAT GOOD EITHER, BUT IN DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS. Pakistan, as a society, was no more liberal then than it is now. It is just that then the liberals in Pakistan called the shots and now it is the conservatives. The real challenge is for the society as a whole to embrace liberal ideas. That was neither true then, nor no.
On religious tolerance all was not perfect. This is the exact time when we ran out all the Jews of Pakistan and the foundations of the anti-Qadiani movement were laid. Finally, in terms of ethnic relations this was the time when we started branding entire provinces and regions with broad brush, often inciteful and hurtful stereotyping. Especially against Bengalis. Now, unfortunately, it has become routine to talk about ‘so and so being such and such’, often in the negative. You constantly hear things like ‘Baloch are like this,’ ‘Pathans are like this’, ‘Sindhis are like this’ ‘Punjabis are like this’ and so on… often in spiteful and pejorative terms. Many of the elites of the 60s who were liberal in other ways, were also racists in ethnic terms.
AGAIN, I find the current extremism that has seeped into society very very disturbing and I am not saying that now is better. But maybe now is not better because then was not that good either.